What Running Can Teach Us About Feedback
Lace Up
Getting ready for my morning run has become a routine.
I check my GPS watch is ready to go, hit play on my headphones and adjust the music that will play at the start. I always pause for a moment to focus on the tightness of my laces, and then I click the button on my watch and am off.
But it is only once my shoes start to pound out a pattern on the road that I understand the type of run I will have.
Once I am moving, I notice the cold air against my face and arms.
I feel the level of fatigue or energy in my legs and how my joints feel with each step.
I pay attention to my breathing and how my body responds to movement.
After a few more minutes, my watch chimes in with the first kilometre statistics. The notification is read out in my ears, so I don’t have to look, explaining the story of that last 1000 metres.
I focus on the pace and compare it to the hundreds of first kilometres I have tracked. I also project forward to the distance I aim for and what that means today with all the other feedback I have.
Running is a flood of receiving and processing feedback signals from the whole experience.
