GPS observations and more...

I've become one of those annoying GPS guys. If you have a friend with a Garmin or Nike/Tom-Tom GPS watch, you know who I'm talking about. The person who says, "I ran 8.71247 miles today. Did it at a 9:14.7558 pace." Dooooooorrrrrrkkkkkkkk. It's a way for the GPS guy to brag about his/her high-tech watch without directly stating that they own the latest GPS technology for their arm. And I've become that person. I'm apologize to all my friends who patiently refrain from rolling their eyes when I go off about the latest run, elevation, change, pace, splits, etc., but I'm going to continue doing it.

A few other GPS observations to bore you:
- When I'm doing a speed workout or a difficult run, I will try and cut the corners as close as possible...why???? It's not like the run will get and shorter or faster because the GPS gets fooled.
- The local track is 10 feet lower on the south end, which means that the, during my speed workouts where the prevailing breeze comes from the north, I'm doing the hard part of the track uphill and into the wind. I didn't need to know that and neither did you.
- GPS is like crack cocaine. Once you start using it and downloading your runs to Garmin Connect, you're instantly hooked. My evenings can be completely lost to the limitless details I can search on that website. I can't envision ever doing a run without it ever again.

Run updates:

Speed workout last thursday: 5ish miles (gps ran out of batteries after 4.22 miles :-) ) 4x800 at close to 6:35 pace. I'm a total idiot. I wanted to do Yasso 800s but did very poor math and ran them way too fast.  I'll get them closer to the 3:45 time that is needed.

My right knee was totally squeaky after that run.  Didn't feel good at all and totally scared me, especially since I had to recommit to Team-in-Training (yes, I'm a purple person) for the marathon.  So I took it easy on Saturday and ran 5.7 miles nice and slow.  Still hurt. 

Soooo, on Sunday I was supposed to do 12, but after a conversation with my brother (my resident marathon expert) I decided to back off and do only 10.   The run went GREAT.  The knee pain totally disappeared.  My last two miles were close to a 9:00 minute/mile pace.  Very happy. 

I'm thinking about throwing in some extra miles this week to make up for the lost miles this weekend. 


Help me send my marathon finisher medal to a person who survived her fight with cancer by clicking on this link: http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/pfchangs12/mnortonnpu