City Run Ain't No Fun

I am in rainy Seattle. First time here and I am really enjoying it. I always enjoy the big city. I know I will never live in a big city, now that I have a fam and all, so I always like traveling to one for a few days.

The hotel where I am staying is in a great location. It is the Springhill Suites downtown—within a few minutes of all the major attractions. To top it off, the hotel offers free passes to the 24 Hour Fitness which is right across the street. You can’t beat that. In fact, I used it yesterday morning. I woke up at 4 in the morning with the idea of running outside. It was cold, wet, and windy. And wet. And cold. So I headed across the street for a 4 mile TM speed run.

This morning, however, I went outside and ran through the city. It was 38 degrees, windless, and rainless. Good enough for me! Alas, I didn’t have much fun at all. There were a lot of blocked roads and sidewalks (due to construction). I couldn’t just run down a road for a mile and back up for another. I was all over the place. And for me, that is kind of scary, especially since I have a terrible sense of direction. My goal was to run to the Space Needle and back. Which I did, but it was interesting trying to make it down there. Check out the map from my Garmin. Looking at it, you would figure it would be just a straight shot. Uh, no. Well, I guess I could have gone straight down Denny, but I decided to make a side trip for some reason, probably scenery. Denny was boring--nothing to look at.

Anyway, I guess this takes me to my first review of the Garmin 405. I liked it and hated it at the same time. The problems I had might be due to running in the city--perhaps the tall buildings interfered with the satellite connection or something. Anyway, take a look at the map again. I started my run going west on Denny Way. But notice that I was recorded running through buildings nowhere near the actual road. What's up with that? The only time I received a "proper" recording is after I saw the Space Needle and ran down 5th Ave and up Virginia St.; it actually recorded me on the road and not running through buildings and such. Also, sometimes I would look down at the unit and it would say I was running a 15 minute pace and then erratically jump to 10 and then back up again. It's gotta be the buildings, right?

I am going to try it again when I get home this weekend and see how it functions. Other GPS users, what program do you use to view your data? Do you just stick with the Garmin Connect or do you have something better?

To check out my run data on Garmin Connect, click here. Take a close at my Max Pace results. You know that's off!