Sunday, May 14, 2006
Running on empty
I received a bit of bad news this evening. From my pedometer.
The Sunday rain moved my thrice-weekly run indoors today. I happily laced up to catch up on my little Tivo surprises AND put the treadmill to good use. I also figured this would be a good time to just go ahead and check the ol' trusty pedometer against the treadmill's fancy display.
I have been deceived. I am living a lie. My running career, albeit a short one, has been a fraud. After 2.5 miles, I was .25 off, according to my little red waist-banded buddy. And off .25 in a BAD way. So my running victories -- namely, my 3 mile mark in Tucson -- were all for naught. Now, granted, I can still say -- well, hell, I ran 2.75 miles in Tucson -- and that's still going to be my all time high. But I feel as though my little digital friend has let me down. It's broken my heart a little bit and I don't know if I can ever feel the same about its little red face or the little clicky noise it makes when I run.
For about an hour I was moping around and wallowing in the self-pity of my setback. I couldn't even LOOK at my pedometer sitting there all remorseful on the table. I'm sure if my pedometer had more than a watch battery rattling around inside it might have pointed out that I completely misjudged/mismeasured my stride to begin with. Upon opening the package and meeting your pedo-friend for the first time, you're to walk or run 10 normal steps and then measure the distance and divide by 10. Voila -- your stride in inches. I clearly must have been long jumping at the time and entered my stride a whopping 4 inches more than it truly is. Which, after the innumerable steps of a two mile run -- is quite a miscalcuation.
Ah, but I've got to keep on trucking. I've got to accept that my whole business of my near 10 minute mile was all a big lie. A lie my pedometer told me. Cause the treadmill told me pretty straight-up, "Sister, it's more like 12:15/mile".
The important thing here is that I can handle the truth. I picked myself up, gave the pedometer a wry smile and will forge on with the plan -- October, Army 10-miler. Bring it.
And a damn fine thing I keep a W&M physics/comp sci double-major-double-masochist around this joint. That way I didn't have to do any of the math to figure out what my REAL stride was. He made it a "solve for x" problem. Genius. And that's pretty much all I can tell you about it. Clearly, because I did little more than make a sad face about the unmendable rift between my pedometer and I -- and hand him the little red beast.
The Sunday rain moved my thrice-weekly run indoors today. I happily laced up to catch up on my little Tivo surprises AND put the treadmill to good use. I also figured this would be a good time to just go ahead and check the ol' trusty pedometer against the treadmill's fancy display.
I have been deceived. I am living a lie. My running career, albeit a short one, has been a fraud. After 2.5 miles, I was .25 off, according to my little red waist-banded buddy. And off .25 in a BAD way. So my running victories -- namely, my 3 mile mark in Tucson -- were all for naught. Now, granted, I can still say -- well, hell, I ran 2.75 miles in Tucson -- and that's still going to be my all time high. But I feel as though my little digital friend has let me down. It's broken my heart a little bit and I don't know if I can ever feel the same about its little red face or the little clicky noise it makes when I run.
For about an hour I was moping around and wallowing in the self-pity of my setback. I couldn't even LOOK at my pedometer sitting there all remorseful on the table. I'm sure if my pedometer had more than a watch battery rattling around inside it might have pointed out that I completely misjudged/mismeasured my stride to begin with. Upon opening the package and meeting your pedo-friend for the first time, you're to walk or run 10 normal steps and then measure the distance and divide by 10. Voila -- your stride in inches. I clearly must have been long jumping at the time and entered my stride a whopping 4 inches more than it truly is. Which, after the innumerable steps of a two mile run -- is quite a miscalcuation.
Ah, but I've got to keep on trucking. I've got to accept that my whole business of my near 10 minute mile was all a big lie. A lie my pedometer told me. Cause the treadmill told me pretty straight-up, "Sister, it's more like 12:15/mile".
The important thing here is that I can handle the truth. I picked myself up, gave the pedometer a wry smile and will forge on with the plan -- October, Army 10-miler. Bring it.
And a damn fine thing I keep a W&M physics/comp sci double-major-double-masochist around this joint. That way I didn't have to do any of the math to figure out what my REAL stride was. He made it a "solve for x" problem. Genius. And that's pretty much all I can tell you about it. Clearly, because I did little more than make a sad face about the unmendable rift between my pedometer and I -- and hand him the little red beast.
# posted by Cathy @ 11:37:00 PM 
