JogBlog running blog

Although it doesn’t take much for me to reach for the central heating controls, I don’t usually reach for the long running tights, long sleeve tops and gloves until it’s proper cold. Like minus-something cold. But, if it had been minus-something cold today and I wanted to wear some gloves, I would have worn these eGlove Running Gloves.

These gloves aren’t just gloves, they’re gadgety gloves. And they’re not just gadgety gloves, they’re gadgety gloves for a gadget.

They’ve got stuff (yes, that’s a technical term) on the fingers so you can use your iPod or iPhone or iPad or iTouch (or any touch screen device) while you’re out on a run or out cycling without taking your gloves off (although, why you’d take an iPad out with you on a run, I don’t know).

I’ve tried them indoors on my touch-screen Shuffle and they work brilliantly.

Like I said, I didn’t wear my eGloves today but I did go out for a run. I don’t know if I don’t go past many trees on the way into town, or maybe they’re the wrong type of trees, but my running route today was mostly on a carpet of gold and amber and I’d forgotten that the only bearable thing about the end of summer is the colour of autumn.

Stats
Distance: 1.67 miles
Time: 17:39
Pace: 10:33
Calories: 176
Pairs of super-cool gadgety gloves for a gadget: 1
Bearable things about the end of summer: 1

The review

I run with no ID on me. None at all. All I have on me (apart from my clothes of course) is my iPod, my Garmin and my house keys. I suppose the emergency services could find out my identification by plugging my Garmin into a computer and seeing on Google Earth where I started my run and knocking on the doors of the houses in the vicinity to see if any of them had lost a female runner, or taking the Tesco Clubcard key-fob to Tesco to ask them who it belongs to, but that still doesn’t give them access to the phone number of someone to phone in an emergency.

Cram Alert Sport ID is a wristband carrying contact information and finder instructions (they also do travel tags, key fobs and mobile property ID) that you register on the website, so if you do have an accident while out running, cycling, walking, etc. as soon as you are found your next of kin will be informed and the emergency services made aware of any necessary medical information that would assist in caring for you.

I decided to register my wristband this morning before going out for a run. I would have registered my travel tag, key fob and mobile property ID too, but didn’t realise at first that they all have different ID numbers on them (it explains why on the FAQ page) and so couldn’t be bothered to do all of them then, but you can go back and add other devices later.

It took me a long time to find out where to register on the website. Eventually, I found a link under the ‘Cram Alert In Action’ menu, which told me to go to the log-in page. I would have liked a nice big ‘register here’ sign on the home page.

Registering your devices is straightforward. You enter the ID number and then add your family members who you’d like to be contacted in an emergency. They give a helpful list of definitions of ‘family’.

1) Husband, wife and children.

2) All blood relations.

3) All who live in the same household including servants and relatives, with some person or persons directing this economic and social unit.

4) Civil partnerships.

5) Common law relationships.

6) Stepchildren and foster children.

So, that means that Shaun is lower than a servant. Excellent.

The rest of the registration process is simple (well, it is if, like me, you have no allergies or special medical needs the emergency services need to be aware of and all you need to do is give them the phone number of your servant boyfriend).

While I don’t really need anything else on my wrists while I’m out running, it’s a good-looking band and is comfortably rubbery. It was a bit of a struggle getting it on the first time, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. The wristband is adjustable and once you know how long you need it to be, you can cut the overlap off with a pair of scissors (if this really is beyond you, you can see step-by-step photographs, or even watch a youtube video of how to do this on their FAQ page).

Without being run over by a tractor, I can’t say whether the Cram Alert works or not and my dedication in the name of research doesn’t really stretch that far. Plus, if I did get run over by a tractor, the emergency services wouldn’t be much help; a man with a big shovel to scrape me off the road would be of more use.

The Cram Alert wristband costs £9.97 and if you buy any other items, they will be discounted by 40%. The first year’s family registration is free, thereafter a £15 per annum administration fee applies.

Unless you have a long list of medical requirements and/or want to register a number of family members, I can’t really see that this has many benefits over a cheaper ID band with no yearly registration fee.

The giveaway

I’ve got 5 Cram Alert packs (worth £15.95 each) to give away. Each pack contains 2 devices:  1 x Cram Alert wristband and 1 x either a travel tag, key fob or mobile property ID. Also included is a year’s free registration.

