NAKED RUNNING
PURE & SIMPLE
RUNNING ENTIRELY WITHOUT TECH – AKA ‘NAKED’ – IS GATHERING PACE AS A MOVEMENT. DUNCAN CRAIG STRIPS OFF TO INVESTIGATE
I'M HALF EXPECTING TO BE FRISKED. WE’RE HERE – MYSELF AND AROUND 85 MEMBERS OF HORSHAM JOGGERS IN WEST SUSSEX – FOR THE CLUB’S INAUGURAL ‘NAKED’ RUN. THAT’S NAKED AS IN TECH- FREE RATHER THAN CLOTHING OPTIONAL, THOUGH THE PROSPECT OF A FEW EAGER BUT CONFUSED SOULS TURNING UP WEARING ONLY TECH IS ADDING A SLIGHT FRISSON TO PROCEEDINGS.
Rather than bodyguard-style pat-downs, the organisers have elected for an honesty policy. It’s a wise call: given the ubiquity of tech in the industry these days, the pre-event frisking could take longer than the run itself: GPS watches, fitness-tracking bands, heart-rate rings, bone-conduction headphones, Bluetooth-enabled audio sunglasses, pace-monitoring trainers, performance-tracking vests, splash-proof foot pods. And let’s not forget about the smartphone itself – holstered on bicep or belt and loaded with everything from BPM music synced to stride frequency, to motivational escape apps that hound you round that forest trail with the screams of the undead.
There’s a cyborg army’s worth of gear out there – and it’s so discreet you could practically conceal it all inside a first-generation Sony Walkman. So, yes – honesty is the best policy.
What lies ahead for myself and my fellow runners on this warm weekday evening are five long, data-less, screen-less kilometres of Horsham Park. No pace, distance, cadence, elevation or heart-rate metrics. No route mapping. No music. No selfies. No furtive checking of social media feeds. In a bid to allay the faint sense of unease, a competitive element has been contrived: a predict-your-time challenge. The person who’s closest wins – lending proceedings a biblical equitability. For one evening at least, last could indeed be first.
When this was tried in a naked race in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, a few years back, two competitors tied for first place after forecasting their time to the nearest second. That won’t be me, I’m sure. And that’s because, like 90% of the wider population and seemingly 99.99% of runners, I’m armed to the teeth with tech, and thus somewhat pathetically reliant on it.
Pace is something dictated to me by the Garminshaped sergeant major on my wrist, not intuitively grasped. My last completely naked run, in the current sense, was 35 years ago, just before taking delivery of a pleasingly substantial Casio digital stopwatch. Since then, like many others, I’ve plotted a consistent and expensive course up the tech mountain and developed an unhealthy psychological dependence.
It’s th
