Back in action

Thanks Guys for being patient with me. Not a whole lot to blog about other than work and you don't want to hear about that, I assure you! With the sun showing it's face, it's even been hard to sit down in front of the computer to blog. Thank -You Spring!!
Let's start @ the new kicks - okay maybe the old style new kicks would be better to say.. I never like buying the same pair of shoes, but I'm too chicken to experiment with new shoes. It's always been about the look of the shoe, but since I took up running a year and a half ago it's all about the feel. I tried on a half dozen pairs of shoes - Mizuno, Brooks, Saucony, Nike, and (my fav)
Asics. I keep going back to the Asics. I didn't get the chance to try out the Asics Kayano 15's because they didn't have my size, so when Bill bought a new pair of Kayano's I wanted to get his input. He pretty much sold me on them, but I still wimped out and went with another pair of Asics Gel Nimbus 10. No change - same color. I'm a big risk taker, aren't I?
I finally did it! I bought a new Garmin 405. It was the continuous thrashing by you "garmey junkies." (You know who you are) My Polar watch stopped uploading my runs online. I'm rather tech-savvy and neither tech support or I could get it working plus my dog chewed the bottom half of the band off, so I think it was a good time to retire my trusted Polar. I've been using the 405 for about 2 weeks and am liking it. I just need to get more familiar with it and figure out all the buttons. The 405 came with a HR band and I've used that once with success. The Garmin's software is light years ahead of Polar's with multiple web site uploading to display better stats. If Garmin's GPS is accurate I'm one slow SOB! haha Ever since I've used it my avg pace is slower. Of course we talked about how "off" the Nike + system is, but my Polar has been calibrated so that it is spot on. I look at my pace and it feels like I'm running faster than what the Garmey is showing. I need to run with both watches and check accuracy. Does the Garmin have to be calibrated in any way? I wouldn't think so since it has GPS. Or am I really that slow!!! hahaha

Last Sunday, I decided to run a full 13.1 miles at a leisurely pace to see how running a half marathon felt. It was one tough bugger! I finished in 2:28:50.(11:30/mile) This was at an easy pace and I didn't feel tired persay, but my legs felt heavy. This run was my first time using the Garmin and was the slowest and longest of my Long runs days. I was hoping that since this was my 7th long run of over 10+ miles that it was going to feel easier especially since this was at an easy pace. No way Jose! My conditioning is not where I want it to be yet or maybe I had a bad day of running - not sure. The good thing is that next week's Knoxville Half is a training run with my buddy @ a 2:45 pace.
Last week run: 3 runs with a long of 13.1 miles (22.5 total)
This past week: 3 runs with long of 6.5 miles due to taper(15 miles total)

Happy Spring to everyone! I'm catching up right now on zee-old blogs.
Have a great week!