Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

Tonight, at Target, I bought a sports watch. Actually, to be specific, I bought an Ironman Triathlete Training Watch. Mraaawwwr!!! I had been wanting an easy way to do the kind of interval training suggested on coolrunning.com.

There are lots of different kinds of training, but that site has a cool beginners program called Couch to 5K (C25K) which is supposed to work for the average person starting out and which will train you to be able to run a 5K in something ridiculous like 9 weeks. Realistically, I weigh about 100 pounds more than the average person so I will be stretching that program out to around 9 months, but I still wanted to be able to track my progress and pat myself on the back from time to time in an empirically-based, number-crunching, tangible-proof kind of way. Flashing LCD screens seemed to be just the thing.

Sidenote: What I really want is the new Garmin 301 Forerunner — an insanely complex and expensive little piece of geekery which uses a GPS tracking navigator and a package of fancy software to create charts, graphs, averages, statistics and (get this) maps of your exercise routes. I am loving this idea so much it just makes me want to squeal, but I figured that I might want to prove a little more dedication than the ability to walk up and down my block a few hundred times before I make that kind of investment even if it means that I could create an entirely new kind of illustrated blog. I mean, who wouldn’t want to peruse a self-absorbed set of color-coded route maps. Seriously! It’d almost be like stalking!

I guess the bottom line is that the Garmin will have to be a far off reward once I’ve proven my commitment (and the price will surely have dropped by then).

So, tonight at ghetto Target, I tried on a small handful of the Timex Ironman watches. All I knew was that I wanted one step up from a stopwatch — the ability to mark my “laps.” That way, I reasoned, I could measure those half-block jogs in the middle of my walk and, as my ability increased and my endurance bulked up, feel proud of myself for being able to do more and more. What I hadn’t accounted for was that the watches would include so many other features! These features include, but are anything but limited to:

• Memory enough for hundreds of laps and splits at a time.
• Timers that count both forwards and backwards.
• A digitally captured workout log organized by date.
• Interval timers in a dozen variations.
• Alarms and notes and reminders galore. (Though, since there’s no way I’m wearing this geeky, velcroed, army-knife of a watch, I can’t imagine that there’ll be anything I need to be reminded of other than “Look both ways” and “Carry ID” — neither of which tend to correspond with any predictable time.)

I ended up with a nice, bulky model that includes memory for 100 laps, 9 intervals, and 3 alarms. I was almost seduced into a model which, for $15 more, provided 200 laps, 10 intervals, 10 alarms, and notes! Notes. Yes, okay, so I was seduced. Once I realized, though, that there was nothing at all more important to remember during my exercising than, “Did you remember your sunglasses?” and “Don’t let the big dog eat Milo!” I passed on the notes capability.

Actually, what truly sold me on the cheaper model (and, okay, this is a little embarrassing) is that it has a cheesy, canvas-and-velcro wristband. I knew I wouldn’t want anything leather or metal (respectively stinky and painful on my gorilla-esque arm hairs), and the new, space-age, neoprene-plastic, sexy wristbands were nice enough, but they just didn’t feel like they fit quite right. Besides, the velcro one slips on and off brainlessly, quickly, and effortlessly and, let’s face it:

It makes me feel like an athlete.

John Bingham, champion of the exercise underdog, says:

Can people who are fighting to lose thirty or forty pounds be athletes? Of course they can! Can people who have waited until their forties to become physically active be athletes? You bet. Can people who finish last in a race be athletes? Yes, they can. And yes, they are… By continuing to view yourself as a non-athlete or non-runner, you miss the opportunities to find joy in association wiht your activity. When you hear people talk about athletes or runners, it’s important that you permit yourself to be included. Athletes can’t be them. Athletes must be us. (From The Courage to Start)