Running Blind

Today I planned a 4+ mile neighborhood run. When I got outside I realized that my Garmin was dead, dead, dead.  It must have gotten knocked out of alignment with the charger. Frustrating, but I didn’t care enough about my pace today to opt for the treadmill.  Instead, I started the “stopwatch” on my iPod nano and headed out.

I felt tired (not sleeping enough this week) and knew my pace was pretty slow, but I was disappointed when I checked the stopwatch where I thought “mile 1” was and it was over 12 minutes.  (I usually average about a 10:20 min mile without trying.) I shrugged it off, figured I needed an “easy” day, and decided to be content and enjoy just running.  I noticed that my breathing was easy and I enjoyed the almost-cool weather.  I recognized that I’ve come a long way to be able to enjoy a run that wouldn’t impress anyone.  There was a time when a sucky pace would ruin my run for me – if not my whole day.

When I hit the top of the last hill – what I figured to be “mile 3” – I checked the stopwatch again and it was at about 34 min – still a slow pace but at least a bit faster than 12 min miles.  I finished strong and hit my “finish line” at 47 minutes.

Curiosity about my run – and my pace – got the best of me and I plotted out my route on runningmap.com.  It turns out that I ran 4.6 miles, so my pace was about a 10:13 min mile – not a speed workout or tempo run for sure, but much faster than I would have expected for a run that really did feel “easy.”

There are several things I learned today. First, I suck at pacing myself!  But I knew that already.  Second, my years of battling injuries really have enabled me to brush off pace goals and just enjoy the fact that I am running.  Third, it probably is a good idea to run every once in a while without a Garmin or treadmill to set/monitor my pace, so I can just run at whatever pace feels good.