April 12, 2009 at 7:03 pm · Filed under Equipment, Gadgets
Easter is about chocolate, lots of, and family stuff and as the latter involved a weekend at the in-laws with loads of artificially enhanced kids, it also turns out to be fairly conducive to running.
I haven’t been very successful with my running recently so I was grateful that we were in the flatlands of Lincolnshire and that it was a delightfully drizzly day. Here’s my 10k out and back route along the canal:
I was sent the latest Sony Walkman W Series to test out the other day.
It came bundled with a playlist designed to either inspire or drive me nuts, with the challenge laid down for me to create my own inspirational running ensemble.
The new Walkman is an interesting looking gadget, minimal and stylish in a Dr Spock kind of fashion. It clips apart neatly to sit around your neck with no extraneous wires to get tangled up in your arms or t-shirt.
I’ve been through a fair few headphones and mp3 systems in my time. It started with the iPod nano with assorted headphones – the best being the ubiquitous lime green Sennheiser PMX80 running headphones and then moved on to the chunky, yet delightful, iPhone. The iPhone coincided with loads of tube commuting time so I shifted to the excellent Sennheiser CX500’s, great for private listening on crowded trains but outrageously irritating now I’ve gone back to the running commute – I have to stop every couple of steps to disentangle the cables.
So, now I’ve got my hands on the Sony W Series mp3 Walkman, all my separate headphones are defunct. I have to admit to not having much of a musical ear but to my mind this unit has the best sound quality yet. The integral headphones seem to sit quite deeply into your ear and the sound is excellent. Mind you the playlist had a few dodgy tracks, rather heavy reliance on the synthesiser and some sounded like they were recorded from the bowels of a coke can but I’m sure that was how they were meant to sound. It’s quite fun running to someone elses playlist but I’m looking forward to getting some “quality” music on board to really test them out.
I found them very comfortable, although I did feel like a prize tool running along in them – you can get them in bright pink if you want to look extra special.
I did a randomish fit test around the house this morning and it seems I was the only one who found them comfortable. Admittedly two of my subjects were of the small child variety and the other grown up obviously has a particularly small head with odd ear canals, but it might be worth testing them out before buying if you’ve had problems with ear related stuff before.
They are apparently a doddle to update by simply dragging the songs across to the external drive (USB cable supplied), I’ll try this out next week with my new and hopefully improved playlist.
Here’s my trial list:
1. Simian Mobile Disco – Sleep Deprivation
2. LCD Soundsystem – Get Innocuous
3. Hot Chip – Ready for the Floor
4. Weezer – Buddy Holly
5. TV on the Radio – Golden Age
6. Mylo – Drop the Pressure
7. Prodigy – Out of Space
8. Michael Jackson – Beat It
9. Don’t Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
10. Gu’s and Roses – Paradise City
Popularity: 25% [?]
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Tags: commute, gadget, mp3, review, sennheiser, Sony Walkman W Series, Walkman
March 11, 2009 at 8:52 pm · Filed under Commuting, Running
The new accessible job arrived and sucked away all my handy exercise avoidance excuses…..time to resurrect the running commute.
My first attempt was an unwelcome struggle, my head was in a seriously moany place and my feet were doing that teenage scuffing thing. I made it past two commons lurching in a stop go fashion and finally quit at Somerfield in order to replenish the Stella supplies.
Today’s run was a bit more exciting, I’d heard a rumour that the non runner may be catching the 5:18 train. Thereby giving me approximately 25 minutes to hot foot it down the high street and nonchalently drape my sweating being across the bonnet of her car to ensure a lift half the way home.
Needless to say I made it. Amazing what you can pull out of the bag for an easy ride.
I got an iPhone recently which has proved mighty useful for navigating me through some commutimg crises but will unfortunately result in a decline in photo quality for my blog.
I’ve been checking out the promisingly named “50 Awesome iPhone Apps for Runners” blog post, they don’t all have very good reviews on iTunes but I may check a few out. High on my list will be True Weight – 3 months of idleness has not done me any sartorial favours and I need to get back in control.
