Saturday morning I was trying to get motivated to run 6 miles.  I always turn on my Garmin while I am getting ready so it can find a signal before I head out.  I took it off the charger and pressed the power button….nothing…I tried again…nothing.  I put it on the charging dock thinking one of the cats may have disconnected it…nothing.  The battery charging message was nowhere to be seen.  Needless to say I was NOT happy but I finished getting ready and planned on taking my phone to use runkeeper instead.

My stomach didn’t feel right but I assumed I was upset about the fact that I was going to have to pay out some serious $$$ for a new watch.  I headed out the door and got about a quarter mile down the road when I realized my stomach issue had nothing to do with my Garmin.  I promptly turned around an ran home (half a mile down, 5.5 to go)! 

I headed out again deciding to deviate from my original plan and stay in the neighborhood for a while (aka close to home). I ran about 2 more miles and started to feel a little better so I headed over to the park with the hills.  Miles 2.5 to 5 were kind of robotic. I felt ok, but was really just going through the motions. By mile 5 I was a little dehydrated and not feeling so hot so I had to walk the last mile.

Once I got home, I further investigated what may be wrong with my Garmin and several sites online recommended a reboot (holding down the mode and lap button at the same time).  With a very pessimistic attitude I tried it and voila!  It worked!  The Garmin is back : )

Do you use a GPS watch?  If so, what would you do if you thought it had died?

My goal for this week was to stick to my training plan, and for the most part, I accomplished it.

This weeks long run called for 5 miles.  I wanted to take it easy, incorporate a few hills, and still enjoy it.  There is a park about a mile from my house that has both paved walking trails and unpaved hiking trails and since I have run it many times before, I knew there were two challenging hills.  I figured an out and back would be about 5 miles, so off I went!

I did a 5 minute walking warm up and moved into intervals of run 2 walk 1.  I set my garmin so that I couldn’t see the mileage because I knew I was going slow and would get frustrated by my speed.  Once I got to the top of the second hill and actually checked my watch, I was very surprised to realize I had run 3 miles, not 2.5.

I turned around and headed home, still maintaining my 2:1 intervals.  By the time I got to mile 4.5 I was still feeling great so I started skipping the walks.  I finished up a total of 6 miles feeling nice and strong.

Week 2 goal…accomplished!