Now that I’m almost an iPhone user, I can finally take advantage of the multitude of Apps that help track fitness and exercise.
The first App I’m looking at is RunKeeper. There is a free version and a Pro, but this “review” is strictly for the free one.
The interface is nice and clean, and very well organized. The app itself (not shown in the video) is easy to use. Select the activity (running, cycling , or whatever) and press start! That’s it! RunKeeper tracks your pace via GPS. When your activity is done, press stop, then save, and it is uploaded to the website. Honestly, that’s about all there is to it.
Remember how happy Tom Hanks was in the movie Castaway after he finally made fire on the beach? He pranced around saying “FIRE! I HAVE MADE FIRE!!” You remember, you know you do! That’s how I felt on a cold, rainy, windy Sunday morning after running my first 1/2 marathon! I wanted to prance around yelling “I JUST RAN 13.1 MILES! IN THE WIND! AND IN THE RAIN! ON THE OCEAN!”, but my legs were a little too wobbly to be doing any prancing!
I started seriously running last summer and set the Santa Cruz 1/2 Marathon as my main goal. I can’t believe it has already come and gone! I have to say it was pretty awesome, right up there with climbing Half Dome in Yosemite. The route was AMAZINGLY spectacular. I’d say that about 9 of those 13 miles were right along the coast line, with the ocean right below you, hitting the rocks and spraying you as you ran by. There were some pretty knarly hills as well, but those didn’t dominate the course.
I was a little surprised at how many people were there to run the race! The announcers said that there were over 4600 people registered. I think half of the runners ran the 1/2 marathon and the other half ran the 10K. The start line was right next to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and then went west towards UC Santa Cruz
The weather was a chilly 40 degrees as the race started at 8am. I quickly warmed up as I started to run. The first 5 miles just flew by, as the scenery was just so beautiful. I didn’t have a camera, so I can’t post any pictures. By miles 6 and 7, I was ready to take off my long sleeve shirt but had a feeling I should just leave it on in case it rained. And rain it did! Right when I hit the 10 mile marker, it started pouring down little tiny drops of water which the wind whipped at a 45 degree angle right into our faces! As you come up the hill at 10.5 miles, you come back to the bluff right by the ocean, where the wind was fierce and of course blowing the opposite way of which I wanted to run.
I don’t think I could have made it to the finish line without having some great music to pump up the adrenaline. Thankfully, I had spent a few hours crafting the perfect 2 gigabyte playlist for my iPod Nano. I love the fact that Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger started playing right at the 6 mile marker! Couldn’t have planned that any better if I had tried!
The last 200 feet or so lead right onto the beach. Those were the best 200 feet I have ever run! I just want to say thank you to my family who stood out in the cold rain waiting for me to finish! I know it couldn’t have been very comfortable!
I didn’t come in last, for which I’m very grateful! Honestly, my goal was just to finish! Finish I did, with about a 12 minute mile average. My total time was 2 hours and 38 minutes from the time I crossed the start line until I crossed the finish line.
My next race is running the first half of the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July. I’m hoping to actually train for this one and get my time down to 2 hours and 15 minutes. I just can’t wait to run across the Golden Gate Bridge!
Again, thanks for all the encouragement, especially from my family. I couldn’t have done it without you!
The date of my first Half Marathon is speedily approaching! April 11 will soon be here!
I’ve been running steadily since June of 2009 and can now complete a 10 mile run in about 2 hours. My goal is to finish the 13.1 mile half marathon in 2 hours and 15 minutes, so I will need to increase my speed by quite a bit.
I’ve also been working some major overtime hours the last few months and have been hit-and-miss with my running. I am hoping to use the free training guide at Runnersworld.com to help me focus on how to train better.
Below is the Twelve Week training guide I am going to try and follow. It might be difficult as I am still working a lot of overtime hours.
The Speedwork portion of the training will also be tough for me, as I’m not a fast runner. I have been able to maintain a 10 minute mile pace for 6 miles, but 6 miles is much shorter than 13! I’ve been able to complete 2 miles in 18 minutes, but that’s my fastest pace so far!
