Back then, it was simple. Back then, it was easy.

Racing was a jostle to the finish. It was a one-on-one, guts-to-the-line grind to lean ahead of whoever challenged you from the start. No watches, no timing systems, no split mats. We raced because it was pure and beautiful to lay it all on the line in a footrace against another human being, channeling the forces of nature and evolution into a primal suffering that only a select few understand in modern times.

I had the opportunity to run with Tim Smith this Saturday, and we had a conversation about how cross-country raced used to be, how the only method of determining place came in the form of popsicle sticks and the watchful eye of a coach. Tim’s generation was in the heart of that purity, mine was on the tail end of it. We conjured a feeling of nostalgia, of wondering where it all went wrong, when the science and the specificity and the oversaturation of information adulterated something so natural. In 21st century racing, so many runners are burdened by splits, real-time pace updates on watches, performance lists, heart rate analysis, cadence breakdown, Vo2 max levels, calorie counts—the list goes on. Leave it to the human race to overcomplicate one of the simplest and most beautiful movements in nature, tearing it apart to the micro level and analyzing every part, leaving us wondering things like why did I run 7:25 pace instead of 7:20? Heart rate at 178!? My effort was higher than last week even though I was going slower? My cadence is off by 3 steps per minute, what am I doing wrong?

Shhh. Quiet these things in your mind. Unplug for a day, and remember what you are doing when you lace up and step out the door is one of the last primal things we get to experience, and it is not determined by data but by feeling. Your running should not be regulated by artificially generated data, it should be regulated by how you feel on a given day: your mood, your fatigue level, how your heart feels. Running should be paired with your spiritual self and what that represents to you; should be synonymous with your ideas of simplicity, beauty, and passion. Racing is the same way—take away the data, shun the worries of heart rate and pace and splits—simply run how you feel, as hard as you can. This is the way it was meant to be, the way we have been doing it for thousands of years, because the evolutionary chain of development is far stronger than any watch someone designed in an engineering lab. If you release your body and mind from the tensions of information overload, it will do incredible things—things you may not have dreamed it could do. Because, as the old saying goes, running is 90% mental. In my years of training and racing, I feel that is pretty accurate—although very difficult to understand and absorb into practice.

These days, oversaturation of information can lead to depression, animosity, anxiety, and fear. Our minds weren’t designed to process such large amounts of data in short periods of time; it is unnatural and unnecessary. We are left with a feeling of nostalgia, of wishing things were back to a simpler and less complex time. This can be applied to nearly every facet of everyday life, not just running, and it is a colossal task to pull oneself away and exist outside the boundaries we have created for ourselves, if only for a minute, or an hour, or a day.

But with running and racing, we can find that place. It exists on the roads, on the trails, outside in nature. We can make the choice to leave the realm of the modern world and exist in harmony with nature, finding what we were meant to experience along the way.

So during your next race (whenever that may be) leave the watch. Don’t look at the clock, don’t worry about what the person next to you has run in the past. You are only as good as the day on which you choose to race and lay it all on the line, literally. When you are standing on that starting line, warmed up with damp palms and a fluttering heart, know that you are about to embark on an ancient journey of the footrace, of the race against fellow man. Whoever chooses to go with you, or you with them, sense the race. Listen to their breathing, their footfalls. Push them, test them, break them. Keep up, or push into the wall. Understand the patterns, disassemble the feeling of racing hard, and then lay it all on the line at the end. The time? The time doesn’t matter, not one bit. Who won is what matters, who prevailed. That is what you will remember, what will tattoo itself in your memory.

While it may be more complicated than it used to be, racing can still be broken down to the primal level. Don’t let data and information get in the way of who you are and the runner you want to be. In the next race, feel something. In the next race, run hard and pure. In the next race, run for what it used to be. Because while the world changes, running can still stay the same.