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.