Success! Well, kinda

Obsessed with time as I am, I wait for the two-mile mark on my six-mile route and note that the GPS watch alerts me right where I think it should, and at that point I also start up my normal watch. Two watches? Well, I do have two wrists after all.

There actually is a reason, but I have a hard time explaining it. What happens next during today's run will help. I run this course fairly often, and I know where the mile splits are. Or at least where I have always thought they were. This is only the first or second time I've done this run whilst donning my GPS. Comparing the GPS miles with my own 'traditional' splits would be illustrative.

This was also yet another tempo attempt. Those haven't been going so swell lately - ever since that vacation. The funny thing is that the regular weekly speedwork does still seem to be going good. But tempos? Not so great. A case in point was Saturday's Pause for a Cause 5K in Medina. According to said trusty GPS, my mile splits were 7:18, 7:31 and 6:32, along with 1:40 for the final .1, which was more like .2. If I can't do 3 consecutive sub-seven minute miles in a race, how the heck can I do it in a training run?

My GPS tells me that mile three, the first of my three tempo miles, is also where I thought it
should be. The GPS therefore agrees with my watch for that first mile split time. And - yay - it's sub-seven.

I cross back over Pearl Road, turn right, then left for a nice downhill portion of the course. I cross over the traditional mile four and hit my watch again. Sub-seven again. Double-yay! But the GPS thinks I've got a way to go yet. It doesn't tell me that I've hit mile four for quite a while. When it does go off, the time is 7:18. Not so good.

A little chagrined, I continue south, cross over Center Road, and keep going. Now on the Dead Presidents streets, I come around and wind up heading north once again. I cross the traditional mile five point and hit my watch again to get the split. Great news - it is also sub-seven. I did it! Except the GPS is once again saying, literally and figuratively, not so fast. It once again waits until 7:17 or so to tell me that I've completed another mile.

I certainly do know what to do about all this: toss that dang contraption in the trash. Facts can be such pesky things.