Eat Drink Run Woman

Although my sinuses are still filled with a bunch of yuck (I swear I’ve gone through an entire Kleenex box this past week), thank goodness I felt well enough to get back to running. I truly missed it but knew my body needed rest. However, come Monday I was lacing up my running shoes.

Since I hadn’t done any form of exercise for a week — running or otherwise — I took it very slow, averaging a little under 10-minute miles for the 3 1/2 mile run. To ensure an easy pace I loaded up the iPod with mellow music, letting Marvin serenade me as I wound around Greenlake. Spring is in full bloom and I savored the fragrant bouquet of apple blossoms and the flowers of the ash tree (the smell of which reminds me of cherry Jolly Ranchers). By the time I got home I had a treat waiting for me at my neighbor’s house (he was there to sign for the UPS package — Yippee!).

On Wednesday I took the Garmin out for its inaugural run, along with the heart rate monitor. I still need to figure out my maximum heart rate; if I go by age then it’s 184 (I read somewhere women should subtract their age from 227 rather than 220), but I realize that’s not the most accurate. I sprinted a couple of times to see how high I could get it; both times it was about 172, which seems low. I can’t afford to pay for an accurate test right now, so I’m just going to wear the HRM on every run for a while and see what it does.

For Thursday’s run I left the heart monitor at home since my darling and I were just doing a quick inside loop jaunt. However, since I came within 7 seconds of a PB I wish I had strapped it on. Next time! But at least the Garmin confirmed the distance of the two Greenlake paths were what we thought: 2.8 miles for the inside loop and 3.2 for the outside. When we downloaded our route afterwards it even showed a blip where my darling ran off-course to go play on the rings.

For Saturday’s 12-mile run I had programmed an 8 minute running/1 minute Gallowalking workout into the Garmin Training Center on my computer (my goal was to run those 8 minutes at a 10 1/2 to 10 3/4 minute pace with a 16 minute walk pace), but somehow the transfer to the device got screwed up. As I began running it kept telling me to slow down; once it got to the walk pace I realized it was telling me to keep a 25 minute pace! At that point I stopped the workout and just kept track of my run to walk ratio manually. I was pretty much on target, averaging 10 3/4 minute miles (my goal is 11 minute miles for my long runs).

The best part about using the Garmin is knowing I can deviate from my route and I’ll still know how far I’ve gone. In the past I just used a Thomas Guide and a pair of dividers. My darling always loves to go off the trail, yet I would refuse to follow him since it would mess up my mileage calculations (yes, I’m anal in that respect). Can’t beat technology, can you?

This coming week will most likely be a low mileage one as I’m heading to L.A. this weekend for a food styling workshop. But my hotel is about 2 miles from the studio, so I’m hoping I can at least get some walking in. I think I’ll bring Garmin along just in case I get lost 🙂