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| Ouch |
Today’s run (treadmill): 3.2 miles
About halfway through this morning’s treadmill run, I spotted my Fitbit sitting on the guestroom bed. I’m really into capturing my activity through that device, so I was a little nonplussed by the situation. While I was still capturing metrics like time and heart rate on my Garmin, all those steps would be lost to my daily and weekly totals. I considered stopping the treadmill to retrieve the device but decided that it wasn’t worth the disruption.
Years ago, when my first Garmin failed during a run, I felt frustrated and asked myself, “If the run didn’t record, did it really happen?” I know it sounds silly, but I once felt that way. A documented run is a tangible entity. Something that happened. Something to look back upon. A run performed independent of a watch or device doesn’t become part of recorded history. I’ll admit that on the rare times when I’ve gone out “watchless” on a run, I later Gmap’d my route so I could at least capture my distance.
Even without a device, running data on the treadmill is always available via the display. I don’t fully trust the accuracy, but at least it provides ballpark metrics. I maintained a challenging pace through the workout and that took my mind off forgetting my Fitbit. So it looks like I’ll need to wait a little longer to get my next Fitbit badge. Further, today’s totals won’t approach my daily goals. But I got a good run in today, despite the lack of evidence.
Emerging Runner 
\”If the run didn't record, did it really happen?\” OMG. I still feel the same way!
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I agree! I quit running with my watch because I was racing myself on every run. Not good. I definitely NEED to document my mileage, though! It's important to me to have that record so I can see where I am (figuratively and literally), where I've been, and where I need to get to.
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Me, three!
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I still need to compare my FitBit calorie burn to my Wahoo heart rate monitor and Runmeter…and my treadmill. Runmeter always gives me a larger calorie burn than the treadmill. I'll be interested to see what the FitBit says.
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It's remarkably hard to detach from measurement. I hear it's freeing but I'll probably never find out : )
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Let's face it, we need to benchmark our progress and celebrate our accomplishments. That's why we see all those 26.2 badges on cars.
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It's funny but the one metric I don't pay much attention to is calories burned. I think that's because (to your point) the method of calculation varies greatly from system to system.
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Well, sometimes you see a 26.2 badge on a car because the driver has been secretly obsessed with the badge, so much so that she ran 26.2 miles just to get one (not knowing she could have just DRIVEN to any running store and bought one).
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You wouldn't be talking about yourself now, would you? 🙂 I considered a 13.1 badge for a couple of seconds after I ran my first. I decided that's really what my blog is for!
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