Race Recap: The Leatherwood 10-miler

Last year I tried to run the Leatherwood 50-miler but was stymied by terrible conditions. Due to the crazy amounts of mud and rain I decided to drop out after just 50k. But I loved the venue, especially the opportunity to stay in a beautiful cabin with spectacular views of the Appalachians.

So it didn't take long for my running buddies Sam and Tristan to convince me to head back to Leatherwood, this time to run the 10-mile event. Surely that wouldn't be too difficult, right?

That was before I had injured myself badly in another race known for tough trails, the Uwharrie 8-miler. Now, just two months later, I was getting ready to run another tough trail race, still only partially recovered from my injury. At least our cabin had a good view:

The best thing about this view: It's not raining! It had been raining in Davidson all week long, and I had been checking the weather in Ferguson where the race would be held, and the weather was similar. On Thursday night before the Saturday race I had gotten absolutely drenched on a trail run at home. But fortunately the rain tapered off on Friday and there was no rain to speak of for a solid 24 hours before the race.

On Saturday morning Tristan, Hope, Sam's wife Stephanie, and I were ready for the 10-miler. Sam and Phyllis had already started the 50k. Here we are heading out the door of our cabin:

From left: Me, Tristan, Stephanie, and Hope

We drove down to the starting area, and before we knew it we were off. The 10-mile race started with a mile of a gradual climb up a paved road. I settled in behind Tristan, who had 4 runners ahead of him. My plan was to go hard on the uphills and easy on the downhills, since I needed to do some hill training anyways and there was less chance of a bad fall on the climbs.

After about a mile we turned onto the trail and immediately headed straight up a steep ascent. Soon Tristan and I were both walking. But after a while I decided I wanted to alternate walk-running, so I passed Tristan. Then I passed the guy ahead of Tristan. Suddenly I was in fourth place, third male in a race that I had been thinking of as a hard workout, not really a race.

I made it up to the top of the first major climb well ahead of Tristan and the guy ahead of him, who was wearing a Miller Beer shirt. As soon as we started the descent, I could hear Miller Man's footsteps behind me. We got to another climb before he caught me, and I pulled away again. The next runner ahead of me was a woman, who despite the 15 percent grades and 700-foot climb, never once stopped to walk. With my walk-run strategy I was gaining ground, but as soon as the trail leveled off, she pulled away. Soon after that, Miller Man passed me as well. My strategy was to not push too hard during the flats and downhills, mainly to avoid another bad fall, but also because I felt like I wasn't fit enough aerobically to run the whole race hard. The longest run I had done since my previous injury was only 12 miles, on much mellower terrain than I'd be seeing today.

When we arrived at the first aid station, 3 miles in, Miller Man was still in sight. But I wasn't carrying anything and definitely needed some water, so I stopped long enough to gulp down two cups. Then we headed down an extended hill on a gravel road. I decided that since this wasn't a trail I could afford to open it up a little here, so I did, keeping Miller Man in sight until we started the next climb. Miller Man was definitely walk-running the hills, so I made up a lot of ground as we climbed about a 400-foot ascent in Mile 4. But when we reached the top, he was still ahead of me, and pulled away quickly on the downhill. It looked like I was a solid 5th place for now, but I knew the second half of the race was mostly downhill, so I figured Tristan at least would catch up to me there.

In Mile 6 we hit another doozy of a climb. It just kept going up and up, and I had to take longer and longer walk-breaks. This graph shows you both the elevation profile and my cadence over the course of the race:

Yep, that's hilly!

The spots where the cadence drops below 150 are my walk-breaks. I think the four dots above 200 are just anomalies. As you can see, there's a big climb in Mile 6, and at the top it just keeps climbing some more. Finally I started descending again, and once again, this was a fairly smooth gravel road, so I allowed myself to run fairly hard in this section. Every once in a while I looked over my shoulder to see if Tristan was there, but I never saw him. Finally at Mile 8 I arrived at the aid station again.

