One one of my other sites, I looked at the Garmin Forerunner 201 GPS unit. Now I found a good review of its bigger brother, the 301.

There’s a good review on active.com - it sounds good and could be something to look at, especially if you are a multisport athlete.

I especially like the pace-per-mile calculations. Instead of waiting till you are done and calculating your pace, I guess this actually calculates your pace in real time! Pretty sweet if you’re out running, maybe training to run a marathon at a certain pace.

There are plenty of other features, so if you might be interested, read the full review - there’s a lot of features in this thing!

http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=12713

Pat Reardon, who ran with me over the weekend down on the Cape, was kind enough to do a write-up of his racing experience. Either that or he wanted to make excuses for why Scott and Bucky beat him to the finish line!

You can read his race report here:

Pat’s 2006 Hyannis Half report

6 miles isn’t that far. I got through this race with relative ease compared to the half-marathons from years past. Granted, it did take me 53 minutes. And I feel like I did a half marathon. But I thankfully avoided the intense pain and displeasure that Cape Cod usually dishes in the customary winter run trip.

On the other hand, my muscles and joints are extremely sore. It’s hard to walk. And damn was it cold and windy yesterday! But I have a whole year to forget about it before I have to do it all over again…

I had a good conversation with my friend Bucky around the 1 mile marker. We could look in front of, and behind us, and see countless numbers of other maniacs out in the cold. It built off of our earlier talks about just staying inside or leaving, or maybe going snowboarding instead. And believe me, we contemplated a lot of things we’d rather do than run in the cold and wet weather!

You know how fun it is to run through puddles in 20 degree weather in mesh shoes? Not very. But if you enjoy browsing a website like this, you have probably experienced some fun stuff like frostbite!

To see a full list of the psychos, er… participants, out there, check out the results.

Bucky, Scott, and Pat all posted times around 1:48 for the half, which basically means that they are faster than me. However, Bucky did have the advantage of carbo loading the night before. And little do Scott and Pat know that I was just putting on an act… When the Borderland trail run comes around in April, my superhuman speed will take them by surprise!

If I feel like writing more about the race, I’ll post it in the Race Reports section on the main site.

I almost forgot, I’m running a 10k tomorrow down on Cape Cod. Definitely not the time of year most people travel to Cape Cod, but runners are not smart like most people. Common sense says to stay away from the beach when there is snow on the ground and it is 25 degrees out…

At least I have gained some common sense. I ran the half marathon the last two years, but now I am just doing the 10k.

We’ll see how this goes, considering I have run 1 mile in the past 6 weeks or so.

I don’t usually buy running shoes online. I like to go to a place like Marathon Sports, run by elite runners that know what shoe will work for me. Saving money isn’t worth having improper footwear that could cause lasting medical problems. So I usually spend about $90.

But if I’m buying shoes for general use, I look for whatever shoes look decent and are cheap. Usually $30 for a pair of Nike or Adidas at J.C. Penny’s.

Well, I’ve found a new source for my shoes: Run Bargains

Why?

They sent me a free hat! I signed-up for their e-mail list, and the next week I got a free running cap in my mailbox! Hand addressed and everything!

How can I resist shopping with them now? Great customer service and I haven’t bought anything yet! Plus, there are online contests where you can get even more free stuff!

Check ‘em out:

http://www.runbargains.com/

By the way, the reason I started browsing the site is because they had sweet shoes by Pearl Izumi for $30!

If you get there soon, you can probably get a free hat too!