1200 in 2011

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Week 8 (a look back)

AKA My Garmin World Adventures...

As I mentioned last week, I didn't do any running, mostly because of the gash in my thumb (doing much better now, though), and I did some serious "catching up" in Week 9. That being said, I thought it would be fun to talk briefly about my Garmin GPS watch which is oh so important in my 2011 goal of running 1200 miles.

I got my Garmin 205 GPS in the fall of 2008 shortly before I deployed to Iraq. As far as GPS watches goes, it's fairly basic (no heart rate monitor, blue tooth, or fancy features that the new models have), but it does everything I need it to do (which is tell me how fast I'm running, how far I've ran, and my average pace). When I upload my runs onto my computer, there is a rather neat feature of "mapping" my run. Google Earth it is not, but the map usually shows you enough to at least tell you approximately where I ran. Take first instance the picture below:

As I said I got my GPS right before I deployed to Iraq. This particular run was a 12-mile ruck march/run that I did January 10, 2009. No the map is sand-colored, but that's just coincidental, and really there isn't much detail, but if you look in the blue line on the upper right of the map you'll see "TIGRIS". The map below was 5-miler I took after I returned to Hurlburt Field. There was an overpass across Highway 98 that would bring you right to the Marina.
Of course, now that I'm living in Guam, the opportunities for travel have increased, and while I go about my goal this year, I thought it would be fun to include GPS maps of my runs in areas that we travel to. The first opportunity for this was Hong Kong:
This 5.5 mile run was right outside my hotel and along the harbor which was quite popular for a lot of runners. What I found most interesting about this run was that according to the map I was running on the water! I imagine it is because Hong Kong has expanded over the year to make room for the booming population. Of course, my trip back to San Antonio, TX was no exception either.
Lackland AFB was great for running not just because of the colder weather in January, but because the base is so big, there was lot of areas to run without having to cover the same ground twice. In this instance I ran 10.2 miles which included running around the hospital, and the parade grounds. Lastly there's Guam, which is where the bulk of my runs occur. The picture below is just one of many, but I am fond of it. It was actually from the 2009 Ko'Ko' Half Marathon and quite accurately depicts me running along the Pacific Ocean for the majority of the run. I am not sure what is going on in the bottom left, though, as I didn't actually run into the water at any point.

So there's a look at some of the runs I've logged on my Garmin GPS watch. Hopefully, as the year progresses and I travel more I'll have the opportunity to add some more interesting maps to my blog. Although the maps are a bit crude, they still give you an idea of where I'm running.

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