Saturday, July 18, 2009

Deciding Factors

As I was running 15 miles this morning, I determined there were two deciding factors in the success of that run. First of all, the weather was absolutely perfect. When I finished the temperature was 67 degrees. You can't beat that for a mid-July run. I started out a little after seven o'clock, and even though the sun was up and the sky was clear for the whole outing, it wasn't as brutal as it had been earlier this week. Thank God for awesome weather!

The second deciding factor was that I felt better in my upper body. This is the first week in a long while where I've been able to do my dumbbell exercises all three times (M-W-F) as well as my ankle weight exercises. When I'm able to get those exercises in, my upper body feels better and is less prone to breakdown and fatigue, which ultimately affects my run. It was nice to feel good again in that respect, and with baseball and softball season finally finished I should be able to keep up the schedule.

A couple of Garmin notes: Apparently I had left it on and not sitting on its cradle between Tuesday and Thursday, so on my Thursday run I couldn't take it with me due to the low battery. I now know I have to make sure it's off when not in use. Also, when my run is finished and I've reached the target, it stops and won't continue. I was interested in continuing today after my 15 miles so I could see how my heart rate declined and the length of time it took to do so. There might be a way to keep it going, but after pressing a few buttons I discovered I sure don't know what the method is. Guess I need to read the manual some more. Again, I still like the device and was kind of bummed I didn't have it on Thursday. But I ran without it before, and I'll run without it again if I have to.

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