Nike GPS watch

I hate running. There. I said it. A trip to my distant past will show my disdain and utter lack of ability in this area. Running the 600 hundred-yard dash in grade school. Last place. Running lines in junior and high school basketball. Last.

So it has come as a complete surprise that I've fathered two children that are actually decent at the sport. My daughter is on the varsity in both track and cross country, and my son is in his first year of cross country as a 6th grader in middle school.  They are so much faster than me that I'm questioning their birth certificates.

One thing I have on them is age and wisdom (some at least.) The sport of cross country running is such that pace is key component. Knowing what your pace per mile is becomes very important.

To that end, I started researching watches that could provide this data. Originally I was thinking that a watch with a good stopwatch/chronograph would work. But as I researched the subject some more, I found that GPS watches had come a long way. They are now accurate, small and affordable.

A search of ebay listed a number of them including watches by Garmin, Tom Tom, Timex, Suunto, Polar, and others. The watch I ended up going with was the Nike GPS watch made by Tom Tom. I got it for a very reasonable $40 used. It's not the smallest watch and it doesn't have a feature that the Garmin Forerunners have, which is virtual partner, allowing you to keep pace with your previous runs. But it tracks your time, distance, pace, heart rate (with optional sensor), and calories burned. You can then see your mapped route with pace data & changes in elevation on the Nikeplus.com site.
The watch comes with rechargeable lithium polymer battery, which charges via USB, giving the watch eight hours of run time with the GPS and sensor both turned on. Without those turn on, it provides up to 50 days of standby power.

I bought it as a reward for my daughter in making the varsity xc squad. I thought she'd be thrilled. Instead she declined to wear it because, "No one else on the team wears one." Isn't that exactly what you'd expect out of a 15 year-old's mouth? Nevermind that it could help her training immensely. Some day (when she's over 30) she'll appreciate what her old dad was trying to do for her. On the plus side, I've got a nifty toy that shows me how incredibly slow I am at a moment's notice.

JR Talker Duck Call

I have a friend, Troy Buzalsky, who is a fireman by day, but an outdoor writer in his heart. He's written articles in a number of outdoor magazines including Fish Alaska and Salmon Trout Steelheader magazine.

A couple of weeks ago, we got together and I mentioned that I'd had my 50th birthday recently. He apologized for missing it and we didn't discuss it further. I did notice the JR Talker duck call he had sitting on his dash though. He said he'd just gotten it from his friend JR (Wally) Anderson. JR makes each of these calls by hand and is incredibly detailed about it. These things are works of art. I've often thought of getting into the duck call-making business, but after seeing the exacting nature of creating these calls, I've decided I don't have it in my makeup.

So out the blue, Troy stopped by yesterday to deliver a surprise. My very own JR Talker, with the words, "Happy 50th" printed on the ring. And it was in Wisconsin Badger color to boot!

If you're looking for a call that sounds great and is an heirloom piece that you can hand down to your kids or grandkids, visit JR's website at www.jrtalker.com.