Just look around at the start of a race and everywhere there are raised hands and mass beepings. No, it’s not a polite queue for the toilets. Look closer. Each wrist sports a microprocessor with more computing power than the entire Apollo space mission. And now I have one. It’s about the size of the lunar lander and so bright it can be seen from the Moon.
Thanks to Women’s Running, which is again spoiling its pages with my photo and training antics for Project Trail, I am now the owner of a Suunto Ambit 3 which, if I read it correctly, is able to not only run the race for me, it can win it.
I haven’t yet read the 150-page executive summary of the multi-tome manual. I mean, who reads manuals anyway? Ah yes, Noel does, he’s such a programmer, and I mean that in a good way….
He informs me that it can take on the persona of another runner, who I can then beat in a sprint finish. It can tell me where to go, where I’ve been, how fast I went, where I took the impromptu toilet stop (and whether it was a number one or a number two), the calories I burned, steps taken and swearwords uttered.
It can draw graphs, send them to my smartphone, take a photo and remotely turn on the coffee machine for my return. Unfortunately, it’s not the next model up, which puts the croissants in the oven.
It has an altimeter, a barometer and, I suspect, a thermometer. Best of all, it tells the time on a display with writing big enough for me to see. There’s nothing it can’t do to improve my running experience, and even if there was, Noel informs me it is fully programmable, so he can write an app. As I say, he’s SUCH a programmer!
So with the weight of the watch on my wrist, I’m ready to run. All I have to do is remember to turn it on.
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