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…