GPS-Free

It's been almost a month since my Garmin died.

And, in a way, it's been kind of nice.  I'd fallen into a bit of a running funk, and running solely for time without any distance or speed data has been an interesting way to mix things up.

Last week, I'd hoped to do the Summer Breeze 10K, but work had other plans.  By 9 PM on Friday night, I still had 2 contracts left to mark-up and *all* of my timesheets to finalize for the month.  I owed my bookkeeper timesheets so she could complete my books and invoices (ideally, I'm supposed to get them to her on the last day of the month, so I was already 2 days late).  I owed my clients the contract mark-ups, and both of them were supposed to be completed "by the end of the week".

Sigh.

So, Friday night, I accepted the reality, and bailed on the race.  Saturday AM, I got up, finished the two last contracts for the week, and headed out for a nice 3 mile loop with E.  Not quite the 10K I'd hoped for, but enjoyable in its own way.

And, bonus, I wasn't under water by the time my mom and her husband showed up for a late afternoon brunch.

We enjoyed a typical summer meal on our patio under our umbrella in the perfect weather.  Eating outside from the garden is such a pleasure.  I didn't take a picture of the food we ate that day, but here are some colorful examples of what we've been enjoying outside on weekends and evenings:

That evening, I finished my timesheets and promised myself that I'd take all of Sunday off from all work.  Instead, I started the day with a lazy medium long run.  I ran 40:55 out, and 39:45 back.  gmap-pedometer says it was 7.2 miles.  So, a slow effort, but a steady one, decreasing in pace.

Despite a complete lack of commitment to distance, thanks to the weekend's efforts plus many walks, a run on Monday with T, a medium solo effort on Tuesday, and track day with the ladies on Wednesday (very short intervals 200s and 100s -- I was sore for two days!) I managed to hit 27.97 miles.  Not bad for a GPS and discipline free week.