Are we there yet?

First up, how cool is my logo that my friend Sandy made for me?  She is awesome, just whipped that thing up using some sort of magic and unicorn horns I think, I’m not sure because I’m not remotely artistic so I don’t know how those things work.  Sandy is training for her first 1/2 marathon and is another cool running mama.

Yesterday I talked up running outside however, the one drawback that running outside has as opposed to treadmill running is that it’s a bit trickier to keep track of your mileage.  Although I usually run on a trail in a park near my house, it has some sort of mileage marker system that makes no sense to me.  I’ve found this to be true of a lot of trails.  If you are running neighborhood streets you can do what people did in the days before the ubiquitous handheld GPS devices, plot your route in your car or do a little cross training and use a bike with a cycling computer.  I’m a fan of technology and so I’ve tried a few different higher tech options.

The Nike Ipod+Sport Kit $29

If you already have an iPod nano this is a pretty cost effective way to determine your distance and pace.  The kit includes a receiver that plugs into your iPod nano and a sensor that hooks onto your shoe.  It’s technically made for Nike shoes but you can buy a shoe pocket for about $5 for the sensor.  This is not a GPS device but rather an accelerometer, sort of like a higher tech pedometer.  The sensor in your shoe detects when your foot is on the ground and the device converts that to a running speed.  The drawback is that it has to be calibrated to a baseline distance to get a really accurate reading.  I found about a 10% discrepancy in distance (on the short side) vs. a GPS device.  The system has a couple of cool add on features though.  At the beginning of a run you can indicate your intended distance and if you choose, get voice updates at certain intervals.  It also has an online component and when you sync your iPod you can log your run.  The freakiest thing about it is the special messages you get when you’ve done a new long distance or time.  I had finished a run one day and thought perhaps I hadn’t hydrated enough and was hallucinating when I heard Paula Radcliffe congratulating me.  Lance Armstrong has a message on there too.  I did have a frustrating number of issues with the sensor and receiver working together and then when my husband accidentally vacuumed the sensor I had left in my car in the car wash vacuum, I decided I was over it.  But if you’ve already got a Nano and you are looking for a pretty cheap option, this is a fairly good one.

Garmin GPS $274.99 + up

Garmin has a pretty expansive line of handheld GPS devices for runners and other athletes.  The Forerunner series has watch type options but I decided to go with the Edge 205.  At $275 it’s not cheap but it’s pretty versatile.  It comes with mounting brackets so I have the brackets mounted to my bike and our jogging stroller.  When I’m running without the jogging stroller, I just hold it.  It’s pretty light and I don’t usually mind carrying it.  Because it’s a GPS device it’s not only logging your distance but the actual route so you can connect to Garmin’s online community and log your workout.  It comes with a battery charger so you don’t have to worry about batteries either.  I have had really good luck with my Edge, the only complaint which is more with GPS devices in general is that sometimes it does take a few minutes to get the signal I need when I’m getting started.  But I’ve never lost a signal once I’ve started.  You can get heart rate monitor and some other nifty features on more expensive versions but I’m quite happy with my plain Jane version.  The price is somewhat of a drawback but given how much I use it and the ability to use it on my bike as well, for me it was worth it.

iPhone iMapmyrun application

If you hadn’t figured it out already, I’m somewhat of an Apple lover.  So yeah, I have an iPhone.  There’s an iPhone application called iMapmyrun and works with the GPS capabilities in the iPhone to do basically what the Garmin does.  The app tracks your distance and plots it on a map for you which is pretty cool.  Connect to the online mapmyrun.com site and you can see different versions of your run, satellite, street view, etc. and add some details about your run – training run, speed work, etc.  I can’t remember how much the app was, but not that much.  Overall I like the application though it does have a few drawbacks.  I like to listen to music when I run so I use the iPod on my iPhone if I’m taking my iPhone with me to map my run distance.  It’s a pain to toggle between the iPod and the iMapmyrun application, if you move from the app to the iPod it stops recording your run and you have to go back to it and select the resume feature to keep logging your run.  Also, having the ipod and that app running for anything more than an hour or two will suck down a fully charged battery.  But if you already have an iPhone it’s definitely worth a try.

Here’s something for your running mix, a little something from the soundtrack to my childhood and in memory of Mary Travers.  May it inspire you to do a run tomorrow morning.