I read about this obsessive habit a while ago (not sure where) and it made me laugh because I realized that I was not alone. Maybe you recognize yourself. This happens when you use an electronic GPS devise to track the distance that you run. You might use a running watch or the MapMyRun app on an iPhone or Android to record this critical piece of information.
Here’s what happens, you decide you are going to run a certain course, but the distance comes up short of the even kilometre mark, e.g. 9.65k. Do you run the additional .35k to round the number up to 10k? Um, yes, I would.
Here’s what occurred the other day on my run. I ran with a friend for 13.4k and then we went different ways. Since I still had energy, I decided to run up the distance to 14k. I was heading off by myself in one direction to try to achieve this mark, when I ran into friends running in the other direction. I though it would be fun to run and chat with them for a bit before veering off when I presumably reached my desired distance. After I left them and checked my distance, I realized that I had overshot my mark and was now at 14.3k.
Of course I could not finish the run on such a messy number, so I continued to run up the distance up to 15k. Amazingly, I managed to accomplish this precise mark right in front of my house, but by the time I pushed the stop button on MapMyRun, it showed 15.1k.
MapMyRun 15.1k
Argh! What to do? Much angst… Then… Ah, forget it. At this point, I figured that was enough messing with fractions of a kilometre and I should rationalize this by rounding down just like we do with the Canadian penny. So I headed inside for some water and a stretch. I guess one can get just a bit too obsessed with this overly precise technology.
I am a runner.
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