The Digital Runner

“Maybe I could do that…” You say to yourself as you sit, scrolling across another run by a friend or foe.

And maybe you could. But in this case you didn’t. Cause right now you’re in recline, possibly eating, reading or relaxing. As our running lives increasingly collide with our digital selves the physicality of the sport is consumed in a digital layer. While there will always be a new digital tool: a better method of measuring your oxygen, power or heart, it’s the softer stratum, the social influence, that impacts us most as Digital Runners.

The sport is mostly mental, and increasingly our minds are not only our own. Our experiences infused by the visceral events of others. Permeated by their photos, splits, likes and comments. Stained by their digital sweat.

These digital platforms combine to form a thread that can pull us forward, or push us back. It’s up to us to dictate who we follow, whose actions we emulate, who we allow to form our digital diet.

Instagram, Strava, Youtube and Twitter; these platforms demystify events that we may have seen, but did not truly understand before. Scrolling across a series of splits is interesting, but unemotional. Swiping through images of athletes training or racing is evocative, but unclear. It’s these threads combined, their actions and emotions together, that reveal not only what’s possible, but also how.

Where as traditional results only notified you that someone PRed, BQed or OTQed, this “Digital Runner” spotlight illuminates the splits and sessions that led them to the day. Following these journeys, scrolling past them repeatedly, as we sit, sip or should be sleeping, transforms their achievements from black and white stats of seeming unattainability to relatable anchors on which we might build our own.

These digital diaries serve as a scattered series of crumbs for us to follow.

Seeing their lives more clearly, for both strengths and weakness, highs and lows, leads us to imagine ourselves in their steps, to attempt their moves, lunges, stretches and strides. After all, a broken barrier is merely the outcome of a million micro moments. Seeing their triumph inspires our heart, but seeing their lifestyle opens our minds.