Its been a whole week since my last post which is poor performance on my part! However, I have been mentally busy and on top of this last Friday I started coming down with a cold which I have been fighting to get rid of!

My long run plans for the Sunday were thrown out of the window and instead I did a gentle couple of local miles slow and easy. I was out for just 30minutes and it felt tougher than usual guess that was to be expected! Monday, still recovering I worked from home so as to save my colleagues from my germs – although to be honest I think I picked up the cold from one of them so I’m not sure why I bothered

Tuesday was my next scheduled run day, 6 miles ‘easy’ this turned out to be one of those very very bizarre runs. I was expecting the worst, not feeling 100% but I was fast and finding it easy. I can only assume this was down to the rest I had since Thursday evening. In what was to be a complete accident I did a 6mile run with an av pace of 07:24 min/mi pretty zippy!

Wednesday I was out with Rich and Ath who also ran the Dublin Marathon. We did a run along the Thames from Horse Guards up to Tower Bridge and back at an 8:15min/mi pace. Lovely run! The Thames at night has some amazing views which are easily missed especially on faster sessions! Had fun

Uh oh Thursday time!

10mins easy jog, 10mins at MP, 3mins jog rec ( 5x 2mins faster with 2 mins easy ) 3mins easy jog, 10mins at MP again. 10mins easy.

How was it Thursday already! A very tough session made worse by the fact that about 2mins after leaving work the heavens opened and all of a sudden there was TORRENTIAL rain! It absolutely chucked it down…The session was hard, as expected – my heart rate went through the roof which is good. I had to cut short the 10 mins easy at the end to about 5 because of time constraints. Haven’t checked out the Garmin yet as the transfer stick is at home – one to analyse at the weekend!

Today is rest day, before heading down to Southend on Sunday to run with the other Havens Runners on there campaign towards the London Marathon, looking forward to it!

I think Fridays are going to rapidly become the best day of the week for me when it comes to running unless this schedule changes. After 3 days of back to back sessions I was genuinely happy to put my trainers away for a day. Doesn’t bode well for the next 99 days though does it?

It has actually been a while since I have written a running blog, ironic given the nature of the site! This doesn’t mean I haven’t been out there, in actual fact in the last 3 weeks my schedule has once again ramped up massively. Having looked at my garmin dashboard in 3 weeks I have covered 80 miles, done 2 long runs of over an 1:30 and done 3 variants of interval sessions.

Historically I have tried to avoid the interval sessions as these are what hurt the most, 3 weeks in it still feels the same. On the first week I did 5 x 3min on/2min off which made me cry a little, last week I did 2 x 10mins on/3min off again I shed a little tear and last night I did a ramp session 10mins steady,10min controlled pace then 5mins as fast as poss. Last night I didn’t have anything left to even begin to weep! I will admit I made the experience a touch harder for myself by not taking it particularly easily on the Wednesday night with the Serps so even before I started I was hesitant!

Anyway as the title suggests Friday is the day my legs love me and why not. I figure im mostly going to sit around and take the pressure off them. Give them a little treat before Sundays long run! 1hr 45 scheduled so guessing aiming to do around the 13mile kind of distance – hopefully with some company if possible!

Big news fell into my inbox and around the web yesterday – Nike are releasing a GPS watch powered by TomTom. The Nike+ SportWatch enters the market to compete alongside the Garmin, Polar and Timex range currently in production.

Nike already have a MASSIVE community of runners who used its devices on Apple products. They have had the benefit of creating very slick interfaces which work in perfect harmony with the Apple ethos.

The Nike+ SportWatch GPS is designed to be simple and intuitive with only three buttons and a Tap Screen for navigation. During the run, the new Nike+ SportWatch GPS captures location information while showing runners their time, distance, pace, and calories burned on an easy-to-read screen featuring a customizable layout. Throughout the run, the GPS receiver works in tandem with the shoe-based Nike+ Sensor to deliver highly accurate pace and distance data. This sounds much like the Garmin Footpod/GPS model but typically the other systems increase the price to have the extra footpod setup. The benefit of the footpod is that sometimes you have to run in a gym or out of satellite range – this way wherever you go you get readings!

The features seem vary similar to all other devices, heart rate monitor, backlight, history. What I’m hopeful is that some time has been spent on the user experience which is something that I often think that my garmin struggles with. The touch screen feature will be interesting to see when my hands become sweaty or are in gloves!

