A Tip & A Winner

If you run at night and and have a Garmin, then you know that the light doesn't stay on all of the time.  I think mine was programmed to stay on for 8 seconds or something like that. This must be a factory setting, because I don't remember doing anything with the backlight during set up.  I had no idea that you could actually change the setting on the Garmin to keep the light on.  (perhaps I should actually read the manual?)  

Lucky for me, Stephanie from Run for Fun, had this tip in her post this week. I happened to read it just before heading out for another night run and it worked!  I loved having my Garmin light on for the entire run.  I could see my pace/time/distance the entire time & I had an extra piece of reflectivity going on.  Ward said he could see my Garmin coming from 1/4 mile away.  Nice!

Here are the directions if you have a Garmin 405.  Other Garmin models may have this option too.  Go here to check out Garmin manuals.  

Touch and hold menu > select Settings > System > Backlight.

• Mode—select how the backlight turns on. 
• Select Manual to press two fingers on the bezel to turn on the backlight for the timeout period. 
• Select Keys and alerts to turn on the backlight once with the two finger press, and then any time a key is pressed or when an alert message appears. 
• Select off to always have the backlight off.  
• Timeout—select the amount of time the backlight stays on. 
• Use a short backlight setting to conserve battery power.

 Try it out!  (and be sure to let Stephanie know she rocks!)  

AND I have a Tommie Copper Winner to announce this morning:

Congratulations, Neon Blonde Runner!   Email me at runningwiththegirls AT gmail.com within 72 hours to claim your prize.  Include the following information in your email: Name, Address, sleeve choice (set of calf sleeves or 1 knee sleeve), and size.