The morning had warmed up and I was drenched with sweat, so I stopped and drank four cups of water and ate a cookie. Then I headed down the only really technical section of the course. I kept repeating the mantra, "Take it easy; you're not racing," while secretly hoping to myself that I'd somehow catch up to Miller Man and snag third-place male. The trail was muddy, but nothing like what it had been last year, and I was wearing much grippier shoes. I really didn't even have anything approaching a close call, let alone a fall. Finally I emerged on to the pavement and just started running as fast as I could. There was no one ahead of me and no one behind that I could see. I had fourth place locked up. I ran the last mile in a 7:14 pace and cruised across the finish line, where Sam was as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

He knew I was running the race conservatively, so didn't think I'd finish as quickly as I did — my overall time was 1:45:37 unofficially, 4th male and 5th overall. I knew he had a long way to go in the 50k so I was wondering why he was there. He had decided to drop out, since he had another 50k next week and wasn't feeling well after battling a cold the week before.

Tristan came in about 10 minutes behind me, with Stephanie a couple minutes later, finishing 4th female to match my 4th male finish. Hope, who had been thinking she might have to hike the entire race due to a knee injury, ended up running much more than she thought, and had a good race.

Phyllis, on the other hand, absolutely killed the 50k, running a negative split and getting the first overall female trophy:

Well done!

After the race, I headed back up to the cabin for a shower and enjoyed the best part of the weekend: Hanging out with my friends on the balcony of our beautiful temporary home!

It doesn't get any better than this!

I was relieved to have survived the race, and boy did those post-race beverages taste great!

The Garmin details of my race are below:

Guesstimating my lifetime miles

As the bio suggests, I got serious about running relatively recently, but I've been running almost my whole life. A friend of mine posted his lifetime total miles, and it got me wondering how many miles I've run, and whether I've run more miles before or since I started training more seriously.

Naturally I decided to see if I could come up with a reasonable estimate of the total number of miles I have run in my life.

I got my first Garmin in September of 2010, about 4.5 years ago. I had started building up my mileage in anticipation of my first marathon about 6 months before that. Up to that point, with the exception of a couple years when I tried my hand at half-marathons, I never ran much more than three or four miles at a time. But I was a consistent runner, logging 3 or 4 miles a day for 5 days out the the week.

So I figured I averaged 15 miles a week for the years before I got my Garmin, starting my sophomore year in high school when I joined the cross country team.

But there were some years when I didn't run much, toward the end of high school, and again when we had babies. My best recollection is that I had 7 non-running years. So since I'm now 48, that means I ran about 15 miles a week for about 21.5 years before I started keeping track of my mileage.

Here's the calculation I made:

So based on this estimate, I still have a ways to go before my logged runs surpass my unlogged runs. Assuming I continue at the rate I've been running for the past 4.5 years, it could happen as soon as a year and a half from now!

Recap: CMS Bike Time Trial (or, I really have no clue what I'm doing)

As a part of my recovery from injury, since I was already cross-training with cycling and swimming, I figured might as well do a triathlon. I've done much of my riding with other riders, though, and in a tri you are not allowed to draft behind others. So when I heard of the opportunity to do a time trial on my bike at the Charlotte Motor Speedway(!), I thought it might be a good way to learn what I'm capable of doing when I'm riding alone.

Fast forward to 5 pm last night. I'm in the infield at Charlotte Motor Speedway looking woefully underprepared. Nearly all of 200 or so cyclists here have carbon fiber time trial bikes worth thousands of dollars. They have aero helmets, aero shoes, and aero handlebars. My bike is a 1998-ish aluminum Cannondale with old-school road-biking handlebars. I certainly don't have an aero helmet and I forgot my gloves. Let's do this!

Lining up in Pit Row for the start

The riders are released one at a time, and each rider has a volunteer to hold them while they clip in and then push them off. When I arrived at the start line, I wasn't able to clip my left foot in. They actually held up the start for 15 seconds or so while I tried to get my foot in the pedal but eventually I just told them to start me and I'd figure it out when I was on the road. (Un)fortunately, Lori Ackerman was there to capture the moment on camera:

Wha? Which way does this go?

