The watchband on my Timex broke at the end of October. Unfortunately, it’s one of those watchbands that require you to send it back to the manufacturer for repair. I had to do that with my Nike watch and they got it back to me super fast, but it’s an inconvenience nonetheless.
So my husband asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said, a new running watch. I thought I’d find another Timex in my stocking. But nooooooo…..
I got this…
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Isn’t my Garmin Forerunner 10 GPS watch purrrrty?
And it’s quite functional too. Today I used the Virtual Pace feature. I quickly punched in 8:15 after a minor fail with the Run/Walk feature. Off I sped and immediately was ahead of pace. Yay!! At various intervals (not sure exactly what yet, but I’m thinking 1/4 mile) it beeped and indicated whether I was on pace or ahead of pace. How cool!! I can’t decide which feature I like best: calculating my distance or calculating my pace and keeping me on target.
I’ve always been able to do a decent job with pacing. In fact, one year I was paid to rabbit the Women’s Mile at the Millrose Games. That was exciting and scary considering the prestige and history of the meet. Imagine running inside a packed Madison Square Garden, 
on a board track with the highest banked turns you’ve ever run on. I’m a little foggy on the exact pace I was asked to run through 800 meters, but I believe it was something like 2:15ish. Whatever it was, it was something I had no problem running; only the pack wasn’t ready to run that fast. Me way out ahead, kept looking over my shoulder to see if they were going to come up and join me. Although I hit my splits, it ended up being a terribly slow race.
But I digress… Back to my Garmin Forerunner 10. It’s great to have a device keep you honest. And that means no more driving loops around the neighborhood to figure out how far I actually ran. In fact, once I upload my workout to Garmin Connect, it shows me a Google map of my run, and a whole bunch of other cool stats about my workout.
The battery life is amazing!! I only us
e the GPS feature when I’m out on a run, and since Christmas Day, the only time I’ve had it on the charger (which is what you use to connect to Garmin Connect) is to upload my workouts.
The Forerunner 10 also comes in two other colors – pink or black with red accents. I’m not sure how many dudes want to run around with a lime green or pink watch, so if you’re shopping for the dude in your life, go with the black version.
Thank you Garmin for such a cool device and thank you to my rockin’ awesome hubby for such an unexpected gift. 
Photo Credits for Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden – By senatorpeter6 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterlaw/2236273458/) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
