Health knowledge made personal
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Two Christmases ago, my husband bought me what he thought was the perfect gift for his running-enthusiast wife. It was a Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS training watch. When I first opened the package, all I could see was this big, clunky-looking watch staring back at me. It seemed like a cool idea to have a watch that would tell me my pace, distance, calories burned and time. Or would that be really annoying?
Well, that was Christmas 2008. I JUST opened the box and charged it up for the first time last Friday - March 2010! When Mike bought it for me in 2008, we were having some troubles conceiving and I was following orders from my doctor to cut back on running. Shortly thereafter, in Feb 2009, I became pregnant with our adorable son, Robby (pictured left). Although I ran throughout my pregnancy, I certainly did not need to wear a Garmin to track my slow-shuffle-pregnancy-pace. If the Garmin were really sophisticated it probably would have said: Too slow! Give it up, lady! Last Friday I did my 8-mile run as part of my Long Island Half Marathon training and decided to give the Garmin a try. I'm still not entirely sure how to use the thing, but I decided it could be a pretty cool gadget to see how I'm doing with pace. With the exception of a HORRENDOUS side cramp that felt like a stabbing knife for approximately 2 miles, I was doing pretty well. My take on the Garmin? It should definitely come in handy for speed workouts when I'm supposed to be running at "race pace" or a 1/2-minute slower than "race pace" and all those other crazy suggestions I read in Runner's World articles. Do I ever really know what pace I'm doing down to the 1/4 of a second per mile? The way I usually gauge my training paces are: Wow, I feel lighter than air and super-speedy-fast! OR Ughh.... I feel like I have boulders in my butt and legs. So maybe the Garmin will help me out with speed work, if I ever get up to speed workouts! Right now I'm happy just getting out for a run. I tried to use the Garmin for a slow, short run on Saturday and it was stuck for several minutes trying to "locate satellites". Umm... I do not have time to locate satellites, thank you very much! I ran out of patience, stormed back into my house and threw the thing down on the table, choosing to run without it. Take that and your locating the satellites! So we shall see how my relationship with Garmin develops. I'm sure the version I have is a dinosaur at this point! All you runner mamas out there - do you Garmin?? |
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