After about 5 seconds of riding I figured out that I had the pedal upside-down. Huge rookie mistake which wouldn't be my last. I looked down and saw my giant non-aero water bottle was still in its cage. So much for decreasing the wind resistance of my already clunky bike!

Oh well, all I could do now was ride. At least I had remembered to start my Garmin! I was getting good feedback on my pace, which easily climbed to 22 mph as I rounded the first corner.

Charlotte Motor Speedway is 1.5 miles per lap, which would mean 7 laps equal 10.5 miles, but somehow according to all the literature about this event, the time trial of 7 laps is exactly 10 miles. Maybe each lap is just a touch short? The other advice riders get is not to start out too fast. I had taken a couple of practice laps where 20 mph seemed easy, so I decided to shoot for 22 mph on my first lap.

That wasn't a problem for the first half-lap, but after I rounded the final turn suddenly it got much more difficult. The wind didn't seem any stronger but I had to downshift and slow down. I passed through the start/finish and kept on going around the first turn. As I came onto the back straight it suddenly got easier so I shifted up and went with it. Now I was up over 25 mph.

The next lap proved this wasn't a fluke: The front straightaway was much tougher than the back straight. A look at the elevation profile for the event shows why:

Holy oscillation, Batman!

It's fairly subtle, but there is a consistent downhill on the back stretch and a consistent uphill on the front stretch -- about 20 feet of climbing and 20 feet of descending on each lap. The difference between the two is about 4 miles per hour!

A rider with a loudly flapping bib passed me at about this point, but I kept him in my sights. For the most part Flappy Guy and I were passing people. These were mainly kids, women, and folks on handcycles, but it still does wonders for your confidence to be constantly passing people (it also helped that I started with the "slow group" — most of the fast riders started later). Here's a shot Lori got of me passing someone near the start / finish.

Cmon, dude, at least put your hands on the drops! It doesn't look like you're trying!

BTW I just noticed that Flappy Guy is in this photo as well (far right). That means it must have been taken around lap 4 or 5, which is when I remember passing Flappy Guy again.

With a few laps to go I started trying to increase my effort a bit. My average speed was now around 22.6 and I was hoping to increase it. I tried to upshift early for the downhill section and downshift later for the front straight. Looking back at my official splits, this worked to a certain extent: Lap 5 was my fastest. But I slowed a bit for laps 6 and 7, so perhaps I picked up the pace too soon. Overall my first half took 13:20 and my second half was 13:05, so I was a little faster on the second half. I may have hit things just about perfectly. Here I am making my final push to the finish:

Sweet!

Notice that Flappy Guy is nowhere to be seen. He must have faded quite a bit in the final lap. I took a look at the results to see if I could find him and I think he is Jonas Cherry, whose time was just 0.4 slower than mine. Remember, it's a staggered start, so he must have started a fair bit behind me.

After the finish, I made one last idiot newbie move. The roadway seemed to be blocked off, so I made my way back towards the start. Soon race officials were shouting at me to get off the road. It turned out, we were supposed to go to the point where the road was blocked, slow down, and ride around the barrier. Who knew? Fortunately this dumb move on my part was not caught on film.

A couple of friends also rode this event: DARTer Jack Haddock, who was a newbie like me, AB Lerner, another newbie but an experienced triathlete, and Ashley Ackerman, who is an awesome triathlete and a veteran of these time trials. Jack and I were far slower than the veterans, who came equipped both with better engines and nicer bikes.

Overall I was 143rd out of 204 participants, finishing in 26:22, an average speed of 22.8 mph. That includes the handbike riders as well, so you can see that I am a long way from being seriously competitive among cyclists. If newer, more aero gear gave me, say, an additional 2 mph, that would still have left me in 83rd place. So mainly I'm just not as strong as these other cyclists — which makes sense, since it's not my main sport. I feel like I've logged a lot of cycling since I was injured, but all of my rides in March totaled 261 miles, which is probably less than a lot of my competitors ride in a good week!

One thing I noticed during the race is that I was never especially winded. The difficulty in going faster seemed to be mainly due to leg strength and cycling efficiency. Hopefully as I continue to ride more I will improve my strength and efficiency and become at least a bit more competitive as my triathlon approaches. Below is my Garmin record of the race.

