Apparently, water-resistant isn't the same as waterproof (who knew?), and after finally (finally!) changing the battery on my Garmin, I wore it in the pool on vacation and completely and totally fried it. Oops. I had hoped putting a fresh battery in would help, but the inside is all rusty and corroded. Lesson learned. A rather expensive lesson, that.
Did I ever tell you about the time I actually submerged a toaster (yes, I at least unplugged it first) in soapy water to clean it? And it wasn't even labeled "water-resistant." Clearly I have some work to do when it comes to common sense.
As luck would have it, I still had my Nike+ sitting around (I'm actually shocked I was able to find both pieces of it), so I took that for a spin on my run last night. The whole reason I discarded the Nike+ in favor of the Garmin was that the Nike just isn't that accurate. But as it turns out, neither is my Garmin, which had me running something like 28 miles for the marathon, rather than the more standard 26.2. I don't think I'm going to get the accuracy I want without springing for GPS. Of course, my phone has GPS, but I'm not sure I can get used to carrying something so big and bulky, especially since hardly any of my running shorts have pockets (don't even get me started on that). And, if I'm going to carry something big and bulky, I'm wondering if it should be the can of mace I got for Valentine's Day last year. Now if only someone would build a phone with mace built in...
Another reason I had discarded the Nike+ was that for a long time I could only get audio books on a non-Apple MP3 player, so then I was carrying my iPod just for the Nike+ function. Fortunately, technology has caught up with me (or something like that), and I now use my iPod for everything, which means I can hear the little voice in my earbuds saying, "Two miles to go." That little voice has the potential to belong to Tiger Woods too, so how can I go wrong? Of course, that does sort of set you up for failure in a longer-distance race when Tiger is telling you two miles to go and the mile markers are telling you it's more like six. That's probably worse than the people who yell, "You're almost there" at mile 22 of the marathon. Because really, you're not "almost there" in the marathon until you hit mile 26.
liam's college graduation!
2 months ago
2 comments:
hi there--I arrived here from a link on the Run Like a Mother site. Hope it isn't too weird to have someone you don't know reading, never mind commenting on your blog. I'm from Chicago originally too, now in Utah.
Commenting to say, you are funny---and I'm lifting your daughters' "All about my mom" book idea for Father's day, and I wish I knew what line you were referring to in Tina Fey's book, but what I really came here to ask is, what is time is too slow to risk for a 5K? I'm slow and signed up for my first 5K, stupidly only calilbrated my nike+ now...and learned what I thought was 3.1 miles was really closer to 2.5...
Hi, Deidre. I really don't think there's a time that is possibly too slow for a 5K. When I ran my first race (which was an 8K--and I had never even run that far before), I was pretty worried I was going to come in last because I was REALLY slow. But I didn't and had so much fun, so really don't worry about being too slow. Go out and run it, and you'll have a blast. Plus, the really fun thing about starting out as a slower runner is that you see HUGE improvements in your times as you get better and better.
As for the Tina Fey thing, she has a part where she talks about being a "little bit fat" in relation to clothing sizes. I think in the end she says all women should spend some time being a little bit fat and a little bit too skinny, or something like that. It's a great book. You should check it out!
I really need to calibrate my Nike+ too...
Thanks for reading!
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