One of the features of my Garmin Forerunner is a virtual training partner that gives you something to try to keep up with during training. I tried it out yesterday and set it to a 9 minute mile which is about what I’ve been averaging. When I was ahead of the pace, the lower half of the display was black text on a “white” background, but when I was behind, it was a black background with white text. It shows how far ahead or behind you are relative to the training partner. The problem with the training partner is that he never has to stop for stoplights, is never out of breath, and just keeps running. When I was behind, I could just hear him say (not literally) “you wimp, speed up”. There are parts of my run that I can easily beat the partner and other parts where it is hard (going uphill). Luckily, I managed to beat my virtual training partner by a few hundred feet on my 5 mile run. While it is a nice concept, I can’t say that I like that kind of competition even if it really is all in my head.