Where’s the peanut butter?!

Since I’ll need to make mileage for a bunch of the runs training for a marathon this fall I started combing the local Craigslist and found a good deal on a Garmin Forerunner 201. There were three sellers, I contacted all of them and last night picked one up for $75. I tried it out today and am pretty happy with it. It lets you set a tolerance for when you’re going too fast (or too slow), tells you exactly how far you’ve gone, and has a virtual training buddy. The virtual training buddy is kind of neat. I set it for a 4 mile 8 minute route this morning and got moving. At first I got stuck at a red light and started falling behind quickly, but I had the “auto-pause” feature turned on so the buddy only fell back about 200′. I started again and so did my buddy and we paced each other pretty well through the run.

The one thing I didn’t like was being told when I was going too fast (I had it set for a 7:30 mile pace). This is probably good feedback and great for a long run, but it definitely felt like it was holding me back. I’m hoping to go talk to some trainers at one of the local shops this weekend and get advice on that - I suspect for the shorter training runs there’s never “too fast,” however the Hal Higdon guide recommends taking the longer runs at a minute per mile slower than your marathon pace. I need more advice!

I’ve gotten a reputation amongst some friends as having healthy eating habits. I think this comes from the vegetarian thing and generally avoiding fast food. Anyway, to set the record straight, while Tanya’s out of town I needed to do some grocery shopping - here’s the complete listing from my receipt:

• 5 Tony’s Pizzas (5 for $11!)
• 2 24 oz tubs of cottage cheese
• 1 2L bottle of Coke
• 1 bag Lays chips (wavy, for the cottage cheese)
• 2 boxes cinnamon Pop-Tarts (unfrosted, of course)
• 2 cans concentrated juice

Not exactly the Lance Armstrong diet but on the plus side - no Spaghettios!