Playing with the Activity Monitor on the Garmin 920

The Garmin 920 is designed to be used not only to record activities using GPS, but also as an all-around activity monitor. When I purchased mine, I wasn't planning on using it that way, but when my normal everyday watch broke, I began wearing the 920 around all day.

I began to notice the number of "steps" I took each day, and I actually liked when it told me to "move" after an hour of inactivity. There are still some kinks to work out, like when it told me to "move" while I was riding my bike at 20 miles per hour, with the GPS engaged.

I started to wonder if the 920 could give me a more accurate count of the number of calories I burned each day than my usual method of entering all my exercises into MyFitnessPal.

So for the last couple of weeks, I decided to compare the calories tracked by my Garmin and MyFitnessPal. 

This very complicated graph gives you the results:

The light blue and the yellow lines give you the raw data from MyFitnessPal (MFP) and Garmin. As you can see, there are some wide discrepancies. On March 15 MFP counted 1680 calories versus 3726 for Garmin. There are also a few days when the Garmin count was significantly lower than MFP.

I noticed that the days when Garmin was way lower than MFP were days when I did activities that the Garmin doesn't capture, such as the elliptical trainer and strength training. So I made an "Adjusted Garmin" count (in brown) that took care of most of that -- but the two numbers were still off by quite a bit.

Then I noticed that the days when Garmin was way higher corresponded to long rides. Clearly Garmin is giving me way too much credit for my calorie burns on rides because I was basing my eating off the MFP numbers those days and I didn't notice feeling exceptionally hungry and I certainly wasn't losing tons of weight. So I created a "double-adjusted" Garmin count (in red on the graph) that ignores about 40 percent of the calories burned cycling. As you can see, the red count is much closer to the light blue MFP count.

But Garmin was still giving me credit for about 30% more calories than MFP, and MFP wasn't giving me any credit for days when I took a lot of steps (like when I was timing a race). So I created an adjusted MFP count to account for that. This one is just 18% different from the Adjusted Garmin count, and there's less day-to-day variance as well.

So it seems I could get a decent count using the activity monitor on my Garmin if I could get it to track the few additional activities like the elliptical trainer. Since Garmin consistently overestimates calories, I would have to factor that in, but in the end I could have a totally-automated system for tracking calorie burns.

Another option would be to get a separate activity monitor that also tracks heart rate. Since heart rate tracking can give more accurate calorie counts, this would solve two problems at once. Anyone want to get me one of these babies as a gift?

Turning the corner on my injury

The last time I ran more than 4 miles was nearly a month ago, on February 7. Although I have shared the news with my friends and on social media, I haven't written about it here. Maybe if I don't write about it it isn't real?

But it is real, and of course it's my own fault. The following paragraph is probably best skipped, but it explains how I got to where I am now. I first noticed my sore hamstrings sometime last fall. The pain started on the left leg and gradually migrated rightward and upward. Back in October, I was racing all-out in an effort to qualify for the first corral at Bloomsday in May. I raced a 5k every week, and after the first couple of races, my hammies were so sore that I couldn't do any speed work midweek. I backed of the speed work first, then backed off the racing (good moves), then decided I should be doing regular squats instead of front squats during strength training to better target my hams/glutes (perhaps a good move, but done too rapidly). I backed way off on the squats, then tried gradually ramping the speed work, and felt okay but not great -- I could still feel some of the same issues in the hamstrings.

That got me to February 7 and the Uwharrie 8 mile trail race. I had signed up for the race on a bit of a whim: Entry is via lottery and I figured I wouldn't get in to the race so what was the harm in trying? Of course I got in, so I had to do the race. For a better description of the actual event, see Chas's post on the 20-mile race here. My race, for all practical purposes, ended at Mile 2.5

I started the race okay, hitting the uphill start hard. But when the trail leveled out, I felt I should be giving a similar effort and staying with the other runners. Bad move. I need to remind myself early and often that I'm not a good downhill trail runner, probably due to a deadly combination of age and klutziness. I fell once and felt a tweak in my right glute, but nothing to stop me from running. Then, about 2.5 miles in, I stumbled hard and onto some jagged rocks. As I crashed to the ground on my left knee, I felt my right glute tighten.

