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Monday, May 6, 2013

Running into (and away from) problems

Greetings and salutations! It's been quite some time. I was going to completely abandon this blog, until recently when I realized, "Wait a minute... I just started something new in my life. Maybe I should write about it!" So I am going to write a chronicle of my experiences in my masochistic dive into the world of running.



Upon turning 37 on April 24th, I decided to get back into shape. As of this post, I have logged four runs. The first one, on April 26, I ran half and walked half. That one was 2.81 miles. I totally overdid it. It took three days to recover! My second run was a little better: I ran most of it, totaling just over 2 miles in 25:5 minutes. Not bad. My third run didn't track right on my phone, and I was pissed. But I know what I ran. That was the first fun I did nonstop. I ran about 2.5 miles. And I averaged about 12 minutes per mile. Today's run was awesome. I ran 2.63 miles in 26:18. That's a 10-minute mile! Pretty damn good, for me! The downside to today's run is that my knee started hurting me. Trying to stretch it out and get it to feel better. I don't want to run with an injury, or make it worse.

The upside to today was that I got to try a different running tracker on my phone. I have an HTC Rezound, an Android phone. I love it. I have no desire to get an iPhone (I have an iPad, so what the hell do I need with an iPhone?) So today I used my Arm Pocket i-30 armband to hold me phone and ID. I use my stock music player and iBeats audio earbuds to listen to music while I run, and I use my phone to track my run, so I needed to buy something that would hold my phone. My first few runs, I had my phone in my pocket and it was bouncing around like crazy. So I went out and got this Arm Pocket. My last run didn't record right because somehow I hit pause on the run, and over half my run wasn't tracked. That's when I decided that I needed some sort of holder for my phone. After a little bit of research on the web, I settled on the Arm Band. I went to two Best Buy stores, and found the model I wanted. It does the job. Stays on my arm, doesn't slide. And I can use the touch screen on my phone while it's in the band. The run tracker I used today was Run Keeper. It gave me my splits, time intervals, and actually had a programmed run that I had chosen before. All in all, I like it. I used Nike+ Running for my first three runs. The first two were fine, the third I just detailed, and today the app didn't cooperate. I also tried to use Map My Run today, but it too didn't want to cooperate. The GPS part of the app wasn't jiving with my phone's GPS. So I went with Run Keeper. I also downloaded Endomondo. I'll try that one next time I run, which hopefully will be in a couple of days. It all depends on this damned knee! Well, at least running is helping me stay away from bad habits...

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