The Wonders of Technology: Part 1 of an undeclared amount

So I finally took the plunge and joined the rest of the technologically affluent athletic community (well, the intelligent athletic community anyway, i.e. most things that don't involve balls or pads) and got a GPS watch!  Mostly to be used for running, but maybe a bit of cycling as well just to have fun with the elevation profile so I don't have to plot my route on mapmyride.com anymore.  Previous to this, I had just been wearing a normal watch.  I never felt the need to progress any further than this until I ran a marathon that did not have pace groups.  Perhaps the only upside to this stone age approach is that it was the only thing still giving me the opportunity to use math on a semi-daily basis ("I need to be running 6:37 miles and it's mile 17 so the elapsed time should read what?  Eh, I give up, I'm tired").  Besides, studies have shown that your brain uses an incredible percentage of energy stores to operate so why give it any more to do that it needs and rob my body of those precious calories?  I prefer to have something else do the thinking for me so I can plod along mindlessly, thanks very much.

But back to the wonders of the Garmin 205.  I bought it for $150, which a steal considering that its MSRP is about $100 more than that.  I would have sprung for the model with an HRM, but I feel that it's an unnecessary distraction for people who have nothing better to do than over-analyze every single one of their workouts.  Secondly, one would benefit far more from actually listening to and getting to know one's own body instead of just looking at a number and having no feeling to associate it with.  

Cool thing number 1:  It tells me exactly what pace I'm running in that moment!  This is phenomenal and it feels so great not having to get to a mile marker to find out how fast I'm running.  However, Pittsburgh it surprisingly tall building and tree-lined and that often messes with the satellite reception.  Occasionally I'll be running 10:00/mile pace, only to follow it up with a super-human (well, super-me, anyway) 4:28/mile pace.  But I can overlook this minor flaw.  It's not as if I'm staring at my watch the entire time I'm running anyway, and if I am, I have other problems to deal with first.

Cool thing B:  It allows me to easily track how far I've run for the session.  This is also another thing that is obviously impossible to do without such a unit, unless of course I would drive the route ahead of time in the car that I don't own.

Cool thing iii:  It comes with a program (that runs on Macs, too!) on which you can upload all of your running data from the watch.  From here, you can take a look at the elevation profile and, since it's a GPS, the exact route that you ran.  My only gripe about this is that the maps that the program uses do not show every street around so, unless you're on a main road, you can't really tell exactly where you went.  But it's pretty awesome because you can match up different parameters.  For example, you can compare the elevation with your pace to see if you really ended up slowing down during a sustained climb or how much you sped up on downhills.

There are many other bonuses about it, but I'm running out of different ways to number/letter things.  I can't wait to use this in a marathon (or really any race for that matter) and view all the stats from it.

For those of you keeping up with my schedule, I'm quite positive I'm going for Steamtown.  I've had a few great long runs and can feel myself working up to where I want to be.  That race is only about five weeks away or so.  If I can crank out 40-45 mile weeks for two of those, I'll feel pretty ready.  Stay tuned for the upcoming last tri of the season and my shorter running races leading up to Steamtown.  Cheers!