It’s been low miles on the bike with continued improvements on the running.
Goose has over 4600 miles on it now. I’m still amazed at how well this “cheap” “department store” bike has served my purposes. We (Goose and I) had one wipe-out this winter when we hit a spot of black ice on a turn. The bike fared well but the body suffered a few setbacks with some bruising on the legs, hip, shoulder, and arm. The longest repair was the ankle. Even though I was wearing above the ankle leather boots, the foot must have twisted or extended enough to do some damage. It was at least 4 weeks or slow going on that ankle. This was complicated further by the fact I couldn’t ride due to the slippery conditions, so I went into the slow-jog mode. I didn’t care about time, I just wanted to move!
I consider myself very blessed to be able to run again. I’m still slow and averaging a 9:45 mile. While I was recovering the ankle and there was snow and ice on the roads, I was averaging 11:00/mile. In spite of all that, I have ran over 9 miles two or three times now. I’m pumped about that!
I took the plunge and purchased a multi-sport watch at the end of January. It arrived in early February. I went with the Garmin Venu SQ.
I like it! Previously, I was using three devices to track my activities. I had the Garmin Vivofit 1 for walking/steps, the Garmin Forerunner 10 for running, and the Garmin Forerunner 25 for cycling. Technically, the Forerunners are for “running” so I had to convert the activity manually from running to cycling. Not ideal, but workable. Now I simply select my activity when I start and it records properly all by itself, plus I only have to work with one device for charging, syncing, care, etc.
I have been able to charge the Venu SQ once a week with the settings I’ve enabled. There are many options (very many) that can affect performance and battery life. I like where things are as the Venu SQ is able to find the satellites quickly and has recorded activities without error.
There are many customization features on the Venu SQ as well, I was able to create my own custom watch face and select which elements I wanted to be on my at-a-glance display. Nice! The image below is just a few of what others have created. I’ve gone old-school crossover with an analog timepiece (yes, hands) and data fields of battery, date, temp, and heartrate.
There are many more features with Apps and Widgets that I haven’t even explored.
It’s early March as I write this and the morning temperature has been closer to 40 F which allows me to expand back out into the country without fearing freezing to death in the event of an injury or equipment failure.
This morning’s bike route wasn’t anything extreme but nice to get out of town. I was fortunate to run into one of the other outdoor runners on his route and finally slowed down to chat a few seconds. I’m always encouraged when I come across others working on their health regimen.
Until next time, I hope you keep working on you.
