Today was the day

I was psyched to watch the US men's marathon trials in NYC this morning. It was to be a huge battle between some of the best and fastest in the world today. In a tragic turn, Ryan Shay, a talented and well respected runner and a contender in the trials, collasped at just past the 5 mile marker, and died shortly there after. Medical services were directly on hand and no details have been given as to why this happened. I ran today with him on my mind, although we never met, we share the same passion. Good luck to you Ryan.
On a brighter note, today I ran with my new training partner, the Garmin Forerunner 305, a heart rate monitor and GPS combination. Everyone I have met who owns one and all the reading I have done on it, they all swear it is the greatest thing for running since shoes were invented. I have been carefully considering my options with this. I felt that I need to prove to myself that I could do some serious ground work before I made a purchase such as this. I figured that now that I have run almost 50 times in 2.5 months and have put 400km behind me, I decided I have done enough work to make the next step. So, when I got home from work, I got ready to go, the weather had just let up and turned quite nice, 12C and light wind, roads wet but not raining. This would be a test to see how my ipod/nike+ system was calabrated. I was pretty sure that it was off but never too sure by how much. The Forerunner has so many features and options that it will take a little while to figure them all out but I programmed an 8km run it to it and headed out. I followed a familiar route down Oak Bay to Monterey and back again. The GPS unit started to beep at me consistantly and I looked down and it was telling me to slow down. I almost smiled. I ran on, feeling the stiffness in my legs from work. As I ran down Oak Bay, the 2km marker was off by a bit so I knew I was short in my distances. When I turned onto Monterey, I was almost .5km short, so I ran down almost another block and a half to reach the 4km mark, where I proceded to turn around and run back the way I had come. I ran back towards home, GPS beeping madly, shouting at me to slow down for some reason. I finished where I started, right on 8km. Slower that usual but the distance is right, so I feel good about that now. 41:49~ 8km, 5:13 km pace. That feels better knowing that is correct. Now I have something to really work on. Look out. Peace.