Start time: 05/26/06, 8:45am
Location: Clarendon neighborhood
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 8:57min/mile

The plan was a pretty simple one; head out around 8am, run 4 miles and give the Garmin 301 Forerunner a whirl. It’s supposed to be raining/storming after work today, so running before work was paramount. I was running a little late, but that was ok–an 8:15 start time would still work. So, suited up and ready to get moving, I stepped out the door, turned on the Garmin… and it said that it was at a “low battery” level of power and had “0 hours” of battery life left. What??? I’d charged it fully up on Wednesday, surely it was all right? The only thing I could think is that when I played with the software on the computer and hooked it up through the USB port, it somehow drained the battery rather than charging it. It’s either that, or it can’t hold a charge. Hmph.

So, back inside I went, and hooked it up to the charger for about half an hour until it said it had “1 hour” of power. Then it was back outside for a now-shortened 3-mile run. It went pretty well; I didn’t mess with intervals, just wanting to get used to the basic functions of the watch itself. I was thinking for some reason that it was going to beep at me each mile, although for all I know it did and I just didn’t hear it over the headphones. But it did auto-lap each mile, which was more important, and afterwards I was able to download the data off to provide me with a cheezy map, and more importantly my splits. The first one supposedly was a 7:59 (?!), the second and third more reasonable at 9:24 and 9:29. Considering that a good portion of mile 3 is uphill, such a small slip is a great thing in my book. Afterwards I used the Gmaps Pedometer and it said the route was 2.9 miles. So it could have been a hiccup in the first mile (a distinct possibility with that split), or just an overall slight slide in distance. With some more usages I’ll have a better idea. Regardless, even if it was only 2.9 miles, it was still a good run… despite the last third of a mile involving getting rained on. Hmph.