Service after the Sale. Part 1.....

By: Brent

I had a very good holiday season. VERY GOOD. I would imagine so did Garmin. I know this because between gifts and gift certificates, I got TWO devices to feed my running / biking / geeking habits. The Edge 500 I have spoken about which sits on my bike and is an amazing little creation. The second item I bought on my own will with a gift card to Best Buy. The Garmin Forerunner 305. This little critter handles it all, in a wrist mount version, but unlike the Edge 500, it can handle multiple sports so when I am running, it talks to me in minutes/mile and when it is in biking mode it is in miles per hour mode. This 305 is MANY triathletes go to devise because of how easy it switches from sport to sport. I love this devise a lot, yet for different reasons than my Edge 500. Other than being in a Tri, I doubt I would use it on the bike because it is a bulky piece to have on the wrist while riding the bike. I also love it because as far as GPS watches, no matter what amount of sport you are doing, the 305 can cover it, for "only" $150 dollars. It really is a great watch.

I have used it 4 times. 2 training runs and 1 trail race, then I also went out on Sunday for a training run, getting ready for the Indy Mini in May. The weather called for snow to start up in the late morning so I chose to get out before it all started. I thought I would shoot for a 6 mile run or so. All was going well. A bit windy but until I made the turn back on my out and back route, no issues. Well as the turn was made to head back, the big FAT flakes started in, but the best part of running outdoors, now I had to finish. Again nothing really amazing to report, but all went well. As I was finishing up my route I stop at the same point every time and walk the last 1/4 of a mile for my cool down. On this last stretch there is a little half circle road that adds next to nothing to the distance, maybe a 1/10th of a mile, but since this was the longest I had gone in a while I figured the extra cool down would be good for me. As I was wrapping up this little bonus cool down, I started to slide on my left foot. I rushed to get my right foot down and thought, "Okay, everything melted and I am on the smoothest ice ever created" So I safely stepped to the right to get off the ice and started to repeat the process. As I was doing the boot scooting boogie, Gravity decided to get involved and hurled me to the ground.

As I stood up I did a quick dust off and glanced at my beloved Garmin Forerunner 305 watch only to see the display was smashed. I hit some buttons and heard it was still beeping telling me it was on, yet I could see nothing. I was just a short walk from home, and while evaluating myself and deciding I was fine I was really annoyed with myself and what I had just done.

This morning I hopped on garmin.com and sent the service depatment a letter to see what can be done. The good news is it still works, I just have no idea what it says until later when I log it into garminconnect.com but on the run, I would much rather know what is happening.

Yes, I am okay. Yes, I will be better when garmin gets back to me in "3 working days"

Christmas Catch Up

By Brent:

Well the holiday season was good to me. I hope you all had great holiday's also. Typically, when I am into a hobby, I am overwhelmed by it. It's all I do and think about. This year was no different. This post is just an informative post to let you in on future posts that will be, umm, posted.

The Garmin Edge 500 cycling computer is an ingenious creation that knows more about my cycling abilities than I do. This little gizmo has the capability to give you so much information on the go, plus hooks you up to a free service on Garmin Connect that douses you with even MORE information.

The Garmin Cadence sensor and "upgraded" Heart Rate monitor. This work along with the Edge 500 to give me more information indoors on a trainer, telling me how fast I am spinning, and the heart rate monitor so when I collapse, the doctors can see where it all went wrong.

Cycle Ops Magneto trainer. This will be a difference maker during the winter months. This little beauty will hold me up and still while I continue to log miles indoors while its 4 degrees outside and the roads are caked with snow.

DZ Nuts jersey. Plain and simple. A new short sleeve jersey for the summer. This is my first true biking jersey. It's a little dumb how excited I am about this. Yet what could be more dumb.....

Castelli Leg Warmers. Yes. LEG WARMERS. (Enter images of me in Flashdance) Leg warmers because they are simple to put on and server a great purpose. Castelli because they are marketing GENIUSES and used a scorpion as their logo.

