Arrival of the Food Pod

Even though I have a GPS watch, I just took delivery of a garmin foot pod. Why? A few reasons actually. I do want to keep an eye on my running cadence, which should be close to 90 spm. And, if I am running in an area without good GPS satellite signals, then the foot pod can be a back up for distance and pace measuring. Also, for those nights I get stuck in a hotel with a treadmill as my only running option, I have a better way to keep an eye on pace and distance.

Having used it for the first time on yesterday's run, I think I might have to track down and smack the manager that signed off the latest version of the garmin manual. I did everything they said in the manual. Several times over... still nothing. Then, I gave up trying the same thing over and over, I saw the "troubleshooting" page. There it tells me that GPS must be disabled to pair the foot pod the first time. WTF??? Why the hell didn't you tell me that IN THE FIRST PLACE???? After all, its a simple instruction and everything else in the directions is worthless without that step. Douche.

Another complaint would be that I'm shocked the 210 does NOT show cadence in real time. Only in the data after the fact when you download your data. That kinda blows.

Still it is better than not knowing anything about your cadence besides trying to count it out in your head while you run. And, it does at least show up in the splits (each mile) to see how your cadence varies through different areas of a run, not just an overall average. But again, none of this info is available on the run itself. Its only seen after the run when you download the data from the watch.

Run itself was OK. Weather was perfect. I felt a little low on energy, but not awful. My cadence is a little low, 83-84. I think mid-high 80s is a decent place to shoot for at this point. They say 90 is best, but we'll see. Would certainly help to see my cadence on the fly, alas... Other than that, ran 3 miles, pace was 8:38 pace, ave HR 151.