It's been on the cards for a while after having to do an increasing number of master resets, but I think after several thousand kilometres together my Forerunner 110 has finally given up on me. The display went all wobbly and then....blank. It owes me nothing and if it can't be fixed then I will be replacing it with the same or similar model, but for now I am running naked. It feels very odd just to set off from the front door without having to wait for a satellite signal and I do miss the reassuring beep marking every kilometre that passes by.
I am treating it as an interesting experiment to run without continuous statistics and data. In triathlon and trail runs I run by feel, so I'm not always an absolute slave to the Garmin, but for training and road races I admit I do get transfixed by the numbers that appear on my display. In races I rely on it to stop me from going out too fast and in training it gives me a nudge if I start to get lazy. I have often been surprised by the discrepancy between my perceived effort and my actual effort.
This weekend I used a good old stopwatch to time my runs and I plotted the distances on Google maps when I arrived home. As I wasn't able to run at a specific pace my aim was just to run steady and concentrate on form and breathing. It was actually quite liberating and I fell into a cadence that felt comfortable and stayed there.
I've entered my first half marathon next week and my target time is a sub-1h40, which means running at 4.44 mins/k pace or better. What is really interesting is that when I calculated the time and distance for yesterday's run it came in at an average of 4.45 min/k. Today's was 4.50 min/k; running some of the way on a grassy track probably accounting for the difference. I'm surprised by the consistency and also by the speed -I knew I wasn't slacking but I didn't think I was almost at race pace. It has given me a lot of confidence for the big day and it has shown me that there is life without GPS. But I will be begging borrowing or stealing one in time for the race.
No comments:
Post a Comment