by Ryan McKeen
I run. I also like toys.
Right now I’m training for a marathon. Early in my training, a friend suggested that I get a Garmin GPS watch. In real time the watch calculates distance, pace, and monitors a runners heart rate. After a run the watch syncs with Garmin’s website and breaks down pace, elevation, heart rate, interval speed, and distance into graphs and charts. It provides runners with very accurate training data which is useful in measuring performance and progress.
It didn’t take much to convince me that a GPS watch would be a useful training tool.
When it came in the mail one February afternoon, I could hardly wait to put it on my wrist and go for a run. And run I would.
As I started down my road I found myself glued to the watch. I was constantly watching my pace. Monitoring my heart rate and watching my mileage build. My running world became watching my watch.
For a period of about two weeks I was running for my watch.
Then one day I decided to try out a pace feature on the watch. I had to enter a time and distance into the watch. Once I did the watch created a virtual training partner for me. The partner consisted of a stick figure on my watch. The watch also created a stick figure for me. The display screen then displayed the stick figures side by side and calculated in real time whether or not I was ahead of or behind my virtual training partner. It’s a pretty effective way to pace a run.
Anyway, I hit start on the watch and off went my virtual training partner. I began to run to keep pace with him. He got out to a quick lead so I pressed harder but his lead continued to widen. So I ran harder. I knew I had properly programmed the watch. Then I started to sprint. All to keep up with this virtual stick figure on my watch. But he kept on building his lead.
After about a half mile, I stopped. I was never going to catch my digital pal.
I decided to reprogram my watch. When I did that, I realized that the watch hadn’t yet found the GPS satellites. Even though I was moving at a good clip – my watch thought I was standing still. No amount of sprinting was ever going to catch my virtual pal.
As I stood in the road, I realized something. I realized that I needed to control the watch and not the other way around.
more tomorrow….