I want to start out today's post by patting myself on the back. *pat pat pat* You see, I hit a huge milestone accomplishment in the month of February... my first time ever of logging over 100 miles in a single month. (And February was a short month!!!) In fact, I logged just over 108 miles altogether. Up until this, the most I had ever logged in a single month was 90 miles. So, go me! March should have even more miles logged - can I break 120? We shall see....
Now, moving on to today's run. Remember last week's deep thoughts? Remember when I pondered how well I would do with the progressive run without looking at any sort of timing device? I didn't think I'd do too great, since I've come to rely so heavily on my gadgets and gizmos. But for you, my wonderful and supportive readers, I decided to run an experiment today. I wore my Garmin for my 5 mile progressive run, but I did NOT look at lap times, total time, or pace the entire run. I did have to look occasionally to see what lap I was on, so I knew how far I had gone. But aside from that, I resisted the pull of the pretty gadget, with all it's flashing numbers and happy chirpy beeps. I cranked up my iPod and ignored my precious run data. *gasp*
But the data was all there waiting for me when I got home and uploaded it to my computer. I couldn't wait to see how I did. Did I manage to get progressively faster just by feel? I FELT like I was getting faster during my run, but I couldn't be sure if it was because I was actually running faster, or just getting more tired. Well, the results are in... I needn't have worried at all. As it turns out, progressive running may be my forte. This graph is really quite lovely. Perhaps even more lovely than graphs of progressive runs where I relied on my gadgets to keep pace. I'll let you all be the judge, though:
I was a little wonky during the warmup mile, trying to find my groove. But after that, there's very little up-and-down in my pace. Note, I ran an extra lap because, since I wasn't constantly looking at my watch, I was never really sure what lap I was on. So my sprint lap ended up being one lap later than I thought it was. So there you have it. Proof that listening to your body can be more effective than listening to your Garmin. Which is not to say I'm going to stop using my gadgets now. You can take the geek away from the gadget, buy you can never take the gadget away from the geek.
Peace. Love. Train.
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