There was a bloody gash on the left leg, but the real injury was on my right leg. Here's what my left leg looked like when I got home:

Yikes!

In almost certainly a boneheaded move, I decided to limp on ahead rather than turning around and walking to the road at Mile 2. There were spectators there who could certainly have given me a ride back to my car, but I chose to continue, getting passed by what felt like dozens of runners every mile. Eventually I picked my pace up to a slow jog, but every time I tried to run faster than around a 9-minute pace, my right glute told me to slow down. Amazingly, I did not finish in last place! I was actually 88th out of 197 finishers, averaging a 12:50 pace for the race.

Two days later I decided to try a slow recovery run, but I was unable to go even 100 meters. I took a week off of running and made 1/10 of a mile the next time I tried. I could walk and bike without difficulty, but running was impossible. I was gaining weight because I wasn't putting in anywhere close to the equivalent workout I could do running. I decided to try swimming and took out a membership at the Y so I could use their pool. I could swim, too, but I still was gaining weight and didn't seem to be making any progress running.

Even the cycling seemed to be cursed: I went on a planned 20-mile mountain bike ride in Columbia, SC (to escape icy conditions closer to home) and my chain broke after 6 miles.

I'm now in the middle of 3 weeks of travel to wintery climates, so I haven't had many more chances to ride outside. I've been hitting up elliptical machines in gyms from Spokane to Virginia to Minnesota.

I also did something I never thought I would do: I went to a chiropractor. This actually seemed to help a little bit (or maybe it was just the time off of running). I tried running in Spokane and made it a half mile. The next day I went a mile. I could do it, limping along, with a tolerable bit of pain in my right glute / hamstring. The pain wasn't getting better, but it wasn't getting worse. I could barely run 10-minute miles on flat terrain.

After a couple days home and more chiropractor visits, I ran two miles, with similar pain levels.

Then this morning, back on the road in Northfield, Minnesota, I had a bit of a breakthrough. My run actually wasn't as painful. I ran 1.5 miles to a gym, did my usual bit of strength training plus 15 minutes on the elliptical trainer, then headed back to my hotel. I was feeling even better now that I'd warmed up and decided to go for my first post-recovery 5K. I finished in 29:26 (not counting the 70 minutes I spent at the gym). That's actually not a terrible 5K time - it's a 9:29 pace. Well, it's pretty terrible for someone who not long ago was kicking himself for not breaking 19:00 in a race, but it's semi-respectable for a recreational runner.

I might honestly be on the road to recovery now. I want to make this one stick, so I'm even going to do something else I've never done before: Adopt a mantra. My mantra will be the following:

You only want to make one comeback

In other words, I don't want to rush it; I want to take my time and do this right, so I don't have to do it all over again, only slower. This time I'm going to stretch, roll, and massage, even when it doesn't seem like I need to. I'm going listen to my body during runs and make sure to stop running before it hurts. I'm going to supplement my running with sensible strength training and cross-training, again, not doing anything to hurt myself. I'm dropping out of my next two planned races, and I'll be prepared to drop out of more races if I'm not confident I can do them without re-injury.

But I will come back, and I'll be every bit of the runner I was before. I love running too much to stop. If that means slowing down, that's fine, but I'm not ever going to stop.

My thoughts on the Garmin Forerunner 920xt

I've now owned the Garmin Forerunner 920xt GPS for just over a month. While I don't think there's any point in me doing a detailed review (Go to DC Rainmaker for that, especially if you're interested in cycling and swimming), I did think it would be worthwhile to give some of my thoughts from the perspective of a person switching from the 910xt.

The 920xt is supposed to be Garmin's top-of-the-line triathlon watch, so it's a little odd for an occasional cyclist / non-swimmer to get one. Really I should probably have a 620 or a Fenix. But the 9XX series has a couple features that I really like: 1. a barometric altimeter, and 2. a big, readable screen.

Having used the 920xt for a month now, I have to say that on those two fronts, it actually probably falls a little short of the 910xt.

