The Formula 1 season lit off two weekends ago. Off we go with another season where millisecond-precision counts and hopefully we will have another exciting one like last years’, where Kimi Raikkonen took the World Championship, against all odds, at the very last race of the season.

It will probably sound a stretch if I were to say that running is as much of a precision sport as Formula 1 racing. Sure, we runners do not storm down our race course at a speed like the race cars do – that is a no-brainer. How many of us, average runners, are bothered about how aerodynamics affect our performance? Do we care much at all if our running shoes can help us run faster? How many of us really make a conscious effort to minimize the time wasted when slowing down at drink stops?

Running can be a precision sport in its own and it is more so at the elite level. Before Haile Gebreselassie broke the men’s world record at the Berlin Marathon last year, I read an interesting post that talked about what he needed to do and what had to go right at the race for him to break the marathon’s world record. Basically, he needed to stick to the shortest path of the course; nothing should go wrong for him as he refueled at aid stations; he needed to concentrate and race at the right pace – not too fast, not too slow (4 min 46 s/mile was his eventual pace); environmental factors such as temperature and wind had to be in his favour. Last but not least, there was the element of uncertainty that things could go wrong in the span of a long 26.2 miles.

Does it not sound like Formula 1 racing? Driving along to the racing line; executing pit-stops perfectly; concentrating on the track – do not spin off and do not push so hard that the engine gets blown; dealing with external factors such as rain. The races usually run more than 50 or 60 laps and take about an hour and a half to complete. Plenty of unexpected things can happen in this one and a half hour.

Now, I am definitely not an elite runner. Way far from it. Neither do I have the privilege to work for a Formula 1 team, a job that makes the fantasy of a mechanical engineer. So, what has “precision” got to do with my running, an average casual-but-serious runner’s running?

10 seconds per mile – if I could improve by that much, at the very least. A half marathon is 13.1 miles. Be quicker by 10 seconds per mile and that will be over 2 minutes quicker to finish the race. It looks pretty achievable too.

1 minute per mile – that will be more demanding, and not without some persistence and determination. Do the math, and it gives a difference of 13 minutes for the entire race.

Well, these are the bounds that I can set for myself. Nothing beyond that, which I am not ready to handle physically. Of course, there are the external elements what affect how I eventually perform. I am trying hard to keep myself from falling sick now, so that I will be in good shape on Sunday.