I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to try out the Cram Alert wristband and runningokintheuk asked if it had superpowers. I said not unless the number goes through to Superman’s hotline and he comes to rescue me, which gave me the inspiration for today’s giveaway.

For a chance to win one of 5 packs of Cram Alert ID, leave a comment here letting me know which superhero you’d like to come and rescue you (it doesn’t have to be a superhero: if you want The Hoff to come and rescue you in Kit, that’s fine with me. Or maybe Daisy Duke is more your thing. Maybe I should stop showing my age).

Terms and conditions
Closing date midnight Friday 12 August
5 winners will be chosen by an internet random number picker
UK entries only
Superhero not included

That was Travelling Hopefully’s reaction when I said on Twitter that I’d beaten the stick man (not the rather diminutive chap that I live with but the virtual partner on my Garmin, who I call Cedric [Travelling Hopefully is also trying to think of a name for her’s and has a naming competition on her blog that you can enter and win some sweets]).

I had a bit of a dilemma this weekend. Last year I took part in the 35 mile Great Kent Bike Ride and had hoped to do it again this year. Doing it again this year had indeed been the plan for months and months, although there was a local 10k on the same day that I fancied doing. Then I saw that there was the Big Wheel of Kent on the day before, and so I thought ‘aha, I can do the the Big Wheel of Kent on the Saturday and the 10k on the Sunday. Sorted.

Then I looked at the route and map for the Big Wheel of Kent and the map didn’t actually say where I’d be going and the route looked all twisty and turny and confusing and so I emailed the organisers to ask if there would be arrows along the way. They said no. Bah. Another off-putting thing about the Big Wheel of Kent ride was that it was one way, so after cycling 19 miles from Ashford to Canterbury, I’d have to get the train back. The decision was made for me, however, when I checked the weather forecast for the weekend and it said that it would be raining all weekend. I don’t have a problem at all about running a race in the rain but I’m not cycling in the rain for hours and so I decided to ditch both bike rides and do the 10k on the Sunday and do a 20 mile bike ride on my own on the Saturday after I’d ran.

Because I was doing a 10k on the Sunday, I was going to stick to my schedule that said today I was to do 5 miles but I decided that would be overdoing it a bit and so this morning I thought I’d wake up Cedric and get him to pace me over two miles at 10 minute miles. Then I decided that was too quick and so I set him up for two miles at 10:30 minute miles and yay, I beat him!

Stats
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 21:02
Pace: 10:23 m/m
Calories: 213
Stick men beaten: 1

Update for cycling stats:
Distance: 20.56 miles
Time: 2:19:42
Speed: 8.8mph
Calories: 601
Hills: quite a few
Pubs went past: about 3

This app has a load of high-definition videos featuring two of Washington, D.C.’s top physical therapists showing how to prevent and treat common runners’ injuries.

The videos are broken down into categories of:

Getting Started
Ankle Sprains
Achilles Tendonitis
Iliotibial Band Syndrome
Low Back Pain
Runner’s Knee
Plantar Fasciitis
Shin Splints

Within these categories are videos showing stretching and strengthening exercises and includes separate tabs for cause, prevention and treatment, making navigation quick and convenient.

Designed for the iPhone and the iPad, this app is available from the iTunes Store for $4.99.

The PediRoller from Carnation Footcare is a ridged rubber cylinder which, according to the blurb, ‘can help keep your feet healthy and toned and reduce the pain associated with heel and arch problems such as plantar fasciitis’.

It comes with a leaflet showing some foot exercises and also a Fizzy Feet tablet that you dissolve in water to soothe your tootsies.  

I haven’t tried the Fizzy Feet tablet but I did try out the roller on my foot arch that’s been niggling me for what seems like forever and it felt great. In fact, I’m using it now while writing this post.

Recommended, and only £4.99 from Boots.

Bargain.

I was contacted recently to see if I wanted to try out the Trion:Z dual loop bracelet and the first thing I noticed on their website was “The most difficult decision you have to make is what colour to choose”.

They weren’t kidding. There’s flipping hundreds of colours to choose from (this may be a slight exaggeration). I almost opted for the Audiofuel colours of black and orange, but my inner goth won in the end and I picked the purple and black one.

When it arrived, I looked at the accompanying leaflet to find out what it was supposed to do. The accompanying leaflet didn’t tell me. Hmm. As Warriorwoman has also mentioned on her blog, there’s lots of quotes from athletes extolling the bracelet’s virtues and how they wouldn’t race without a Trion:Z necklace or wristband, but they don’t actually say why.