Screen
Although the 920 "upgrades" to color, the trade-off is somewhat lower contrast. I can read it all right, but not quite as easily as I could read the 910. Both watches are fine in broad daylight, but in poor conditions like rain / dark trails, etc, the 910 wins. Both the 910 and 920 have an option to keep the backlight on permanently, and the battery is certainly strong enough to keep it lit for a 2-hour-plus workout, so that's what I do for interval training and other situations when it is really important to see the display.

One place where the 920 improves visibility is when it displays the lap time for a workout on auto-lap. On the 910, inexplicably the lap time is shown in a tiny font. It's nice and big on the 920, which is a relief! On both watches it would be nice if this screen was configurable, for example perhaps to show distance or pace instead of time for the lap, but the 920 definitely wins here.

Altimeter
Both watches feature a barometric altimeter that is accurate enough to give real-time elevation data. I love this feature, which can help with navigation on trails (since you can compare your elevation to the elevation on a map), and can give you a nice sense of "where you are" on mountain / hill climb-type races. I used this feature a lot when I ran Pikes Peak.

But again the 910 wins over the 920 because it also gives you a very useful measure of the current grade. The 920 has this feature as well, but it's not as well-implemented as in the 910. The 910's grade feature attempted to give a precise (to 0.1%) measure of the current grade. It wasn't always accurate, but you could tell when it was wildly off, and I found, for the most part, that the number seemed to be a reflection of the effort it was taking to climb a hill. I used it as a way to decide when to walk -- if the grade was over 10 or 15 percent (depending on how far I was running), then I'd switch to power-walking.

In the 920, the grade feature is there, but it only gives the current grade in increments of 3%. I can see why they do this; it's probably not much more accurate than that most of the time, but it seems to me that by taking a simple average of measurements over some period of time (maybe 5-10 seconds) it could generate a more precise figure, which would then enable me to adjust my pace / gait appropriately. In the current implementation, the grade shifts around so much (say, from 3 to 6 back to 3, and so on) that it's hard to decide how to use it. So for me the 910 wins on its Altimeter function.

One hope for the 920 is that someone will come up with an IQ App to solve these problems; Anyone can develop apps for the 920 and maybe they will address my concerns. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened yet ... I can dream, can't I?

Bling
On the other hand, the 920xt definitely out-blings the 910. It has are some nice little features that I like a lot. For example, it can now connect directly to a wi-fi network to upload your data. This is very handy for someone like me who used to use his laptop for data uploads. I didn't want to keep the ANT stick in my computer all the time, so I was always searching around the house or my laptop bag to find it, just to upload my data. Now it "just works." I can also connect with my phone via bluetooth to do the same thing (I've disabled this feature most of the time, however, because it will sync mid-workout if I have my phone with me, and I prefer to wait until the workout is finished to upload).

I haven't used the ability to auto-track workouts/races so that others can follow along. In practice I'm not sure this will be such a useful feature since it requires you to have your phone with you. Once you have your phone, there are any number of apps that do the same thing.

It also has an activity tracker similar to a Fitbit or other device, which counts your steps and reminds you to "MOVE!" if you stay still for longer than an hour or so. While the feature is kind of fun, I don't plan on wearing my 920xt full-time as a watch so it has limited utility for me.

It also has a simple "watch mode" which enables you to wear it as your full-time watch, with a week or more of battery life. While I don't plan on wearing mine all the time, it's handy for race days or short trips when I don't want to bring two watches. One place where the IQ App has been well-developed is custom watch faces, so you can even configure the face to something you prefer over Garmin's default screens.

Accuracy
While I haven't done a scientific comparison of the 920 versus the 910, my general perception is that the GPS on the 920 is a little better. I have enabled GLONASS, which is supposed to be a more-accurate version of standard GPS. This results in a small battery-life hit (maybe 10 percent), but since I'm never running 15+ hours, that's not an issue for me. On the track, the 910 was consistently short, while the 920 seems just about right on, lap after lap.