Castelli socks. Because nothing compliments Castelli Leg Warmers better. And seriously, look at that scorpion logo!

Paceline Chamois Butt'r. This was a lovely gift from mom and dad. The best part is they had no idea what it was, so when I informed them it was for your "undercarriage" they were a bit shocked. Ahh the grossness that comes along with almost all fitness activities.

I probably have forgotten something, but this was a great year for biking. Hope you all had a great holiday also! Look for future reviews of these hopefully great products.

Related articles

• Introducing heart rate monitoring and more! (runkeeper.com)
• Win a Basis Heart Rate Monitor Watch (valued at $199) (techvibes.com)
• Garmin GPS Watches for Runners: The Perfect "Personal Training" Guide (brighthub.com)

2010 - Year In Review

Image by Lel4nd (be back soon in Dec) via FlickrBy: Jeff      

Brent and I have come a long way since starting this blog on January 6, 2010 [see original post], we have ran/biked 1,812.45 miles to be exact!  With our original goals of this blog being to document our pursuits in becoming more fit, reviewing products, and reviewing races; I would say that this year has provided us with a great start to pursuing those goals.

One of the first big mile markers of the year was Brent's training for a marathon. This training culminated with him running the Glass City Marathon in Toledo [read about Brent's race here ].  What a great feat and a sense of accomplishment for him. Then in June we both ran in the Sunburst races in South Bend.  This is one of the several races that Brent has done on mulitple occasions.  I imagine it will be one that is on our calander every year, as it is practically in our backyard.  Brent did the 10k version while I did my first 5k race ever [read about my 5k race ][read Brent's 10k race here ].  After that we had a bit of down time until we made two important purchases.  In July I purchased my Cannondale Synapse 6 bike [Read about Synapse purchase ].  About a month later Brent purchased his new ride, a Cannondale Six Carbon 5 [Read about Brent's purchase here ].  These purchases allowed us to do some serious road bike training and allowed us to participate in our first organized riding event.  At the end of September we participated in a huge annual cycling event know as the Apple Cider Century.  We decided on riding the 50 mile version of this event [rear about our ACC ride here ].  After that we again had nothing scheduled so we didn't train as much, however we did start riding with the Elkhart Bike Shop's group ride.  In Novemember we decided that we would break out our mountain bikes and do some trail riding.  Our first adventure was to Dr. T.K. Lawless park, this provided for some nice single track [read about TK here ].  With that adventure we wanted to capitalize on our momentum, which led us to try out another park, Rum Village [read about Rum adventure here ].  We really liked this park, but it led to my meta-carpel mishap [read about my broken hand ].  So as we went into December my training would have to wait until the end of the month, and I have been able to get back on the trainer.  Christmas was good to both of us, we both got some new gear, that we will be reviewing in 2011.  Also in early December Brent realized that he had a real chance to end the year with over 1,000 miles of movement.  I am happy to announce that with his bike ride this morning Brent now has 1,002.55 miles for 2010; that breaks down to 388.02 miles of running and 614.53 miles of cycling!!!  I'm sure that we will both do even more miles next year!

With all of that I will say that it has been a pretty succesful year.  As we still try to figure out and utilize this blog we would like to ask all of our readers to post a comment about what they would like to see us do and write about next year.  Also to all you cycling and running companies out there we would love to review your products, do you hear me Cannondale, Trek, Specialized, Asics, Nike, Garmin, Fizik, Saris, Pearl Izumi, Sugoi, Louis Garneau, Giro, and any others!!!  We wish everyone a very happy new year!!! Look for our 2011 preview post soon.

Related articles

• A year in gear: my top 10 products of 2010 (velonews.competitor.com)

Last Minute Switcheroo.

