Author: jogblog

Bus driven mad

4 comments

I get up too late to go to the gym before work and so I decide to go at lunchtime just for a mile on the treadmill to see if I can calibrate the stupid poxy Nike+ Sportband thing which still shows me as breaking world records ha ha and I get to the gym and there’s no air conditioning but I think it doesn’t really matter as I’m only doing a mile and I get on the treadmill and try three times to start the treadmill and my Nike+ Sportsband at the same time and each time they’re way out and then duh I remember that the treadmill will be in kilometres and the Sportband will be in miles so I forget trying to synchronise them and just do a mile and after a mile I stop and because there’s no air conditioning I am completely minging and the gym is the only place I can put up with air conditioning as this is England and we don’t need air conditioning EVER except for the gym and I’ve had my heater on at work since I’ve been there and it seems like my Sportband and the treadmill were pretty spot on and I go back to work and freeze in the air conditioning and then I go to my evening class and then Tracey says do you want to go for a drink and I say no and then I’ve changed my mind by one tube stop and say shall we go for a drink at Liverpool Street and when we get out at Liverpool Street there aren’t any trains going to anywhere and I think shit I’ll have to get the tube and a bus or a cab home and we go to the pub and we pass one on the way that’s cheaper and we get veggie sausage and mash and a bottle of wine for about £12 between us and then we get the tube and then I get another tube and then I get the bus and there’s a man on the bus on his mobile having a conversation about the bus and he’s telling whoever he’s talking to that when he got out of the tube there were three buses and the 97 is faster than the 69 and sometimes he doesn’t get a bus ’til 10 o’clock and I’m thinking whoppee fucking do just shut the fuck up but he doesn’t and he carries on and on with the same conversation about how there were three buses and sometimes he gets this bus but sometimes he gets another bus and I’m swearing under my breath and really really really wanting him to SHUT THE FUCK UP and I’m wondering if the person on the other side of the conversation is losing the will to live as much as I am and I can’t take the bus conversation anymore and I get off the bus early and I walk down the street and as I get to Somerfield it has a sign saying half price wine so I have to go in and get a bottle and I get home and I plug in my Nike+ Sportband but it doesn’t upload anything so I reboot my computer to see if that will change its mind but it doesn’t so I go to download the software again but I can’t download it and I think I hate the Nike+ Sportband thing.

Stats:
Distance: 1 mile
Time: 12 minutes
Pace: 12:24
Calories: 92
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
13.55 out of 100 / 27 days left

The joys of a running commute

2 comments

Reading The Red Bucket’s blog today prompted me to think about the joys of a running commute and to share my happy ponderings with the rest of the world.

But I couldn’t think of any.

You get up in the morning with the best of intentions and pack your running gear. This is an exercise in endurance in itself. What do you take? What don’t you take? I have had to learn how to travel light and also how not to mind freezing on the platform while I’m waiting for my train because I’ve had to leave my parka at home. I fail miserably at not minding freezing.

You get to work and your workmates look at you in admiration (at least, I think that’s what it is. It could of course, and possibly more likely, be looks of bewilderment) when you say you’re running home and you smugly think to yourself yay, I am fit and healthy and you are a lazy bastard. Then it gets to the afternoon and you think fuck, I’m knackered and now I’ve got to run for over an hour instead of sitting on a train for 15 minutes. In fact, by the time your Garmin has got a signal, you could have been home with your feet up watching the early evening news (or Hollyoaks).

You have to dodge slow people walking and talking on their mobiles; you have to dodge slow people looking at maps; you have to dodge slow people stopping to light cigarettes and you have to dodge people who are just slow. The only good thing about this is that they are so wrapped up in their own little slow world that they don’t hear you when you swear at them under your breath.

Then you have to stop every four yards to cross the road. Or alternatively you can just get run over every four yards by cars driven by fuckwits who don’t bother to indicate. And don’t forget to look out for cyclists going through red lights. And cyclists on the pavements. And, erm, cyclists in general really.

And of course, it’s dinnertime and the smells from even the greasiest fast food places are enough to make a health-conscious vegetarian’s mouth water. Almost. Although that’s nothing compared to the lager envy you get when you commute in the summer and run past all the people enjoying a cold beer in the evening sun.

When you eventually get home, it is of course late o’clock and by the time you’ve showered and had your dinner there is fuck all else time to do anything else.

Er, yeah, a running commute. I definitely recommend it.

