I started running marathons in earnest last year, and over the course of that year I improved to the point where I could somehow manage to finish a full marathon.
Since this Hamamatsu City Marathon was a half-marathon distance, I wanted to take a step beyond simply finishing and pay a little more attention to my time.
My target time was under two hours... nothing impressive, really, but for a beginner like me it's no easy feat.
To cover the roughly 21.1 km of a half marathon in two hours, you need to average under 5 minutes 40 seconds per kilometer. That said, once you're out on the course you have to watch out for wind direction, ups and downs in the terrain, and your own stamina, so a sensible pace strategy is essential. Especially for an old guy like me, trying to perform beyond your ability can end up wrecking your body, so overdoing it is truly out of the question.

What's indispensable for avoiding that is a "running watch."
Unlike an ordinary watch, a running watch has built-in GPS, so at a glance you can see not only your total time but also your lap time per kilometer, the distance you've covered so far, and more.
The higher-end models can even measure things like heart rate, but since I can only handle simple functions, I use a fairly orthodox one.

Thanks to this watch I was able to keep my pace, and I finished almost exactly on my target time.

In internet marketing too, "measuring your daily (lap) times" is essential to achieving your goals... and what comes in extremely handy at times like that is
an "access analytics tool."

Google Analytics and Yahoo Access Analysis are examples of these. Although they're free, they let you gather incredibly detailed data.
It's said that the biggest factor behind the rapid development of internet marketing up to this point is that these analytics tools made such analysis possible.

Access analytics is easy to install. If you've outsourced production to a website production company, in most cases they'll set it up for you as part of the service, and even if they don't, installing it yourself isn't difficult.

That said, even among those who have installed an access analytics tool, unfortunately not many people put it to use for attracting customers.
The main reason is, "I've looked at the numbers, but I have absolutely no idea what any of it means."
It's true that access analytics tools give you "too much" data of all kinds, so you end up unsure of where to even look.
For someone who isn't used to it, the moment they open the dashboard and see rows and rows of figures and graphs lined up, they're likely to feel dizzy.

Translated into running watch terms, it's probably the same feeling I have when I think, "It's got a heart rate monitor, an incline meter, all sorts of things, but I haven't got a clue!"

But the key point is that "you don't need to look at everything."
There are a huge number of items you can obtain through access analytics, but among them, just pick out the figure that will help you reach your goal and "check only this number every day" — that's all you need!

First, pull out an easy-to-understand metric and check it, then focus on the question of what you did that changed the number — this makes it much easier to grasp.
And what if the number doesn't change? In that case, it's perfectly fine to try a different metric. Then challenge yourself to home in on the data that makes it easiest for you to gauge your own pace.

Just by checking a single metric every day, all sorts of things should start to become visible!