The Benefits of Ignoring Your Garmin

That's Right, I Ignored My Watch Today

The past few days my knee has been giving me a little trouble.  I've always had knee issues since I was a teenager (too many horse-stances and front kicks in karate, I think).  When I straighten my leg, particularly when I'm in bed, my knee pops.  It's not really painful, but certainly noticeable.  Today I had a long run scheduled, a 5K distance.  I was telling Matt before I walked out the door for it that I would probably just do two miles and be back shortly.  I was wrong.

I decided that instead of looking at my watch every few minutes to check my pace (like I usually do), I would just run.  I took my time and ran according to how I was feeling, not how fast I wanted to be going.  I only checked my watch (covering up the pace reading) to see how far I had gone so that I knew when to turn back towards the house.  I actually felt pretty good throughout the run!  Once I got going, it was clear that I should just go ahead and do the 3.1 miles.  I thought about walking a few times, but just kept going and ended up running the entire thing.

It was a gorgeous day for running.  I wore my gloves and headband to keep warm, but ended up dropping off the gloves in a bush on the way out and dropped off my headband with them when I passed by it again (I did a loop, then a little extra to get in the last 3/4 mile).  The sun was shining and the birds were chirping.  I saw a beautiful little hawk on a telephone pole just before I got back to the house.

I turns out that ignoring my watch was a really good idea!  I ended up running the 3.1 miles in 38:17 minutes.  That's a 12:12 min/mile pace and just three minutes shy of my goal pace for my upcoming race.  For just getting back into running a month ago, I'm proud of this and the progress I have made!

What are you up to this weekend?

If you run, do you ever ignore your watch and just go by how you feel?