Garmin Woes, Week 2

Introducing Garfield Garmin who replaced Garmin the Garmin.  If you're wondering why I didn't make a big stink about his arrival it is because he has been a grumpy fool the last few months and I haven't really felt like giving him the blog space.

Sunday:  7 miles @ 9:51 pace;  Did two Strawberry Hills ascents.

Tuesday:  6 miles, including 2x 1600m with 800m recovery; I was really excited to do this workout because I haven't done mile repeats since January.  It is a very long story but the short version is that Garfield Garmin decided to eat my splits like lasagna.  I'm fairly certain they were sub-8:00 and I was even thinking I might have posted an unofficial mile PR (previously 7:53).  But I guess we'll never know...  I suppose the important thing is that I'm running faster than I was pre-Texas.

Wednesday:  7 miles @ 9:42 pace

Friday:  14 miles @ 9:39 pace;  The miles went by so quickly and I felt strong.  I think it is safe to say that my "easy" pace has gone sub-10:00 which is right where I want to be right now.  Dipped down into the low-9:00's for a bit at the end which felt like a nice working pace.


Garmin the Garmin was a rockstar and never gave me huge troubles.  My dad's Garmin 405 broke and I mentioned to him that when I finally upgraded mine I would give him my old one.  It was almost my birthday so my dad offered to buy me a new one if I gave him my old one.  WIN!  So I finally got my lovely new orange Garmin 310XT.  I was smart and bought it from REI (you can return anything, anytime for any reason) in case I got a lemon.

Garfield 1.0 was a lemon.  After a few runs he locked up and I promptly took him back and returned him to REI.  I then ordered a new one.  Garfield 2.0 (the one I currently have) then went on to lock up the same way as Garfield 1.0!!  Argh!!!  I called Garmin support at this point since obviously it was some sort of widespread issue.  I was told to reset the unit and the next software update should take care of it.  Garfield 2.0 was behaving pretty well after this, though I held my breath every time we'd start off to see if it is going to lock up.

Well, the other day the long awaited software update was posted. They actually didn't have my issue listed as one of the fixes, but I went ahead and updated.  This caused the debacle of Tuesday's run.  AND now ever since Garfield isn't locking satellites as well in the beginning of the run.  My distance and pace is all wonky the first half a mile and I've had to add on extra mileage at the end of my run to make up for this.

I've decided this is all kharma for deporting Garmin the Garmin before his time.  I liked to think of his time with my dad as a nice retirement in Hawaii doing lesiurely 2 mile runs.  Apparently he preferred running marathons with me.  I haven't decided if I should stick with Garfield 2.0 for a bit or get yet another one or just scrap this whole idea.  Maybe Garmin 610?  I think I prefer buttons to a touch screen.    I am starting to think REI has some sort of bad apple bunch of 310's lying around because most people seem pretty pleased with theirs.  Le sigh.