Today I downloaded a iPhone app for my outdoor running. It uses gps to track the running route, distance, time, etc etc. All the gizmos. Looked cool. Beautiful day. I decided to give it a try.As I soon discovered, a pleasant-sounding, non-judgmental feminine voice interrupted my running music every five minutes to inform me on how short a distance I've run, how long it's taken me to cover such a pitiful distance (in tenths and hundredths of a mile), the average number of minutes and seconds and hundredths of a second per mile that I was logging (which seemed to increase with every report), and the number of calories I was burning during this paltry effort.
About midway through my run, I was getting this digital running coach's voice mixed up with the internal editor's voice I hear when I'm writing--the very voice I'm trying to escape when I go for runs.
"You have been staring at the computer screen for fifteen-point-zero-zero minutes."
"You have typed zero-point-zero-zero characters."
"You have written zero-point-zero-zero words ."
"You have burned zero-point-zero-one calories." (Turning on the computer, I s'pose.)
"Your average is currently (pause) zero-point-zero-zero per minute."
So... along with my musical running buddies and the internal writing editor who never seems to leave me alone, I now had this running coach yapping in my ear, insinuating--what a laugh!--that I'm older and slower than ever.
Time to run to the Delete App. Soon as I catch my breath.