The blurb on the website says:

“Trion:Z’s original dual therapy bracelet combines Trion:Z’s patented Ionic AND Magnetic therapy into one unique and stylish wristband. With TWO identical loops of Negative Ion releasing “Mineon Health Fibre®” and twin patented ANSPO orientate therapeutic magnets, making it the most powerful ionic wristband on the market.”

I took my stylish loops of negative ions out for a bike ride and I don’t know if it did whatever it was supposed to do but I didn’t fall off, so all was good.

As much as I love my little pink iPod Shuffle, when the new iPod Nano came out with its screen, my first reaction was I WANT ONE. My second reaction, on seeing the price, was BAH.

Still, a few months later, after my fellow Janathon participants had a whip round for me and presented me with (amongst other things) an amazon gift voucher so big it made me cry with joy and gratitude*, I was able to buy the much coveted iPod Nano.

Yay.

It arrived yesterday and while playing with it, found it had a pedometer on it. As much as I hate numbers, I love statistics and spent the afternoon seeing how many steps I made going downstairs and making hot chocolate (48) or going to the conservatory to get a packet of crisps (59). Great fun. It was a bit worrying by the end of the day though, when my grand total of movement was only 744 steps. The government recommendation is 10,000.

Oops.

I made up for that today though by running 4.8 miles and by 3:30pm, I had racked up 10,004 steps and decided that meant I didn’t have to move for the rest of the day.

Result.

*I am aware I haven’t blogged about the post-Janathon 5k and lunch yet. Sorry. I will do it. Soon. Honest.

Stats
Distance: 4.82 miles
Time: 1:02:28
Pace: 12:58 m/m
Calories: 445
New iPod Nanos: 1
Pedometers: 1
Steps recorded so far today: 10,004

A long long time ago, I was sent an email asking me if I’d like to try out an armband for the iphone. Not having an iphone and not having the teeniest inclination of ever owning an iphone, I emailed back and said no ta.

Luckily, apart from being a hypocrite and now owning an iphone (baa), I’m also not very good at clearing out my email inbox and so I found the email, and said “hello, you offered me an armband a little while ago but I didn’t have an iphone but now I do, so can I have one now?” and luckily the nice lady didn’t say no, too late, bugger off, but she said of course you can and she sent me the Belkin DualFit Armband for iPhone 4 from her website full of iPhone 4 accessories.

The armband is nice and soft and feels like the velvety inside of a cat’s ear although the website says it’s made from a lightweight, breathable neoprene and not cat’s ears, so vegans: you’re ok.

There’s a little slit in the armband and I don’t know if this is the real use for it, but you could put a coin or a key inside there or just do what I did and stick your finger in it and wonder what it’s for.

It’s fucking huge. It takes up more room on my arm than my Garmin 301 does and I wonder if running around with an expensive phone on my arm in full view is a good idea. If I was still at home in Walthamstow, then I probably wouldn’t go out with it strapped to my arm but here in semi-ruralness, I decide to take my chances as most of the riff-raff round here are two miles away in the town centre queuing up outside Greggs.

I load up my phone with Audiofuel, Stornoway (who I discovered when XFM played ‘Watching Birds’ a couple of weeks ago and which is now my new favourite song) and Hole and go outside for the first run in about three weeks.

The phone’s easy to use through the armband and although looking at it upside down hurts my eyes, I can quickly put it on shuffle and adjust the volume and then I’m off.

I just do two miles today and considering how I haven’t run or been to the gym for ages, I don’t do too badly and although the Folkestone Half-Marathon at the end of the month is out, I still might make the Ashford 10k in October.

Stats:
Distance: 1.95 miles
Time: 22:08
Pace: 11:21 m/m
Calories: 194
New armbands: 1
Music:
Audiofuel
Stornoway
Hole

p.s. I’m having a giveaway on Planet Veggie. Go and enter my competition. Now. Please.

I used to hate alliteration before doing my OU course. But then I started to quite like it as it was used quite often and now I think it’s quite the bees’ bollocks (sorry for the mixed metaphor but I was also taught to avoid clichés like the plague).

I did do a run last week that I should have blogged but didn’t. I was going to blog about it, but got side-tracked and I haven’t even got my list of prompts/memory guides so you could at least have had a kind of join-the-dots blog instead.

