a totally boring story about beeping.

(Nice.) My Garmin (better known as my gizmo) stopped beeping a few weeks ago. This is a minor problem for most people, but a life-changing OMYGOD WHAT DO I DO? for me. I mean, it beeps when I'm going to hard. It beeps when I'm not going hard enough. It beeps when intervals start, when they stop, and it plays a happy little song when workouts are over. Those beeps rule my life for 2+ hours a day most weekdays. Now there are none.

Like any addict jonesing for my beeping fix, I emailed Garmin, called the Garmin store on Michigan Ave, and immediately started shopping for a new one. The email came back that they'd warranty it for $75, the store said they could give me a "loaner" in the meantime (that equates to putting a new one on my credit card, then getting a full refund when I return it), and shopping for a new one tells me the price of these gizmos has dropped to ~$150 but it's still way more than I can shell out right now.

Naturally, I took the easy approach, which is to do nothing about it. (Coincidentally, this is the cheapest approach, too.) I've been doing nothing about it for a solid two weeks now, and it seems to be going well. I have to stare at the gizmo during interval workouts instead of listening for the tell-tale beep, but it's ok. And when I run to hard or pedal too easy, nobody and nothing yells at me.

The way to perfect my runs/rides, it turns out, is to stop having a beeping machine tell me when I'm imperfect.

I only have a few more weeks of being a biker, thankfully, before Cheq is over all this nonsense fades into an offseason. So I guess I'll just weather this one. I miss my beeps. Goddamn you, Garmin.