There's a nervous excitement. Apparent is the cold breath coming from my rivals as they execute the "pre-race" jiggle on the beginning point.
A quick twitch of the hips.
I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. The countdown begins...
Oh, hang on. I have to sort my watch. The same goes for the runner alongside me.
The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.
In the mele, it's difficult to find a wrist without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us participants who use them.
We're witnessing a explosive, multi-billion pound sector. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, each with an extensive array of different models to suit a spectrum of needs. According to how feature-packed the device you select, costs can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment.
"It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off."
"It comforts me… It acts as a friend supporting me."
"I wish it wouldn't say about a bad night's sleep."
Just some of the comments I've received from other device users when I question what they feel about theirs.
My feelings on mine? Right now, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are disrupting my satellite signal.
Countless individuals of us attach these compact devices onto our wrists and keep them on all day and night, apparently at ease with the fact they're constantly recording us.
Long past are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an idea of our daily steps. Today, they can analyse our nightly rest, stress levels, glucose levels, our VO2 max.
It's difficult to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.
But can they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we obsess over a faithful picture of the truth? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of metrics and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?
"I find myself getting a a little preoccupied with mine," an individual admits.
While she loves how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a pregnancy.
Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.
"I am caring for a infant, I don't need to be notified I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."
Couldn't she just remove it?
"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is possibly excessive for me."
Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your vitals and analysing your data, but the most use detectors on the reverse of the watch.
They typically shine minute LED lights onto your arm which can monitor blood flow, detecting your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to assess your stress levels.
One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".
He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.
This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the future.
But how to make sense of these figures is complex. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are added, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data.
"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.
A clinical psychologist specialising in cardiology agrees. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "had a higher tendency to use medical services".
She identified a pattern with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse rose. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.
"If we see data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."
A seasoned casino strategist with over a decade of experience in gaming analysis and player psychology, Elena shares insights to help players succeed.
