New Idea / Challenge re: Garmin

This is an idea I have been giving some thought to .... a Dailymile friend posted the following when I commented on my blah! sluggish 5K run a few days after completing the half marathon. As soon as I read his reply, it resonated with me ...

Don't sweat it. Take it easy. Remember you've been training hard. Lots of people take one or two weeks off. Personally, I don't like doing that myself either. Here's a challenge: Leave the watch at home and just go for a nice run. Don't worry about pace, time or distance.

First, similar to him, I don't want to take two weeks off after the HM. Although I think this is a great idea (back in August, I did take one week off when I had family visiting from South Korea; my running was strong after taking a week's rest from it), I am afraid to take this much time off at this time of year for the fear of not getting back into it! This has happened to me before (2003) and I truly fear it re-occurring. Also, I am predicting another snow-filled winter so my running schedule will definitely become more haphazard. Last winter, I ran up until December 23rd before the snow hit us, and I was not able to run again until one day in January, one day in February and then haphazardly more often starting in March (I checked my connect.garmin site to make sure memory served me correctly, and it did - I love having a history to refer back to!). Knowing that I will likely be forced into a running hiatus at some point, I do not want to start one now when the weather is so wonderful for running. :(

Second, I think his challenge is a very smart one. I never run without wearing my Garmin. Since deciding to run this half marathon back in May, and focusing on getting myself up to a level so that I could conceivably train for a half marathon, I have never run without it ...

So! I have decided that I will run without it tomorrow (planning for an easy 3-4K run). I will wear it during my 10K race on Sunday (the chip will be starting gun-time based), but all next week, during my rest, "non-training" week, I will keep it off. Now here is the interesting thing ... the new training program I am starting in November for a 10K PR has eight (8) weeks worth of road work - designated distances to run on certain days, but with no pace assignments. What I would like to experiment with is switching the pace and time windows "off" on my Garmin for this training. I will wear it to track my progress so I can download it online (I love this too much!), but I won't use it to "check" my progress while running. I will just set it to the mileage window so I can adhere to my designated K for the day, but I will just run for the sake of running and without checking my watch for pace.