Tools to Rebuild

How shall I rebuild this bag of mostly water?


The Garmin Forerunner 305

A marathoner at work told me about the Garmin Forerunner series of GPS enabled watches, The way it breaks down your workouts - knowing at what level I need to be to produce the maximum effect without overworking has really helped me. At my age my target heart rate is 140, so if I'm cranking out 170 I'm going to want to stop and wheeze a bit, If I keep it between 150 and 160 I don't need to stop, unless my legs give out - being a video gaming couch potato my leg muscles need time to build up. I want to give them enough exercise to strengthen them as quickly as possible, so long runs become possible. I do use the watch for mile marking, and speed too, but mostly as a heart monitor

Lake Fenwick Park - Kent, WA

Another tool is a place, a place of resting and testing - the forge where I can refine and shape myself. Most of the walk/run is dense forest, the paths are dirt - no ruts or roots, so it's easy to concetrate on your cadence.
It begins with an 1/3 mile upward slope leading to stairs (more on the stairs later.)

With the added fun of elevation change it really works aerobically while strengthening the legs. The environment maintains a much cooler temp on hot days and the scenery is much better than running around a track. After a month of using this trail, I grow more accustomed to the elevation changes and turns and general features - the board walk on the north side before the entrance on Reith Road, the quick dip about half way through that drops down ~20 feet and pops back up 10. Although it is close in (30 minutes out of downtown Seattle) the park has kept it's forest feel.


The Stairs

The Stairs of Lake Fenwick are it's best and worst feature - A true love/hate relationship has developed. 256 beautiful, painful, euphoria producing/agony inducing steps lead the way down into/up out of the thick forest valley. At first my goal with these was to make it all the way to the top without stopping. Now I do not stop when I get to the top (Progress!) The day before yesterday, I was passed by a kid on the trail, and I thought to myself "If he runs up those stairs, I know he's a spawn of Satan sent to dishearten me." I get up to the stairs and I see him about halfway up, chugging away at a jog up the stairs... "You go ahead Satan, If I do get thee behind me, the least you could do is push!"

Upon reflection "Lachesis Jr." motivated me to keep going, and that was the first day I did not stop at the top. Oh I wanted to, but I wanted to keep going more to prove to myself that I could do it.