Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Refurbished Garmin Forerunner 645 available for sale

Since I didn't learn about the free warranty extension on the Garmin Forerunner 645 lug breakage until after I bought a Forerunner 745, I now have its replacement and no use for it. So my loss is your gain, if you are interested you can pick it up for cheap on eBay.

Auction Link

5/19/2022 Sold!

Monday, March 14, 2022

In loving memory of my broken Garmin Forerunner 645

 The poor bastard lasted exactly 800 days. Sadly it was out of its extended warranty by three months, so the next one is on me.


Left is what the lug should look like, right is what's left of the other lug. 

The other "good" lugs aren't looking much better:




The 645 came down to about 32 cents/day, not including the two replacement bracelets and the replacement charging cable. I screwed up by only buying the warranty extension for two years, I won't make that mistake again and already ordered a 745 with a three year warranty extension. These are great watches, but you may want to check out these lugs before your warranty expires to avoid having to eat the replacement cost like I just did. 

Update 8/3/2023: Garmin sent me a refurbished unit even if I was already out of warranty. This applies to other watches, like the 245. Here's the link to the 645 version of the program: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=fWW1dV4Y3O9RufIvQqEyG7

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

260 days

 It's been 260 days since my type A aortic dissection on 5/16/2021 at 50 years old. I drove myself to the ER early on the 17th, the ER docs quickly figured out what was wrong with me, they put me in a medevac helicopter and flew me to a large cardiac center about 11 miles away, they wouldn't risk the ambulance ride. I was wheeled into the OR within 4 hours of my arrival to the ER. I had an open heart surgery and a total aortic upper arch reconstruction. I was awake some 8 hours later, on my feet the next day and back home on day six.

From looking at my Strava training calendar and Garmin Connect, I was back walking around my condo on June 1st, with my wife keeping an eye on me every step of the way. By June 19th I was walking alone and by June 30th I was up to 5 miles at a time. I eventually made it to 9 miles per walk, but along the way I had to slow down and take some time off courtesy of the non-stop heat waves. Once Virginia cooled off I was able to start stretching my distances again.

And 8 months later I had a CT scan that allowed my cardiologist to clear me for slow running. For the past week I have been doing what is basically Galloway runs, a mix between walking and running. So far I have been able to keep at least a 3:1 ratio between the running and walking parts, and I am slowly getting my leg muscles back. My chest (even healed, a full sternotomy hurts like hell) actually bothers me less when I am running than when walking. Even with single digit temperatures, what's slowing me down is the legs, not my lungs or my heart.

In terms of Strava's relative effort score, I am able to hit at least in the 100s without feeling much strain, sadly my VO2 max and my Fitness & Freshness chart took a really nasty dive which will take forever to recover. 

There are other adjustments. No more Motrin, since I am now on an Aspirin regime. Aspirin is a blood thinner, which is used to prevent blood clots, which also means you can't take any other NSAIDs. Weird thing is that I am not feeling any different in terms of knee discomfort, so either I had developed a tolerance for Motrin, or that Aspirin regime (plus the Tylenol I am already taking for the rib pain) is also working a bit on the knee pain. 

And I found that one bottle of Gatorade per day doesn't have enough Sodium to derail my blood pressure control drugs. Caffeine, on the other hand, is a problem, seems that my hard limit is one regular cup per day, anything higher than that and it screws up my blood pressure for the next 2-3 days. At least I found a drinkable decaf, Starbuck's House Blend. Too bad that also means no more caffeinated energy gels. 

Thursday, January 27, 2022

And just like that, the runger is back.


Background: I had a type A aortic dissection back in May 2021 (at 50 years old, no family history of heart disease). I should have dropped dead, but a combination of 5+ years running my ass off and losing over 100 pounds, combined with having the dumb fucking luck of living 3 miles away from one of the top trauma ERs in the area and 11 or so miles away from one of the top cardiac institutes in the country really saved my ass. And I mean really, the mortality rate is 1% per hour delay to see a doctor, after two days half of the people die if they don't see a doctor. I drove myself to the ER, it took them less than an hour to figure out what was wrong with me, they put me on a medevac helicopter and flew me to the cardiac institute, where they wheeled me straight into the OR. About 8 hours later I woke up to find out that they had performed an open heart surgery and did a full replacement (artificial) of my aorta's upper arch. I was on my feet the next day and back home on day 6.

Running saved my life, and I couldn't wait to get back to it. The problem is that my cardiologist said nope, first you walk, then you run.

After 8 months or so my cardiologist was happy enough with my CT scan to allow me "slow jogging." I had tested myself a few times over the months and I already knew I could do it, but I also knew that I was putting weight and losing muscle, so the walking regime was actually a good thing.

When I started running again I realized that my chest is fine, but my legs aren't. It'll take a while to build that muscle again, but I forgot about glycogen stores. Each day I am able to run farther per stretch, but what stops me is the legs, not the breathing. And yeah, even in 15℉.

The final piece of the puzzle: I had stopped loading on carbs in the past few months, I was worried that with just the walking these would go straight to fat.

After most of a week of feeling the "runger" both after running and late in the afternoon, I just realized that this is my body asking me to start carbo loading again, and that my legs aren't really hurting, what I am feeling is depletion, which I have forgotten after so many years of using energy gels during my longer runs.

So yeah, time to get back on the energy gels, but sadly I'll have to switch to the non-caffeinated ones since caffeine messes with my blood pressure meds.