By Brent:   

During the day Jeff and I had been talking and prepping for the group ride when we decided it would be in our best interest to call the shop to confirm there was a group ride to go to. GLAD WE DID! The owner of the shop was on vacation so there would be no riding. We quickly came up with a new plan. Once again Jeff would come over and ride our stationary bike, while I would use his trainer again and log miles on my bike. I was able to show off my Garmin Edge 500 to Jeff and we kicked on the TV. To keep with the spirit of cycling we watched the Cervelo Test Teams podcast called Beyond the Peloton. It is a personal favorite and well known series within the biking community. Now with the demise of the CTT cycling team and its joint venture with the Garmin cycling team, there are many people hoping these podcast continue on.

So with everything set up we hopped on our bikes and set off down the non existent road and pedaled our little hearts off. I managed to log another 16.51 miles averaging 76 rpm's and maxing out (for a split second) at 56.0 mph. The trainer gets buzzing pretty good at that point. I can only imagine the damage should some bolt give out and your rear tire would make contact with the carpet. It would be quite the sight to see.

With this 16.51 miles added to my previous figures, I am now up to 992.87 miles leaving me 7.13 miles to go to hit 1,000 miles of running and riding. This is something I will be pretty proud of and look forward to crushing next year. Can I hear 1,500 or 2,000 maybe?

After the riding was over it was "Geek Time". We hooked the Garmin up to the computer and uploaded all its information to Garmin Connect. This is some cool FREE software. Check out below my ride (mind you I forgot to turn off the GPS portion of it so the map is a little awkward, yet in the same breathe be impressed that I was in the basement, and I still picked up a signal!)

After "Geek Time" concluded we began plotting our outings for 2011. We will post those hopeful outings soon and add them to our Schedule tab.

See ya in 7.13 miles!

Quest for 1,000 and Holiday Cheer

Image via Wikipedia

By Brent:

Happy Holiday's everyone! I hope all is well and the cold isn't keeping you down to much.

As November turned into December I caught a nasty flu bug that really set me back and working out really didn't feel like the thing for me. I knew that I could hold off the holiday binge eating and that should be good enough. Well time kept passing and I kept not working out so finally on the 14th of December I finally mounted back onto the stationary bike and logged 8.3 miles. I did my monthly tally of what I had run and walked in November and honestly it wasn't bad, but the numbers didn't "wow" me. 107.48 miles biked and the ever impressive goose egg in the running category. All I could do now is total up my year and see if that makes me feel any better. As I did that I realized how close to the 1,000 mile marker I was. 900.07. Well now to settle at 9XX miles seemed like a real disappointment so I sat down to figure out with the days left what it would take to hit 1,000.

6.2 miles EVERYDAY. 6.2 was kind of a interesting number. 6.2 miles is known as a 10k in the running world. Why all of a sudden we decide to go metric, I will never understand, however, it is what it is. So after thinking 6.2 miles isn't that big a deal, then realizing that that has to happen EVERYDAY for 16 days, it starts seeming a bit worse. My game plan was trying to do no less than 5.0 miles on bad days, try for a longer (like 12.0 miles) 1 day a week and rest 1 day a week. If I had the ability to get out I wanted to add running back into the mix but with the bitter cold, I knew that was going to be few and far between.

At this point I am sitting right on target. I managed one (blistering) cold run. It was the kind where when you finally get back to the house after 4.91 miles you realize your breathe has turned your goatee into an ice sculpture. Everything else has been done on the bike. I have taken 3 days off total so far but after last nights 8.06 miles my grand total is now up to 976.36 miles moved. What this means is somehow I must have missed a day that I thought I had covered on a previous workout and now with 3 days to go I must average 7.88 miles each day. The good news is tonight is a "group ride" night at All About Cycling for an hour so I should be able to rack up some good mileage there, the bad news is I can feel the head cold rushing into me quickly.

Part of my motivation these last couple nights is my new toy. The Garmin Edge 500 cycling computer. I will be writing a review of it soon but I personally must tell you the 2 reviews that I used were by fellow bloggers, the always funny Fat Cyclist here, and the always overly informational DC Rainmaker here.

3 days to go! I'll post when I break 1,000 miles of moving. Current tally, 388.02 miles run, 588.34 miles biked. Man were cutting it close!