Running update: In the 24s, but that's all I really know.

I mentioned that Bubba outdid himself dramatically in the birthday department this year by delivering not only a chest freezer (loving IT) and a perfect day at the beach, but also a new GPS watch for the upping of my yet-too-slow-to-be-calling-it-a-career running career.

Well, this morning's run was its debut, and while it was cool to be wearing a watch twice the width of my wrist (it's my fault - I requested this particular model knowing my chicken wrists would definitely be too freakishly small to fit it properly), complete with satisfying beeps, a multi-functioning bezel and an illusive Virtual Partner inside it's largish-small face, there were some snags.

I'm choosing to see those snags as Something I Learned By Doing Rather Than By Reading the Manual Like a Normal Human Girl rather than horrible run-ruining disasters.

I think you'll agree this is the healthiest approach.

Thing #1: There is no more beep and go.

See, in the olden days of my running life up until this morning, I would stagger out onto the porch in the wee hours of the morning, stretch my weary parts, roll the snapping out of my ankles, jam in the ear buds, reset the ol' Timex's Chrono to 00:00:00, hit the beeping button and go on my way.

Those days are no more.

This morning I went about all that and it was going fine until I got to the "reset the Chrono to 00:00:00" part. That's not a direct quote.

Yeah, this is when the watch said something unintelligible like, "Locating Satellites", and showed a progress bar moving not at all.

To which I said, out loud mind you, "Oh what the fuck."

And when it wouldn't let me just load the stopwatch prior to this alleged loading of satellites, I clicked around on that bezel until I made the watch dizzy and then somehow scrolled or beeped in the correct sequence of movements and the mythical 00:00:00 appeared.

Hallefuckinglujah.

Thinking myself something of a Knower and Sorcerer of all Technology, I beeped and went on my way. Feeling sort of like I was "getting it", which I most certainly was not.

I assumed that this time, like all the other two times I'd fucked with the watch, my pace would begin calculating and recalculating beneath the running chrono and the mileage would start compiling and by the time I got to my first sprint at minute 5, I'd be all up to date on what my starting pace was like and, hey!, I might know things like how far I can run in five minutes' time.

Hey, nothing.

Somehow I'd convinced the watch to begin its stopwatch prior to the mystical loading of satellites, so the pace and distance from the GPS didn't start tracking until I'd surpassed my first sprint, and so when I finally saw it running, it had my pace at a Supah Speedy 7:35.

People, I'll be the first one to tell you that I don't run a 7:35 mile. I just do not.

What I do do, however, is sprint like my anus is on fire during that first sprint at minute 5, so the loading of the satellites and my Minute of Sprinting glory managed to coincide nicely and allow me to believe, albeit briefly, that I'd improved magically during vacation despite the fact that I hadn't run a step in over a week.

Miracle that Maui Gold Pineapple, I tell you what.

Anyway, What I Learned By Doing here - let the satellites load unless you want your pace and distance all jacked up.

Thing #2: Lock the bezel.

This thing has a bezel that you use to scroll around through menus and choose things and make the light come on and what not. Basically, there's all these features that they probably couldn't make work through the systematic entry from, like, the normal four buttons on a watch, so they built in this bezel that you touch and rub and to which you whisper sweet nothings so that it'll produce your Virtual Partner, GPS location, the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything, etc. (42)

The problem is that if you even think about touching it, it will believe it has been touched and therefore begin destroying all the information it has just compiled.

For me this means that it will erase your pace and distance and restart the chrono.

Thankfully I didn't commit this act of technology terror until I'd completed my run and gone to take the watch off - first only looking at the time (Yay! Low 24s!) before I turned my wrist over to unshackle the band and heard the tell-tale BEEP of the bezel committing hari kari.

When I flipped my wrist back, the pace and distance where goners.

DAMNIT.

I mean, the distance isn't such a big deal. 3 miles is 3 miles. But the pace would have been nice to know. Even though the first five minutes wasn't computed due to the Locating of Certain Satellites and even though it might have held bad news (I'd like to be in the 9s because, you know, I aim high).

Next time though - and forevermore - I will hit the two buttons together to lock the bezel.

No more self-destructing data.

Thing #3: There's a Virtual Partner program.

Well, OK, that's all I know. It's in there. I've seen the picture on the box of the two little running people images running all next to each other with their paces displayed below and you have to, like, keep up with your VP or else you start to crouch down in unbelievable pain.

Or so goes the image.

Anyway, that's kinda all I know about it so far, because I was too afraid to press the buttons while I ran for obvious reasons, but I promise to figure out more of these things before too long so that I can come here and share some less than helpful Things I Learned for the time when you decide that requesting a technological device for which you don't have the brain capacity to comprehend for your birthday is an excellent idea.

I knew you'd be grateful.