Upgrade

Upgrade

Last Sunday during my sermon I spoke about this Christmas gift I was going to get: the Garmin 305 GPS running watch. I currently have the Garmin 201. The 305 is a serious upgrade. It is not supposed to ever lose the signal, it has more features, better software, and a wireless heart rate monitor.

In the sermon I was speaking about forgiveness. I said that forgiveness is a gift. It is something we can accept or reject. I could say: I am happy with the 201. I'm used to it. The 305 sounds better, but "No thanks, I'll stick with the 201." The 305 is an upgrade from the 201 and forgiveness is an upgrade from unforgiveness. We all know that it is much better to forgive and live than it is to remember and resent.

So I tried the Garmin upgrade today. It is a sweet watch. I run on the hills south of Gretna near the Holy Family Shrine. This is the hilliest route I have found in Omaha (check out the stats below). Probably an ambitious workout less than 24 hours after a 26.2 mile training run and just a few weeks out from the Rock n' Roll Marathon in Phoenix, but it was a great day. I ran slow and steady up and down the hills.

From now on I could post nerdy stats like this:

Total time: 1:50:47
Moving time: 1:50:39
Ascent: 46:53
Descent: 48:45
Flat: 15:01
Stopped time: 0:09 (no details needed here)

Distance: 12.09 miles
Ascent: 4.97 miles
Descent: 5.46 miles
Flat: 1.66 miles

Elevation gain: 2,511 feet
Elevation loss: 2,468 feet

Ascent grade: 9.6%
Descent grade: 6.7%

Heart Rate Average: 138 bpm
Low: 89 bpm
High: 173 bpm (I pushed really hard up the steepest hill)

High Temperature: 46.4 degrees
Low Temperature: 39.2 degrees
Average Temperature: 45.1 degrees
High Wind: 4.6 mph ENE
Low Wind: calm
Average Wind: 1.3 mph ENE

I'll spare you this kind of information on a daily basis, although if you want it, my Motion Based account name is PastorCraig. www.motionbased.com

So that is a serious upgrade. But not as good as the upgrade from unforgiveness to forgiveness.