In a sense, road races for the masses became obsolete about twenty years ago, when GPS watches became available. Suddenly, there was no longer a “need” for non-elite perambulators interested in how fast they could cover America’s streets on foot to pay for the privilege of gathering at inconvenient times to proceed along pothole-riddled courses preselected by others, often in parades including tens of thousands of bodies on mismeasured or mismarked routes. Today, anyone who can afford such a watch and wants to know how fast they can cover a given distance within a tiny margin of error no longer needs to fork over $35 plus gas and food costs to find out what kind of 5K shape he or she is in.