Instamatic

Okay, so after taking more than a month off from running due to a stress fracture I am now back to building base. I cycled for that month but now I’m doing all my runs about 30 seconds per mile slower than I did before getting injured. Where I was running 6:45 pace for a six mile run I’m now running 7:15 when I was running 7:00 pace for a 10 mile run I’m now plodding at we’ll just say 7:30.

I’m trying to keep the mindset of this might not be pretty but it’s necessary. Hopefully it will pay off.

Why running is better than driving reason number 4. Whenever I drive and see someone running or cycling my immediate reaction is, “I’d rather be you.” In 10 plus years of running and one plus month of cycling I can’t remember a single time thinking, “I’d rather be you.” Even if it is snowing, I’m not wearing a shirt and the car passing me is expensive.

My first family activity of Thanksgiving 2009 will be cycling from Troutman to Gastonia with my younger brother. Apparently this 55 mile turkey ride will burn about 2200 calories or the equivalent of 3.5 pounds of turkey.

Maybe because it’s unexpected but I never schedule off days to coincide with holidays. I’ve run or cycled every Christmas and Thanksgiving that I can remember, which means at least four or five years worth.

I’ve wanted to do this ever since I got the GPS watch, but I finally used it to track how many miles I walk during a high school football game. 2.22 Miles total during the South Point vs. Forestview game.

This might come as a surprise, but I like the whole having to walk a lot aspect of my job. I have a walking intensive job, whether at a football game, or just walking to and from my car on assignments.

Next up, see how far I walk while shooting the Gastonia Christmas parade. I know you’re as excited as I am.

Why running is better than driving reason number 3. You can run in almost any gated community. If you’ve ever driven past a gated community and wondered what is in it, your options to find out are limited. You can buy a house there, you can somehow figure out a way to befriend someone who lives there, or maybe you can become a newspaper photographer and shoot events there.

Or, if you’re a runner you just sidestep the gate as part of you run. As an added bonus the few cars and friendly residents make gated communities great places to run.

Whether running or cycling I’ve always liked using Sunday as my long day. There’s less traffic, drivers usually are in less of a hurry and there are always a handful of other runners and cyclists to offer encouragement along the way.

Since making a debut on the bike about 10 days ago I’ve ridden 200 miles, and just about a third of that mileage comes from long rides on Sunday.

I just made a $400 investment in running gear. No, my iPod didn’t get caught in the rain again, but I was compelled to buy a GPS watch. Not wanting to go the cheap route I purchased a top of the line Garmin 405CX complete with heart rate monitor.

The watch keeps track of pace, elevation, heart rate, distance traveled, direction traveled, calories burned, and more. After returning from runs I just go within a few feet of my computer and the watch automatically sends the data to my computer and it appears on the Internet without me having to do much of anything.

The Web site stores all this information with a Google map of where I went and how fast I was going. And all of this is kept track of in a calendar with my runs able to be seen by the world.

The reason I made the purchase was simple: I wanted to know if it could make me faster. After a month of ownership I’d say it has made me run smarter and train harder, and hopefully this has made me faster.

Here’s how I think it’s made me faster.

Pace

One of the simple training features has become one of the most effective. I can set a pace that I want to run, say 7 minutes/mile, and the watch creates a virtual training partner and keeps track of how far ahead or behind I am from the digital man. It is surprisingly satisfying to beat the man in the watch, and this gives me extra motivation to finish runs hard rather than taking it easy.

Distance

Gone are the days where a 10 mile run is anywhere between 8 and 12 miles. Now I know if I ran 5.99 miles or 9.71 miles. While this might sound trivial, runners have a tendency to exaggerate mileage in our heads and what we say to others. Knowing how far we’ve gone makes us want to go farther.

Racing

I’ve never trusted mile splits during races. Sometimes the markers are set up at the wrong locations and sometimes you’re not running the pace you see. For example, if you go by mile markers and you run your first mile in 5 minutes and 30 seconds, that doesn’t mean that you are currently running 5:30 miles. You could have run fast at the start and then slowed. So now you think you’re running 5:30 miles when you’re actually running a 6-minute pace. With the watch you get accurate readings throughout the race, helping you pace better.

Also, advertised race distances are shorter than how far you raced. If you race a 5k you might see that you ran a 5.1k. This is because the race is measured as the shortest possible distance, taking bad lines will increase the distance. Seeing this extra distance will encourage you to take better lines and take a few minutes

Minor complaints

Calories: Since I’ve never counted calories this was bound to be a useless feature for me, but for those that do the watch keeps track of it. Just as you can do with distance, you can set goals for total calories burned each day, week or month.

Water resistance: The touch bezel that you control the watch with is similar to an iPod. However, if you sweat a lot or expose the watch to rain it is hard to operate. The watch lets you display three items at once, such as time, pace and distance. If you don’t need to switch back and forth you can lock the bezel and there aren’t any moisture problems.

Heart rate monitor: Maybe I’m not smart enough to make sense of it but seeing a heart rate correspond with how fast I’m running doesn’t help me. If I run faster, my heart rate goes up, but I would much rather train at a certain pace – say 6:30 miles – rather than at a certain heart rate.

Battery life: It’s advertised as 8 hours when using the GPS so it’ll never be a problem during runs. However, the watch warned me that the battery was about to die during a six hour bike ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It made it the whole way, but I didn’t want to lose all that data.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Go online and check out Ben Patton’s running stats. Visit http://connect.garmin.com/explore?owner=cameraman117

Why running (and cycling) are better than driving reason number 2. When I’m running or cycling and pass a fellow runner or cyclist I give them a two finger wave, kind of like a peace sign but basically telling them to keep up the good work. I do this whether they’re on the other side of the road, or only a few feet from me. There is no such camaraderie between drivers, and almost all hand signals exchanged between drivers are not to tell the other how good of a job they’re doing.

Despite the fact I have to wake up about four hours earlier than I am used to, racing is fun. So after exclusively racing in the morning the past few years I finally got to compete in a race that doesn’t take place at a time when I’m normally asleep. The CaroMont Candlelight 8k was also the first 8k I’ve done since college.

The late start time wasn’t perfect because I had to adjust my pre race routine. I had to eat my Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki for lunch rather than dinner the night before. Also, I since I worked that night I needed to scramble and get a few pictures from the race for the next day’s paper. This just meant post race scrambling for me, rather than my usual short and relaxed cool down.

Despite the fact that this was the first year of the race, the field was really strong for a Gaston County race. I almost wish I had watched it since the winning time of 23:31 for the 5 mile course was quite fast.

A few running clubs from Charlotte participated and they brought a handful of fans scattered throughout the course. Unfortunately as I ran the course with most of the top groups their fans would cheer their people on but I wouldn’t get any love. I would hear the same names getting cheered over and over during the race and hear things like you “can beat this guy (me),” or “don’t let him (me) pass you” a few times.

I went in hoping to run under 30 minutes, I missed this and ran a 31:02.  I was dissapointed in this but enjoyed racing.

Reason 1 why running is better than driving. I can run more than 10 miles in Gastonia without having to stop, but somehow I can’t even drive a mile without hitting a red light.