243

Early yesterday morning, I was cruising along on my tempo run. About 6 miles in to this run, I glanced down to see to check my heart rate.  My eyes nearly exploded out of my head. This couldn’t be right. My Garmin says my heart rate is 243. Heck, if it was 243, I would be laying alongside the road – probably shaking like a leaf.

No, something else had to be wrong.  

Different reasons rolled through my head in an attempt to explain this unusual behavior. However, the most likely cause was a depleted battery.

When was the last time that I changed it? At least 3 to 4 years had to have passed. Definitely long enough I didn't remember doing it.  

I made a mental note to change it after my run.

The miles rolled by and soon the split for the final clicked off. Scanning back through my splits, it was pretty easy to find where my battery started to go sideways. There was a nice smoot 145 to 150 and then, it jumped to 230 to 250.

After cleaning up, I picked up my heart rate strap and turned it over to remove the battery. Usually, with a nickel I can turn the cap and the battery popps right out.

What I saw made my mouth drop open.

Not only was the cap gone but so was the battery.

How could I have lost them? Better, question – where could I have lost them?

I racked my brain to remember every detail of my run. 14 miles is a long ways.

I thought chimed in.

I removed my heart rate strap at the street before heading up to my house. I recall hearing something hitting the ground but it didn’t register at the time as an issue.

I headed down the street to see if I could find it. No luck.

I came back searched my running clothes. No luck here either.

I looked throughout my house. Still no luck.

Then, it hit me. I’ll bet my heart rate monitor went wacky once the battery cap came off. Well, this did narrow down the places to look, but 8 miles is still a pretty big haystack to find a nickel size black cap lying alongside the road.  

I pretty much gave up all hope of finding it.

After finishing up my run, this morning, I did a second look over the area where I remember hearing something hit the ground.

Scanning ground, I was pretty much ready to give up and head back to my house when I spotted shinny nickel size battery. I picked it up. Yep, this was where my battery fell out.

As I looked up, I saw this black nickel size cap not 3 feet away. It was pretty beat up. I suspect that one or two dozen tires had run over it since yesterday but yes, it was the cap to my heart rate monitor.

Some days, it is better to lucky than good. Today, I was lucky.

 

The Cool Down Runner