Stats
Distance: 6.06 miles
Time: 1:11:11
Pace: 11:45 m/m
Calories: 586
Slow people: lots
Cars nearly running me over: lots
Cyclists going through red lights: lots
Music
Bobby Conn
The Levellers
Madonna
Radiohead
Baby Teeth
Devo
Janis Joplin
Scissor Sisters
Rolling Stones
THE 100 MILE CHALLENGE
Miles completed so far
12.55 out of 100 / 28 days left

3 miles in 30 minutes

5 comments

As Warriorwoman has impressively spent two days chasing tube lines, after cleaning my embarrassingly dirty kitchen, I enter three races and this sufficiently motivates me into venturing out into the Bank Holiday sunshine rain to keep up with the challenge within a challenge (although I am quietly confident that it won’t be long before Warriorwoman slacks off with pathetic excuses like exams/broken backs/flowers to water, etc.)

I go round the marshes and get soaking wet and I do my 3 mile route in just over 30 minutes and therefore it’s looking likely that I will do my sub-30 5k at Sunday’s RfL if I don’t get stuck behind too many pink-lycra-clad women walking really slowly whilst eating pies and therefore can claim my free beer and pizza. Hurrah.

Stats
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 30:05
Pace: 10:00 m/m
Calories: 303
Races entered: 3
Sunny weathers: 0
Rain: lots
30 minute marshes: 1
Free pizzas on the horizon: 1
Music
The Beatles
The The
The Smiths
Bobby Conn
Mika
The Mission

Miles completed so far
6.49 / 100

The challenge begins

9 comments

As agreed with Warriorwoman, today is the start of our Salomon XT Wings Challenges. Mine being to run 100 miles in a month, and her’s being something completely mental and which maybe she is out doing right now if she’s finished taking pictures of little birds that are probably now dead.

I decide to make it a day of freebies and decide to do intervals with my free Kara Goucher Endurance Boost workout mp3 and I put on my free Salomon t-shirt

and I go to put on my free Salomon XT Wings shoes

but then I remember that red and green should not be seen so I put on my usual trainers and I take my free Nike+ Sportband as I’ve been sent another one without a defective screen and I use my new pouch instead of doing the Joggerblogger bodge job

and I go out and stand where the waiting-for-a-Garmin-signal-wall used to be and a scruffy man comes out of a scruffy house and I wonder if that’s where Bad Cat lives because the man is as manky as Bad Cat and Bad Cat’s behaviour is that of a pikey and I set off to do my intervals and as I get past the stables a cyclist comes up and looks like she’s going to turn but then she doesn’t look like she’s going to turn and I’m thinking ARE YOU GOING TO TURN OR WHAT, MAKE YOUR MIND UP YOU STUPID COW and she eventually turns and I carry on and there’s a sign on the boardwalk about cyclists but I don’t stop to read it and just hope it says that there’s been a change in the law and that from 1 June 2008 instead of banning alcohol on the tube, they’re going to ban cyclists from everywhere instead and as I get to my favourite bridge there’s a little kid at the bottom of the ramp and it’s just standing there in my way and I’m thinking GET OUT OF THE WAY STUPID KID and then there’s a baby Irish Wolfhound and it reminds me of the Irish Wolfhound my parents had and it also reminds me that the girl at work has a baby tortoise and I thought it was illegal to have tortoises over here and I’ve never seen a baby tortoise and I go over the bridge at the marina and I have to walk because there’s lots of people on it and there’s another kid in my way and I’m thinking is it small-children-in-the-way-day today or what? and I see a train and think hurrah, the trains are running today, that means Kate can get here for the official opening night of the new theatre pub up the road and it’s a glamorous Hollywood themed night and I told the owner who invited me to the opening that I’d wear a dress. Fuck.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 3.44 miles
Time: 31:04
Pace: 10:12 m/m
Calories: 346
Free t-shirts: 1
Free shoes: 1
Free MP3s: 1
Free Nike+ Sportbands: 1
Scruffy men in scruffy houses: 1
Cyclists taking 15 years to decide whether to turn or not: 1
Baby Irish Wolfhounds: 1
Kids in my way: 2
Glamorous Hollywood themed nights: 1
Music
Let’s Get It Started (Black Eyed Peas)
Don’t Phunk With My Heart (Black Eyed Peas)
Timebomb (Beck)
Say Goodbye To Love (Kenna)
Somewhere Only We Know (Keane)
For The Girl (The Fratellis)
Lay Down The Law (The Switches)
Where It’s At (Beck)
The Middle (Jimmy Eat World)
Sorry Sorry (Rooney)
Come To You (Carina Round)
Chase The Light (Jimmy Eat World)
Stop Stare (One Republic)

