the Way of the Turtle

RETURN OF THE CYBORG TURTLE
3 Mile Run in the Pine Bush
Thursday, May 15, 2008

Didn't have a lot of time between getting home from work and getting to class, especially since the other instructor who would be there tonight is a bit under the weather (so I didn't want to show up late.) And that time was decreased even more by the discovery of a box from REI on my porch... a box containing my new Garmin Forerunner 205.

I've been looking at getting some type of GPS device for a while now - it gets frustrating at times to not really know how far I'm running when I'm on trails, and whether my estimates are high or low. While GPS's are not without their glitches, the Garmin 205 has gotten enough positive reviews and was on sale for a low enough price that I just couldn't resist adding it to my bundle of toys. And I'm very confident that I'll use it more often than I've used the inexpensive heart rate monitor I bought at the end of last summer...

Fortunately it came with a sufficient charge that I was able to test it out tonight... first on the drive over to the trailhead, and then during my very short run. And so far it works great! I've read a few reviews from folks who had trouble getting a satellite lock in the woods, but I had a clear signal for the entire run, and the distance it registered was almost the same as I would have estimated from the Pine Bush map. The pace readout may also come in handy, especially if I'm doing a run like last Saturday where I'm trying to beat a time cutoff.

Also fortunately, the Garmin worked better than my legs, which felt like they were filled with concrete for the duration of my run. Too bad, because it was a gorgeous afternoon... but then again, if my legs had been feeling good I would have wanted to run more, and that just wasn't an option...

When I got home after class I loaded the Garmin software into my PC and downloaded the data from the Forerunner... don't know how much I'll use the training data (speed, pace, and so on) but I really like the map of my run. The basic map in the Garmin software is fairly primitive, so I also imported my data into the MotionBased site, where I was able to see my track on a much more detailed Google map... way cool!

JMH