Garmin Grief

I know my non-running readers will think this is a typo and that I meant to type "Gremlin Grief", and that perhaps I am experiencing some sort of Gremlin invasion like in that movie...

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or that perhaps I drive a Gremlin and, of course, am experiencing grief over that hideous and poorly-constructed vehicle... and they are puzzled as to how such an intelligent person as I could choose to drive such a crime against automotive nature.

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No.

It is not a typo.

A Garmin is a little GPS device that I strap to my wrist. It tells me how far I've run and for how long and how fast. It is supposed to be the answer to all my running problems. It is supposed to make me happier, sexier, faster, smarter...

Lies. All lies.

Don't get me wrong... it is a super nifty device, and it does about a billion things that I don't even know about. So far, I can turn it on and off, charge it, and recently I learned how to make it beep at me at every mile. It does tell me how long and how far I've been running. And it is supposed to give me accurate pace. That is a lot of valuable and helpful information. But for some reason, it always gets me tense and screwed up.

Well, not 'for some reason'... I know why.

All that info-sharing... I remember this from my rowing days. Sitting on the rowing machine with the little read-out staring me in the face... showing me my output... speed, elapsed time, distance covered, strokes per minute. Realizing where you were in the workout, knowing that you were not as fast as you should be, watching your stroke rate become erratic as you got tired or for some reason lost focus. But there were other days when those numbers in front of you were exciting and cause for smiles. We used to put electrical tape over the read-out so as to prevent emotional distraction from interfering with the workout.

One of the hardest things about my Garmin is that the pace seems super erratic. There is no way I jump from 11:14 to 8:48 to 9:44 all in about 50 yards distance while maintaining an even effort and gait. But this happens all the time. I really never can trust the pace part... which for me is the whole point. Pre-Garmin, I had no problem piecing together routes with Googlemaps, and I have a watch that works just fine. I really wanted something to help me keep track of my pace between the miles and made it so I didn't have to do lengthy mathematical calculations while running to keep track of how things were going.

On Tuesday I did speedwork. Please explain to me how running a quarter-mile (0.25 mile) in 1:57 is 7:55 pace. That is what skeevin', lyin', cheatin' Mr. Garmin tried to tell me. By my calculations, it is 7:48. Kind of important when I was shooting for 1:45. And more than a little frustrating.

Last night I did a 5-mile progression run. After the first two miles, I realized that Mr. Garmin was all over the pace-map like a cheap suit. My per-mile paces when the lap beeped were right on, but the in-between readings were bouncing all over the place. I forsook Mr. Garmin and went by feel for the next two miles. Paces were right on and there was no stress associated with seeing numbers significantly too fast and significantly too slow. I was toast at that point, mentally and physically, and backed off for my last mile. Listening to my body ;-)

I know my lesson here is to not rely on the Garmin. But since I even do my speedwork at home on my loops, having that on-going pacing feature would be super helpful.

Does anyone suffer from similar Garmin Grief? Does anyone know how to remedy this glitch?... I would need step-by-step, 'for dummies' directions.

Has anyone ever owned or even ridden in an AMC Gremlin for real? My dad had a Pinto, which is almost as bad but not nearly as ugly.

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Remember:  a Moving Comfort sports bra giveaway is going on. You can enter here. You can enter to win until this Friday, October 28.

Trying to believe in oneself...

I've written about shooting the moon... the "go big or go home"... going all in or not going at all... and set myself a lofty goal for my next race.

That's great.

I probably should get ready to run it :P  And maybe find a hotel for that overnight so's I don't need to sleep on a bench! I took my first step in the right direction in terms of training last Sunday with my solid 12-mile run. And today I bought my plane tickets so I can actually get there!

I had been dragging my feet on these preparations because I am having a hard time believing in myself.

Surprised?

Don't be.

When I am prepped, I am solid with myself. When my prep work has been even somewhat sketchy, I begin to falter. Or rather when I am not seeing evidence of prep work my confidence plummets.

