Paralyzed by gadgets

Oh, I remember when I was so jazzed, having purchased a GPS for myself (w/mom's x-mas money for me, thanks mom). A week later, it sits on my dresser, still in the box. Today I just may return it to the store. What happened? It started with a conversation with some relatives on Christmas Day. After a few cocktails we talked about training. They argued (with a passion fed by alcohol) that a heart monitor was essential to high quality training, much more essential than a GPS. The next day, I read an article (by a friend of mine) that the type of GPS I had purchased had gone belly up on him twice within a year. His advice? Buy it from a store with a good return policy (ouch!). Then I began reading reviews of a combination GPS/Heartmonitor ... very discouraging. Stuff like, the heart monitor was unreliable, the GPS lost signal in the trees, or sometimes for no reason at all. And I began questioning my own motives for buying such gadgets. I'm not training for the Olympic finals, I just want to run the ENTIRE Big Sur Marathon. I don't want to set a world record. A friend of mine reminded me how she remembered admiring my competitive drive in high school, and how she knew I was applying that to this marathon running, and how I really needed a heart monitor to take my running to the next level. And I sat there thinking, there are so many more important things I need to take to the next level (my skills as a writer/editor, my marketability, my relationships, not in that order). Running just doesn't rank up there. But then, those are thoughts of a frustrated guy, a guy who just a few days before felt like he had the tools to rule the world. And so the GPS sits, and if I don't make a decision on it soon, the decision will be made for me (when the store won't take it back).

The GPS sits, but I got off my rear today (having taken four days off) and hit the road. 6 1/2 miles along the coast, where the waves crashed against the rocks, sending up plumes of white water, some extending 10 or more feet into the air. It was quite beautiful really and I thought, "boy, I bet the GPS would work out here ... I wonder what my heart rate is, should I be running faster? Is this an effective training session? "