In the spirit of
1. getting back into the swing of things
2. jumping in at the deep end, and
3. acquiring more t-shirts
I’ve signed myself up for an assortment of events.
First on the list is the London to Brighton bike ride which has been on my wishlist for some time.
Then it’s time for a re-run of the British London 5k which promises to be particularly exciting – at least in terms of the location of it’s post race champagne reception. Stay tuned.
Finally (at least for now), I’ve gone and signed myself up the scary Great North Swim. I’m hoping to be able to finish it without the asthma attack this time, which probably means a little more training…
Popularity: 27% [?]
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Tags: commute, Running, Stella
August 21, 2008 at 9:36 pm · Filed under Running
My running seems to be oscillating wildly between run one, love one, hate one. Today was time for another “love one”, thankfully.
I wish you could tell how you’re going to feel before you set off, when I get a duff run I feel like throwing in the towel and quitting, these are runs to avoid. Today I felt the starting of a cold so nearly didn’t bother going out but it turned out to be the sort of run that keeps me buzzing about the sport for ages. I’ve set myself up for a good weekend now I’m sure.
I drew up my half-marathon plan a few weeks ago and opted for a simple Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday plan. I hit problems the moment I transferred this to my pre-existing diary full of appointments (be-fitting my social butterfly status). Training plans clashed with life this weekend as I’m heading off to the coast to try out my wetsuit. This is a vital arrangement as I haven’t been in the pool since December and need to see if the 1 mile open water carnage otherwise known as the Great North Swim is a viable option.
So, running plans were randomly jiggled and resulted in me having to go out and pull off a 7-miler.
7 miles is an awkward distance for me. My commute is a perfect 6-miler and not much would persuade me to run half a mile beyond my final destination and back again. My other running routes tend to involve ever increasing loops of the Thames but the river fording points are limited and so throw up huge psychological tests or bridges that I seem too weak to resist.
I opted to run as far as I could away from my flat and then loop back round through Richmond Park. I loaded SteppenWolf onto the iPod and fortunately it kept me occupied for about 4 miles before I realised I hadn’t a flipping clue what was going on. By that time I’d reached the point of no return and had no choice but to push on forward.
I find it a little concerning that I have to actively mess with my own head in order to achieve simple training plans but I won’t lose sleep over it. At least I’ve found another good route with limited options for bailing out.
Right, I’m off to the seaside.
Popularity: 17% [?]
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Tags: commute, Richmond Park, Swimming, thames
August 13, 2008 at 12:01 am · Filed under Commuting, Running
This grotty summer weather is doing wonders for my running. It just needs to threaten drizzle and I’m grabbing my trainers, or at least I’m thinking about grabbing my trainers as I’m the world’s worst procrastinator when comes to running.
I’d scheduled a run for first thing Saturday morning but although I kept putting the garmin into training mode and heading towards the door, I didn’t actually manage to get out until 3pm on Sunday. That is some dithering! At least the delay meant it was chucking down for the best part of my Sunday pootle.
It was grey again today so I seized the opportunity to schedule another running commute and my long run for the week. The unseasonable weather meant traffic chaos this morning and I was kicking myself for leaving the bike at home when I arrived at the tube station to find it closed due to flooding. I wasn’t much happier when 6 o’clock came round and I had to start running.
Turned into a jolly pleasant run though, a bit of salsa popped up on my iPod towards the end and I managed my own personal interpretation of dancing. Things are looking up for my running if I can manage a bit of merengue after 6 miles.
For any Garmin 405 owners, there is a new firmware update. It should improve the pace reading and stop the annoying freezing of the bezel, amongst other things.
Popularity: 17% [?]
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Tags: commute, Forerunner 405, Garmin
July 10, 2008 at 10:23 pm · Filed under Commuting, Running
The race packs seem to be dropping thick and fast through the letter box this week, after the painfully slow 5k at the weekend I came home and opened an envelope to discover I was entered in the Great Capital 10k in just 2 weeks time. Goodness knows when I signed up for that, I hadn’t bothered to note it in my diary anyway.
