I drafted this post on Sunday, April 1st and failed to post it!!  DUH!  My BAD,  Apologies to all!

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Time’s a tickin’! And running this Sunday for my 6.5 mile long run had my thoughts wandering back to Christmas!  Yeah, Christmas!  Oh, no, it wasn’t cold.  In fact it was a gorgeous morning, and the yellow forsythia was still ablaze.  So why was I revisiting Christmas?  Well, because it dawned on me that my Christmas present delivered by Old St Nick himself has been a savior to me these last few weeks.  I looked down at my Garmin Watch on my wrist — and realized that Santa might just be the greatest assistance I’ve had through this adventure.  Let’s dig in, and I’ll explain.

Marathon Brian taught me how to set my watch to break my run down into 1 mile laps.  With this setting, each mile of my run, no matter what the distance, long or short — each mile is like a mini-race.  I LOVE THAT!.  Before I found this setting, I had set my watch for half the distance of my run, so I always know my turn-around point.  Beyond that, the watch would simply track my “total run” overall pace.  This was Good, BUT….the 1 mile lap setting is BETTER!  More AWESOME!!  By breaking it down into the 1 mile mini race — I am able to make every mile a challenge to keep myself at or below my target pace.

So for instance – right now, I am running between an 11:00 – 12:00 mile pace.  Each mile varies, but I can stay below 12 minutes a mile for the full duration of a 10 mile run (so far!)  With this in mind….each mile, I can keep my eye on that magic 12:00 minute pace, and when I see myself well below it — it’s a great measure of how I am doing and feeling.  When I see the mile pace climbing, it’s a motivator to try to step it up a bit to keep myself on track.  I’m not Machiavellian about it — if I have a mile where the incline is steep, or if I’m just feeling low in energy — I give myself permission to take a slow mile and recoup my energy.  And then, I’m usually ready to kick it up again when the next mile starts.

What a great tool.  I’m so grateful for it.  Best Christmas present ever!  Thanks Santa!  (er – Peter, actually.  Love ya!)

Ciao for now…..Diane