A frankly ludicrous suggestion

It wasn’t the most healthy of weekends, so I really should have done some exercise this morning. But my body was far from willing, and my mind was… also far from willing.

Still, with just three weeks until the start of the new season, and hopeful of a successful return to some footy 4 months after this, I lobbed on some running gear and headed outside. Needs must.

As per usual, a few stretches while my watch looked for satellites to track my run, and then a glance down at my wrist and… wait… my watch was suggesting a suitable training regimen for me.

Well, what it thought was suitable.

Apparently, my watch is supposed to learn from my fitness and workout routines and help me get more from my exercise. It isn’t a fancy pants model – far from it – but it does everything I need it to.
What I don’t need it to do is suggest a suitable training regimen for me, especially when it thinks (having been on my wrist from more than a year, nogal) that 21.0km at 5:45/km would be a good thing for me to do this morning.

Or any morning. WTF?!?!

This workout improves your ability to sustain high intensity efforts for longer.

it told me. (I don’t know why, but I read that in the calm, authoritative and mildly sinister voice of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which freaked me out even more.

That workout would improve my ability to sustain rigor mortis permanently.

I replied.

I ended up doing a (much) shorter, (slightly) slower run than my watch suggested. Just so I could see my family again and watch United at Wembley next month. You know, the basic pleasures in life.

I have switched the “suggest a workout” feature off now. It’s for the best.

Still, run done, and feeling good.
Onward (but not that far onward) and upward (but not that quickly).