Commitment

This is exciting, you're going to like this.

I bought a Garmin! My very own one! I gave Sally's back to her, she needs it for her real clients. And I handed Nigel his one back too (I'd borrowed the heart monitor). I never really liked the 305 because it is a bit clumpy and not very girly, and I got Garmin Envy of Dave's, which is a Forerunner 405, so I decided I'd buy one. While I was still debating buying one, Nic asked me why I wanted it, and what it would achieve that I couldn't do without. "It'll make me go running," I said. She raised her eyebrows in a way only Nic can do, and said "There's your answer then".

I had a great indecision about whether to get one new or second hand. I thought if there was a good mark-down I'd go for a second hand one, but then on balance thought, I'd be safer with a new one, because if it went wrong, I'd want the warantee. But then I found that there are very few second hand ones anyway. There simply weren't more than 3-4 on Amazon Marketplace, and they were only £40 less than the new ones. Some of them even had parts missing. This was the same on ebay. I put a cursory bid on one, and lost it. It went for £124. It made me think that for there to be so few available second hand, it must be quite a good product.

THEN. People, you are going to learn things from today's lesson! Then I learned about a new thing. It was Heather that put me onto it. "Have you heard about the Sniping Tool?" She asked me. I hadn't. It puts a bid in for you automatically, in the last 10 seconds of the auction. This is genius. It isn't really unfair, either, because if someone has put a really high bid on the auction before you, theirs is going to win; it's essentially like putting a sealed bid in. However, if you put a sealed bid in at a price you are willing to pay, it will come in ten seconds before the end of the auction, and steal the bid by the nominal price from the highest bidder. This finally makes sense. Everyone who has beaten me, at odd hours in the night, by 20p in the last few seconds... they weren't sitting watching it. They were just using something like that. Brilliant. Don't tell anyone, right, we don't want everyone using it.

So, I won my Garmin. There was still a slight worry that it would be crummy, but when it arrived, it was BETTER than it said. It was brand new. All in bags and packages. Instructions in French, but hey, that's what the internet's for, right? And it was charged, and all set up ready to go, anyway. Very happy. It had its inaugural run with Chris - moustachioed Chris. It should have been with Dave, but he couldn't make it. We have a little getting used to each other, the Garmin and me, but it was good to have, you know, someone else in charge again. Heart rate going, and that.

Oh, and while I was waiting on that, I got a swim in. After all, there's hills to think about. I've got to get the cross-training in.