If I’m totally honest I wasn’t expecting Nike to release a fully fledged GPS watch, I have had a few conversations in the past how I had expected them to create a simple watch that hooks into Smart Phones (iphones/androids etc) hence using the phones GPS receiver and processing power but giving the runner the extended information in an easy to read fashion. I would have thought this would be relatively cheap to create vs what they have outputted.

It will be interesting to see how well this does in the market. Nike/Tom Tom are entering a very competitive arena and from the press info I have I’m not sure its going to be suitable for tri-athletes, no mention of waterproof,  so really is a tool for the runners of which how many will give up there £1.99 Nike+ GPS app for something that is likely to be over £100 (realistically nearer £200 I’d have expected).

Regardless of the negatives I’m very interested to see what Nike/TomTom bring to the field!

It’s the start of the New Year, people have eaten too much and the resolutions are out. Top of most lists will no doubt be to dust off the trainers and go for a run. However, gone are the days of string vests and shorts like Ron Hill.

In order to get out of the street door most 21st century runners have to be armed with so much technology that in some instances it takes longer to get going than it takes to actually run! Over the last few day’s I have re-tweeted various free gps apps which the promoters are giving away for free during January no doubt to get them up the charts and people more aware of them. Unfortunately they are all competing against the marketing power of Nike, who the majority deemed to be one of the first GPS app makers into the market. However, this was far from the case, they just have a lot more money to spend on advertising. Interestingly enough though, currently they are one of the few apps which you have to pay for!

What is a GPS App

A GPS app is an application which sits on your smart phone and uses the onboard GPS to provide distance, speed, pace and other useful information to the runner. Most applications will then post this information back to the apps respective site where after your run you can assess your route, check out your splits and do a whole magnitude of other data processing. It provides the ultimate diary for any runner, and indeed cyclist, walker or any other hobbyist that maybe interested in how far or fast they do something. There have been equivalent watches which provide very similar functionality (at a very high cost) for a number of years but this may be the device for the casual enthusiast!

Free Apps

So far I have only played with apps on the Android and iPhone and I will be the first to admit I have not tried all of them as there are so many. But the ones I have tried are listed below

• Endemondo (iPhone / Android)

• miCoach (iPhone)

• OutFront (iPhone)

• Runkeeper (iPhone / Android)

Each one of these apps have pro’s and cons and their own unique selling point, but for me accuracy is the most important and the results of each are fairly sporadic. I think the most accurate one I used was Outfront. The results were fairly similar to my Garmin which bodes well. I would love feedback from others though as to what apps work and why. Ultimately accuracy is the most important factor but on top of that user interface is critical and where some of these win on one they fall short on the other.

Which Phones Can I Use

At the moment I have posted links for iPhones and Android phones. I know that all models of the iPhone work with all the apps above but the older models suffer from poorer GPS and hence are less accurate. I’m sure there are apps for Nokia and Windows based phones but I have yet to try them.

What about Nike+

Nike+ is simple, very simple – the user interface parallels the Apple experience and it just works. However, its not free and it also doesn’t provide as much information to the runner – in my opinion! Go for one of the other apps, download all three whilst they are free and give them a go. You aren’t wedded to any of them so play and see what you like.

Feedback

Please let me know how you go with your app by commenting below – I’d love to get feedback and construct a review post if possible!

2010 was a year of improving, in almost every race I entered I beat previous personal bests and on the whole I have become fitter, faster and lighter. I have had lots of highs and thinking about it now only one real low. I have taken my running to new levels and running has now become such a huge part of my life.

If I ran a lot in 2008-2009 it was nothing in comparison to 2010. Over the course of the year I have entered:
- Two 10kms (Newham, Bluewater*)
- One 10m (Stockport*)
- Four half marathons (Roding Valley, Silverstone*, Dartford, Royal Parks)
- One 24hr relay event
- Two Marathons ( London DNF, Dublin*)
( *denotes Race Personal Bests)

Over the year I have run at least 1100 miles. After a bit of google’ing this is equivalent from running between London and Gibraltar! Most, but not all, of those miles were covered in London. However, I did run whilst on holiday in Spain, attempted to run on a treadmill whilst skiing in Andora and even went out with a Running Club at 6am whilst in Fort Lauderdale. In May I joined Serpentine RC and through good fortune I managed to bump into Rich and Jim on my first night and since then Rich has joined me on a number of races including dragging me around the Dublin Marathon! Cheers Rich…

I have also managed to get an article in Runners World magazine about this blog and have been contacted by a number of people who have somehow stumbled into my little home on the web. I think this is pretty cool – the subject matter is pretty dull to most, I’m no record breaker and I say it like it is however I still get visitors and I hope this will continue on into 2011.

