Days to go 53
Miles today 6.5
Miles this week 15.8
Miles last week 40
Miles 2011 222.5
Other exercise Are you joking?
Before embarking on a limited tour of the gadgets and gizmos available to runners, I’d like to briefly bewail the rather wet weather that SG and I enjoyed / endured on Saturday. It tipped it down, and despite SG’s valiantly optimistic observations, noting the diminishing ferocity of the precipitation*, we got soaked through.
* These were, of course, her exact words. Neither of us complained that it was piddling down.
Not only that, we got muddy. Part of our 18-mile circuit followed the lovely A---- Woulds Trail, a haven of quiet after running along the roadside. Unfortunately, while roads generally have gutters and drains, the Trail does not. Instead, it has Doctor Foster-esque puddles and waist-deep mud baths. Think the inestimable Fran Cotton crossed with the swamp beast and you are approaching just how muddy we were.Still, as SG cheerfully pointed out, it could be wet and windy on 17 April – fantastic...
Anyway, runners’ gadgets and gizmos.
Like all pastimes and pursuits, running could cost a small – or, indeed, a rather large – fortune, if you are so inclined: armbands, calf guards, Camelbaks, clothing and shoes, energy bars and drinks, Garmins, head torches (more below), heart-rate straps, specialist skincare products, sunglasses, supports, waist packs...
At this point, let me be frank and point out that I’m not really a gadget girl. I don’t actually own half of the techie things you can buy armband holders for.
I live in a house where analogue is king. We are surrounded by vinyl – remember records? They were the big, (generally) black precursors to the smaller, shinier silver compact disc.
iPod? iPhone? iPad? Forget it. My mobile is a good five years old and just makes calls and sends messages. It doesn’t do apps or even take pictures. I don’t own a camera or even a computer (I tap away at this blog during my lunch breaks). I don’t really do iStuff – I do books, generally paperbacks.
Even so, since taking up running, I’ve received various nicks and knacks to help me along my way: an armband light, an armband mobile phone holder, books (hurrah!), a pedometer... I’ve not really got on with any of them. The armbands rub my upper arms raw and the pedometer dozes off part-way through a circuit so that a six miler measures more like two – not good for the confidence: that kind of distance should not take almost an hour.
Last Christmas, my boyfriend – in this instance, Clever Man (or aptly, CM for short) – gave me a fantastic gift. As a general rule, I’m not one to applaud or promote corporate business, nor slavishly follow brands, but for this toy I am prepared to make an exception. It’s gr-r-reat™!
The Nike+ SportsBand.
It measures how far I’ve run, the time it took, average minutes per mile, and how many calories I burned in the process. It also tallies my weekly runs and gives me the grand total of miles since our first outing together back in January. Thankfully, given Saturday’s adventure, it’s also water-resistant.
After each run, I plug the USB into the computer and watch my miles-run-to-date total trot up a little bit more. It’s highly satisfying and is certainly a bit of a motivator. According to my homepage I’m a green belt runner – only another gazillion until I ascend to the celestial heights of black belt.
When proudly viewing the graph plotting “all runs”, my virtual coach perks up with helpful and supportive observations like:
“You run most on Monday. Add more days to the mix with a training programme.”
“You run 4 times a week on average. Make it 5 with a monthly goal.”
“0 Medals” and “0 Trophies”
Pah – everyone’s a critic!
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