My Watch Thinks I'm...

In some ways, my Garmin 620 thinks I'm really slow. All it sees are my daily slogs where I either a) run very slowly but manage ten or so miles, or b) run much slower still for only a few miles. Occasionally, it sees me running somewhat longer on weekend days. But now that I've done at least a couple races, it can observe some slightly faster running. 'Slightly' being the key word.

A week ago I ran the Victims' Rights 5K in Medina. This free event is tiny in numbers and takes place during a weekday evening. My time was about as expected: 24:30 or so. That's close to Personal Worst territory, but I wasn't totally unhappy with it. One must take what one can get these days, and I would have been happy with anything at all.

And my watch was happier still. 'New 5K PR!', it exclaimed. Since it and I have only been acquainted since mid-January of this year, I suppose that that's about right; I never have actually run faster than that this year.

If it was happy then, it was positively extatic on Sunday, when I ran the Race for Brunswick Blue Pride 5K in 23:19. 'New 5K PR!', it exclaimed for the second time in four days. And once again I felt it was about right. Nowhere near the race times I managed a year back, but one must, as they say, take what one can get.

So yes, my watch thinks I'm slow. I get it. I am. But in some ways, it thinks I'm actually better than I am. I only wish I knew why. It calculates my VO2 Max on an ongoing basis, and it has me at 56 now. I don't know what that means, but it's the best it's been for the year. Good to see that steady improvement. I think it bases it's race prediction times on VO2 Max, although I'm not sure.

My race prediction times are: 19 minutes for 5K, 38 minute for 10K, 1:24 for a half-marathon and 2:57 for a marathon.

I have a lot to live up to.