The Day I Turned my Garmin Off

I officially have my first cold of the season. Sunday I woke up with a scratchy throat and by Sunday night I had it all- swollen throat, stuffy nose, body aches, and chills. Yesterday I went to the gym in the morning. It was a waste. I felt dizzy and weak all of kickboxing. After I got home I gave myself permission to be a giant sloth. I spent the whole day on my couch with my laptop. It's amazing how much work you can get done with you are too exhausted to get off the couch.

my home for the day

 This morning I woke up feeling quite a bit better. Sore throat was gone, no more chills, and I had a lot more energy. I decided to go for a slow easy run to loosen up my sinus congestion. (and because I can't take days off). The only problem is that I have a hard time making myself run slow (slow for me. My fast is most people's slow). Whenever I look at my garmin and see a pace around 10 min/miles or slower, I feel like a lazy bum and force myself to run faster. I also hate running anything less than 6 miles so I always make myself run loops around my neighborhood until I hit the magic number.

I wore my Garmin as usual, but when I stopped  minutes into my run to adjust my ipod and forgot to turn it back on, I didn't stress like I normally would. I knew I didn't have any speed in me today and I probably should run a little shorter than normal. So, I ran with my Garmin off.

The Garmin was just a giant, clunky watch this morning.

It felt strange to finish a run and have no idea how long or how far I ran. I am a data junkie and love entering my runs into my training log. On the the other hand, I had no guilt about how slowly I ran when I checked my stats at the end.

Do you always run with a watch? Do you look at your pace while you are running? Do you feel strange if you don't know how far you ran?