Today was another good day. But it almost wasn’t. I had the day off and decided to head to my basement for some walking/running. Once I got on the treadmill though, it became apparent that there was a problem. The liner that you walk on had inched it’s way over to one side and was rubbing against the edge of the machine. It sounded really terrible. And though it was working at the moment, I was scared to use it for fear of really breaking it. So, it looks like I need to see how to move it back to the normal position. I feel a Google search coming on soon!
So with that little setback, I was tempted to just call it quits. But part of me didn’t really want to. At that point, a little lightbulb went off and I decided to do my walk/run outside. Though overcast, the weather was fairly decent temperature-wise. I grabbed my Garmin and hit the power button only to find out it was dead. Ugh! I really wanted to see how far I was walking. Should have known better since I haven’t used my Garmin since probably last summer. I guess I was hoping it would hold it’s charge since it hadn’t been turned on. Not the case.
But than another lightbulb went off and I thought, why not try out a new GPS app I had recently loaded onto my iphone. Besides knowing my distance, I could use the iPod feature on it as well all with one device. So I grabbed my phone and some headphones. I turned some music on and that’s when I realized that the sound was really bad. Kind of like they were singing from far away. I was getting a bit peeved since this is a brand new phone. I tried checking to see if there were any settings I could adjust, but then finally realized that my headphones were simply not plugged in all the way. The phone case makes it a tight fit and I just had to push a bit harder to make the full connection. Whew!
With those hurdles under my belt, I finally set off and it was glorious to be outside exercising! I had to stop a few times to check on my GPS app & mess with my iPod (as I’m not familiar with using that feature of my iPhone yet) as well as to stretch after a short warm-up walk. Here are some of the views from my outing:
One of the ponds in our neighborhood…..
One of the streets in our neighborhood….
When I decided to start running again, I toyed with the idea of following the Couch-to-5K (c25K) program again (I completed the program last summer but then developed an IT band injury, so my running came to a screeching halt). I know that program works, but it makes me feel like I am a slave to the watch. Sure, there are several podcasts that you can upload to your ipod that will tell you when to walk and when to run; but frankly, the music stinks for the most part. So when I set out this morning, I decided to just run when I felt like it and for as long as I felt like it. I probably didn’t do as much running as the Week 1 Day 1 routine of c25K, but I am actually starting cold-turkey (they recommend that you work up to walking regularly before starting c25K). I did push myself a bit further when I felt like stopping. And it was so nice to just enjoy the walk/run with my favorite songs without focusing so much on how much running I was doing. It just felt more natural. Ah, love it!
As far as the GPS app, I used Distance Meter. I uploaded the free version to test it out, but they have a Pro version as well that does a lot more. Here’s a screen shot once I got home (wish I’d thought to take the picture before I cleared my data). Note: the very bottom of the screen gives your GPS location, but I have blacked that out for security reasons.
I think the app did OK, especially since I wasn’t putting a whole lot of faith in super great accuracy. A few more trial runs are likely before I can really be a judge of the usefulness of this app though.
Elapsed Time – I didn’t check it precisely but it was about the amount of time I was out on my walk/run.
Distance – the app said that I covered 1.5 miles on my trek. I checked the route with my car and it was right on the money at 1.5 miles too. However, at the point where the app said I had hit 1 mile, my car only said 0.8 miles. Obviously I need to do a few more tests with this one as knowing the distance traveled is the main reason I wanted this app.
Pace – I did a lot of stopping in the beginning and then I was alternating walking and running, so I didn’t pay a lot of attention to this. I will be testing this feature more on my next outing.
Calories Burned – this feature is only available on the Distance Meter Pro version.
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