Damn it. Don't you know I tried it anyway. Just plugged my thumb drive into the new strangely-oriented USB dock on this mystery machine to see if, by some miracle of technology, it would just know what to do and then make everything work without me having to rub two sticks together and chant with CD-roms between my thumbs and forefingers.
And that was a poor decision.
Evidently, ThinkPad technology hasn't improved to the point of artificial intelligence and Magic yet, as the only thing that plugging in my Garmin thumb drive did, without the software pre-loaded, was fuck everything up and cause this new machine to contemplate suicide.
You have work to do, Lenovo, is all I'm saying here.
BUT NO MATTER - let's not waste our time trying to think up ways to punish a laptop for being New But Still Useless or the Garmin for being Not New Anymore But Still Unnecessarily Complicated and instead focus on the big triumph of the day.
That being the sound beating of my Virtual Partner.
See, friends, my life is small and I measure success and my own personal greatness on my ability to outperform virtual entities. This likely comes from a place in my psyche that knows I'll never win a real race against real people so instead must create an environment in which I *can* win and therefore feel superior to someone. Plus, I get to deliver a sound beating, even if it's just a virtual one, and that fills me with pride - violent and unmerciful pride. Which may also only be virtual pride if I think about it too much, so let's not.
Sound beating delivered by Finny! Suck it, Virtual Partner.
In other delusional news, I'm also back in the 24s with these runs, which is much more palatable than the 25+ shit that filled my first back-in-the-training-saddle week, and despite what the watch may say with regard to pace, here (it was clocking my pace as I took the photo, not the average pace of my run, obviously, because that was more like 9:36, which isn't all that impressive either but let's focus on the sub-25 time, OK? Fine, then), the time filled my heart with joy.
When I finally found the time, of course.
Because I lost it somehow as I was sprinting the last .10 of my run and bent my wrist at an unfortunate angle, thereby brushing the nipple sensitive bezel with my wrist and switching its display from Time to Virtual Partner mode. And don't you know that I was too afraid of deleting my time, a la September of 2009, to just go clicking around pressing buttons to find it, so decided that I'd bask in the glow of my Virtual Partner vomiting onto the virtual curb and save the special news of my actual time for when I could see it on the big screen of my new laptop oh right.
You see I've gone full circle.
Anyway, I could tell this was a faster run and there was no way I was going to destroy those numbers in a haphazard exploration of the mysterious sea of techno-bullshit inside of that watch, so I just had to hope to hell that the time was still in there when I regained consciousness from my breathless post-run collapse and plugged it into the computer.
Which I never did. Because my new computer is not intimately acquainted with the watch yet. Like I said before. You remember.
Full circle again.
Thankfully, later, upon realizing that my new computer was just as hair-pullingly difficult as the one it replaced and coming to terms with that fact, I sacked up enough balls to touch the bezel of the watch and in this sacking up I managed to find my way through the menus to my time without deleting anything I'm currently aware of or care about. Yay for dumb luck!
So, rather than be totally pissed that my watch has again proven its mental superiority or that my new laptop is just my old laptop in a vaguely new-looking costume, I feel like Magellan for finding my time and I feel victorious because the Virtual Partner screen showed the Virtual Partner having reached the puke threshold :58 seconds behind me.
Loser!
Not that I barfed, mind you, only the Virtual Partner barfed. I, on the other hand, bent at the waist in my driveway and allowed nausea to pass me by while I recovered from my tunnel vision.
There's really no reason why running at a 9:36 pace should give a person tunnel vision, but there you have it:
I'm slow, but not as slow as last week.
I'm not fast, but I am faster than an imaginary virtual figure that lives in my watch.
I don't hit the puke threshold like a wild animal, but I do experience extremely disorienting tunnel vision after running at a pace that wouldn't even cause most runners to break a sweat.
I have some work to do if I think I'm going to nail down a sub-60 10K PR in April.
And suddenly my triumphs seem depressing and I feel the need to find a virtual someone to get on the receiving end of a sound beating.
Ah, the puke threshold. My hubby's a big fan of the puke threshold, but I however am not at all a fan of puking in any form. That's probably why after 5+ years of running I'm still barely at a 10 min mile and think that you rock for hitting a sub-10 min mile even though there are sick people out there like Lagat who are setting American 5k records at ~13 mins. We won't even talk about the 5k pace on the treadmill last night...
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel any better, 9:36 is right around my puke threshold, too. You'll be fine for the 10K in April... as long as you don't mind actual race-time puking. Which is OK! It proves you are hard-core! Everyone around you will be impressed that you ran hard enough to *actually* throw up while they only ran hard enough to sort of get a wee bit nauseous.
ReplyDeleteA virtual competitor would probably beat me, although I did have an awesome treadmill run this afternoon. I'm still smiling from it. ;-)
ReplyDeleteJesus. I would chuck that fucking watch in the lake. You're a much more patient person than I.
ReplyDeleteOH man. And I thought my walk on the fuckmill was bad last night. I did 1.5 miles in 27 minutes and I thought FOR SURE I was going to puke all over my clean bed. ;)
ReplyDeletewoo look at all those f bombs in the comments! People are taking your permission to say swears! yessssssssss.
ReplyDeleteHilarity of course. You kill me of course. Ruby and I are sitting here and we will happily be the virtual friends that say woohoo! Nice run! You are so on your way to sub-60 10K!
Can we be virtual even though we are real? Our relationship is mostly virtual.
I need a beer.
xo
Congratulations on surviving your Garmin ordeal. Oh, I have had several myself and my wife (montana4me) would have to attest to my liberal use of the F word. Thanks for posting. You had me rolling. And good luck with your training for April.
ReplyDelete