By Coach Adolfo Salgueiro

All of us runners, regardless how dedicated we are to our craft, at times become experts in creating the perfect excuse to justify not running on a specific day. There are some valid excuses, of course. No one expects you to run during an electric storm or when the temperature is 120 or -50 degrees?

What it is not and will never be a valid excuse is not having a functioning GPS watch. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have enough charge, if you forgot it at home, if the wrist band broke or fill in the blank. There are plenty of options to get around this minor setback and get your training in.

If you your battery doesn’t have enough charge for your run, it is your fault. Assume the msitake and go run.

The following is a list of ways to overcome obstacles when it comes to GPS watch issues, so you can go train, anyway:

1 – The watch doesn’t have enough charge for my run: That is your fault. Own your mistake. Run on a known course and when you get home, do the simple math necessary to project what your watch was able to record to what you know is the distance you ran. Option B is to run with a buddy and get screen shots of the activity.

2 – I forgot or misplaced my watch: This is your fault. Own your mistake. Your run doesn’t need to be recorded for posterity to benefit your health or make you a better runner. What really counts is that you do run. One day without posting it in Instagram or Strava shouldn’t hurt your ego that much.

3 – My watch is not acquiring the satellites: It happens. Sometimes you have the time to wait a bit longer or restart your watch. Sometimes your group is leaving, or the race is starting. Get moving without the satellites and when they hit, start your watch. Once at home, do the simple math necessary to project what your watch was able to record and have an approximate run. It is better than not running.

4 – How am I supposed to know my pace without GPS? As many benefits as a GPS watch has, the main drawback is that runners have forgotten to run by feel. Take this as an opportunity to have fun, run by perceived effort for a change, without a gadget dictating your pace and effort. Feel the fun of an easy pace, or the thrill of comfortably pushing if that is your scheduled workout. Have fun with Fartlek or just, for a change, enjoy the view and remember you run because it is fun.

GPS watches are wonderful additions to any runners arsenal, but they have made us forget the freedom of running by feel.

5 – I can’t do my interval training without a functioning watch: Sure, interval training without a watch is hard. But if you don’t have it with you, most likely it is your fault, and you need to own your mistake and find a solution. There is an alternative, though. Boring but available. It is a treadmill. If you don’t have a treadmill, do your intervals based on available landmarks. To the third tree, to the next traffic light or to whatever is accessible and fits your plan for the day.

6 – My dog ate the watch: Check issues 1 through 5 above, overcome your objections, lace up and start running

One more thing. Most of us have additional apps in our phones that can assume on the work for a day: Strava, MapMyRun, RunKeeper, etc. There are many more and most of them have a free version. If you don’t run with a phone and can’t live with the most updated data, run with the phone that day and voila!!! Issue resolved.

As you can see, all excuses regarding your GPS watch can be easily overcome. So, remember that nobody came back from a run hoping they would have stayed at home doing nothing. Each run is transformational. Don’t miss on it because of an inconsequential obstacle.