I’m thinking that’s its probably impossible to turn around the worst ever 5k race time within the space of 2 weeks given a backdrop of 5 months of lacklustre training, but I’ve got to do something to ensure I don’t collapse before the finish line. I’ve therefore embarked on a 2 week anti-Stella campaign to be combined with regularish running commutes.
JogBlog is not the only one completing an old new running commute, I’ve shifted jobs yet again and am right back where I started with the very first running commute of 18 months ago. Happily I’ve picked up a bit of local knowledge over the months and can now get from asylum to home with barely any need to run on the grotty streets, it also seems to save me 500 metres which is no good as it ruins my perfect 10 k route.
Running along the edge of assorted waterways provides plenty of opportunity for water related incidents and playing around with the forerunner 405 touch bezel does not reduce the likelihood. I stumbled over some barge docking related paraphenalia but managed to steady myself in a rather sturdy clump of stinging nettles. I’m still itching but I did discover a rather cool new screen on the forerunner.
It the HR graph option and shows your heart rate displayed on a backdrop of HR zones. Quite neat but probably only useful if you are doing intervals, for most of my run it appeared as a flat line between zones 4 and 5. The photo was taken after I stopped.
Distance: 9.58km
Time: 1:22:00
Popularity: 23% [?]
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Tags: commute, Forerunner, Forerunner 405, Garmin, Stella
May 29, 2008 at 12:44 am · Filed under 100 mile Challenge, Running, Salomon Challenge
At 5:15 this evening I threw my non-conforming budgets into the air and stepped away from the computer. I had a bus to catch and it’s becoming obvious that I won’t be able to maintain my usual level of commitment to the day job and still hope to complete this challenge.
It took an hour and a half for me to get from work to Holborn, all for the joy of having me run an hour and half back the way I came. This is the absolute worst kind of running commute, the sort that seems to bare so very little reason and might just have been created for the sole purpose of making me work, a true Cinderella task.
The planning for the run started yesterday evening as I packed my bag and then lay awake fretting for most of the night listening to the raging wind, rain and thunder. In the end I decided that a torrential downpour was the best I could hope for on the day I cover off the whole of Oxford Street.
The weather proved to be ideal. A perfect running drizzle welcomed me as I hit the bustle of Southampton Row and headed on towards Tottenham Court Road.
It was busy but perhaps not the worst I’ve seen it. I could run about two paces before having to jump in and then quickly out of the path of a bus, to avoid bizarre zigzagging shoppers, waving cigarette butts around.
I tried a few Oxford Street avoidance routes, such as attempting a parrallel route through Soho but almost as soon as I did that I spotted an interesting piece of graffiti back across the other side. I must have made terribly slow progress towards Oxford circus.
Despite myself, I began to enjoy the challenge today. I’m stopping at every station to take a photo, partly as proof of my journey but it’s having the result of turning me into a tourist and I’m happy to see areas in a new light.
I now know for example that Farringdon (from Sunday’s H&C line) has a better class of graffiti artist.
While this blog is turning into an art appreciation forum, I’m going to slip in a photo of the Barbara Hepworth sculpture, tacked onto the side of the John Lewis building, a little after Bond Street. Isn’t it beautiful?
So I’ve traveled about 400 yards and already taken 12 photos, you won’t be surprised to hear that this was another record breaking slow run. But at least I was calm and didn’t feel the need to throttle any shoppers which is what normally happens when I venture onto Oxford Street.
I was almost tempted to commit some form of maiming on a lad who insisted on walking faster than I could run though. In the end I managed to catch him on the long downhill stretch to Shepherds Bush but probably only because he stopped at a cash point.
The journey along the Central Line between Holborn and the new Shepherds Bush station was just under 9km so I felt fit enough to tag on a few extra stations and grab the westerly section of the Hammersmith and City line as well.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Salomon XT Wings Challenge
Today:
13 Tube Stations
10.56 km
Sports Tracker map with photos
Cumulative:
28 Tube Stations
25.72 km
Warriorwoman vs Jogblog 100m Challenge Combo
17.2 miles total
Popularity: 17% [?]
