My Running Buddy Has Betrayed Me

I'm mad at my Garmin. I've cooled down, but at one time during my run I was literally cursing it. Loudly. I do believe the f-bomb was dropped a couple of times.

I decided this morning that I was going to prove to myself that I can have a great run. I did two new things with my Garmin this morning (one which I won't do again): I set up the virtual training partner and then I turned on the auto-pause (to be used - hopefully - only when stuck at a light or refilling my water bottles). I set the virtual training partner for 13:30 minute/miles (just to give me an ego boost to see myself ahead of the little guy) and off I went.

I set out to do 15 miles. I did a little more (but not according to the Garmin). When I got the Garmin, I knew going around Rice with it would be iffy because of the trees and thus a negative impact on the GPS system. But I've used it so much around Rice that I know where it cuts out and that it only does it for about 30 seconds or so, and then it catches up with me. Today, with the auto-pause in there, it got itself way out of whack. Case in point: when I got back into Rice (I did the majority of it not around Rice and planning on doing my last 6 miles in there), it said I had 6.5 miles to go. Wonderful - I came in on the long side and new that finishing that loop plus adding on two more would get me over 7.4, which would give me a nice cool-down after the last 6.5 miles. After doing what I knew would be 6.5 miles (since I knew Rice so well), it said that I still had 1.8 miles left to go - it kept turning itself off and I kept running and then it would auto-resume and stay at a distance for over 10 minutes and it was just a mess!!!! I turned it off when I knew I made 15 miles. And another way I know I'm right - I had my Garmin on my right wrist and my regular running watch on my left wrist. There was over 25 minutes difference between the two times when I stopped.

But here are my splits for the "13.3" miles (when it was really 15).

Mile 1 - 11:27 (now my fastest mile ever)
Mile 2 - 11:34
Mile 3 - 11:28
Mile 4 - 11:51
Mile 5 - 12:07
Mile 6 - 12:16
Mile 7 - 12:08
Mile 8 - 12:24
Mile 9 - 12:30 (average)
Mile 10 - 12:30 (average) (mile 9 and 10 was where the GPS started acting up. Lap 9 was 1.6 miles and lap 10 was .4 miles, so I averaged the total time for those two miles)
Mile 11 - 13:41 (GPS acting up - I know it was closer to 13)
Mile 12 - 13:0 (this is right)
Mile 13 - 17:19 (GPS acting up - I know this isn't right at all)
Mile .2 - 3:43 (I walked - I was so frustrated by this point).
Average running pace: 12:43, but I know it was more like 12:15 or so. Even with the problems, I had some great time and I set unofficial PRs in 5k, 10k and half-marathon.

Here's where I stopped the Garmin, but as I said, I know I went an extra 1.8 miles.

I know I did positive splits and instead of getting faster, I was slowly getting slower. I'm ok with this because I knew I was pushing myself hard in the beginning and I wanted to and I was going to slow down on purpose so as to not hurt myself in the long run. Towards the end, I did start hurting, but I was not psychologically in the mood anymore because I was so frustrated with my Garmin. ARGHHH!!!!

Oh well. I had a great run and now I'm going to soak in a cold tub for 10 minutes and then stand in a warm shower.

Cheers!