GOING THE DISTANCE

Watch out: Technology makes running possible

Watch out: Technology makes running possible

Running has so changed in the new technological age and it impacts both runners of yore and the newbies.

On my way to Wild Coast fm Friday morning for my weekly running slot, a recognisable song beamed from my radio.

Thereafter it was suggested the melody gave away many listeners’ ages as it was from 1993. The irony of that statement was enhanced because the guest on the show was to be Bruce Fordyce, nine times winner of the Comrades Marathon, eight of which took place consecutively from 1981.

One last win was recorded in 1990. Runners’ music in that era was influenced by the 60s, 70s and early 80s.

A discussion I enjoy with modern runners in respect of training is to remind them of the need to listen to body, legs in particular, coach or mentor and as little as possible to the fancy watch on the arm.

Oddly enough Fordyce and I had a similar discussion during the week.

Bearing in mind that neither of us are getting any quicker, we lamented the days when our Casio stopwatch told us how long we had run for.

We could stop it if we were to refuel and could store a limited number of “lap times”.

At the end of a training session we would log our time and guess the distance based on what pace we believed we had run. Often that would naturally be inflated, but what the head believed was the defining factor.

The discussion was prompted due to the fact that one of us had gone out with a fancy new sponsored watch and run one of our oldest training routes, only to find that the watch was lying to us by insinuating that our 8km run was only 7.6km, or thereabouts. So what happens today is runners return to a car park from a long run and the watch reads 24.72km and not the 25km on the programme.

They thus proceed to run circles around stationary vehicles to add 280m.

We would have finished our first beer by then.

Fordyce is of course today as well known for having introduced parkrun to South Africa. It is an environment where stats are hugely important to the community it serves.

Fordyce's Comrades performances were outstanding and he gives credit to his support team of largely Johannesburgbased runners and family.

One of those had been Paul Sinton-Hewitt who would become the founder of parkrun at Bushy Park, London in October 2004.

Fordyce would go on to lead a far bigger team that no one, least of all him, could envisage would grow to the extent it has.

The 22 pioneers at the Delta Park, Johannesburg launch of parkrun South Africa in November 2011, have grown to 945,000 across the land and will reach 1-million in January.

The segment that he especially proudly leads, along with his regional ambassadors, is the 2,500 odd volunteers who arrive every week so that others can run.

This could not have been achieved with pen and paper alone. Technology made it all possible.