Garmin Woes Part 2

I’m in mourning. My running buddy passed on to the great electronics waste dump in the sky (actually in a drawer in my desk) on Saturday. Unlike most, I hadn’t given him a name – he was just “Garmin”. He accompanied my on every run for the last 2 years. He even carried the scars of a bicycling accident that had me on the shelf for six weeks back in 2008. Garmin – you did me good.

Okay – enough for the teary eyed drama. The important thing is what to do now? Yikes! I can’t run without my electronics! I think it was best put by my blogging buddy Patrick - “How did Roger Bannister break a 4 minute mile without a Garmin?” Funny, but soooo true Patrick. Sooooo true.

I started looking at my options. Luckily, these days GPS enabled devices are plentiful. Garmin. Polar. Suunto. Even software that runs on GPS enabled phones. But – I’m a loyal Garmin convert – so I started looking for a replacement. Even there it’s no longer an easy choice. Garmin Forerunner 205, 305, 310XT, 405. And now a Garmin that is targeted specifically to runners – the 110. Decisions decisions decisions. I sent out a tweet to the Twitterverse looking for people’s opinions on the various devices out there. Good news for Garmin is it didn’t matter which model of Forerunner people were using – they all loved them!

Then – a tweet from @oldtrailrunner - “my 305 died too but for $86 I sent it back to the factory to get it refurbished.” Now my interest was piqued. I started digging through the support pages at http://www.garmin.com, and there it was – Out of Warranty service for Garmin devices:

So maybe my Garmin *can* be resurrected after all. I sent an email to Technical Support requesting a return authorization. The response to my request?

Three days to answer an email? Yikes! In the meantime I bought a new Forerunner 305 for $190 at REI. My plan is to repair my old one. Then I’ll have a backup and/or a second one for those really long runs I’m planning on tackling next year. Ooops! I may have let the cat out of the bag…..

Speaking of running – I hit the trails last night with my son for a quick four miler in Laguna Coast. Rest day today. Then 30 kms in the Santa Ana Mountains. Harding Hustle here I come!

Garmin Woes

So on Saturday, about 14 or so miles into my trail run, I noticed that my Garmin 305 had stopped working. Oh well. Out of battery. Or so I thought. I got home and cradled the device – but it did nothing. Nada. Blank screen. No “Battery Charging in Progress” message. Not a big deal. I’ve seen this before. Time to dust off Garmin Forerunner 305 troubleshooting guide:

• Trouble charging: The symptom is you plug your Garmin into its cradle and it does nothing. No messages. It appears that you running buddy in fundamentally dead. Panic? Nope. The first thing to check are the little brass contacts on the back of your Garmin. Perspiration (okay okay – sweat) will cause them to corrode and turn dark/black in color. If this is the case, take a pencil eraser and clean the contacts. Plug your Garmin back into it’s cradle and voila! Everything should be back to normal!

• Soft Reset: That didn’t do the trick? No problemo. Time to pull the old Soft Reset out of the bag. To reset your device, you are going to need to press the “Mode” button and the “Reset” button simultaneously. Hold them down for three seconds and then release the buttons. Press the “Power” button. Your device should turn on with all data still intact.

• Hard reset:  Okay. That didn’t work. Now things get a little trickier. The next thing to do is to perform a Hard Reset. But – one word of warning – if you perform a hard reset, you *could* lose all of your data on your watch. To perform a hard reset, press the “Power” , “Mode”, and “Reset” buttons simultaneously for a few seconds. When your device powers up, it will be in it’s pristine out of the box state.

•  What else? Or maybe you can be like me. All of these tried and still nada. I have found Garmin support most helpful. Frustrating to get to, but helpful. Give them  a call. Just be  ready to wait 30 minutes or more to speak to a person. So – make sure you’ve tried all the cleaning and reset sequences first. It would be ashamed to make contact and be  sent way to try this stuff!

Up tomorrow – replacement options. Unfortunately this tells you what happened to my Garmin.

Oh – on the running front – work and family kept me from getting out yesterday. Oh well. Once in a while the family deserves it…..

Wrigley River Run Race Report

Someone who is not familiar with the history of Southern California might think I am talking about Chicago. After all, William Wrigley Jr. did own the Chicago Cubs and built the stadium that most remember him for - Wrigley Field. But, William Wrigley played an important part in the history of Southern California too. Wrigley purchased Santa Catalina Island in 1919 (the Wrigley family still owns most of the island). Some of you may have heard about Avalon on Catalina Island - these days a tourist destination. Avalon was built by Wrigley. And, baseball got its start in Los Angeles thanks to Wrigley. The Los Angeles Angels (back before they joined the American League in 1961) was started (1925) and owned by Wrigley, and played here in L.A. in Wrigley Field (long since gone). There are several areas that carry the Wrigley name here. Today's race was in one of those areas - Wrigley Village in West Long Beach.

