Running Naked

This is what my Garmin screen looked like yesterday when I went to put it on for speed session.

Yes, I had charged it just the day before so it shouldn't have been flat. And I only went to put it on just before leaving so there was no time to charge it. I was going to have to go naked!! But just on my wrist because the world's not ready for the alternative.

I know that that wouldn't be a biggie for a lot of you but I like my numbers. I like seeing if I'm hitting my goal, which is to try to maintain even splits while running faster than I normally would on a regular run. I can feel great all day if I've had a good session. And how can I know if I've had a good session if I don't have any empirical data? And if I have no empirical data did I even run the session?

I'd had a good session last week. My watch had told me so. We'd started with a 3k which I did at 4:45 pace. Then it was a 2k and two 1ks and those three reps I'd done at 4:49 pace. Magically consistent! And I say magically because this almost never happens and certainly hadn't happened since I'd run Melbourne.

Despite my instinct, of just calling it quits and going back to bed before I even started, I decided to venture into this whole new world of running old-school. It wasn't an act of bravery or defiance, though. It was an act of duty. I had a birthday cake to deliver.

I asked him what flavour and he said chocolate. Too much?

It was weird not to press start when we began our warm up. And it was weird not to press the lap button every time I started and finished a rep. And it was really weird to not look down at my arm so I could work out how to feel. Should I feel happy because I'm running fast (for me)? Should I feel sad because I'm running slow but it feels hard?

I ended up settling for feeling slightly frustrated and pretty tired. Speed sessions always make me tired.
But I was strangely satisfied with it too because I went on to finish an extra kilometre even though I'd been given the option to stop. I may have gone a little bit over-time but no amount of encouragement from Coach Barry was going to get me to run that last 400m in 1:08.

Once the speed session was over you'd have thought the frustration would have been too but no - it followed me around for the rest of the day. I'd thought that I could at least record the distance I'd run in my log. Well I could have if I'd been able to remember how many reps I'd done. Lack of oxygen to the brain does strange things to my memory.

But the worst thing about this whole incident was not being able to look at how many calories I'd burned so I could eat some of the left-over chocolates from Ian's cake. Don't get me wrong - I still ate them. I just wasn't happy about the accompanying guilt which I wouldn't have had if my watch had been working.

I think I've worked out what the problem with the watch was now so hopefully I'll be fine for next week's session. And if not I may just have to ask Santa for an extra gift. I really hope my nice outweighs my naughty or that he's got a very short memory.