I had this brainstorm during my long run today: what if Garmin and Taser teamed up to make a GPS watch that zings you when you fall off your pace?
I spent some quality time this morning actually reading the instruction booklet that came with the Garmin my mom gave me for Christmas (thanks, mom!). There's a "Virtual Partner" setting that let's you set your intended pace, and then the watch tells you when you're too fast or (more likely for me) too slow. The Virtual Partner is actually a little stick figure, and you are little stick figure, and the watch displays where you are running in relation to each other. A little humbling.
About three miles in, I couldn't help but think about how easy my Virtual Partner has it. I mean, she's powered by a lithium battery and just hangs in the digital code in my watch, keeping a perfect, effortless pace. And while I'm hoofing it on the muddy shoulders of back roads, my Virtual Partners tells me, 'You're 5 seconds behind. You're 15 seconds behind. You're 1 hr 20 minutes behind.' Screw you, Virtual Partner! Who invited you on this run?
That's when I started thinking, what if instead of a silent watch display, the Garmin sent a low-level shock to my wrist to let me know to pick up the pace. It would snap you back into focus. Kind of like being on the wrong end of cattle prod. When I ran by the now-closed Bushway packing plant, I reconsidered whether this idea has promise.
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