Running Recap for 2009

For Christmas 2008 my wife gave me a Garmin Forerunner 305 exercise watch.  I had been looking at it for some time but just couldn’t justify spending that much money for a running watch.  Since it was a gift I was “obligated” to use it. 

As I’ve told my wife numerous times since that Christmas morning, “My Garmin running watch is one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.”  Now you might as yourself, “Wow, it’s that good?”  Those that know me can easily understand why I like the watch.  I’m a numbers oriented person and very analytical by my nature.  This watch gives me more data about my running than I can even use!

Let me back up a bit.  The Garmin Forerunner 305 has a GPS (so I get accurate distance measurement), a stop watch (of course), and a heart monitor.  Given all of these features there is lots a data to be crunched.  Yesterday I downloaded the data into Excel and get the stats.  That lead me to reflect on my running for 2009 which I’ll summarize below.

I had planned to do 6 organized run but only completed 5. 

May – Cellcom half marathon – I didn’t achieve my goal but I did get a personal record (PR).
June – Bellin 10K – Not a PR but the best time in 3 years
July – Beer Belly 2 mile – My favorite run.  We run for time for the two miles and then walk the course and get drinks at the beer stops.
August – Ryan Jerabek 4 mile – Always a hot run and this year was no different.  Ran with two friends getting into running.
November – Noodelini 5K – This is the only run my wife does each year and we do it together.  Always cold, always fun.

We (my running partner and I) did 94 runs according to the watch, slightly less than 2 runs per week.  We ran more per week while training for the half marathon, less when running for fun, and I took almost 3 weeks off in Oct/Nov when I had a hamstring pull.

Total Time Running:  52.5 hours

Total Miles: 309 miles

Average Pace: 10:15 per mile