Gadgetry

As usual, I loaded up my Christmas wish list with running related items - a couple of books, socks, a new running log, Moeben arm warmers, a really cool jersey from Pearl Izumi and entry into the LA Marathon. I got the socks and the running log. Something else I've been eyeing for some time was a smartphone. I'd personally never spend the money on one, but I was intrigued by the cool factor. Santa (my wonderful wife) got me the Droid for Christmas because she knew I'd never actually go get it for myself.


I've been having fun with it as you can tell from the picture posts since Christmas that are coming straight from the 5.0 megapixel camera and I changed my email address to a gmail account to take full advantage of the Google enabled Droid.

I've always run with nothing more than a watch. To determine distance I rely on friends with a Garmin, marked routes or my favorite standby gmap-pedometer.com. I downloaded a trial application the other day to use with the Droid - Run.GPS. The map up there is of my 4 miler on Saturday evening.


I was very happy to see that the route came in at least 4 miles. I was very afraid of finding out that my old standby routes were all under distance as compared to a GPS. The route came in at 4.11 miles (I hit the lap button in the car on the way home and added a few extra tenths by accident). I'm all excited about being able to see the map.

I used it again this morning on my run at the beach. It kept great track of the time I was running, but I forgot to enable the GPS satellite part of the program so it only tracked the actual route for 8.32 miles. I ran with my old running partner Brian. The 10 miles was the longest he'd gone in years. Our pace was slower than my usual but it was a good to help Brian get back into the swing of running the longer distances. The pace chart clearly shows where we took walk breaks and a bathroom break as well.



Running with gadgets can be fun! Something else to take up my time, gaaah!

This was a really off week for running. I didn't do a very good job of sticking to the schedule. There was no focused workout, only easy runs. I managed 19 miles for the week. Next weekend is the Surf City Half. Pretty much all bets are off on me reaching anything even remotely close to a PR.

With today being the end of the first month of 2010 - time for the monthly update: 143.5 miles.