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Tags: Central Line, commute, London Underground, Salomon Challenge
April 26, 2008 at 11:41 pm · Filed under Equipment, Gadgets
I’ve taken my time to write this post because I’m not sure whether to come clean about my sins or to attempt a bluff.
I was sent the Nike+ Sportband to try out at the beginning of the week but as I don’t have holes in my running shoes I couldn’t possibly go running before I had some hi-tech means of carrying my speed sensor – you wouldn’t catch me putting gaffer tape on my Kayanos unlike Joggerblogger and Jogblog.
The little thingammy pouch that I ordered from ebay arrived just before I left for work on Wednesday though, so I pretty much had no choice but to pack my bags and prepare for an enforced running commute.
My first impressions of the strap weren’t great, I wondered why Nike would design the watch to have a ridiculous piece of plastic wedged underneath the usb face. It angled the watch and meant I kept catching it on my sleeve. Thankfully I spotted the photo of joggerbloggers sleak sportband before I went out in public, the plastic bit is meant to be thrown away! Moron. Now I’m wearing it as a watch although I have to ask the person sitting next to me to read it as I haven’t got used to deciphering the vertical numbers and the screen is too dark but I still think it looks cool.
Anyway, back to the running.
When I left the house it was chucking it down so I packed the long sleeve top again, of course when I left work it was flippin scorching and just to ensure that I got heat stroke at the edge of a deserted canal I left the building with my empty water bottle in hand. With no means of re-entering the building I had to set off sans hydration system – bollox!
3 seconds later the Sportband is telling me to start walking but the garmin is persistently ignoring my request to locate my position. I can’t start walking now or the garmin will have a paddy fit. By the time the gps picks up the Nike system has gotten bored and gone back into clock mode, who can blame it?
I was feeling hot, sweaty and lethargic so I pretty much ignored both gadgets for the first 4k as thoughts vacillated between diving in the canal and diving in the canal. When I entered Brentford I headed straight for the nearest shop where I knocked back a bottle of water before I reached the till and handed over 90p for an empty bottle of plastic.
I set off again but now thoughts were of cool beers, enjoyed by the rivers edge. As I’ve never been known to resist the lure of beer and I was just about to reach the Thames river bank, I rather shockingly dived into the next shop and came out with a can of Stella. Now beer can’t be shaken so I paused both gadgets while I wandered down to the river. I thought I’d just enjoy my can and then carry on with the run.
Oh baaaaad runner! I thought it would be rather pleasant sitting with my legs dangling in the river enjoying a refreshing brew but the reality was rather seedy. I’m clearly a runner – running clobber and shoes, beetroot face and sweat, not one but two running watches and headphones in ear, only I’m walking and not just walking, this is no-good can swigging bum walking. About 300 hundred proper runners came past me in and in the end I realised I wasn’t enjoying this whole cool beer thing and tipped it all away.
Running was pretty tricky from here on in, 300m run, huge gasp, hands to temples and then walk for 1km – repeat. Nice treat at the end as there was a new piece of graffiti on my steps. Not quite Banksy but it isn’t bad.
Painful but the Sportband faired pretty well.
Total garmin distance (running only): 5.78km
Nike Sportband distance (running only): 5.65km
No way of telling which was the most accurate but they were close enough to ensure that I’ll never bother calibrating the Nike Sportband.
Post run, the usb face automatically uploads (after inserting into the usb port of course) to the Nike+ website and displays whizzy graphs.
The Nike+ website is pretty good if you like online motivation. You can join no end of challenges to push you out of the door and it looks like the next Nike organised run will be a worldwide Nike+ only event. The sportband is a great way of a gaining entry to the event, its also got to be one of the cheapest available speed and distance monitors on the market.
Popularity: 52% [?]
