A slow departure from self awareness | Ammi Midstokke

Once upon a time, I was an outdoor minimalist. I ran wearing only clothing – cotton – and running shoes. I listened to the nature. My mind wandered. I had no idea how far I went, but overestimated for good measure. My mind and I wandered freely.

At some point, I got a wristwatch. It was the beginning of a downward spiral in which I lost touch with myself and the world around me. Once you rely on something else to verify your own perception, you begin to second guess everything you think you know. Worse, you think the veracity matters: That whether you ran 55 or 64 minutes or 4 miles or 3.8 is important.

Measurement is the thief of perceived experience.

First, I started comparing my times. It was no longer enough that I just got outside and ran (having given up smoking and a diet of bread and salami), I needed to run farther or faster. Even my successes somehow became failures. But I was still young, so I mostly just tried to run farther and faster.

Then, I was gifted one of the first iPods. It was enormous, and though less LA-speed-walker than a Walkman, it replaced nature with Xzibit, Indigo Girls and Jethro Tull (I am musically eclectic, if nothing else). I forgot what rain sounded like in the trees. More than once, I nearly got gouged by a wild boar because I did not hear them before I trotted by, spooking us both. They became forest hazards rather than neighbors.

Eventually, the GPS-enabled smartphone let me start tracking distance and pace, while playing music or podcasts or listening to textbooks. When I was working on a master’s degree, running and riding became productive time. I began training for longer events with specificity in seconds: Run this far, this fast, rest this long, repeat. All to the beat of the latest Madonna or Outkast. (Neil Young was reserved for long-run days.)

When I went to visit my brother, I noticed he kept his music on even while we rode or ran together, a forever soundtrack to anything I might say. It was as though we were not really sharing space, he pedaling to the beat of a different drum, my voice an interruption.

The smartwatch appeared and allowed me to obsess over every minute of my performance. Was it laughable that an amateur athlete, who occasionally landed on a podium by accident, took such an interest in the minutia of her efforts? Likely. But everyone else was doing the same thing! Swapping stats like Pokémon cards. (Baseball cards, for those of you with print subscriptions.)

It was the bludgeoning of judgment that spurned me onward: You ran this faster last time, you ate too much pie and are slower now, you are getting old, you need to try harder. Forever and always: You are not good enough.

When I was excited about an effort, it was because the data told me I was allowed to be.

Now I even have a sleep tracker, so I can know how I am performing at rest. If my husband asks me how I slept, I chirp, “I don’t know. I haven’t checked yet.” Even if I feel perfectly fine, if my “sleep score” is low, I determine the day is stacked against me.

Were it not for all the data to tell me, I would not know anything about how I am.

Before I go outside to run, I look at the weather on my phone to choose my layers. Before I schedule my training for the week, I check all the information on all the various trinkets that measure my life. I only leave out the simple question of asking myself how I actually feel, or what I actually want to do.

Recently, I started running more with friends. This means I’m committed, regardless of my sleep report. It means I don’t bring any distracting music. It means I run however far we have time for, at whatever pace allows us to have conversation. We stop and listen to the high-pitched piping of the bald eagles, trying to spot them. We pause to look at some primordial moss growth in wonder.

On those days, I leave my phone at home. No audiobook teaches me how to change my habits atomically. It doesn’t matter if I am faster or slower on any given mile. We’re in the moment, in the nature. It is always a good run. And a good reminder that knowledge can come in many forms, some of them more useful than others.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com