A new element has been added to my runs http://www.endomondo.com
Why would I take a Japanese starter with me?
I had happily (no resignedly) plodded along with no concept of time for many years, stopping and starting, not caring whether I was improving or not thinking, ‘I’m not competitive, I’m just doing this to be healthy.’
Once signed up for Endomondo or ‘world of endorphins’ (the phone app that tracks and times your run, announcing your progress at regular stages.) I went through a transformation.
Similar to facebook it announces what everyone is doing;
‘Lucy Naughton is running. So far she has tracked 4.97miles in 40mins’ . . . and then it shows the route you have taken/are currently taking.
Ordinarily what would be happening on one of my ‘private, un-timed’ runs:
‘Lucy has stopped to look at a heron.’
‘Lucy has slowed down to pull her knickers out of her crack.’
‘Lucy has sped up to look at what she thinks is a magnificent hare in the field.’
‘Lucy has slowed back down - it was a sticky up branch.’
‘Lucy is fiddling with her phone as the podcast she downloaded is incredibly dull and the woman’s voice is grating on her brain.’
From the very start of my first Endomondo tracked jog I ran differently, I was running as if someone was watching me, as if EVERYONE was watching me, from the entire Internet.
I was perpetually waiting for the woman to yell in my ear’ole the time for each km, the first km she yelled my time at me, “Oh how novel, most informative!” I thought.
The second km, “That was slower than the first km, why is that?”
The third km, “Right, I can’t let my time drop below 5 mins per km.”
Where once I would gaze around me looking for glamorous wildlife and amusingly shaped trees, now I was just staring hard, dead ahead, not blinking. My favourite copse full of red kites - a traditional stopping point loomed. As usual the kites soared and swooped and cawed in the way that normally stopped me in my tracks and made me grin inanely at the sky for minutes on end. Today I blasted right past. They looked at each other, perplexed.
I charged along my route like a woman being chased by age. I saw nothing, heard nothing but my timekeeper, and thought nothing but ‘For god's sake don’t slow down.’ There was no room for my loop of negative thought today.
On my way back past the copse the wake of kites had joined wings and were doing a formation display, spelling my name out in the sky, but I couldn’t stop to look or the Endomondo woman would shout in my ear that my lap time had gone down – all the people on Endomondo might mock me, how could I live with the shame?! So on I pressed without looking, the kites forming a giant one-fingered salute at my back.
Another gimmick on the app - people online can comment while you are out running and the Endo woman will announce it to you;
‘Right now I’m drinking an ice cold Lucozade.’
‘Your boobs don’t half bounce when you run.’
‘I didn’t know you had knock knees.’
‘I’m in the bushes waiting to flash you.’
Endomondo is so informative and rich in ‘look what I’m doing’ features that it shows online the route you have run and when you ran it, it even tells everyone whilst you are on it. Screw the fitness aspect; this may just grow to be the biggest rapist and murderer’s resource ever.
‘SerialkillerBob is hiding in a bush.’
‘Lucy is 200m from SerialkillerBob.’
‘SerialkillerBob is getting out his big knife.’
‘Lucy has stopped to help a nice man who seems to have lost his puppy.’
‘SerialkillerBob has updated his kill stats.’
Serial killer with an iPhone? Download ‘Deadomondo’ today!!
Share the best ambush spots with fellow killers.
Find out where your buddies are currently hiding.
Track where you buried your bodies, and monitor decomposition.
Let our cadaverator choose random burial spots that the police will never track.