A run before work

6 comments

Because I’m off out drinking in my homeland tonight and therefore can’t do a running commute, last night I decide that today I’ll get up early and go for a run before work and my sub-conscious decides to remind me by waking me up at 5:30 and so I go back to sleep and wake up at 6:30 and think if I can be out by 7, I’ll be back by 7:30 and that still gives me an hour and three quarters before I have to leave for work, hurrah. But I manage to find enough things to do to stop me leaving until 7:20 and I go round the corner to sit on the wall and wait for my Garmin to get a signal but THE WALL IS GONE. Where’s the wall gone? In place of the wall is two raised concrete things with a cycle path in the middle. Who the fuck cares about cyclists? I want my waiting-for-a-Garmin-signal-wall back and so I stand on the corner of the road looking weird and a man walks past me and gives me a strange look and then I’m on my way and I go over the footbridge and I’m wondering how long it’s been since I was over the marshes because the bushes and weeds and stuff need cutting back and a cyclist comes round the corner and I jump two feet in the air and he stops and I say sorry even though I’m not in the wrong but neither was he but let’s play nicely and I carry on and there’s a girl running in a weird way and she’s wearing a big woolly jumper and then she starts walking and I overtake her and I’m thinking she let me overtake on purpose so I have to go through the bridge first and then if she hears any bloodcurdling screams she’ll know not to go through the bridge but I get through the bridge without any reason to scream bloodcurdlingly and there’s a man with four dogs and he tells one of the dogs to get out of my way but the dog is more interested in sniffing something interesting on the verge and completely ignores the man and I go through them and get home and I still haven’t managed my three mile marshes route in 30 minutes but it’s faster than I’ve done for a while so yay.

Stats
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 31:18
Pace: 10:20 m/m
Calories: 304
New cycle paths: 1
Cyclists nearly running me over: 1
Women wearing woolly jumpers: 1
Dogs ignoring their owners: 1
30 minute marshes: 0
Music
Sonic Youth
The Mission
Sisters of Mercy
Modest Mouse

A walking commute

2 comments

Sex and the City has a lot to answer for.  At least, Paramount Comedy does by showing it every night.  I mean, what’s a girl to do?  Stay up late watching it and drinking wine?  Exactly.  But staying up late drinking wine and watching telly is not conducive to good running performance, whether that be a 10k race or a 10k running commute.  Maybe I should just give up 10ks.  Hmm, now there’s a thought.

Or perhaps I can blame it on not being mentally prepared for a full commute tonight, as my workmate said she was going to walk half of it with me but come 5:30 this afternoon she comes over and says she’s wimping out and getting the train home instead.  Tsk, what a lightweight.   I walk up with her to Moorgate and then I’m waiting about three hours for my Garmin to pick up a signal but it doesn’t look like it’s going to so I start without it and just time myself instead and it picks up a signal somewhere along the way and I walk most of my commute like a complete weed, which is a bit crap really because I’ve got more races coming up; the Salomon XT Wings Challenge encompassing the challenge within the challenge which starts on Saturday; and then we’ll have Juneathon again which I will leave Joggerblogger to tell you about if he remembers not to forget about it again.

Stats
Distance: 5.65 miles
Time: 1:20:19
Pace: 14:13 m/m
Calories: 453
Late nights drinking wine and watching Sex and the City: too many
Running breaks: a couple
Music
Duran Duran
The Mission
Transvision Vamp
B52s
Delorean
Echo & The Bunneymen
Sisters of Mercy
Arctic Monkeys
Manic Street Preachers

