My watch has a hold on me.

If you've ever seen an Apple Watch, you may have noticed three rings on its watch face - concentric circles in red, green, and blue. Watch faces can be customized so not every one will have it but it's common. Those rings are part of what is know as the Activity app and it keeps track of your daily physical activity. Each ring represents a different goal: calories burned, exercise minutes, and how many times you stand in a day. It's this last one - the Stand goal - that makes me a little crazy.

The overall goal is a daily physical routine that will close all three rings by end of the day. When I first got the watch, I found the Stand reminder in the Activity app to be a little annoying. The watch will alert you at 50 minutes past any hour in which you have not taken the opportunity to stand for at least one minute. When I was working in a high pressure job, I found the hourly reminders disruptive. But then, I got to appreciate it. My job was sedentary and it was probably a good thing for me to get up from my desk and walk around a little. My work performance may have even improved as it allowed me to clear my head and relax a little.

But then, as I am wont to do, I became obsessive about closing all three rings every day and I know I'm not the only one. If that meant I had to march around the house for six minutes just before bedtime, so be it. I was closing that goddam ring. If I hadn't satisfied my Stand ring, I would just stand while watching TV. This was only slightly awkward if I was a guest in someone's home but often they were Watch wearers as well so everyone stood up at fifty minutes past the hour.

Near the end of the day, the Watch will alert you with a chirpy "You can still do it!" reminder to let you know you still have time to close your rings. It will follow up with a suggestions such as "A brisk, 12-minute walk should do it" or "Time to stand!"

When I started training to do a half marathon, closing the rings became easy. But there's one little catch: The Stand ring doesn't care how long you stand. It only records how many different hours you stood and moved around for at least one minute. Meaning, you only have to stand for twelve minutes but in twelve different hours of the day.

So, you can imagine how annoyed I was when, a couple weeks ago, I walked 13.1 miles, was actively on my feet for three and a half hours burning over 1,000 calories, covered over 26,000 steps throughout the day and then while sitting down to watch TV, my watch chirped "You can still do it!" Despite all the day's activities, I had only stood for 10 minutes during 10 different hours.

And I thought, "You, bitch!"

But damned if I didn't stand up anyway.

Twice.