Despite the continuation of last week’s madness, I have logged two runs so far this week — both of them watch-less.
Yesterday my friend E, after listening to me describe the agony that is coordinating parent volunteers at our sons’ school, urged me to step away from edge..ur I mean laptop, and join her for a run. I usually run by myself so this was a really nice change of pace. Instead of worrying about my Garmin, I let E set the pace and just enjoyed chatting my way through our 4 mile loop. I returned to my laptop less stressed!
This morning the plan called for a tempo run – but having enjoyed not being a slave to my Garmin yesterday, I decided to just run on feel and see what happened. Now I must admit that I did wear my Garmin but I only glanced at it once at the 2 mile beep. And, when I saw that I was ahead of pace, instead of panicking and slowing down out of fear of burn-out before I finished (my usual M.O.), I just kept cruising along. The end result was I beat my target pace by 30 seconds. Hello!
The Garmin is a valuable tool, no doubt about it…but there’s a lot to be said for not letting the numbers rule every run.
So tell me, do you ever leave the watch at home?
I never leave the garmin at home but I also don’t look at it much when I’m running either. I do look at the information when I get home though.
I wear a simple running watch, so can’t speak to the garmin. But I definitely leave the watch at home plenty of times. Today was one of those days š
Good way to remind ourselves why we love to run.
Great run! Nice reminder that the numbers might be useful in training, sometimes they get in the way. Glad you were able to refocus with a great run!
I leave the watch at home when I don’t need to know the distance…I’m looking forward to running without it soon!
Way to go!!! On my shorter runs I usually don’t use my Garmin…the longer ones I use it for distance mostly.
I always wear it, but I don’t always look at it. Some of my better runs have been when I don’t even look at it once.
I always ditch my Garmin if I am doing an easy run the day before a race. Also, if I just don’t feel like running, I will leave the Garmin at home…telling myself that it is better to get out there and run (not worrying about time) than to put off the run altogether. More often than not, I feel much better after those easy runs than when I started!
I have a Garmin, used it about 3 times and decided it wasn’t for me. I am more low-tech; plain old IM watch. I do like to hit my splits during races and tried one time to go w/o a watch and decided that wasn’t for me, however. Enjoy your new-found (occasional) freedom!