Death of a Garmin

My GPS watch died today, about 6km into a long run. I glanced down at the screen and instead of numbers there was only a neon green square. It was kind of exciting because my watch had never tried to communicate like that with me before, but sad because I knew it was in the middle of some heavy death throes. The end was at hand, and afterwards the watch would no longer be useful to me. I was selfish, I admit it.

Numbness and irritation soon gave way to a giant feeling of freedom. On this run I would be totally unencumbered by measured time or distance! I had no idea what time it was and I didn't care. I had a full water bottle, tons of gels in my pocket and sunglasses against the strong winds. I had everything I needed.

The sun appeared and I ran on the sunny side of the street. I ran past slow walkers and pushed up hills. I let it all go on the downhills. On and on I ran with only my music robot to inspire me. I thought about my life and those of everyone I know. A dull pain appeared on my left hip which I took to mean that I was at about the 20k mark. Still so far to go.

When I got home, I saw that I had run for about 3 hours and I felt great. I chalk that up to a low exercise effort last week: just 2 zumba classes at work and a spin class. I totally get why we taper for races.