At the beginning of 2010 I was an 8:30-9 min/mi runner, an 8min/mi was a tough session – however, on the final race of the year I managed 10 hilly miles with an average pace of 7:25, substantially faster! Luckily I think I still have more to give, a more focused schedule in 2011 structured in a way to build my speed should hopefully see me setting more PB’s.

At the moment I am still unconfirmed of my race plans for 2011, it’s possible I will head back to Silverstone again and take on the 1:42:44. I have entered the Dorney Lakes Half and it’s also likely I will run a Marathon in the spring and, depending on how that goes, also in the Autumn. Hopefully, if Rich doesn’t continue to get quicker and quicker maybe we will head abroad somewhere for the Autumn one, possibly Berlin…?!

Bring on 2011…!

N

I saw this phone on the net a few weeks ago and thought if that isn’t the perfect phone to run with I don’t know what is. If it can live up to what the marketers say it can then it is water resistant and also drop proof. It’s the first claim which really interests me.

I have said a number of times my major reservation as to why I don’t take my iPhone out is the fear of water damage be it rain, snow or most likely sweat. The phone is not a cheap device and to break it whilst running would set me back a few pennies and great annoyance. I have lost one (albeit cheap) phone at the marathon where my body overcooked and the sweat destroyed it. The defy however suggests my phone will be safe and tonight I took it out for a run.

I loaded up endomondo to see how good it was as a gps device and ran. Unfortunately it wasn’t an overly fair test, I let the phone off this time. It wasn’t raining or snowing and as I didn’t have any pockets I held onto it so it kept away from most moisture. During my next long run I will shove some audio on it, put it in my pocket and leave it. Hopefully a couple of hours later I will finish and it all be functioning as normal *hopefully*.

This is never going to be a fully fledged review of the defy – I’m sure you can find that elsewhere I just want to see if they are the perfect running device- Music/Phone/GPS/Smartphone everything you could need surely. I also noticed in endomondo a sync with Bluetooth HeartRateMonitor, not sure who supply those as I think both polar and gamin use proprietary transmission mechanisms.

Next time this puppy gets further testing and hopefully (for the phone testing part) it will rain!

Not wishing to spend every run on the dreadmill I took to the streets again last night. I planned for a 40min light run covering 5 or so miles. The pavements where I live are in that slushy/icy stage which is still to dangerous to run in without some form of spikes so I chucked on the stableicers again and set off.

I tried to stick to relatively busy roads where I knew roughly the ice would have mostly melted and as it turned out I had no slips. Somewhat by accident I added a few hills to the route – I should know this is going to happen – I ran away from London and into Essex!

As I said last time it’s much harder running in the snow, my heart rate was high even though I was traveling relatively slowly. I still have symptoms of a mild cold which probably isn’t helping matters either! Regardless of this the run went well and I had wrapped up so well this time I was actually pretty hot when I got back!!

Oh and whilst I can’t be certain as I’m not very good at celeb spotting, I’m pretty sure as I ran past Woodford Station I passed Arg from The Only Way is Essex. This would make a bit of sense as he does live in Woodford apparently! Sure, he’s no A lister but I don’t think I have ever spotted anyone else whilst out running!

Some (most) may consider me mental but on Sunday following the settling of the snow I chucked on my kit and went for a run. I wanted to give the stableicers I bought a while back a go and figured a gentle jog couldn’t do me any harm…

Wrapped up in lots of layers at the top and wearing my a400 skins to cover my legs I left the flat. After my Garmin was hooked into the satellites (which seemed to take an eternity this time) I started to move. I had no issues whatsoever with grip, at no point did I feel I may slip however the combination of snow and the stableicers certainly tested different muscles in my legs.

