Woodchuck Metaphysics - The Tyranny of Space and Time
The need to sleep cut short my run this morning. It was calculated this way, and probably not a bad thing for my beat up legs. I did however want to get out and run something.
So I ran the Franklin Field loop to 49th St, a little later than usual, which meant that the sun was a bit brighter than I was used to in the mornings and the traffic was a little heavier. Got to run past the Lea Library building on Penn campus, when the red sandstone gets lit by the morning sun it is one of my favorite buildings in Philadelphia. It was a beautiful morning to be out, if only for a little while.
I ran without a watch, which is liberating. I got somewhat Foucaultian towards the end of my running thinking about how the watch is an instrument of surveillance - modifying my behavior and an object used as the basis of judgement. Perched on my wrist, it ticks away as I run. I may forget about it but I always come back to it. In running without it I become aware of its omnipresence. It feels funny to stop at a light and think about how the seconds are progressing. Alternately when I speed up I realize it doesn't matter. When I finish the run, I have nothing to judge myself by save by how I feel.
The same can be said for mapping software. I could not resist this morning, I had to know if I could legitimately call the course 4 miles, hence the link I embedded previously. Distance, logged day after day and week after week, is another surveillance device I inflict upon myself. Why can't I just run for as long as I feel like and take as much time as feels right?
Sure enough, the course only came to 3.9 miles. What to do now? Despite having confessed my little secret, I will still call it four miles.
So there.
So I ran the Franklin Field loop to 49th St, a little later than usual, which meant that the sun was a bit brighter than I was used to in the mornings and the traffic was a little heavier. Got to run past the Lea Library building on Penn campus, when the red sandstone gets lit by the morning sun it is one of my favorite buildings in Philadelphia. It was a beautiful morning to be out, if only for a little while.
I ran without a watch, which is liberating. I got somewhat Foucaultian towards the end of my running thinking about how the watch is an instrument of surveillance - modifying my behavior and an object used as the basis of judgement. Perched on my wrist, it ticks away as I run. I may forget about it but I always come back to it. In running without it I become aware of its omnipresence. It feels funny to stop at a light and think about how the seconds are progressing. Alternately when I speed up I realize it doesn't matter. When I finish the run, I have nothing to judge myself by save by how I feel.
The same can be said for mapping software. I could not resist this morning, I had to know if I could legitimately call the course 4 miles, hence the link I embedded previously. Distance, logged day after day and week after week, is another surveillance device I inflict upon myself. Why can't I just run for as long as I feel like and take as much time as feels right?
Sure enough, the course only came to 3.9 miles. What to do now? Despite having confessed my little secret, I will still call it four miles.
So there.
posted by seebo | 10:20 AM
1 Comments:
Is surveillance not a means to an end, unless you want to run but not race, apparently some people do! I am a surveillance junkie, it is the only thing that gets me out in the morning.
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