Are You Indoors? Yes or No?
I hate when my Garmin watch asks me that! It inevitably leads to the next question of 'Have you moved 100 miles since your last use?', followed by my favorite "Is today's date __ __, ____?", (I know what it really wants to say is 'Are you suuuure you're not inside, you moron?!').
Well, now I know what happens when you answer ‘yes’ to that question: It doesn’t record your distance.
Well, now I know what happens when you answer ‘yes’ to that question: It doesn’t record your distance.
Monday afternoon I flipped on my Garmin, put it on the window sill, like always, to locate the satellites. 8 years later, it was still searching. Ok, fine, I’ll just go through my half-ass stretching routine. No problem. It’ll be done by then.
2 minutes later (I would never have patience for yoga), my watch was asking me my favorite question of whether I was inside or outside. (You'd think it would be used to the trip to Cleveland by now)
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| 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi..ok done! |
2 minutes later (I would never have patience for yoga), my watch was asking me my favorite question of whether I was inside or outside. (You'd think it would be used to the trip to Cleveland by now)
Well George (my Garmin is named after my very first running buddy, a 70-something yr old man), technically yes, I am inside. So what the heck, lets enter ‘Yes’. It finished loading instantly! Why hadn’t I ever tried this before!?
Oh, I’ll tell you why.
6:26 minutes later, when I reached the fence where I drop off my water bottle, I looked down to see my pace and noticed my distance was 0 ft. 0ft? 0 FEET!?!?! What do you mean 0 ft, you crazy worthless watch? I just ran that stupid block, dodging goose poop in the sun! Trust me, I remember!
Then it dawned on me. THIS must be what happens when you tell your watch you’re inside. Crap. After 5 minutes of trying to figure out how to let George know I was now outside (I swear the squirrel in the tree above me was snickering), I finally got it up and running. Luckily, I knew that the block I’d just run was .85 miles (though, to be safe I rounded it to .8…ya know, just to be safe ;-) ).
The rest of the run was spent trying to do math. If you ever want to keep a runner busy, make them do simple math. I can't even count the number of times I've tried (and failed) to figure out how many miles I had to go in a Half Marathon when I reached mile marker 11 (runners can't do math while running, I swear, look it up!)
For the life of me, I could not figure out what mileage my watch would have to be at for me to head back home and have 9 miles when I got there. I tried adding, subtracting, rounding, drawing math problems in the air with my finger. It was a lost cause from the start, I might as well have been trying to figure out cold fusion.
For the life of me, I could not figure out what mileage my watch would have to be at for me to head back home and have 9 miles when I got there. I tried adding, subtracting, rounding, drawing math problems in the air with my finger. It was a lost cause from the start, I might as well have been trying to figure out cold fusion.
Somehow I figured it out and did 9.04 miles. And aside from the watch debacle, I had fun! The leaves have started to change colors and I got to crunch obnoxiously on the ones that had fallen (and of course I sought out the biggest bunches of them on the ground)
Anyone else ever have watch/math issues on their runs?
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| How I miss you Cleveland Metroparks |
Anyone else ever have watch/math issues on their runs?
Apparently the Garmin always wants to look for the same satellites it used last time you had it on. You can empty your satellite cache by holding down the power button + the down button. It doesn't really tell you are doing anything, but it clears the cache so it starts to look for any satellite rather than the satellite it remembers.
ReplyDeleteOoh! Good to know, thanks!
ReplyDeleteI hate it when this happens and it is usually at the most inopportune time like at a group run. "You go on ahead and I'll catch up"...5 minutes later...still waiting...then having to race the run to try to catch up. Love my Garmin when it works but when it doesnt....grrrrrrr.
ReplyDelete