Despite the time problems I might have training, I’m actually excited to have a concrete plan to start. If the Santa Cruz Half goes well, I’m hoping to run the half marathon portion of the San Francisco Marathon. To run over the Golden Gate Bridge would be an exciting thing to do!!
I notice that I speak in hyperbole quite a bit, but I don’t think I would over-exaggerate if I said that the Nike+iPod running system quite literally changed my life.
I had run on and off with my buddy Chris for a year or so. Or rather, I’d stumble along behind Chris as he ran. I never enjoyed it and most times when Christ would call to invite me on a run, I’d find an excuse not to go.
I needed some motivation and I needed it quickly. My weight had climbed up to 244 pounds and my Mii on WiiFit was obese! I had to do something. We had an old iPod Nano lying around so I decided to invest $30 and buy the Nike+iPod Sports Kit. With the sensor in my shoe, and the dongle plugged into the iPod Nano, the Sport Kit would track my distance and calories and automatically upload the data to Nikeplus.com. I could track my progress and literally watch the fat melt off my chubby frame.
Fast forward 6 months and 330 miles and I’m down almost 20 pounds! Nike+ has been awesome, to say the least! So why the “break up” headline in the title of this post? It all started with my other buddy Jack and a little website called livestrong.com.
Jack is a runner and I talked him into getting the Nike+iPod Sports Kit to track his runs. He swore up and down that it wasn’t accurate. I told him he was crazy. Mine was spot on. But he persisted and planted a seed of doubt in my mind.
Livestrong.com has been around for a while, and I actually joined it in 2008. I just never utilized it much.
As I had lost a little bit of weight running every day, I thought I could lose even more if I actually ate healthier (I’m addicted to Wendy’s and Carl’s Jr!). So I logged back into livestrong.com to start tracking my calorie intake.
I need to do another blog post just on the livestrong.com interface and how awesome it is. As I got used to using livestrong, I noticed that there was something new on the website that wasn’t there in 2008. It was simply entitled “Loops“. Wait a sec, this looks familiar! Kind of like the “map it” feature on Nike+!
I start clicking around and lo and behold! I can create loops (aka routes or maps) that will calculate calories burnt, distance, and all that good stuff too. It integrates directly into my caloric intake and is subtracted from my daily calories! Very nice.
The biggest drawback to this new system is that I have to recreate all my running routes with the Livestrong map tool. Good thing it only takes about 4 minutes per loop! After a few minutes of work, I have the following loops built:
As you can tell, Livestrong is very web 2.0, with big buttons and overall prettiness. I recreated the second loop, “6 miles around Bear Creek”, and actually ran the route the first chance I got. I get home and what does my Nike+ tell me? I only ran 5.5 miles? What the what? A half a mile is a pretty big discrepancy! I talk to my wife the math genius, and she does assure me that distance, when calculated correctly, is the constant in the equation of distance and time. Nike+ HAD to be incorrect.
If I wasn’t going to use Nike+ anymore, or at least count it as accurate, that meant I was going to have to track all my stats myself. That didn’t phase me as I have done some spreadsheets before. I quickly found a Running Log template that someone had created for Excel and set it up for my personal use. At the same time I visited Runningworld.com to find some help on nursing my strained calf back to health and found out by accident that they offer a free online Running Log as well. All the work was done for me!
Runningworld.com is a great website with lots of tools for runners. The one thing their Log doesn’t track is calories.
So now I’m in double redundancy using Livestrong and Runningworld, but it seems to be the only way I can get an accurate count of how much I’ve ran. At first accuracy didn’t seem so important, but the longer I run, the more accuracy is important. Nike+ says I’ve run 330 miles, but what if it is 350? That’s a big difference!
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I need to do another blog post just on the livestrong.com interface and how awesome it is. As I got used to using livestrong, I noticed that there was something new on the website that wasn’t there in 2008. It was simply entitled “
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