Garmin Runs

Hmmmm. I think my Garmin plays into my obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It was actually making me a little bit crazy this weekend.

This weekend I had two runs...my "long" run on Saturday (which was 6 miles) and a recovery run on Sunday (which was 4 miles SLOW). Both were in Central Park, and both included lots and lots of hills, which I think is a good thing, since I am training for a very hilly marathon.

On Friday I was getting very antsy about my plans to run the Manhattan Grand-Prix Half marathon, which is on the 25th. I felt woefully unprepared. My quads, hamstrings and calves were sore from all of my running during the week. Also I was feeling VERY slowly. According to my Garmin, Bill and my pace from our 30 minute run was about an 11:34...yowsa. I was also thinking I may have overpromised myself that I could do 6 miles.

Then, I talked to Gina, who is running the Miami Half on the same day. She also has been less-than-vigilant about her running workouts. I figured, if she can do it, I can do it.

Then I ran on Saturday, and although it hurt later that evening, while I was running I felt great. I was thinking "Wow. Running is fun. Why do I have such a hard time wanting to do it in the winter if it makes me feel this great? I'll have to remember this!"

BUT (and here's the Garmin obsession thing) while I was running I was obsessively checking my pace. I started with like an 11:23 (kind of made me freak out). On the downhill in the first mile though, I was at a 9:36 (ok, better). Most times I looked at my watch it was somewhere in the 10 or 11 minute pace range. This made me mentally freak out. In my head I was crying "I'm so out of shape!!! I don't FEEL like I'm going that slow!!!" But then I kept trying to say to myself "It's ok. You ARE out of shape. You'll get back to your 9:15s soon enough." On Harlem hill I looked at my pace and it was like 15:46. WHAT?!!! REALLY?! I mean I know it's a big hill, but...

Luckily, this was near the end of my run. I checked my time (56 ish) and was like "Wait a minute, I'm almost finished...if I'm running 11 minute miles on average I should have a LOT more minutes."

I stopped the clock at 58 something for 6.05 miles. That's a 9:35 pace. And my watch said 11:56 in the pace area.

OHHHHHHHHHH.

Duh. 11:56 is the pace that I was walking RIGHT THAT INSTANT.

Then I felt like an idiot because that is probably the same thing that happened the other night when Bill and I were running.

Whew.

I feel better about the half on the 25th now.

Oh yes, and the reason that I don't have accurate splits etc is because I am still trying to figure out how to make my ANT stick work with all of the drivers I had to install on my mac. (Grrrrr). But hopefully I will figure that out soon.

I do find it interesting that my pace is THAT SLOW on Harlem Hill.