My Garmin

When I bought my Garmin 205 a day before the Brooklyn Half Marathon in 2009 I never thought I would love it as much as I do, but it really has become one of my favorite gadgets ever. I never obsess over the numbers, but none the less I find the numbers invaluable.

Earlier this year, my trusty Big Blue wouldn't turn on. It would charge and sync to my computer, but it just did not want to log any more runs, apparently.  Through great customer service at Garmin, a week or so later I got a refurbished replacement for a nominal fee.

This new 205 has been unamed (as in, when I sync runs to Garmin Connect it still just shows up at Forerunner 205 #XXXXX) I didn't want to rename it Big Blue, or Big Blue 2. I was content with it just being nameless. Nameless Garmin was working great up until a month or so ago. I was doing one of my long runs headed down Ocean Parkway and when I looked at my Garmin I realized it was OFF. WHAT THE EFF!  I thought I had just absentmindedly turned it off while hitting the start/stop button or something. (Okay, I know that makes no sense but I was just trying to give it the benefit of the doubt!)

The problem became persistent on most of my long runs, and got to be really bad about a month ago where after 5-6 miles my Garmin just shut off and refused to turn back on and stay on for more than a few seconds. I hit some crazy buttons and got it into some weird mode, but once I turned it off and back on again it seemed to be working great...until last night.

My workout called for 10x 1 min intervals with 1 min rest. Things were going fine until the 6th or so repeat. I looked down at my watch, and yep...it was off. I'm sure I cursed and said something to the effect of "Not again!" I tried to finish up my interval and then tried to do a soft reset/press all the crazy buttons but nothing seemed to work. I tried to finish up my intervals by counting to 60 but yeah...not very accurate. I tried in vain for quite some time to get it to stay on, but nothing seemed to work.

As I was about 1/4 mile away from Chambers street where I was ending my run I decided to turn my watch on and see what happened. And guess what? Now that my run was over, it decided it wanted to stay on.

I was a bit beside myself at this point. I was so annoyed at this stupid inanimate object, but it had no name, nothing for me to yell out in anger. Which made me think about all the funny names that people name their Garmin. A few of my favorites are below.

- i call it closet donkey. because ive used it once since i bought it 2 years ago.
- Carl. I went to HS with an asshole named Carl who was always better than me, and virtual partner is always faster than me
- blanche. as in blanche devereaux, queen of the hussies

Then there are those that just prefer to call it "Garmin" or "That thing on my wrist"

However, while walking up Chambers street to the train I came up with the perfect name for my "new" Garmin, which might not be in the line up much longer. Asshole.