February 18, 2011

Run Or Eat? I Chose Run!

I had my sitter today so she could watch the little guy while I took his sister to school and run some errands. There were two major things on the list : take dog to groomers and get some groceries. I had to come back home to get the dog, and while I was home I convinced myself to run instead of buying food. Luckily, my 2 year old lives on Goldfish crackers and noodles (both of which are stocked in the pantry) and the baby doesnt eat any "real" food at all!
On a great note, although I decided my family could stave so that I could squeeze in 2 miles, this actually was not the case. I managed to get in my 2 miles, take a shower, and stop off at the grocery store on my way to pick up Brooke from school. YAY ME!

Run Log
I mapped out a 2 mile route from the dog groomers and head out the door (the groomers is just a few blocks away). I started out a bit too fast and got winded almost right away. Luckily, I hit a busy intersection just a couple of blocks from the start point where I "had" to stop and rest for quite a while. The rest of the run I actually completed without stopping, though I will admit I prayed for red lights and/or traffic that never came. My route I mapped was actually 1.97, but as I approached home I could tell it was going to be more like 1.7. I ran a bit extra, but the GPS signal dropped and my Runkeeper was messed up (again!).

I had a similar issue as with my last run. While the time kept going, the mileage was no longer tracking. This messed up both my pacing and total distance. So I played around with the map again (which is a nice feature of Runkeeper, but it would be better if the GPS wouldnt keep dropping in the first place) and got some different results.

According to Runkeeper:
Total Time: 21:43
Total Distance: 1.89 miles
Avg Pace: 11:31
Mile 1: 11:24
Mile 2: 11:39

After messing around with the map
Total Distance: 2.00 miles
Avg Pace: 10:50
Mile 1: 11:00
Mile 2: 10:40

This is where is really gets messed up. The issue was at the end, and that is where I altered the map. Why did it change the time of my first mile? I assume my first mile time was right and my second mile time was off (since it calculated .89 versus 1.0 miles). Im going to guesstimate that instead mile 1 was 11:24 and then mile 2 was 10:19. If thats true, its pretty awesome :) What I really need is to get out there without the technology messing up so I can really see how I'm pacing right now and figure out where to go from there. Perhaps I need a different application (though I chose Runkeeper a long time ago because of some of the benefits) or perhaps I just need a new phone (since the GPS problem is really an iPhone thing, but Runkeeper needs to be better at picking up or guesstimating from a lost signal).