Hornsey YMCA 10k race report

7 comments

In preparation for today’s race, last night I sit up late drinking wine and watching Sex and the City and so this morning when my alarm goes off at 7, I sleep through it until 8 and I think shit, can I be bothered to go to the race? and I decide I can’t but then I think when I go to work tomorrow and they ask me how I got on, if I say I overslept and didn’t go, I’m going to look like a sad pathetic loser and I try very hard to cultivate an image that doesn’t involve looking like a sad pathetic loser and so I get out of bed and put on my running gear, grab the bottle of Gatorade that I picked up in Sainsburys to try because it was half price and get to Finsbury Park and wait for the train to Hornsey and I take a swig of the Gatorade and fuck me, that mings and I look at the label and it says it’s orange flavour and I think well that’s the weirdest tasting orange I’ve ever had and the train comes and I get to the park where the race is going to start and I’ve got ten minutes to go and then we’re off and as we’re going down a narrow alleyway someone keeps kicking my feet and I think fuck off and stop kicking my feet and they keep on doing it so I turn round to give them a dirty look and it’s Superman and I think SUPERMAN IS TRYING TO TRIP ME UP, bastard, and when we get to the hill that leads up to Alexandra Palace station I don’t even attempt to run up it and I walk but no one else seems to be walking unlike last year when everyone walked up it and as we’re going through Alexandra Park an excessively hairy man overtakes me and excessively hairy men ming more than Gatorade and I stop to walk to let him go far far far ahead into the distance because if I have to look at that for the next five miles there’s a good chance I will be physically sick and as I’m about to overtake a girl ahead of me she waves me past and I say thanks and I end up overtaking her another two times and each time she waves me past and then it’s getting on my nerves as I don’t need to be waved past, I can see where I’m going and if she waves me past again I’m going to punch her and I don’t seem to be in a very good mood today and I’m thinking that is probably due to too much wine and not enough sleep and then we’re nearly at the end of the race and I’ve taken quite a few walking breaks and going to get a crap time and I was promised free beer and pizza if I did sub-60 but that was never going to happen anyway and as we enter the park to the finish line there’s a deaf runner in front of me and I know he’s deaf as he has a sign on his back saying deaf runner and I wonder if it’s mean if I overtake him and I decide saying something mean about him would be mean as he couldn’t hear me but overtaking him isn’t mean and then I’ve finished the race and there’s a big cattle pen thing and it’s going really really slowly and I’m wondering if I really want to queue for half an hour just for a bottle of water and a banana and I decide I don’t but I can’t see how to get out of the cattle pen thing and so I stay in it and I get given a bottle of water and a coconut water drink but no banana and I go to look for the doughnuts and while I’m in the doughnut queue I read the label on the coconut water and it says “Inside every young coconut is a refreshing electrolyte-replacing beverage that far surpasses every artificial sports drink.  Vita Coco is fat-free and an excellent source of potassium, manganese and magnesium.  In fact, this 100% pure life enhancing beverage has also been proven to increase vitality, ease digestion, cure hangovers and …” WOAH, HANG ON A MINUTE, CURES HANGOVERS?  What the fuck?  And I’m thinking they should give them out at the start of races, especially the ones I’m at as I’m not very good at the no drinking the night before a race thing and the label carries on “… literally save people’s lives”.  Literally save people’s lives?  Yeah right.  How can coconut water save people’s lives?  Lassie saved people’s lives but he used to alert passers-by by barking, as far as I’m aware, coconuts don’t bark.  And I’m not sure a prime-time TV programme about coconut water is going to be a hit either.

And after I’ve got my doughnut and finished reading the back of the hangover-curing life-saving coconut water I go and find the t-shirt tent but the queue for t-shirts is about two thousand miles long and I can’t be bothered to go to the back of the two thousand mile long queue which is a shame because the t-shirts look quite nice and so I go home instead and I’m home by 12:15 and I eat my doughnut and the doughnut must be laced with sleeping pills because suddenly I can’t keep my eyes open and I go to bed and don’t wake up ‘til 4:30 and I’ve wasted a whole afternoon sleeping.  Bah.

 

Stats
Distance: 6.34 miles
Time: 1:10:13
Pace: 11:04 m/m
Calories: 633
Early nights in preparation for race day: 0
Supermen trying to trip me up: 1
Excessively hairy men: 1
Annoying women waving me past: 1
Life-saving flavoured coconut water drinks: 1
Doughnuts: 1
Two thousand mile t-shirt queues: 1
Music
Duran Duran
Madonna
The Smiths
Depeche Mode
Rolling Stones
The Jam
The Mission
Massive Attack

Running commute #2

5 comments

The man on XFM this morning said that summer was over and now all we had to look forward to were clouds and rain and apart from thinking I hate the man on XFM, I think typical just as I’ve re-started my running regime and then I remember that I like running in the rain although if I had to choose between all day rain or all day sun then I would say all day sun please, hell yeah, and so I pack my running stuff and grab my umbrella and go to work and tell my new workmates I’m going to run home and they don’t look at me like I’m mad, in fact they think it’s pretty cool and one of them says she’ll walk part of the way with me if I want to walk one day and I say how about Tuesday, where can you get a train from? and she says Hackney Downs and I say I can go that way, it’s three miles from here, is that ok? and she says yes so my next running commute is going to be half walk/half run, unless I cheat and jump on the train at Hackney Downs too.