I took a 6 mile route I have done countless times but never in snow. It was much tougher and more testing running on this surface. I struggled to maintain a sub 8:30 pace which seemed slow considering what I have been running recently and my heart-rate suggested I should be moving much faster!

6 miles later I was back home, reasonably dry and pretty warm all things considered. I had a nice run and the scenery was so different and much much nicer when covered with a couple of inches of snow!

10 hilly miles in Stockport was the one of the major things in my mind whilst I was taking on another glass of wine at the work Xmas do on Friday. Sure I would have recovered from the side effects of the alcohol in 2 days but I didn’t much like the thought of a nauseous train journey at 8am the following morning. So like a good boy at about 930 I stopped drinking, a wise move I think!

Staying at a hotel next to Euston meant we didn’t have to get up at silly o’clock for the journey and after a pleasant journey we were in Stockport with plans to head into Manchester city centre and the Xmas Market. Manchester was heaving, as to be expected, and frickin cold. We met up with Lauras uni friends and drank mulled wine, ate German sausage and pancakes and over the course of 6 hours I gradually lost the feeling of my hands and toes due to the cold. I don’t think any of what I had done in the buildup to this race would be listed in the 101 guide to racing and tapering. Fortunately we did manage an early night which was somewhat of a result.

With the race starting 5mins from where we staying thanks to the generous hospitality of Sam and Matt the morning was chilled. Shower, breakfast, kit up then head out. We left the house. Have I mentioned it was cold…the roads were icy and slippy – this was going to be interesting! The journey was short and before long we had collected our numbers and waiting for the off.

At 10:15 the race started, after two laps of the track we headed out of the AC and into the park. The paths were icy but before long we were on even icier roads and pavements. This race was to continue on a similar vain and I would be watching my footing throughout ensuring my race didn’t finish early due to a slip! I was prepared for a hilly race this time, unlike with Dartford, I had done a little bit of hill work locally but nothing substantial. I had no idea of the profile except there was a hill at 6miles and again at 9. Setting my virtual partner at an 8min mile pace I should definitely beat it but I wasn’t sure how hilly it was and how i’d cope with the ice. The first mile came in way ahead of the watch and so did all the subsequent miles except 1 – the 6th mile which came in at 8:01, that’d be the mile with the ‘hill’. We covered 60meters in a mile with a final steep climb of 10meters in under a tenth of a mile – tough! That said what goes up must come down (in a point to point race anyway) and a mile or so later I clocked a sub 7min mi which I was happy even if it was artificially aided by the gradient!

I well and truly obliterated my virtual partner coming in at 1hr13. Sam, who I was staying with came in just two minutes behind me, very impressive as she had set her pace at 9min/mi. Don’t think it will take her long to be overtaking me so at least I got in there first with one race! Justin, who I met at the Thunder Run also came over from Leeds to take part and he flew (finishing in 63mins), one day I hope to be able to stay with him for just one mile…one day! The last and only other 10m race I have done was the Great South in November 2008, I finished that in 01:25:34 so in just over 2 years I have taken 12 minutes off of my time – not bad!

This is the last race I am booked into in 2010 time to relax, rest and recover. I will do some light runs over the coming months but ultimately it will be an opportunity to prepare for whatever is to come in 2011!

Well done Sam and Justin for great races also for Tom Williams of Marathon Talk and his wife Helen who also ran and we bumped into at the end – it was a great event to finish the year with! It was also great to meet Justin’s girlfriend Ash who came along to support with Laura and Matt, I suspect she was a little bit envious and would have like to have been out running too!

On Sunday I somehow forced myself out of the door for a run. I don’t really know how this happened as when I woke up even though I had prepared my kit the night before had my routine breakfast almost everything was telling me not to bother! I think had I had done a few more miles during the week I would have had an excuse to use but because of the snow I hadn’t.

At 945 am I couldn’t put it off any longer and headed out of the door still uncertain what type of run I would do. During the first 10 minutes my body sulked, a high heart rate made it appear like the run was not going to be fun. However, shortly after things seemed to settle and I realised I was going at a respectable pace. Knowing I only had an hour I opted to push myself with some hills in further practice for next weekend. The route consisted of every hill I could think of bar one and all of them fairly substantial hills. There was one which was a steady incline for a long distance and the others short(ish) and sharp hill in chingford as well as other inclines.

Anyway – it turned out to be a tough but rewarding  session.