Running without a watch is the fastest way to remember why we started doing it in the first place.
- Obsessive measurement has turned the pleasure of running into a chase after numbers, causing us to lose touch with our bodies.
- Running “naked” means leaving the GPS at home to tune in exclusively to your own biological rhythm and breathing.
- Without the wrist-check, perception of effort becomes more accurate, and we stop judging every single mile covered.
- Rediscovering intuition allows you to transform training into play, eliminating the stress of constant pace-tracking.
- The value of running lies in the lived experience and not in the digital trace we compulsively upload to social media.
- Reclaiming your own time is a modern luxury that improves a runner’s awareness and mental health.
When Was the Last Time You Ran Without Knowing Your Pace?
Think about it for a second. Not a “I think it was a slow outing,” but that actual moment when your wrist was free, light, devoid of that silicone strap that has by now left an indelible white mark on your skin—a sort of sun-tattoo screaming to the world: “Hey, I’m someone who measures every single parameter.”
We often leave the house with the anxiety that the GPS signal won’t lock on immediately. We stand there, making small circles on the sidewalk like water diviners, waiting for a satellite thousands of miles away to give us permission to start moving our legs. It’s a bizarre scene, if you think about it. We’ve delegated the validity of our exertion to a microchip, turning one of the most ancestral and simple human activities into a data analysis session worthy of NASA.
We’ve Become Slaves to Data (and Lost the “Feeling”)
The problem isn’t the tool itself. GPS watches are engineering marvels. The point is that we’ve stopped listening to the heartbeat in our chest because we prefer to read it on a display. We’ve lost the ability to understand if that heavy breathing is “good” or if we’re overdoing it, because if the watch says we’re in “Zone 2,” then everything is fine, even if our legs are begging for mercy.
We’ve become accountants of movement. We measure cadence, vertical oscillation, ground contact time, and even how long we should rest after drinking a coffee. In this jungle of metrics, “feeling” has been tossed in the attic. Running, which should be an intimate dialogue between you and the road, has become a homeowners’ association meeting where the data speaks at the top of its lungs and you, the runner, stay in the corner taking notes.
The Experiment: A “Naked” Run. Leave the GPS at Home
I propose a challenge that requires more courage than a marathon: go out naked. No, keep your shorts on—I mean technologically naked. No watch, no heart rate monitor, no phone (or at least, keep it turned off in a pocket for emergencies or leave it in airplane mode).
The initial impact is destabilizing. It will feel like something is missing, as if you’ve forgotten your house keys. You’ll look at your bare wrist at least ten times in the first two miles, finding only skin and air. But then, once the initial discomfort passes, something magical happens: the silence of the data. Without the “beep” every thousand meters telling you if you’re on track with your training plan, you start looking around. You notice the sky has a particular color, you hear the sound of your footsteps on the asphalt changing rhythm, and above all, you start to breathe with awareness. It’s a bit like when we ran through fields as kids: we didn’t need a sensor to know we were happy and tired.
What Happens When You Stop Measuring: You Find Play and Freedom Again
Without the watch, running stops being a task to be performed and goes back to being a game. You can speed up because that avenue inspires speed, or slow down almost to a stop because you want a better look at a reflection in the river. There is no one to judge you—not even yourself.
This freedom has immense technical value. It’s called “running by feel,” a practice many elite athletes cultivate so as not to lose their internal compass. When you learn to regulate intensity based on your breath and not the stopwatch, you become a better runner. You become more sensitive to signs of fatigue and learn to manage energy organically. It’s a form of natural fartlek, where the structure of the workout is dictated by your mood and the terrain, not by an algorithm.
Your Run Is Valid Even if It’s Not on Strava
There’s a saying in the digital world: “If it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen.” It’s a colossal lie we’ve told ourselves to feed our social egos. The truth is that the best miles—the ones that change your day and clear your thoughts—are often the ones that stay only in your memory.
Your run has value because you lived it, because your lungs worked, because your thoughts realigned themselves. It doesn’t need to be validated by a graph or a series of “kudos.” Reclaiming this private space, this secret between you and the road, is a true luxury. So, tomorrow, try going out without knowing how fast you’ll go. You might discover that, without the weight of the watch, you’ve become incredibly lighter.