Racing on the edge, Garmin lifecycling, and more

I hope everyone had a fantastic July 4th!  I was in Pittsburgh for the weekend to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday.  As per usual, the time went by in the blink of an eye.

I have much to write about.  Here today are just a few of the things that are scampering around madly in the back of my brain right now.

4 (or 5?) races in 8 days
During the 8-day stretch between July 14 and July 21, I have four races on the calendar:

July 14 - Home Team Charity 10K
July 16 - Strike Out ALS 5K
July 18 - Esprit de She 10K (for which I am a race ambassador!)
July 21 - Rock N Roll Chicago Half Marathon

Four races in eight days is certainly plenty.  While I would like to "race" all four races, I would very much risk overdoing it and that would be a recipe for disaster.  The jury is still out regarding which of the four races I actually "race," but I am thinking I'll limit myself to two, max.

Here's the kicker.  Erin is planning to run five 5Ks in five nights from July 15 through July 19, including the Friendship 5K Run in Highland, Indiana on July 17.  I am tempted to join her for that race since I've never done a race in Indiana.  It would involve a little bit of a road-trip from Chicago, but it's still very doable on a Wednesday night.  And the 5K distance, if done as a fun run, is not at all a big deal.

The catch is that I haven't been consistently running even three days a week.  To go from an average of, say, 2.374321531219 days per week of running to five runs within eight days?  Even if done with extreme caution, that would still be quite a jump!

I keep going back and forth on this decision between thinking that

a) life is too short, you only live once, work hard play harder

or 

b) I've already learned the hard way not to overdo it, plus who wants to spend even MORE time doing physical therapy exercises?

To be continued.

The Garmin Circle of Life
Last week I got caught in pouring rain during one of my runs.  I was wearing my Garmin, but didn't worry about it because it is supposed to be water-resistant up to 50 meters of submersion (or something like that).

During the rain, my Garmin started beeping that it was low on battery.  No big deal.  Later when I got home I tried charging it, only to find out that it wouldn't charge.  Since I've had charger issues in the past, I swapped out the charger cable and cradle to see if that was the issue.  No difference.  Then I tried turning the Garmin on.  Still nothing.  Nada to this day.  Not even an obligatory twitch or flash of light before my eyes.

As far as I can tell, my Garmin has officially gone to live on a big GPS watch farm.  Sigh.

Considering how expensive these Garmins are, I'm not thrilled with all of the problems that I've had with mine.  But on the optimistic side, my old Garmin was the Forerunner 305 model and its large, bulky size was my biggest complaint (literally and figuratively).  So this was an opportunity to find a different model that better suited my needs.

I didn't want to blow too much money on a new watch, especially for features that I don't even use, so that eliminated a lot of other Garmin models currently on the marketplace.  I first considered the Garmin 10, but wasn't thrilled with its projected battery life (only five hours) and that its display was only minimally customizable.  Ultimately I decided to go with the Garmin 110.  The 110 is much sleeker than the 305 and seems to offer enough functionality for my needs without going overboard either direction.

Here's a picture I found that compares the two models side by side:

Garmin Forerunner 305 on the left, Garmin 110 on the right
Source

The new 110 just arrived in the mail today.  It is charging up as I type this.  I am looking forward to taking it for its inaugural usage some time this week!

A few other notes

• Since I've been without a working Garmin for the past week, I went for an intended 10-mile run yesterday based on several known-distance loops.  Yours truly may have gone into total zone-out mode.  Therefore, yours truly may have somehow lost the ability to do simple arithmetic, thereby miscalculating the cumulative distances of the various loops.  Yours truly may have somehow ended up running nearly 11 miles without realizing it until afterwards, all the while thinking that thy pace was just really, really slow (it was very hot and muggy yesterday).  Good for training, but still.  Oops.  

• On that note, I am getting more and more disenchanted with long runs, as well as with half marathons (or longer, of course).  It is getting increasingly difficult to find the desire to do these 90-minute-plus training runs, especially considering all the preparation involved both before and after. Right now I think I could be very happy by always doing three- to six-mile runs and trying to focus on building speed.  Considering how much my motivation is waning, it's too bad I still have three more half marathons this year.

OK, enough with that!  What I am looking forward to right now?

• Taking a stand-up paddleboarding lesson this Saturday with Xaarlin, Erin, and Anne!
• Kicking off my stretch of four (or maybe five) races in eight days starting with the Home Team Charity Run 10K this Sunday.  There will be plenty of deliriously happy Blackhawks fans there, for sure.  At the post-race party I am hoping to get pictures with Benny the Bull and with Tommy Hawk (shhhh, Adam won't be thrilled based on his history with Tommy Hawk).  That way I can start a collection of photos with team mascots.

Me with White Sox mascot South Paw at the 2011 Home Team Charity Run

• Checking out Sinha for a Brazilian brunch this Sunday with Xaarlin, who has some stories that I am dying to hear about!
• The Chicago Blackhawks Fan Convention coming up in a few weeks, followed by...
• The NAAAP National Convention in Toronto in early August.  The trip will include a side visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame!
• Taking advantage of some great deals on an introductory sailing class and a Chicago chocolate-tasting tour!  I'll definitely be trying both before the summer ends.  Not at the same time, though.  (Or not?)

Chocolate sailboats!!!
How's that for living the good life?!?!?