Today was my first run with my brand-new Garmin Forerunner 405 (courtesy of my father. Thanks, Dad!) and I think that it's going to help. It tracks distance and pace and even allows me to upload the route onto my computer after the run. Today it was incredibly accurate. I've set up a "virtual partner" which is basically a pace that I'm supposed to run and it tells me how far ahead or behind my expected pace I am. I set it at 8:50/mile today and beat it handily, so I'm going to up the ante next time out to 8:40/mile. On my weekend runs, I'll set it to 8:30 (goal race pace). I also set it to beep at every mile and tell me how quickly I ran the last mile. This is pretty useful, particularly if I'm going to try to do negative splits or a tempo run.

In all, I went 6 miles up and back the lakefront in a bit more than 52 minutes. I struggled through most of it. I can't believe that the same legs that ran today went a pretty easy 10 miles last week. It was a tough run -- maybe it was the wind? -- but I'm glad that I did it. I can't decide if I'm going to do speed work tomorrow or an easy run. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Today: 6 miles at 8:45/mile (52:35)