Sunday, December 29, 2013

Playing With My New Toy

I got a new toy for Christmas.  A running toy.  The Garmin Forerunner 220!!

And obviously, since every little kid wants to play with their new Christmas toys right away, it got me to go run these past few days after Christmas.

I barely ran the past few weeks outside of a few times here and there (including a 5 mile run with Catherine) so I wanted to ease into things again.  There was snow and ice on the sidewalks, but luckily the roads have been cleared.  So on Thursday, I set out for a run on side streets through my neighborhood and another neighborhood.  Then I did the same route on Friday and Saturday.  And since I have the Garmin, I can give you some super detailed results:
 
Thursday:

3.42 miles in 27:36 = 8:04 average
Mile splits: 8:29, 7:55, 8:02, 3:08
Cadence = 177

Friday:

3.52 miles in 28:20 = 8:03 average
Mile splits: 7:44, 8:10, 8:17, 4:07
Cadence = 177

Saturday:

3.49 miles in 27:08 = 7:47 average
Mile splits: 7:47, 7:49, 7:51, 3:39
Cadence = 172

I think it's pretty cool that it measures cadence. I'm not sure how it does that exactly, but it's cool.  Back in September, Catherine and I went to a clinic at Fleet Feet and one of the topics was running form and cadence.  Cadence basically means how many steps per minute you take and an optimal cadence is 180.  So I have a bit of work to do.  I don't really know how to go about improving cadence, but I think I will look that up soon and then report back.

As far as those runs, I did the same route each day.  I must have cut some tangents or something to make the total distance be slightly varied over the 3.  It definitely felt harder than 3.5 miles should be for me but I am also proud of myself that each of the runs was completely continuous.  No stops at all.  Well actually there was 1 brief stop in each run to cross the busy street, but that doesn't count.

So far, I love the new Garmin and it definitely helped to get me out and running this week!

Have you ever measured your running cadence?

What new toys did you get for Christmas?

1 comment:

  1. Your new Christmas toy looks awesome! This year for Christmas, I got a new handbag, remote start for my car, and some clothes! I'm really excited mostly for my remote start. It'll save me so much time in the morning, and my car will be nice and warm in the morning!

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