But today isn’t a half walk/half run and maybe cheating-by-jumping-on-the-train-at-Hackney-Downs day, today is a proper running commute day but by less than two miles I need to stop and go to the shop and get a drink but not a can of Stella because only complete nutters like the man on the tube last night who threatened me and Tracey drink Stella, and the man at the counter says hello, how are you? and I say I’m fine thanks and he looks at my black eye and says have you been fighting? and I say yeah, you should see the other guy and he says really?  and I say no, not really, I fell over and he says shit, sorry about my language and I say that’s ok and he says were you on a bike? and I lie and say no, I was running, instead of saying no, I was drunk and fell over because once again I forgot wine equals hospitalisation and I pay for my drink and continue on my commute and remember to go the right way this time and I go down the hill again which is as much fun as it was on Tuesday and as I get to the footbridge at the marina a motorbike goes up it and I think I haven’t seen that before and he rides his bike down the steps on the other side and I get round the bend and there’s a cyclist having a piss on the edge of the path and I think you dirty peasant and I go under the bridge and then I’m being lazy and walking and I skip through my iPod trying to find  an uplifting song to spur me on but nothing does and I’m skipping through and skipping through but there’s still nothing and I can practically see my house and so I think I’d better start running again so I do and I get home quicker than last time although that may have something to do with not going half a mile out of my way by not following my map properly.

And the more eagle eyed of you may have spotted the new widget on the right hand side.  And the even more eagle eyed of you may have spotted that I’ve been called “he”.  I haven’t had a sex change.  Honest.  However, I have been set the challenge of running 100 miles in a month.  Warrior Woman has also been set a challenge which I’m sure she’ll tell you about at some point on her blog but in the meantime she has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged me to a challenge within a challenge which shall see us undertaking our challenges at the same time in a mini-competition kind of thing because obviously it’s not enough for her to keep beating me at Scrabulous on Facebook.  Now she wants to out-run me.  Hmm.

Stats
Distance: 5.98 miles
Time: 1:11:03
Pace: 11:53 m/m
Calories: 600
Shops stopped at: 1
Motorbikes going over footbridges: 1
Cyclists pissing on paths: 1
Times went the wrong way: 0
Times looked at map: 1
Walking breaks: a couple
Challenges: 1
Challenges within challenges: 1
Music
Cardiacs
Bobby Conn
Devo
Faith No More
Levellers
The Cure
Foo Fighters
Hole
Missy Elliot
Carter
Soft Cell

New running commute

2 comments

I still haven’t retired. Honest. And I know it looks like that if I haven’t retired, then I’ve at least gone part-time but that’s not true either. I had a string of injuries but things come in threes and now I’ve had three and so that should be that and now I’m back in the land of the living, running and blogging. Hurrah.

I spend Monday evening printing off maps so I can plot my new running commute that www.walkit.com has plotted for me and I spend my lunch hour today drawing on the map in blue highlighter pen and I’m thinking I’m going to get lost as it’s a completely different way to my old commute and it even misses out Murder Mile and so at 6 o’clock tonight I set off for my new running commute and try and find somewhere to stand and wait for my Garmin to pick up a signal. I’ve also brought out the Nike+ Sportband for another test but the display is completely bolloxed now and is unreadable. Bah. Still, I have my trusty Garmin and it doesn’t take too long to get a signal and I follow my map up to Moorgate and past Old Street and through Hoxton and into Dalston and then across the road on the right I see the road I used to go down on my old commute and I think hmm, shall I go that way as I know where I’m going if I go that way but I decide to put my faith into The Map and it’ll be a change anyway and a change is as good as a rest so I continue going left and the road on the right wasn’t the road I thought it was because I come to the road I thought it was and this time it definitely is that road and I think hmm, shall I go that way as I know where I’m going if I go that way but once again I decide to put my faith into The Map and keep on going up the road and then I’m in Stoke Newington and as I’m crossing a road I walk into a pitbull and I think shit, it’s going to bite my leg off now but it’s a nice doggy and doesn’t bite my leg off and it’s hooded owner doesn’t shoot me either and I say sorry to the dog and carry on and I’ve done 3.5 miles which is more than I’ve done for two weeks and I’ve got a 10k on Sunday which I’m going to struggle round and I decide to walk until I get to 4 miles and I get to Stoke Newington station and I need to turn off and I start running again and then I’ve gone too far and I’ve gone the wrong way but I think that’s not bad only going the wrong way once so far on my new running commute and my navigation skills are obviously improving and I find the way I need to go and I’m in Clapton and I’m thinking this can’t be Clapton, it looks nice round here and it’s very different to the Murder Mile bit and I need to find Spring Hill and I see a road without a road sign and it’s definitely a hill, in fact, it’s the steepest hill I’ve seen ever ever ever, or is at least the steepest hill I’ve seen since the last time I saw a steep hill and it’s all downhill and I think weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and I run down the hill and then I’m at the marina and I know where I am and I get home and I didn’t suffer too badly on my first run for over two weeks and may even make it to my race on Sunday. Yay.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 6.63 miles
Time: 1:23:40
Pace: 12:37 m/m
Calories: 604
New running commutes: 1
Times went the wrong way: 1
Times looked at map: millions
Walking breaks: quite a few
Music
Cardiacs
Sleeper
Bobby Conn
Jamiroquai
Jesus & Mary Chain
Foo Fighters
Missy Elliot
Levellers

