As a 150 pound man I'm a slow jogger....as a diminutive runner I know my own pace!

For me, Tuesday means intervals! I was woken up by a heavy rainstorm, but luckily things were dry by the time I actually got up. Following my new rule I had some cereal and yogurt for breakfast. Then after some general procrastination, I headed out for my run. I KNEW it was going to be hot today but I absent-mindedly walked out the door without any water! But (with my head still in a cloud) I wasn't worried, didn't turn around and figured I'd be fine. How wrong I was!

My Garmin always pesters me when I run intervals, but today it was ESPECIALLY bad. I actually started off with an amazingly fast (well fast for me!) warm up mile somehow, but when it came to my first interval this is what happened:


Garmin: Speed up! You're only going a slow jog!

Me: What? I'm going faster than my warm-up. And today that was FAAAAAST.

Garmin: I'm telling you, you're too slow. SPEED. UP.

Me: I am NOT going too slow! My arms are pumping, my legs are striding, I'm breathing hard. This has to be a SLOW RUN at least!

Garmin: WRONG. It's a slow jog. NOW SPEED UP!


And so we bickered this way for the rest of my 0.5 mile interval, until it suddenly hit me. Yesterday I switched my Garmin Training Center over from my work laptop to a netbook we usually use for traveling. Yes, so I could log all my runs while on holiday! I'd transferred all the data from my watch, but then I must've forgot to set my profile to my own specific paces.

My Garmin thought I was a 150 pound man and was using the default paces. Clearly someone's slow jog was MY run!

Good realization but it meant that it was down to ME to hit my target pace, without the help of my usually trusty Garmin. My run was hard in the end--I blame it on heat + trying to run too fast + stoopid you didn't bring any water. I did a lot of walking in between and even stopped during the 3rd interval. But after checking my interval times I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was pretty close to my usual 8:20/mile target.

When I first got my Garmin it made such a difference just to be able to know how fast or slow I was going. Now I'm really happy that I have some sense of my own pace, even without a GPS watch. And the next time I feel like I'm running either too fast or slow.....I'm going to trust my instincts, no matter what that pesky Garmin is telling me to do!