Still, today I ran and now I’m blogging it.

Some time ago, I received an email about a new range of running tops. Being a blatantly brazen blagging blogger, I emailed back and said thank you for your spam email, the tops look cool. Can I have one to review on my blog please? and they say yes, of course you can. And so I was sent a lovely stripy top from Rainbow Running.

Not cheap at £35, I was also a bit perturbed to look at the label and see they’re 100% polyester. I WILL BOIL AND DIE I thought but on investigating properly the blurb I was sent like I should have done in the first place and not just been greedy and grabbing my freebie, it says they’re made with wickable Intera fabric, which rapidly transports water molecules to the surface of the fibres where they can quickly evaporate, the garments offer a cooler and more comfortable running experience.

And after trying the running top, I can say that that’s not just marketing bollocks, as it did keep me cool and dry and I didn’t get home with it sticking to me (and that’s not just because I run [or jog, as I’ve recently been told I do, as I go really slowly, bah] really slowly. Slow joggers runners sweat too, you know. And it fitted nicely and it was comfy and all that other stuff. (Yeah, ok, I’m not very good at reviews. Random stream of consciousnesses are more my thing.)

Another thing I tried out today was my new iPhone 4. I was a bit hesitant to get one as I thought it’s just a phone, isn’t it? And I don’t even use the phone. BUT I FUCKING LOVE IT. I love it. I love it. I love it. I was very scared to take it out with me as I didn’t want to put it in my back pocket with my door key but the protective covers are still on it (although they’re getting a bit manky so I think I’ll have to take them off soon – anyone recommend a case?), so I thought it’d be ok. I downloaded the Runkeeper app, although everyone says it’s shit and loaded up my phone with Audiofuel, Kate Bush and Knifeworld. Runkeeper found my location within seconds (unlike my N95 which found my location once in the two years I had it) and I wondered if it would still go when I pressed the home button and started up the music player. I didn’t really care though as I had my Garmin with me. Everything seemed to be going ok and I shoved the phone in my back pocket. Next time though, I’ll start the music off first as Runkeeper had been going for a while while I was sorting the music out and then for even longer while I put it in my pocket. What do other runners do, if you run with your phone? Can you recommend an armband that gives easy access to everything?

After all that faffing around, I start my run. I decide to go through the fields up to the road one and a half miles away and turn round and get back. BUT I’M SCUPPERED. Some flipping farmer has furrowed his field and I can’t see the path.

Bastard farmer scum. (Yeah, ok, that’s a bit harsh but I was a bit miffed.) This is what it looked like before.

See, a proper path and everything.

I can’t see where to go and it’s all muddy and lumpy and bumpy and I can’t run on it and so I walk and I’m really pissed off and I go a bit further and I can’t see where the next stile is and so when I get even more pissed off, I turn round and go back the way I came and go to the closed off road and run up there and back down again and because of all the walking I did on the PUBLIC FOOTPATH WHICH IS NO LONGER A PATH BUT JUST A LOAD OF MUD BECAUSE OF BASTARD FARMER SCUM, my miles per minute are really really slow and maybe I should be called whatever one below a jogger is (a Race for Lifer perhaps) and then I get home and look at the Runkeeper stats which, because of the time taken to run after starting it and the time taken to take it out of my pocket to stop it, is pretty much the same as my Garmin.

Stats (Runkeeper):
Distance: 3.07 miles
Time: 42:56
Pace: 13:59 m/m
Calories: 311

Garmin:
Distance: 3.05 miles
Time: 40:27
Pace: 13:16 m/m
Calories: 260

New running tops: 1
New iphones: 1
Bastard farmer scums: 1

Music:
Audiofuel
Knifeworld
Kate Bush

A few weeks (or was it months?) ago, I was invited to try out the new Adidas miCoach. But I didn’t go. And then I found out that Warriorwoman and Highway Kind went and I was gutted as it would have been great to meet Highway Kind and see Warriorwoman again and then on telly the other night I saw an advert for it and I said to Shaun, that’s that thing I was invited to and he said but it’s an app and you haven’t got an iPhone and I thought oh yeah but I think they got given a gadget or something but anyway, if the O2 man rings back after getting cut off yesterday by my crappy Samsung Tocco, maybe he’ll do me a good deal and I can get an iPhone after all and then I can get the miCoach thingybob.