Archive for May 31st, 2010

My Garmin Is Sexier Than Yours
I started getting a ton of traffic yesterday to my Anatomy Of A Well-Loved Garmin post.  Apparently, there’s a fetish site called Watch Girls based on women wearing large watches.  Someone on their forum linked to that post with my full name included and a note that it’s an American blog.  It’s definitely a foreign proclivity, hardly any hits from the USA but the rest of the world is well represented, and they’re still coming in droves.  Check out their Models page – too funny!

What Happened At Yesterday’s Race
My finish time was an entire minute slower than expected.  Now esplain me this, Lucy:  just 10 days before the race, I did a 3mi tempo run in 21:06 in 75 degree temps.  That’s a pace of 7:02 compared to yesterday’s 6:59 -  just three seconds slower, same conditions.  I don’t run my tempos at 5K pace, so WTF happened yesterday?  Part of it was this:

These are 1/4 mile splits.  My first 1/4 mile was 6:25 but only because I looked at my Garmin, saw 6:16, freaked and put the brakes on.  As you can see, I kept those brakes on for the next mile!  It wasn’t uphill or anything, I was simply unsure of myself and that did me in.  I didn’t even look at my watch after that first mile, I thought I was going as hard as I could sustain.

So I tend to think it was my brain and lack of race practice that were the real culprits here.

Thus, I spent yesterday afternoon searching out summer races and came up with 6 races from June-Aug: five 5Ks and a 5-miler.  Frankly, I dread each and every one of them – I hate racing in hot weather and these ain’t gonna be cool, but the only way to get over the dread is to face it, or to quote that overused acronym, HTFU.

A final thing worth noting (apologies to my male readers): Last year, a couple weeks after my 5K PR, I raced another 5K and much to my dismay, came in a full minute slower.  That race was 6 days before my period.   Guess what?  I’m expecting my period in 6 days.  So perhaps this was also a possible contributor to the suckage.  Hormones are so confoundedly mysterious.

Saucony Kinvaras!
I’m really not good with shoe reviews, I don’t have smart things to say like “the cushioning felt resistant yet firm while the feedback from arch to blah blah gave a smooth ride and handled blah blah…”  I’m not that observant.  But I’ll say this: I LOVE these shoes!!  Rovatti, you had it right!

Few things: I always wear 1/2 size larger in running shoes, but not in these, they’re size 9s and they feel fantastic.  I have wide-ish feet but they feel very comfortable with enough wiggle room in the toes.  And so incredibly light at 7 oz!  That’s only 1/2 oz. heavier than my racing flats, yet I think they can handle being my regular training shoes from here on in.

I didn’t notice the heel drop per se, though there’s a lot of cushioning on the forefoot and it seemed natural to be running the “new” way in them.  I took ‘em for 7 miles and could have kept going but didn’t want to go too far after a race day.

Design-wise, they have an unusual sheer fabric over the main upper mesh…it’s like running shoe lingerie.  They’re also horribly pink but that’s all the store had.

My Running Gait Video
Memorial Day means nobody was around on the street this morning,  so after my run I took some video to see how my gait’s coming along.  It’s coming along!  Not perfect by any means, but the overstriding is getting under control.  Very pleased.  Btw, I didn’t think much about gait during the race so if I get a photo worth posting, expect to see me overstriding.

This video shows 2 views, 3 speeds for each view.
Edit: for my opinion of what I need to work on from seeing this video, read the comment I made to Jim.