The excitment started early. I had heard from a couple of virtual friends of mine that they were going to be there. As soon as I got out of my car I saw person #1 - Penny from Planet Yennp Running! Penny is as nice and delightful as she comes across in her blog. And no Penny - you are *not* an Amazon! You need to talk to those folks at Camelback about their sizing! Even though we live within 30 miles of each other, this is the first time that we've met.


And just to show how the evil network of runners work - Penny introduced me to two of her blogging fields - Mary (Lilhlfpint) and Erica (Cupcakecarnival). It was a pleasure meeting the two of you!

As for the race - the morning was actually *perfect* for a run. Overcast skies. Rain (yes - real rain - not just a heavy drizzle). Temperatures in the upper 50's. All systems were go. Except for me. Despite taking Friday off, I was still sore and tired from Thursday's run. My legs were sore from shoes that need replacing. I was definitely not at my peak for this race.

I enjoyed my normal pre-race ritual. Porta potty - check. Coffee - check. Donut - check. I was as ready as I was going to be. By this time, the 5K'ers had started. I warmed up by jogging about half a mile up the course. By this time some of the faster 5K runners were making their way back on this out and back course. I stopped and cheered them on. Then - up in the distance - I eyeed Penny making her way back to the finish. I latched on and ran with her back to the finish to wrap up my warm up. Penny - you made me break a sweat!

A few minutes later it was time for the 10K to start. It is *really* nice to be in a race with only a couple hundred runners instead of thousands. No jockeying for position. No pushing slower runners out of the way. We took off in a light sprinkle.

This course was *flat*. Not quite like a pancake (there were a couple of inclines and one underpass) but there were no hills of any type of this course. I settled in to run my race. My goal was to break 55 minutes. Miles one and two had me on track. But, then, fatigue set in. My legs were starting to hurt. Heart rate and breathng said it shouldn't be lactic acid buildiup - but nonetheless - they were hurting. I still had four miles left, so I dialed the pace back in and tried to conserve what I had left for a finishing push.

Then at mile 5 - there she was - my savior! My buddy Ingrid (travelmama from the Runner's World forums). She had 'threatened' to show up and find me out on the course! What a sight for sore eyes - there at the water station at mile 5 with cups in hand. I gave her a great big sweaty hug and grabbed the nectar from her hands. Ingrid and I first met at the Southern California Half back in January. Since then I've seen her at two other runs, and if I wasn't such a marathon wimp, would have seen her at two others. Ingrid is another one of my certified running nut buddies - she has run 12 marathons in the last 12 months. All with an injured leg (ITBS and tendonitis). She keeps threateneing to take time off. I guess her idea of taking time off is to show up at a race to help! We should all be as charitable to our fellow runners! (And to let you know what kind of person Ingrid is, she was on her bike on her way to the local mission to donate clothing - race t-shirts that she was no longer going to wear).

Well - back to the race. There was still a little over a mile left. I was pretty sure my pace had been inconsistent since mile 2. I tried to push a little harder. Next thing I knew, we were rounding the corner and the finish line was in sight a quarter mile up the street. I gave my final push and hit the tape. Final time? 55:00. Argh!!!! One second and I would have broken my 55 minute goal! Instead, I was happy with a 32 second PR. I'm still making progress!

Overall, this was a pleasant race. Everything was well organized. The course was well marked, and there were plenty of volunteers out on the course to keep us going the right direction. Water stations were well stocked and well placed. And the post race food (bagles, oranges, bananas, pizza) and drink hit the spot! If you are looking to PR - this is a course to do it on.

I wrapped up a neat little race in a neat little community by spending some more time with my neat friend Ingrid, enjoying food, drink, and company. Want to know why I run....?

P.S. - Here's the pace chart from my race. It's pretty obvious where I lost this one....

And... Four More

Last night was four more miles on the Lower Back Bay. I had some company for a change - my youngest son and my niece joined me. We got a late afternoon start and finished a 2 mile out and back just as it got dark.

I kept the pace slow and steady for the first three miles, but did air things out for the last mile, dropping my pace to 8:04. Statistics for the run - 4.2 miles total, 144 bpm average heart rate (80% MHR). One thing of note - for the past few runs I've been having some trouble with my Garmin HRM. My heart rate would spike for the first few minutes when starting a run. I have a Polar HRM that acts the same way when the battery needs replacing, so I thought that perhaps that was the problem. But, I read a thread on the Runner's World forum that suggested checking to make sure the strap was tight. I checked the strap last night before we started and sure enough, the strap had worked itself loose. I tightened up the strap, and the HRM worked like a charm. I'm glad that solved the problem!