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Tags: commute, Garmin, GPS, Nike, Nike+ Sportband, review, Stella, thames
April 11, 2008 at 9:53 pm · Filed under Commuting, Running
Well you all creeped me out with your comments to my last post, how am supposed to run along the canal without fear of being shot by some misplaced American gunslinger or tumbling into floaters of dubious origin? I’d planned another running commute yesterday and even went as far as packing my running clobber and endured the horrendous public transport ordeal, only to find at the end of the day that I had forgotten the Enell contraption, otherwise known as the shoulder boulder holder. No running without that I’m afraid.
Of course you know me well enough by now – I love this running malarky so much there’s no holding me back. I’d even sacrifice a friday evening of partying (for partying, read evening watching Gardeners World) for a trog along a deserted canal and a rendezvous in a terrifying canalside dock. I was deeply absorbed by the thrilling audiobook playing on the iPod when I took this snap. I was in the middle of a WWII bombing raid over West London when two cyclists bore down on me, yelling for me to get out of the way. For the second time in a week I had to throw myself to the ground to avoid a premature bath.
Apart from that little adrenalin rush, the rest of the run was rather peaceful. I left work later than usual because we are in the middle of the most exciting month end of the year if accounts can ever be described in those terms. The canal was deserted apart from some frisky bunnies and a convoy of Herons working their way down the waterway. I wasn’t quick enough to catch the clumsy birds dragging their lanky legs behind them so instead you get a photo of these pretty little plants.
They may be pretty in a prehistoric sense but I have a feeling that they may be specimens of the evil horsetail. I will therefore have to take my body, shoes and clothing through a decontamination zone before I set foot on the allotment. Wouldn’t want to transport it.
Good luck to any nutters plodding round the London marathon on Sunday!
Popularity: 16% [?]
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Tags: allotment, commute
April 7, 2008 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Commuting, Running
5:30 arrived and there was no getting around the fact that I had packed for another running commute. I did a quick risk assessment and decided that if I left immediately I’d be able to take the canal route while all potential murderers were still dithering on their doorsteps, wondering whether to grab their umbrellas or not.
There were a remarkable number of people enjoying the Grand Union this evening and I followed Jogblogs guidance and decided solitary blokes were ok so long as they had dogs with them and runners of all varieties were fine and dandy so long as they were running in the opposite direction to me.
There is one particularly spooky part of my route – a dark, disused wet dock, harboring bats and bird flu. I hate going through there, I always feel like I’m entering the murder scene out of a new Prime Suspect. Today I turned the corner and bumped into a runner and then an old geezer on a mountain bike. I would have screamed but the biker saved me the trouble, he looked terrified and wobbled so much on his bike that I had to grab him before he fell in the oily harbour.
Job done, I think I may force another running commute upon myself this week.
Popularity: 14% [?]
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Tags: commute
April 2, 2008 at 11:17 pm · Filed under Commuting, Running
I’m in desperate need of a new running routine, and what better way to kick start a routine than re-starting the running commute torment?
I wanted to take the canal route but as I was preparing to leave work, a huge grey cloud was obliterating all the light of day. I spent so long trying to decide whether I was risking imminent murderising of the dark, isolated, canal kind that it got so dark I couldn’t find the opening to the waterway anyhoo. So instead I got to chalk up another grim run along the Uxbridge Rd for posterity.
I was really hoping to avoid people today, an isolated canal (minus the certain death) would have been perfect. As it was I had to put up with the look of panic on the faces of everyone I passed. People at bus stops would look quickly away and push past each other to put distance between them and me. They were clearly terrified that they were going to have to “do something” when the lolloping beetroot running towards them, collapsed and required CPR.
I was pretty hot today, it’s been so long since I last ran consistently that I haven’t noticed the seasons changing and I went out in a thermal long sleeved top. Very uncomfortable. It was so hot in fact that the Thames had dried out leaving an amazing array of litter and assorted boat wrecks. I was tempted to wade in and search for bullion.
As unappealing as this run was, I need to continue with this kind of torture. I have a plan of the crazy running kind and it needs a level of commitment and endurance that I seem to have discarded by the wayside. More details to follow.
Popularity: 17% [?]
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Tags: commute, thames
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