Maps and Graphs and Charts, Oh My!!

   I hate numbers. I've always hated numbers, in pretty well every shape and form. I was never good at math in school and I don't even like playing cards. You can ask my bank manager, my real estate agent and my life insurance guy and they will all confirm the fact that I hate numbers!
   Something organic goes on in my head when I see a whole bunch of numbers (or should that be a bunch of whole numbers?) that I am supposed to digest. My vision seems to get a touch foggier and I kind of feel like I go somewhere else, whatever that means. It's almost as if I've walked in on something I wasn't supposed to see so I slowly back out through the door I just came in.
   Here's part of the problem with this.
   I read a lot of running blogs. I read them mainly to hear other peoples' stories about their running trials and tribulations, the feeling they get from it, the pain mixed with the joy. For the most part, much of what I read often mirrors my own experience with running. I guess it might be the sharing which goes on. What a few running bloggers like to share, though, are their numbers.

A chart of how other activities interact with my running

   As much as running can be a very subjective kind of thing, it also is something which has aspects to it which can be easily measured and kept track of. And then shown to the world. In chart form.
   Because many of us are now wired up when we run, charts come spewing forth from this, pretty effortlessly. Many are charts with splits on them--runs divided up into sections with their different times attached. This can sometimes mean many sections with many times, many of which are only minutely different from the other (see what I did there?) You see people's weekly, daily and monthly training plans (quite often with words and phrases I'm unfamiliar with---WOD?, burpees?), VO2 max charts, heel-to-toe drop charts, shoe weight measurement charts, This means many numbers. This means one whole section of a person's blog I skip.
   In fact, if I'm reading someone's blog post and I come across a chart, I stop dead in my tracks. Kind of like what I do if I'm walking through a grassy meadow and I spot a snake. When I realize there's a graph, I sometimes quickly scroll down the post to see if there are more. If there's only one chart with numbers on it, I'll read the post. If, however, there are a bunch of charts and numbers...well, I might just skip that post entirely, sad to say.
   I'm not even really fond of maps, for some reason. Unless you're a running blogger from London, any map you post is pretty well going to be lost on me, sadly. 
   I want to quickly mention that this is only my personal issue. I take no umbrage with people who find charts and graphs and maps useful and informative, they can be a way of concretely demonstrating how much you might be improving as a runner. I'm just clearly allergic to them, if there were an epi-pen for  allergic reactions to numbers, I would carry it with me.
   Numbers are everywhere in running. Even the shoes have numbers! A quick check on the internet found "adidas adiZero Hagio 2.0" and "New Balance 890v3" and "Saucony Type A5". My head was spinning so fast I had to close that window and go look for pics of cute kitty cats!
   Having said all this, PLEASE don't stop posting all your maps and charts and graphs! I'm sure I'm part of a very small minority when it comes to these sorts of things and I'm also quite sure there are readers out there who devour them voraciously, so why change?