Garmin Forerunner

I have just gotten a Garmin Forerunner 201. It's basically a handheld (or wristmounted) GPS device that keeps track of how far and how long you run. It has a "virtual partner", so I can set it to, say, run 5 miles in 45 minutes, and it will tell me whether I'm ahead of or behind that pace, and tell me when I'm done. It's perfect for someone like me, who wants to keep close track of his mileage, but doesn't want to run a fixed route all the time.

I got it from eBay. It's one of those things that is fairly popular. At any given time, there are dozens of Forerunners for sale on eBay. So, since I wasn't in a hurry, I just kept bidding a reasonably low amount on one Forerunner after another. When I got outbid, I'd just bid on another one. Until finally one fell through at a reasonably low price. It came some time while we were away, and I picked it up with all the other mail yesterday. And then, this morning, I didn't run, because it was a day off.

Well, I did take a walk. It seems to work fine, although it lost the GPS signal a couple of times. I don't know whether it's the weather, or the terrain, or what. But it came up with a reasonable distance for my walk, so I don't think it got thrown off too far. Tomorrow, I'll test it out with a run. I think I'll try to run 5 miles in 45 minutes.