Obsessing over Numbers

I had a rough start to the morning. It began at 3.45am with a random phone call - an hour before my alarm. Since I couldn't get back to sleep, I dragged myself out of bed to get ready for the morning's run. When I arrived at training I realize that in my brain fog I forgot to bring my Garmin watch. My Garmin watch! What to do if I can't see all those numbers before me?
I like the numbers that tell me exactly how far I've gone, so I know exactly how far I have to go. (720m down in a 1k rep? Only 280m left - time to push it!).
I like the numbers that tell me my pace, so I know how fast I'm going (a 5.40 pace on a 2k rep? I can go faster!).
So the prospect of running without numbers made me feel a little forlorn. How would I know if I was not pushing it enough? How would I know if I could go faster? I decided to suck it up - since I had no choice. Today we had 1k reps with a 500m recovery. As it turned out, if I ran just as fast as I could go for that 1k rep, I wound up right alongside a friend. And guess who was wearing his stopwatch?
This made it fantastic in two ways. First, I couldn't see how fast I was actually going so I just had to push myself as hard & fast as I could for the 1k rep. This was easy, as keeping up with my friend was really pushing me to my limit! Second, I got to hear my time at the end of the rep, just so that little self-analysing part of me could mentally compare my times.
My friend & I played well off each other - some reps he "won", and others I "won". I struggled to match his pace and at other times managed to squeeze out in front. But we always recovered together.
5 reps, 1k each. And every single one of those reps I was under the magic 5.00minutes. Yep, the worst time I ran it in (approximately) was 4min 54sec and the best time 4min 38 sec. A 10-second pb down from last week! ... okay, so I really do like those numbers! If every effort is my best effort, how else can I track any improvement?
I wonder - if I'd used my watch - if I would have gone as fast, or if I would have mentally told myself that a 4.50 was the fastest I could manage, and thus not pushed any harder.
But I know it's also about more than the numbers. Today I did well not because I forgot my watch with all its fancy stats, but because I had an awesome runner to train beside, who pushed me all the way.