Training Tools

For my birthday last month I received a nifty new sport watch...go HERE. Then I posted about the new stuff HERE. I do love me a gadget and if it's a running related type gadget even better! 

So my first post I was concerned that the darn thing would be more of a distraction than a help. Which it kinda was. I did a fair amount of playing with it during my half marathon. THEN I realized how much information that device packs...a lot! I get my pace, avg pace, elapsed time and distance as well as a history, records and other fun stuff. NOW I can see what my pace is and what my average is in a very short period of time AND during my run. Not only does it show me all of that information - once I get home and upload the information to my computer...more information is made available. HOLY COW...who know fitness could be so much fun?!

So, since my watch is GPS I get a map of the route that we ran AND when you review the route and let it run, it will show what your pace was at any given point during the run and it will also be color coded. The quicker you run the more green you'll see if you slow down it will turn to yellow if you REALLY slow down (walk) then you get a big ol' red section on the route. It's cool and not so cool at the same time. I had to get over myself pretty quick as I post my stats to facebook from the nike website. Because if anyone were to click on the map it would "fly" through the route and show just how slow I go. I might be slow, but I get out there and do it...HA!

The thing that I really don't like would be the red sections on my route. Depending on the day, I might have a few spots or just a couple. Today was just a couple because I REALLY didn't want that much red on my map! 

So what this watch is turning out to be is a giant kick in the rear! Toward the end of my last training plan I did a fair amount of brain training - telling myself that I CAN do a certain section of the training or make it up the hill or make it another mile or whatever. If I gave in every time I felt something unpleasant I won't see any improvement. Now that I don't like red on my maps I'll be training even better than before. 

As we start our next training plan I hope to see more improvements over the next 12 weeks. Maybe I'll take another 10 minutes off my last half marathon time.