Last night I was just going to try to run 5 or maybe 6, if I felt okay out there. The whole lead-up was beyond annoying. The kids were just on my very last nerve from about the middle of dinner on. My tension had skyrocketed and I was thoroughly pissed that they had ruined my night and now I couldn't run and so I wouldn't even be remotely ready for this stupid half-marathon that I didn't even have a way to get to or a place to stay which was totally fine because I wasn't really going to be able to run in it anyway since I just suck so bad.

Whew... that was quite the run-on sentence... and that is exactly how I felt. Out of control and going down.

I finally headed out to run at quarter to 9. Pissed off. Tense. Utterly defeated.

And I rocked my run.

When I started off, all the whiny voices in my head were messing with me... so I turned up the iPod. I somehow got into a nice, easy groove, and halfway through my first 0.75-mile lap, I decided it was Progression Run Night :) I wanted to try to hit the paces that I set up for my race plan. I had no Garmin on... so it had to be by feel and just the watch.

As close to the money as I think I can get....

Lap 1.....................9:43 pace........................  9:43 elapsed time.................0.75 mi
Lap 2.....................9:20 pace........................ 14:16  e.t...............................1.5   mi
Lap 3.....................9:20 pace........................ 21:15  e.t...............................2.25 mi
Lap 4.....................9:06 pace.........................28:05  e.t...............................3.0   mi
Lap 5.....................9:06 pace.........................34:53  e.t...............................3.75 mi
Lap 6.....................8:29 pace.........................41:15  e.t...............................4.5   mi
Lap 7.....................7:45 pace.........................47:04  e.t...............................5.25 mi
Last wanderings...~10:00 pace avg................1:00.20 e.t..............................6.5   mi

Average pace for 6.5 miles = 9:17

Belief-in-self Level..... big jump :)

What's hard for me to acknowledge is that it could have very easily gone the other way. And I am so glad it didn't.

What are some things that you do to keep believing in yourself? 


What are some of your 'go-to' techniques for pulling yourself up out of an abyss, if you find yourself in one?

The forecast calls for...SNOW!

It almost never snows here.  In fact, I can count on two fingers the number of times in my life it has snowed here.  that means it has snowed here twice in the past 47+ years, for those of you who are number-challenged ;-)

It does snow nearby in the higher hills every couple of years or so, but you have to drive 40 minutes to the "mountain" to the west or one hour to the "mountain" to the east to see any sort of accumulation (a few inches or so).  Actually snowing here... in the flatlands... super rare.  Even in the lower hills it's rare.  I remember it happening when I was about 10 years old.  It was the cooooooolest thing ever.  I know those of you in more wintry climates are thinking, "get over it, woman."

My kids have never seen snow.  They are sitting by the window right now.... waiting.  It isn't supposed to even be a possibility until Saturday morning.  I told them that.  They want to wait.  And watch.  They are crazy.  Snow crazy :)

I hope we get snow.  Of course, it might make this weekend's run a little more treacherous... especially since I am out of practice when it comes to dealing with the elements ;-)  Last night it was in the 40's when I went out for my run.  My husband was worried about me being too cold.  So sweet.  I was fine.

The run was supposed to be a speed workout.  I didn't have the patience for all that stopping and starting and warming up and rest-in-between pieces jazz.  I just wanted to go out and run for a bit... so that's what I did :)  I stepped outside, clicked my 'start' button and off I went.  I decided a few minutes into it to try what someone called a "progressive" run... I think it was Mamarunsbarefoot.  I did three miles... 9:49 for the first 3/4, 8:46 for the middle mile and a half, and 8:23 for the final 3/4... followed by 1.2 miles of cooling down at about 11 min/mile.  I loved that the whole thing was over in 40 minutes!

I don't think I could have waited much longer for dinner.  It was already 9:30 p.m.!

Do you like snow?  Did you when you were a kid?
–I love snow.  Glad I don't have to deal with it every day ... especially with kids... extra especially with little kids and babies.  I loved it when I was a kid because it was such a novelty.

Would you like to live where it snows or where the weather is nice all the time?
–I think getting it a little more often than we do would be nice...or I'd like to live a little closer to some place that gets a little accumulations.  But I really do like our weather :)