Weekly Averages, Time: 0:59:00 Distance: 6.48 mi. Vertical: 725 ft.
My Garmin 610 broke Sunday morning. <sigh> I had a front seat view of the approaching Mount Baker National Forest and somewhere along I-5 N the damn watch decided it had enough. What a drag, you know. I rarely look at my watch during a run, but I take an immense amount of comfort and pleasure knowing that everything I'm doing is being recorded. I'm connected, on the grid! I'll be able to check-out the data when I sit down with a cold brew in front of the, often too bright, computer screen. My eyes usually drying faster than my thirst is quenched. But, as I fiddled with the watch and nothing happened I began to take myself away from my upcoming adventure on the east side of Baker Lake. I was forgetting that two feet don't require much more than the cross-bridge cycle of actin combining with myosin and adenosine triphosphate to produce force. Mix in some synapse, neurons, coordination and motivation and voila: one foot in front of the other. Instead, I was ill-tempered that my luxury watch gave me the middle finger and took a permanent vacation. I felt about as lost as the crew of the Voyager (Star Trek). 70,000 light years is a bit much, but you know part of me did feel like that. I looked up, the lonely peak of an unidentified mountain brought me back. Took a deep breath, put the watch down, and enjoyed the ride. When shit hits than fan you have to clean it up. Gawking over the pseudo-inconveniences of life just leaves a mess that can just as easily be cleaned up. I ran the next 3+ hours without a watch and when we finished felt like I had only been gone for 45 minutes. I got home, mapped out the run using some Topography software plugged in the numbers and logged it in the log book.
Here's the video of a watch-less run:
Tell me about your 'luxury' running issues in the comments section or on Facebook. I'm sure I'm not alone in this, right?
I still Remeber the first day in a long time that I went for a run without an iPod. It was at Calloway gardens in Ga. It brought me back to the days where I didn't need or want a distraction from running. The sound of my feet on the gravel and early morning was more than enough for me. Needless to say I haven't had the "luxury" of music on a run since that day.
ReplyDeleteYou remember the days of running in jeans and Corduroys through the neighborhood. Haha, middle school was great.
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