The 920 can also count footsteps using just your arm motion (no footpod needed). It will give you an estimate of distance run when you're on a treadmill or (in my case) even on a moving cruise ship (where the motion of the ship would otherwise wreak havoc on your GPS data). It was generally accurate to within a tenth of a mile on my 6-mile runs on the cruise ship track. Not bad!

Usability
One really nice feature of the 920 is its ability to cache satellite locations, which means that it finds the satellite signal much faster than the 910. Usually the 920 finds satellites in seconds, even if you're hundreds of miles away from where you used it last time. The 910 can take 2, 3, even 5 minutes to find satellites, especially if you've moved significantly since the previous use.

That said, there are a couple areas where the 920 falls short of the 910, particularly in the "history" function. When you are going over previous workouts, the 920 does not display all the information that the 910 did. The 920 gives you distance and time for each lap of your workout, but the 910 also gives pace for each lap. This is especially important if you're doing workouts like "minuters" where you run 1 minute fast and one minute slow. The 920 won't tell you your pace, just time and distance — and naturally the time is the same for each lap!

The 920 also won't allow you to access the "history" of your current workout, which can be important — for example if you have forgotten how many laps you have run. Yes, if you have configured your data screens to show it, you can display which lap you are on, but when you're doing a workout like 12 x 200, 8 x 400, 4 x 800, with rests between each lap, it can still be difficult to figure out if you're on your 7th or 8th 400-meter rep!

Finally — and this may be an issue more for me than anyone else — if you take a break in the middle of your workout, on the 920 there is no manual way to get the watch back to watch mode without saving the workout first. Then you'll end up with two separate workouts instead of one big one. I do this a lot when I run into town, run with the group, then stop for coffee before running back home. It'd be nice to spend that time in the coffee shop in battery-saving watch mode. What you can do is switch your "power save timeout" to from "extended" to "normal", and it will automatically go back to watch mode in just a couple minutes, but the downside of that is if you're at a race and want your watch to be ready to go for an extended period, you may end up scrambling to get your watch back into GPS mode.

Charger
One sore spot for me with Garmin devices has always been the charger. From my very first Garmin 305, it was too easy to unseat the Garmin during charging. Then you'd wake up in the morning to start your run only to find your GPS completely dead. The 910xt partially solved this problem with the "claw" charger that held on to the unit more firmly, but even this unit performed poorly. I'd say at least half the time when I put the unit in the charger, it wouldn't engage properly and would power-on the unit. You would then have to wait for the entire power-on cycle, power it off again, and try to put the unit in the charger again without repeating the same issue.

I'm happy to say that this problem FINALLY seems to be solved with the 920xt. The new charger holds the unit firmly, and engages easily, every time. As it should have been five years ago with my 305!

The Bottom Line
At $450 without a heart rate monitor, the 920xt is not an inexpensive device. Is it worth it? I'm not sure. In my case I sold my 910xt for $145, so I only paid $305 plus tax for the 920. Is it $305 better than the 910? I really like the convenience of not messing with a footpod and ANT stick. That feels like a lot of freedom. The reliability of the charger cannot be underestimated as well; I can't tell you how many times I've awoken in a panic on race night wondering if my Garmin would be properly charged. Similarly, I've already found "watch mode" convenient at races and traveling, making my life much simpler. And knowing the limitations of the 920, I've found if fairly easy to adapt to them compared to the more daunting problems with the 910. For somebody who uses their device day in and day out, $305 really isn't that much to pay. Consider what you'd spend on a car with heated seats, or a slightly more elegant interior. It might be thousands more than a model that "does what you need." For me, running more than 10 hours a week and also using the device for cycling and backpacking, it's worth it. For you? That's something you'll have to decide for yourself!

Why running is a part of who I am

Today in a Facebook running group, someone asked the following question of the group: "Is being a runner just something you do/a hobby or is it part of you/your identity and is there a downside to the latter?"

There was a healthy discussion, with seemingly little correlation between how much someone ran, how fast they were, and how much running was a part of their identity. Here's my response:

Hmmm... I run about 10 hours a week, cross-train 5 hours a week, spend about 15 hours a week on my race-timing business, maybe 5 hours a week administering running clubs, another god-knows-how-many hours online on FB/running forums, not to mention a few hours blogging / logging all this. If this isn't my true identity I'm in a VERY good witness protection program!

