Rob's Running Blog

A Garmin-Affected 5 Mile season’s best – 46:45

Had a few days off and have been quite sedentary, playing computer games and watching tennis generally, so felt I needed a workout!

Got my kit on and entered the cooler, cloudy air, and waited for Garmin to find a signal. Set off at a sedate pace and felt a twinge in my right calf, then an odd sensation, so stopped to give it a quick massage and then carried on, the first km ticked over in 5:50 even with the stop, so far so good! Felt the pace picking up and figured if I could maintain that kind of pace I would be in for a season’s best time. Felt myself getting quicker, and tried not to overdo it, then heard the Garmin bleep and checked the split – 5:26 for the 2nd km, but hang on, the total distance was 1.98 – and it stuck on that for a while.

The Windmill Lane hill was next but didn’t slow me too much, in fact I powered up it and continued my general paciness, so was a bit dismayed when the 3rd km ticked over in 6:30 – something had gone a bit wrong with the Garmin at some point. I figured I would just try to maintain my pace and see what I ended up with. After this glitch the kms seemed to tick over in more expected times, just around the 5:30 marker all the way through. I passed some runners none of whom seemed willing to acknowledge my smile or thumbs up 🙁 Though some drivers let me cross in front of them so they got the RoadrunnerRob thumbs up 😀

I was starting to slow in places but just tried to maintain form towards the end. The killer motorway bridge really took it out of me, followed by the Denton Rock incline, and then it was just keep going as best I could! Finally got near home and stopped the Garmin in 46:45. It was a season’s best, but only by 4 seconds; I felt I had run quicker than earlier in the month. Strangely enough, although my splits were on the whole quicker for this run, the total time was slower… So I think the anomaly was with that 3rd 6:30 km, the Garmin counted all splits as 1km but somewhere in there I seemed to have run an extra minute, or about 200m at my pace. So although I can’t offically say I smashed my season’s best, I think the fact I ran at a quicker pace more consistently is what I can take from it, and all is boding well for the next race, though I wish my calves would stop being so niggly!