Posted at The Loop, the blogs at Runner’sWorld.com
Talk about first world problems. Or maybe we can come up with another phrase for it. 21st century problems. Technofracture. I don’t know. All I know is, there I was, in the gym, ready to do some serious running, and nothing was working right.
The focus should be the run, I get that, and as far as I could tell, my ankles knees and hips were in good order, my calves and thighs. No inner ear problem, lungs fine, heart beating regular as always. This 41-year-old machine, as good as ever. Maybe not at its absolute best, but good enough, better than some, to be sure, and I should be thankful.
But I couldn’t help but be dismayed. I’m standing there like a jerk, trying to get my watch to talk to my shoe and my heart-rate monitor, with no luck. My watch simply could not find my foot sensor, and my heart rate monitor was blue-tooth AWOL as well. I sat down, took off my shoe, inspected the little pod that’s inserted inside. It was pretty grubby– I’ve heard of people blowing through the internal battery on these things in three months, whereas mine had lasted over three years. Maybe I had accidentally pressed the little on-off button. So I tried pressing it again, although my fingers are too fat and I wasn’t sure if I was pressing it at all. And was it a click, or did I need to hold it down?
I tried every permutation and combination of presses and holds, all the while testing the watch, but no luck. I tried the heart rate monitor as well, even checking my own pulse to make sure I was indeed, alive, and not by chance somehow a zombie today. But as I said, my pulse was fine. But I was unhappy all the same– two things breaking down at the same time is a weird coincidence.
Or, no it’s not. Thankfully, I had a back-up– my phone. I was able to start an app that counted my steps for me, so long as I held the phone in my hand. So I did that, setting the treadmill for 10 minute miles, and not feeling the least bit guilty that the phone thought I was running 9:15s. I only ran two miles, and by two, I mean according to the phone.
Honestly, that’s the real take-away here. As frustrated as I was, I wasn’t so frustrated as to give up on the run altogether. Because that HAS happened before– getting to the gym only to realize the mp3 player’s batteries are dead. Or I forgot the step-counter. Which is why I am usually covered with so many gadgets– never know which one’s going to go kaput.
When I got home I replaced the footpod with a new one and replaced the battery in the heartrate monitor, tested them both, and everything was good again. The next day I was back at the gym– coated in gadgets, to be sure– and smiling.