From Seattle: Firsts and my new toy!

Today was a day of firsts.

1. I ran in the (early morning) dark. Even when I ran before, I was never one of those people you saw during your early morning commute running along the boulevard. Nope. Well, today I was.

But, before I pat myself on the back too much... I must 'fess up that I'm technically functioning on East Coast time on the West Coast, meaning, it was really 9am when I woke up to get my (predawn) run in. :-)

2. I ran outside. This is my first run off-treadmill on the Princess Knee since our come back. Luckily, my hotel is a few minutes away from the waterfront, so I ran through the early morning fog until the sun finally came up. I was a bit leery of the asphalt, but we did it.

3. I made it farther than a mile without pain for the first time in 3 years. I didn't just make it past a mile, I made it three and a half miles to be more precise.

4. I played with my new toy. Those who know me know I have wanted a Garmin GPS watch for years. I even got that (inaccurate) Nike+ sneaker in an attempt to forget about my Garmin desires. Well, when I couldn't check into my hotel room and I found myself in a running store, a Garmin Forerunner 10 found its way into my shopping cart.

Reasons why I love my new Garmin watch so far:

1. It tells me to slow down. I'm terrible at pacing myself off-treadmill. I felt disappointed when I first started running and was struggling to catch my breath. But, Garmin told me I was running at a 9-minute/mile pace. Aha! I slowed my tush down immediately to a 12-minute pace, which is where Princess and I are training this week.

2. Freedom. I can go wherever and know exactly how far and how long it took me to get there. I'm not confined to routes I've driven just to know the distance. In addition to poor pacing, I also have a terrible sense of distance which both helps and hurts my running. So I got to just run along the Seattle waterfront today -- freely.

Today's run:
3.56 miles in 47:01
13:12 min/mile average pace
Plan: Ran 3 minutes, walked 90 seconds, ran 5 minutes, walked 90 seconds until done.
the Princess Knee: ZERO PAIN!