I spend at least 40 hours a week on running-related activities! That's a full-time job! Good thing I don't have a full-time job, or I'd really be in trouble.

This is not to say I'm only a runner. Although running is a huge part of my identity, it's not the most important thing in my life. If I spend 40 hours a week on running, that leaves 128 hours for everything else. Even allowing 8 hours a night for sleeping, that still leaves more than 72 hours for non-running activities. If I was really efficient, I could have a full-time job on top of all that running! I love my family and friends, love travel, cooking and food, love backpacking and the outdoors, love literature and writing. Other than definitely ranking below family, friends, and food, I'm not sure where running falls in that hierarchy. Maybe it's next after those three.

Fortunately I don't have to choose or specify a ranking, and even more fortunately, my running doesn't interfere much with the others. My family appreciates that I'm staying healthy (though sometimes they might think I'm a little unhealthily healthy), many of my best friends are my running partners, and running enables me to eat more food while staying healthy.

But clearly my passion for running has led me to make some dramatic changes in my life. After spending most of my life as an occasional runner, I ran my first half-marathon in 2006, having lost about 30 pounds to get to 208, the lightest I had been in years. But the workouts had been so draining that I felt they were compromising my career as a science writer. So I backed off the training, running another, slower half in 2007 and then going back to my occasional-running ways and gaining back 20 pounds.

It wasn't until I joined the then-tiny Davidson Area Running Team (DART) in 2010 that I really got serious about running. My new running buddies convinced me to sign up for my first marathon, in 2011, and I shifted gears in my career, going from daily science blogging to writing a weekly column, which made it easier to run more. I lost all the weight I had regained and then some, getting down to 195. By the end of 2011 I had not only run three marathons, I had qualified for Boston!

Since then, it's been a gradual transition as running has taken a larger and larger place in my life. I now weigh about 185. Now other than the occasional Science-Based Running post, I don't do much science writing at all. But I do have a growing race timing business that satisfies the need to be productive and make some money (my wife's career has always been the primary source of income for our family, so I don't have to work full time).

But why does running consume so much of me? It's not like I'm an especially gifted runner. Although I can usually win an age-group award in local races, when the competition gets tougher I've never cracked the top 3 in an age group.

For me, it comes down to a few key things:

1. Camaraderie/friendship: My running friends are among my closest friends. Current best-practices in running argue that 70% or more of running should be at an easy pace. That means you can carry on conversations while you work out. You can continue those conversations in the coffee shop after the run. After a while, you start doing other things besides running with your running buddies, and you realize you can't live without them.
2. Constant, measurable improvement: Even though running can involve setbacks, the pattern from week to week, month to month, and year to year, always involves improvement or progression toward a goal. Even if you get injured and have to take time off and rebuild, you can see yourself getting better again; this sort of improvement is endlessly satisfying (at least to me!).
3. The opportunity to help others: Now that I've been a serious runner for 5 years, I've accumulated a lot of knowledge. New runners in my various running groups come to me for advice. There's little more fulfilling than seeing a friend reach a goal or a milestone, whether it's completing her first marathon, winning his first age group award, or setting a new PR.
4. Fun: I genuinely like running. I like it so much I do it in the rain, in the cold, in the wind, in the heat, in the humidity, when I'm traveling, when I'm sad, when I'm hung over, when I'm not even sure I can complete the workout I have planned. I like feeling the cool wind in my beard, I like the dark mornings, I like seeing the sunrise, I like the focus it takes to keep my legs churning away at the optimal rate. Don't get me wrong, I like winning awards and setting PRs too, but I wouldn't be trying to do those things if I didn't like the hours and hours and thousands of miles of training it takes to get those awards and PRs.

So running is now a critical part of my identity. Yes, I'm a husband, a father, a brother, an outdoorsman, a traveler, a writer, a friend, and a cook, and probably some other things too.

But I'm unquestionably a runner, and I wouldn't have it any other way.