Timing Is (Nearly) Everything

Today I had another good run!  The temperature was 54 degrees and the dew point was 51 degrees; I actually selected a long-sleeve T-shirt because it felt a little chilly.  What a surprising and wonderful way to end the month of July!  I know these temperatures and humidity won't last, but I intend to make the most of them while they do.

I started up Big Bearpen, my Monday morning mainstay, and had my sleeves rolled up in no time.  It was good to climb to another summit, and I pulled it so well that it might have been a recent record.  At the top, I glanced at my faithful Garmin and noticed a LOW BATTERY warning, but when I switched to another screen it disappeared and continued to track my distance.  I descended the mountain, and then ran out Lower Lake Road, turned on Gibson, and started down Harris Drive, glancing at my wrist from time to time.  The last reading I remember was a 3.75, or thereabouts, but by the time I reached the bottom of Harris Drive, it looked like this.

I had been hoping to record my overall pace, and perhaps even run a fast mile or some 400-meter intervals along the way, but the blank face of my watch put an end to that.  So I shrugged and continued on, keeping track of my mileage the "Old Way," before the era of GPS watches, when we used to mark our miles by that big rock along Lower Lake Road, that mailbox on Leonard Street, and the odd markings all over the road.

It turned out to be a wonderful feeling, to free myself (at least for a little while) from the constant tracking of my mileage to the hundredth of a mile, the relentless passage of time.  I picked up the pace from time to time, slacked off, running completely as I felt like it at every point along the way.

I have been advised from more than one quarter to ditch my watch from time to time, and some of my running friends (Mary, in particular) refuse to wear a watch at all.  And I did enjoy this feeling of freedom today, no question about it.  But when I completed my run, I did a little calculation in my head and wrote in my running log, "7.00 miles."  Yes, I am among those runners who like to keep meticulous records, after all.  I will throw caution - and my watch - to the wind when the occasion necessitates (this is not the first time a GPS watch has given out during a run) but I do like to record at least an estimated distance in my running log.  As it has been said:

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" - Jeremiah 13:23