When the Power of my Legs Fueled my Garmin

It has been a long time since I've run and not been training for something. After many months with Baltimore in sight, I had the Turkey Chase and the Hot Chocolate 15k to look forward to. Now, the next race on my calendar is the RNR USA half marathon in March. I know I should start training for that in the next few weeks but I haven't yet.

So I guess this is the time to be running just for fun, perhaps without a Garmin, following the healthy examples of Ali and Christine. But, truth be told, I haven't had my watch long enough to feel the need for such a thing. Maybe I'm addicted to it but that doesn't stress me out, it just excites me. For that reason, I decided to use Mr. Garmin to its fullest last night and do a tempo run.

I also used my love of dorky neon to its fullest and sported this very cool reflector vest that I got from target last year. Safety first!

I set out and decided to run the same route Nikki and I had run for our tempo runs. My plan was to do a warm-up mile, a sub-9 mile, a sub-8 mile, a sub-9 mile, and then a cool down. About a quarter of a mile in, the watch beeped alerting me of its low battery. In my time off of running and blogging, I had not plugged my watch in for over a week. I had never let it get to this point before so I wasn't sure whether to beep meant the end of battery life was near or whether it gave me fair warning. I did know, however, that I couldn't do my first ever solo tempo run without Mr. Garmin. There's the addiction.

I thought that if I can at least get through the speedy, sub-8 mile with a functioning watch, I can run the final two without one. But, again, I wasn't sure how much time I had. As I wrapped up mile one in 8:45, I decided that would suffice as both miles 1 and 2. So I spontaneously took of for the fastest mile of my run. I'm not going to lie to you, it was tough, especially without Nikki's speedy little but to chase, but I enjoyed it. Most of the time I was thinking that this mile is hard but the next mile, when I want to stop and walk, is going to be harder. Then I finished mile 2 and the 3rd wasn't so bad either. When you've run so fast for a mile, you can slow down significantly and still end up being pretty speedy.

Gamin clearly survived the whole run. I like to think the same energy that powered my legs powered the watch for four miles. The last of those, the cool-down mile was uphill so I took it really slowly. And I did, in fact, cool down. My long sleeves and shorts, which I had felt hot in only ten minutes earlier, suddenly weren't enough clothing. It's amazing how your body truly does heat up and cool down as you change your intensity so much. Yet again, that's why I love cold-weather running- it makes me want to run oh so much faster.

Solo tempo run a success! Good thing because I'm thinking I'll test out the RLRF training program for the half in March which schedules a tempo run each week for 11 weeks. It also encourages many days of cross training which means my campaign (with myself) to bike a lot will also be a great success.


Do you do a lot of tempo runs? Do you wear a gamin and has it ever died on you? How much time does it typically run after it first alerts you of the low-battery?