Going Steady With My Garmin

Despite the title of my blog "running with the herd", I feel like I haven't been posting very much about running. I'll work on that. But don't worry, I have been running, I just haven't been posting about running.

On Tuesday I had a nice, comfortable 7 mile run. It was 70 degrees and sunny here in Chicago- absolutely BEAUTIFUL! One of my goals for my next training cycle is to use my Garmin more often and more effectively, so that I can target my problem areas in hopes of becoming a faster runner and eventually a Boston Qualifier (in the distant future, people, don't judge).

I've had my Garmin since I started running in 2006. Back then I used to measure distances along the lakefront path, but not so much to track pace or to use any of the fancy features that I still don't understand. But I found that having pace information on my wrist, readily viewable at all times, made me very stressed. I would run for a bit, then look at my pace and think "oh my god, I'm so slow", speed up, end up huffing and puffing and have to bail or shorten my runs. No good. Even when I told myself that I was running for fun and if I couldn't breathe it wasn't fun, I still obsessively looked at the Garmin.

And up until this year, my goal has been to run for fun only. Because if it becomes not fun, there's no way I'll keep doing it.

This may be a good place to remind my readers of what a wimp I am. I am lazy. I don't like to suffer. When I'm short of breath I (used to) slow down. When I'm tired, I like to sleep. When I'm in pain (on a training run), I generally stop. (I actually think that last one is a good thing generally, because I- knock on wood- have been injury free since I started running 4 years ago).

Then 2 things happened:

1. I spent a year with a personal trainer. My trainer (Alina McKnight at River East Club- she's AWESOME) kicked my butt. She pushed me to my limit and then some. I worked my muscles to failure every single session. I've never suffered so much in my life, and boy was it great! Initially, I was amazed at what I couldn't do (who knew jumping jacks were so freakin' hard) but after a few weeks I was amazed at what I could do. And, more relevant to my running, I realized I could suffer. I could be completely short of breath and still keep going. I embraced the suffering. And I got stronger as a result.

2. The 2nd thing relates to the first and was my half marathon PR in Rockford. That was really a perfect race experience for me. You can read my race report here, but in short I ran my heart out: didn't slow down when I was nauseous, didn't slow down when I was short of breath (well maybe a little in the last few miles) and pushed through the pain. I suffered for 2 hours and 19 seconds and I lived to tell the tale and the rights to talk about my PR until I'm blue in the face (until I get a sub-2, hopefully soon!) A combination of slow steady running for a few years, my personal trainer strengthening both my mind and body, some early pacing by my husband and perfect race conditions (including good spectators!) convinced me that I can become a faster runner.

So my running goals have changed from running just for fun, to working on becoming a faster runner understanding that it won't always be fun. And knowing that I can always go out for a slow, fun run when I want to. One of the benefits of becoming faster is that there are a myriad of slower paces that are perfectly conversational and comfortable. Who knew??

So, the Garmin. How can I best use the Garmin to help improve my running? I just learned how to set it to auto-lap at each mile, so I'm pretty much still in Garmin infancy. I'm open to advice.

One thing I can't do is use the beeping pace alerts. There's this setting where you can set a pace range you would like to run at and it will beep at you when you are too fast (dee-da-dee-da-deeee!) or too slow (dee-da-dee-da-dough). As evidenced by the graph below (distance on x axis, pace on y axis) from my Garmin training software, my pace is super variable, so I just get beeped at left and right. I try to speed up when told and then I'm going too fast, I try to slow down and then the beep says I'm going too slow. Arg!

So my question for fellow runnerds out there is, how do you use your Garmin?

What's your favorite/most useful feature that you use on your Garmin and how to you incorporate it into your training?

Additionally, I have one specific question: Is it true that you can start moving (running/walking) while "locating satellites" without messing up the signal?

In other running news, I want to give a shout out to my mom. She started running recently and has worked her way up to nearly 3 miles. Earlier this week, she went on a 2.6 mile run and was bit by a dog. Multiple times! But she kept on trucking. Amazing!