And I used that Garmin right away!

I do not care about football.  The Super Bowl would not have meant anything to me this year had it not been at the Meadowlands, a mere 10 miles from my home.

And what it meant was that I had to get the hell away from it.

So I headed west and booked myself a room (with no TV!) at a lovely little place on the Delaware River called the Indian Rock Inn, in Upper Black Eddy, Pa. (about 20 miles north of New Hope).  The goal for the weekend was to run 30 total miles on the Delaware and Raritan Canal Towpath trail as I continue to try to traverse its entire length, piece by piece.  On the Saturday, I ran 10 miles - covering five out and back.  

On Super Bowl Sunday, I fired up the brand new Garmin watch and hit the trail, starting at the northern terminus of the trail's New Jersey side in Milford.  About three miles in, I crossed the bridge from Frenchtown to the Pennsylvania side. 

The Garmin worked beautifully as I tracked the slow-going miles on the snow- and ice-covered trail.  It gave me my splits for each mile (in the upper 8s and lower 9s), my current pace, and total distance covered.  

It also came in handy while I looked for the bridge to cross back into New Jersey at Bulls Island State Park at Lumberville, Pa.  I had miscalculated just how far that bridge was, so by the time I hit mile 11 and still was heading south, I knew I had better make a decision to turn around.  If not for the Garmin - and the huge bulldozers ripping up the trail in front of me for what I am hoping is an improvement project - I might have kept going.

Instead, I headed north again, but this time along River Road.  On the pavement, I was logging much faster miles - all sub-8s, some in the low 7s.  The tough footing of the first half that caused me to go so slowly worked in my favor in the second half as I nailed an amazing negative split and finished without any exhaustion.  

The end result - 22 miles (again, perfectly calculated thanks to the Garmin) in three hours and three minutes.  That extrapolates to an approximate 3:34 marathon, which means I could easily hit that mark at my next race if I follow that course of action and keep the first half comfortably slow.  

And though the goal for next month's race is 3:17, this experience got me thinking about negative splits...