Old-School Marathoner Says Tech-Obsessed Runners Will Never Know the Pleasure of Filling Dozens of Notebooks With 42 Years of Training Data or the Pain of Losing Them All in a House Fire
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A local septuagenarian who tracks every run in spiral-bound notebooks said this weekend that he believes the next generation of runners is “missing out on something important” by relying on digital devices and apps for that purpose.
“Honestly, it makes me a little sad,” said Guy Montag, 72, after his usual Sunday 8-mile run in Bradbury Park. “You talk to youngsters today and it’s all ‘Garmin’ this and ‘Starva’ [sic] that, all numbers and stuff, all in ‘the cloud’ or whatever.”
“They’ll never know the pleasure of sitting down after a run with a paper training log and recording not just your mileage and whatnot, but also your thoughts and feelings,” he said. “Or, even better, the pleasure of reviewing those handwritten entries years in the future.”
He paused, staring into the middle distance.
“Or the pain of losing 42 years’ worth of those notebooks in a freak house fire caused by your cat knocking over a candle,” he said in a soft voice. “Your goddamn cat.”
He laughed.
“I guess I’m old-school,” he said.
Montag, who has been running for nearly 45 years, including 23 marathons, stressed that he’s not anti-technology, generally speaking, noting that he has a smartphone and routinely shops online (“for certain things,” he noted). But he has never used a digital training log or fitness app, and said he never will.
“I’m the same way with books,” he said. “I like the paper kind—the way they feel, the way they smell. They just seem more real. Same deal with my training diaries.”
“There’s nothing better than adding those notebooks to your shelf, year after year and decade after decade, watching them multiply, knowing how much time and sweat and suffering they represent,” he said. “And nothing worse than losing them all one day, poof!, gone, just like that, in a devastating display of life’s cruel and capricious whims.”
“You won’t get that with these digital trackers,” he said. “It’s just not the same.”
