Do you have a hard time keeping track of laps when walking or running? I do. Sure, I could punch the lap button on the timer on my watch, but I don’t typically wear a watch. Instead, here’s what I’ve come up with…
Carry pebbles – one for each lap you want to run – and toss one aside every time you complete a lap. That’s it. Easy and effective. When you toss that last pebble, you’re entering your last lap.
One real advantage of this approach, to me at least, is that it keeps you in touch (literally!) with your progress and can thus help to keep you motivated. After all, who wants to throw in the towel when they’ve got just one pebble left?
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Great tip! I’ve used a lot of different methods and while I wouldn’t want to use this if I’m doing dozens of laps somewhere, it’s a perfect solution for laps in the single-digits.
I’ve lost count even when I’m wearing my gps!
Blaine: Absolutely. You don’t want to carry around a pocket full of rocks on a big run – though that might add a bit of cross training to the equation.
Depending on what your area is like, you can map out a path that is the distance you want to go. One lap. And if there aren’t shortcuts to get back, there’s no cheating
H Lee D: Yep, that works, too. However, I sometimes don’t have a choice (like when my wife is out and the kids are home). We live exactly halfway down a 0.4 mile dead end road, so I do laps back and forth when I can’t leave the neighborhood. Kinda boring, but it works.
This works great – When I swam I would really lose count so I did something very similar. Started with pebbles, but I kept sinking to the bottom of the pool so I just used a bottle cap on the tiles that surrounded the edge – moving it one space every lap.
-Joe