Run Run Run

this is the watch i use:

http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Forerunner-Receiver-Sports-Watch/dp/B000CSQJ8C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1274881731&sr=8-1

garmin definitely has newer versions available at a much higher cost. they don't really have any new features, just a more modern design.

i love my watch. i am anal about NOT looking at it. i don't want to be dependent on it. i just look at it at the end of a run to see my time, pace, distance, etc. i can also use it for biking which is nice. i like to run without it too... no pressure then. i'm slow and i know it; don't need a watch reminding me of that all the time ;)

Thanks KP! I just checked it out... looks great. Thanks for the info.

my advice would be to just run by feel. if it's an easy run, take it easy, if it's hard, push accordingly. if you get too caught up in the paces that you're running, then the paces themselves in training often become the driving, all-important factors of the runs, which increases the likelihood of you ignoring what your body is telling you. (and it's been my experience that the body has some pretty good "data acquisition sensors" scattered about...)

all of my training is effort-based, and, for what it's worth, it has worked out for me (but, then again, i don't have all the cool new toys like kp, although she did offer to let me use her ipod during delano...)

oh you hush. i don't have cool toys. you didn't take me up on the offer after i specifically put beatles music on it for you! i only listen to it on the dreadmill, so the ol' ipod doesn't get used much. i like to hear what is going on around me too much.

anyways, i try to go by feel as well. last night i ran with a friend (john you "know" her - brooke mcdaniel's mom) and she told me she wanted to run the first mile at a 10 pace. well, i didn't look at my watch, but i knew we were going much faster than that. it turned out to be a 9:15 pace. i just let her set the pace and went with her.

i run with people that look at their watch constantly and it drives me crazy. i like it for the overall results. i don't use it at all for splits, etc. i try to go on feel. at delano i ran a few miles with a friend of mine on a relay team and she kept looking at her watch every 5 seconds and said "we need to slow down" and things like that. it irritated me because i felt good and knew it was going to be a long day and wanted to get a few good miles in before i crashed. in my humble (and very novice) opinion, i think going sans watch is the better thing to do. you want minimalist shoes, go with the minimalist mindset on technology too.

don't get me wrong; at face value, a pace-tracking device is very handy, however, almost without fail, i see people get a garmin and become slaves to their pace. all things being equal, this would be ideal; however, physiologically, you are not the same person today that you were yesterday or that you will be tomorrow (you ate something different, had a stressful night, slept funny, or heard a really really funny dirty joke that keeps the body chemistry just slightly different), and that causes the effort required to run certain paces vary wildly. by constantly having a pace fed to you, you run the risk of ignoring body signals and holding yourself to a pace that may be faster or slower than you need to be going (some days, my "65%-75%" level effort can vary between 6:20 and 8:00/mile - not a trivial difference)

all that being said, having a GPS might be handy for measuring distances while wandering around or using during tempo runs for target paces, but some discretion generally needs to be employed.

(what can i say, i'm a poor grad student, i have to justify not having the cool stuff somehow, right...)

...climbing down off my soapbox now...

here is a soapbox in the other direction i just found:

http://barb.fastrunningblog.com/blog-05-26-2010.html

i personally am on the don't do it box. if i hadn't spent a pretty penny on my watch (the price has dropped quite a bit since i bought mine) i probably wouldn't buy one period knowing what i know now. the guy that got me into running lives and breathes for his garmin. he told me i needed one. i didn't know better, so i bought one.

Thanks for the opinions. I definitely go with how my body feels.... some days I glide and some days I don't. I wish there was more time in the day for running and less obligations to fulfill.

My thoughts on a GPS watch are exactly that "a cool new toy". I'm not going to try and keep a 6:30 pace if I feel like I'm going to die in the process. What I do like is being able to see all the interesting data post run. I wonder if the novelty of a GPS watch would wear off? Damn you Nevels and your higher consciousness!

Thank you KP for all the info!

Are all people in Alabama cool? Do you two have funny accents? Ha ha J/K!

higher consciousness... that's what happens after i take a hit of the... well, nevermind...

as for being cool, kp and all her huntsville friends are; i'm just a native mississippian who has never been accused of being cool (but have been accused of having the accent...)

and i agree about silly obligations (work, family, friends, etc...) getting in the way of running at times. sometimes you just need the release...

you are so full of it. first of all, you've lived in alabama nearly half of your life. therefore, you are just as much an alabamian as you are a mississippian.

secondly, we ALL aspire to be like nevels; thus making him the dreaded "cool." i am just a wannabe that has no potential. i am about as un-cool as they come.

oh yea.... i have no idea what you're talking about with the accent thing. i think i sound perfectly normal. nevels, on the other hand, picked up his dialect from his native mississippi. unfortunately, they tend to be a bit redneck unlike us alabamians ;)

Ha ha ha! Funny and cool.... both of you!