I could hardly wait to get to the track last night.  My husband bought me an early birthday gift – a “real” (purple) running watch.  I spent a few minutes selecting the functions that I wanted to display on the watch face, then I put on my bright coral and red shoes, a wild orange shirt and my black headband emblazoned in bright yellow with “Suck it Up Buttercup.”  I was ready to tear up the pavement.

My husband was heading that direction anyway, so he dropped me off at the high school track a half mile from my house.  I carefully propped my neon blue water bottle where I could get to it, then I adjusted my teal and black headphones, started my music, and adjusted my hot pink phone band (yes, I was a very colorful sight).

I did my warm-up lap around the track, and then I pushed the RUN button on my new toy.  As I began my first “fast” interval, I was amazed – my colorful watch and new shoes had enabled me to shave a lot of time off of my previous record.  I was puzzled.  Was the Nike app that inaccurate?  Was MapMyRun telling me I was a turtle when I am really a (very fluffy) cheetah?

The laps and miles flew by.  I got faster and faster.  Woo Hoo!  I’m flying, I’m flyyyyying.  My hour ended and I ran home, feeling victorious.  I downed a big glass of water and plugged  my watch into the computer cradle, ready to review the full set of stats for my miraculous run.

I synced the watch with the app and pulled up the session, only to see that I had run it at my typical pace, after all.  It only felt fast.  I scratched my head – why did it tell me that I could run like the wind while I was on the track, only to tell me that I’m still only slightly faster than a turtle wading through peanut butter at home.

I looked at my shiny toy again, and realized that my results were displayed in metric.  Maybe I should move to Canada. I like the way my stats read in metric.  I’m “faster” in metric.  My weight is a smaller number in metric.  Oh – and there’s that free healthcare thing.

I’d miss my dog, though.   He’d be faster in Canada too, though, eh?