For a lot of people running is a chance to escape, a break from the relentless input of our always-on modern lives. With the rise of run benefit-toting smartphone apps, GPS watches, heart rate monitors and headphones there’s a growing temptation to take the beeps and buzzes with us on our runs. But what if we ditched all the distractions and took running back to its purest form? That’s exactly what the ASICS Blackout track experiment – dropping runners onto a pitch-dark track with nothing but white noise and their own thoughts for company – has been trying to find out.
Inspired by a technique practiced by long distance runners who train the mind by running on loops of a mile or two without any technology, ASICS wanted to find out how people perform when everything is stripped away. No watch to check pace, no clocks to tell you how long you’ve been running or have left to go, just you and a 150m loop in the dark with only a small spotlight to guide the way and white noise piped into the air to shut out the world around.
Done often enough, running in these more challenging conditions is said to have a counter-intuitive effect by helping to focus the mind, training runners not to rely as much on props such as music, and assisting with pace judgement.
I’m more guilty of being a slave to running tech than anyone. Partly because as a tech writer, my job demands it, but also because I’m slightly data obsessed. I rarely run ‘naked’, by which I mean completely tech, rather than shorts, free. Sometimes I even run with two watches, a phone, some kind of heart rate monitor and my headphones, in fact I don’t think I’ve ever raced without at least a running watch.
So when ASICS invited me to run the Blackout track, I jumped at the chance to experience what it’d be like not just to run unencumbered by digital reminders of pace or heart rate, but also to be in an environment that shut out all of the other distractions.
Going to the dark side
When it’s my turn to run I’m handed a bag of kit and ushered to a changing room where I’m told to remove all of my technology. Before I enter the track I’m checked with an airport-style wand scanner for any contraband distractions I might be trying to sneak in. I didn’t expect it to but it feels slightly odd handing everything over.
I’ve got 25 minutes on the track and though this isn’t a race, and my only instruction is to go out and run, I quickly realise just how competitively my brain is wired. I’m allowed to walk the track once to get a feel for it and even as I stroll the orientation lap, I find myself trying to work out how many laps I should be able to cover in 25 minutes. Ten laps is a roughly a mile so I should be able to get at least 30 laps, maybe 40 if I push it.
There’s nothing to look at other than the small section of track ahead of you, nothing to listen to except the whirring white noise and the waterfall of your own runner’s monologue.
There’s nothing to look at other than the small section of track ahead of you, nothing to listen to except the whirring white noise and the waterfall of your own runner’s monologue. With all other distractions removed and nothing else to latch onto, I naturally zero in on this competitive element for something to think about. Although it’s dark and isolated, I’m acutely aware of my surroundings and I find it hard to switch my brain off. My thoughts flit between counting laps, the spotlight and the sensation of my ASICS Gel-Kayano 25 as they squeak along the shiny black track underneath each footstep all.
I’ve run in the dark plenty of times before, through the night at the Lavaredo Ultra Trail, the Marathon des Sables and the Centurion Running Thames 100 and the spotlight effect in this warehouse in London’s East End is much the same as you get running a midnight trail with a head torch on. Your vision tunnels and everything focuses on the patch of light ahead. What’s different from a nighttime trail run is the repetitiveness of the loop, the bends come and go quickly, with the straights offering just a short window of opportunity to stretch the legs a bit. It’s the rapid revolutions around this track, rather than the darkness, that I find most hypnotic.
The last time I did loops on a track this small I was sixteen floors up in the sky above London’s Old Street with epic views and loads to occupy my mind. That day I did twelve laps of the at the White Collar Factory track and when I compare the two, I’m not sure the stunning skyline views made the running easier. Quite the opposite.
I very quickly lose track of how many laps I’ve done and though I’m still circling at pace and working hard, I make a conscious effort to try and relax into the experience, to just run and not worry about the numbers.
However, it turns out a timed run – in my case 25 minutes – where you don’t know how long you have left, is mentally taxing. The comfort of being able to see the minutes ticking down is gone and without this anchor point you have no idea whether you can sustain your current pace for whatever’s left, or in fact if you might be able to push harder. There’s only one option and that’s to drop to a pace you feel is sustainable, no matter how long remains. Once I’ve accepted this I start to feel a natural meditative rhythm building.
I start to run in the moment a lot more, though the ‘when will it end’ thoughts prove hard to shake. Had we been asked to just run for as long as we felt we wanted to, I think that would have changed the dynamics. Free from time pressure and allowed to run for fun, I think I could have settled nicely into a more metronomic state. I would have loved to see what my pace was like, how far I’d actually be happy to run and whether I would end up running more evenly. That said when the beep sounded to signal my 25 laps were up I was mightily relieved.
The ASICS Blackout track experiment results
The experiment asked ten experienced runners with a range of abilities – including one of the fastest marathon runners in Great Britain, Dewi Griffiths – to race two 5K runs in vastly different conditions.
The runners ran in ‘lights on’ race conditions – lights on, music playing, crowds cheering and access to feedback about distance covered and lap times – then again in ‘blackout’ conditions with all distractions removed – dim lighting, with ‘white noise’ muffling sound, no motivation or encouragement, and no feedback from technology.
What the small study found was that endurance running performance can be significantly affected by manipulating psychological conditions. Even the experienced athletes saw a decline in their 5k times by an average of 60 seconds. That’s a 4.5 per cent drop in performance over the distance.
The researchers also found that when runners ran ‘blind’ in the black out conditions, they not only ran more slowly in the first nine laps but they also didn’t have a final sprint spurt that comes with knowing how long you’ve got left on the clock.
“It was the same ten runners in the same physical environment, the same 150m track, the same running surface, and the same apparel and footwear, but by manipulating the runners’ perception and experience of the environment, every runners’ performance was affected”, said Dr Jo Corbett, leader of the Human Performance and Health Research Group at The University of Portsmouth, who helped devise the experiment with Professor Marcora.
3 lessons I learnt from running in the dark at the ASICS Blackout Track Experiment
I wasn’t part of the main experiment and so I still don’t know how far I ran in the 25 minutes, or how that would have compared to a lights on 5k but I did take away some valuable lessons from the experience:
1. I need to release the race-day pressure
I’m competitive to a point where the pressure I put on myself probably stops me running as well as I can. This doesn’t mean less focus in training, you’ve still got to apply pressure in the preparation for a race to ensure you’re capable of doing what you’re trying to do. But come race day, there could be a lot to be said for relaxing into the run and trusting in my ability to hit the target pace naturally without running on the watch. Just let it happen.
2. I need to run naked more
I should have one regular training run where I run ‘naked’ and just run to feel but at a high tempo. I like the idea of letting my body lead the way on one training run.
3. I wish I had my own Blackout track
If I had one of these I think I’d definitely benefit from the isolation and time to focus just on the act of running. I couldn’t help wondering what it’d be like to run this for 24 hours.
