Forerunner follies pt. 2

I mentioned in the last post that I hoped my Garmin Forerunner 205 problems on Saturday were a one-time thing. Well, no such luck. It went from bad to worse for my Sunday run.

As the watch had occasionally been turning off as I put it on my wrist, I decided to do it slowly and carefully, and watch everything as it happened. I learned something -- I saw a slight gap form between the face and the back of the watch. Sure enough, it turned off. Hoping that it had just "un-snapped," I pressed it gently together, hoping to hear a tiny click as it snapped back together. I heard nothing. But when I turned it back on, it behaved normally.

About two or three minutes into my run, disaster struck. The entire face of the watch simply fell off and landed on the ground! I was just running along as I always do. I didn't bump into anything, or even move my arm or wrist in any unusual way.

I could see immediately why it had been turning off. The watch band has the battery and little else; the face contains the electronics, the antenna, and the display. The battery isn't wired to the rest of it. It has contacts on either half that are normally held together by the case.

I was still near home, so I just ran back, left the watch, and headed back out.

After completing my run, I held the watch together and turned it on, and it seemed to be working normally. I turned it off and pulled it apart, though "pulled" is a strong word here -- it pretty much just comes apart now. It looks to me like it's normally just held together by some sort of adhesive that has failed.

I inspected it, trying to determine the best way to fix it. I gently took it apart and put it back together a few times, checking the fit and wondering what kind of glue I might use. Each time I turned it on & off to see if everything still functioned. About the third time, the display showed a seemingly random pattern instead of the usual display, and since then, the display doesn't show anything at all any more.

It still beeps as I turn it on and hit the other buttons, and stops beeping if I turn it off, so it looks as if it's just the display that's not working. I can't see anything obvious that's wrong, like a loose contact.

It's out of warranty, but I see Garmin has a repair program. I'll try contacting them to see if my watch qualifies, and how much it would cost.

I still have my Forerunner 201, but it has issues of its own, which I'll describe some time. I really, really want my 205 to work.

I did some searching, and I found somebody who has taken a 205 apart. Mine looks just the same, except the battery is a different color. If Garmin's repair program can't do anything for me, I imagine I'll be revisiting those pictures in order to attempt my own repair.

Forerunner follies

What a beautiful morning for a run! It was sunny with a light breeze, and about 50 degrees. Absolutely perfect.

Less than perfect was the performance of my Garmin Forerunner 205. I turned it on and put it out on the porch so it could acquire satellite signal while I put on my running gear. Minutes later, I put on the watch, and it immediately turned off. It had done this once or twice before. I turned it on, and it quickly acquired signal again, and turned off again. One more time seemed to do the trick, so I started on my run.

Less than a minute into my run, the watch beeped. I looked at it, and it had taken a 1 km split. Several seconds later, it took another 1 km split. I was setting world records like crazy! My mile time was well under a minute.

It eventually settled down for a while, and recorded some splits that look pretty reasonable. About 17 minutes into the run, though, it went a little crazy again, and took some weird splits again. My 10K split was about 19 minutes -- another world record drops!

Eventually it shut off altogether. I turned it back on, and it stayed on the rest of the way home. My reported average pace was 2:42/km, or 4:20/mi. I wish!

I hope this is a one-time anomaly. I really rely on that watch in long runs to help me keep a steady pace.

Less than one hundred pushups...

I'd been struggling with the 100 pushups program, barely making it through most days. Last Friday I finally had a good day in which I breezed through the first four sets, and in my final set, which called for at least 33, I did 38. This was possibly the most I'd done in a quarter century. Over the weekend I did the prescribed progress test, which again went well -- I did 46, which is more than double my initial test.

So I was feeling pretty good going into week five. My progress test had bumped me up from the middle track to the hardest track, so I was expecting a challenge. I got it! My first two sets of 36 and 40 were OK, but my form was slipping by the end. The third set of 30 was a struggle, and the fourth set, only 24, was impossible. I gave up at 18. I still had a final set to go of 40 or more.

I'm unsure about how I'll proceed from here. I may just restart week 5 every 2 or 3 days until I can get through it. Another thought is to restart with better form. I've not been lowering all the way down so my chest touches on each repetition (or, I guess in my case, my belly will touch first!). I just go down to where my arms are bent to about 90 degrees. Obviously the way I've done it is easier. There's no sense even trying to do week five with the more difficult "proper" form in the shape I'm in now. But I could do week 1 that way, and work my way up from there. In any case, I have two days to think about it.

Despite this setback, I'm very happy with the program. I've been able to do well over 100 pushups in sets with short rest periods, if not all at once, and that would have been impossible just a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing better upper-body strength.