All about running and having fun
Garmin GPS Watch
The map below shows running traffic in the Greater Boston Area over the past seven days.
The heat map covers activity over the past 7 days through the Saturday before the Boston Marathon. Only runners with Garmin watches are included in this Boston Running Traffic map.
The Esplanade area between the Mass Ave and BU bridges are very popular with runners. Other high lighted areas are also popular, but to a lesser degree.
Run well my friends!
Andy
As many of you know I have been having on-going problems with my Garmin 410 watch. It froze up before the Derry 16 Miler last weekend, just like it did last year at Great Bay. Now it looks completely dead and the wrist strap is broken. It’s out of warranty and Garmin has not replied to my latest inquiry.
Sunday morning while getting ready for my Sunday Long Run and having a cup of coffee, I was playing with my new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. This is my first smart phone and it’s a great new toy. I enjoy poking around the free apps section. It’s amazing what you can get for free.
I found an app called Run Keeper. It is one of those fitness apps that you always hear about. There seem to be hundreds of them out there, maybe thousands. Since my Garmin is useless I figured I’d download this app and see how it works.
It only took me a few minutes to download and enter my basic info. This app uses the GPS in my phone to do just about everything my Garmin did. Today, I wore my running belt and tucked my phone in there like I usually do. When the club stepped outside of Brueggers to get ready for the run I quickly found the app and it started looking for satellites.
My Garmin used to take several minutes to lock on but my Samsung phone locked on in under a minute. I was wearing gloves and the phone is a little slippery so before we started running I hit the start button and tucked the phone back into my belt.
As I ran along Run Keeper told tell me how long I’d been running, how many miles I’d run and my pace. It did this every 5 minutes after I hit 15 minutes of running. I know I’m a newbie to smart phones, but how cool is that? You can laugh now, but let me enjoy my moments of wonder and delight.
When I got home I went to runkeeper.com and finished setting up my account. Their web site has most of the features that Garmin Connect has and a few more that I have not investigated. I’ve only used this app once, but I’m sold so far.
Since my phone is slippery and I had running gloves on, I did not dare to try and take my phone out of the belt pocket. So, at each of our three water stops the timer kept going as I hung around, drank water and chatted with my friends. At the second water stop it started announcing my stats as I hung around talking. I took that is my que to go.
My “official” Run Keeper time was 2:07:16 but I can probably knock off 3-5 minutes for the water stops and starting the app before we started running. But hey, it was just a training run.
The highlighted splits are the miles where we had water stops. I could probably knock 7 minutes off of my “official” time.
What smart phone apps do you use to track your running?
Do you think these apps will replace devices like Garmin?
Run well my Friends!
© 2013 anagelin
I was poking around on the Garmin connect website a few days ago and found some cool stuff on the “Analyze” tab.
On the drop down menu there is a “reports” tab. You can look at your numbers for the past 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, this week etc. They also let you look at your numbers over the last 365 days, Last Year and This Year. I checked these options out and it was pretty amusing.
Logged 136 Activities
Run 1,716.37 miles
Run for 145 hours, 5 minutes and 6 seconds
I have burned 99,427 calories
That last one blew my mind – 99,427 calories! And I’m pretty sure I missed a few runs when I forgot my watch or it wasn’t working.
With 136 activities over the past 365 days I have only been running about 2.5 days each week. It seems like I have been running more often than that, but there were weeks when I was hurt, sick, traveling, or lazy!
As a goal for 2013 I will run 156 times or three times each week. This is my pre-New Year’s resolution. But, resolutions are for cupcakes. This is my COMMITMENT. I WILL do this.
Run well my friends
Andy
The Sunday long run today was 16.2 miles but I opted for the 8 mile course instead. I had planned on this course anyway, but some yard work from yesterday was haunting me this morning.
I copied and pasted my splits from Garmin Connect.
| Split | Time | Distance | Avg Pace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | 1:19:15.0 | 8.00 | 9:50 |
| 1 | 10:03.8 | 1.00 | 10:04 |
| 2 | 10:22.5 | 1.00 | 10:23 |
| 3 | 9:55.5 | 1.00 | 9:56 |
| 4 | 9:48.9 | 1.00 | 9:49 |
| 5 | 9:37.7 | 1.00 | 9:38 |
| 6 | 9:38.1 | 1.00 | 9:38 |
| 7 | 9:52.5 | 1.00 | 9:53 |
| 8 | 9:54.1 | 1.00 | 9:54 |
| 9 | :02.2 | 0.00 | 8:07 |
No spectacular times here, but I did get in 8 miles and I’m off to a good start to the week. Last week I managed to run 22.8 miles with 11.6 miles from the Sunday long run. I should be able to hit 20 this week and if I feel like adding 10% to last week’s total I could run 24 miles.
I spent three hours doing yard work yesterday. I dug up some grass next to the deck and replaced it with crushed stone. It’s part of my “get rid of the freaking lawn” program. Little by little I’m getting rid of grass in the nooks and crannies of the yard. Eventually, I’ll have so little lawn to mow that I will be able to use just the weed whacker. This will leave more time for running!
So three hours of digging and pushing a wheel barrow are not good for hamstring injuries. Pushing a wheel barrow involves a lot of exertion from the glutes and thighs. Not exactly a therapy session. I paid last night when I had to drive my daughter to a birthday party in Boston. The pain was as bad as the first time I drove home from work and realized I had a problem.
For this afternoon I plan a long stretching session that will involve all exercises on my sheet. Tomorrow at lunch instead of running I’ll do the stretchnig routine again. Then at 4:30pm I have another PT session. I’m sure they will be shacking their heads at me when I tell them about my weekend.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend, and thanks for dropping by.
Andy