Nike+ Sportband review

13 comments

Contrary to popular belief, I haven’t retired. I have been resting. Resting my finger that is, and my finger needs resting because last Saturday I had a few friends round for dinner for a celebrate-me-getting-a-new-job thing and while I was being the hostess with the mostest, instead of rinsing the rice, I rinsed my finger with boiling water and then it looks like this:


Ouch.

I ice it with the runner’s obligatory ice-pack-in-freezer and after that goes warm, it’s replaced by a packet of frozen Quorn mince. Then, ignoring my friends’ pleas to go to the hospital, after dinner I drink more wine and watch Sex and the City and then my finger feels better. Until the next day when it hurts like fuck.

I eventually get myself down to the Minor Injuries Unit at Barts after work on Monday (yes it was two days later but I’d rather walk around with a huge blister than go and sit in A&E and queue up for 5 hours behind 20,000 immigrants who are using it like their local GP’s practice) and my blister gets drained and dressed and then I look like some weird alien pointing thing. Cool.

And that is my excuse for not having run this week. Although I did run last Saturday morning but haven’t blogged it yet due to it being necessary to incorporate a review of a cheesy 40 minute workout MP3 I was sent which will mean having to listen to it again to remind myself of it and I haven’t been able to bring myself to do that yet because – unsurprisingly perhaps – it contains no Bobby Conn or Cardiacs, only the likes of the Birds Eye Peas or whatever they’re called. [Update – it is blogged now, see post below]

So this morning I decide to have my comeback. And I decide to ditch the marathon training and concentrate on getting my 5k and 10k speeds up. This has nothing to do with the fact that londonjogger is getting seriously speedy and we’re going to be doing the same 5k soon. Honest.

Also motivating me to get out of the door and stop being a fat bloater is the Nike+ Sportband that I was sent to try out


and as I’m getting dressed I realise my trousers are Nike, as is my t-shirt. If anyone had told me a couple of years ago I’d be wearing head to ankle Nike, I’d have laughed. Then punched them.

As I am only head to ankle Nike-clad, and not head to toe, I haven’t got any of those Nike shoes with the holes in so, following the lead of Joggerblogger, I undertake the Joggerblogger bodge job and tape the Nike+ link to my shoe and now with my weird alien pointing finger and a running shoe covered in masking tape I am going to go outside and look like a freak.


I am slightly disappointed by the fact that I seem to have been sent a sub-standard Sportband that only shows half the display but undeterred I go outside and press the button down for 3 seconds and it tells me to walk so I do as I’m told and I walk and after a few seconds it’s ready to begin recording and I press the button again and start to run. I have already been confused by how it can know how far I’ve gone without GPS and even though it goes by footstrikes, how does it know how long your stride is? I quickly realise that it’s going to need calibrating when, after my Garmin (which I have faithfully strapped to my left wrist) says I’ve gone half a mile, the Sportband reckons I’ve done almost a mile. Oh. As the Sportband ticks over 5k, I glance at my Garmin and it says 27 minutes. Ha ha, very funny. The Sportband is obviously lying.

After my week of eating pizza, chocolate and crisps, not visiting the gym or going running, I am feeling very fat and unfit and the wrong side of 9 stone and this is reflected in today’s run which has me stopping after my dubious 27 minute 5k for a bit of a walk. And there was me thinking I was going to come out today to break all land/speed records. Ho hum.

I walk/run the rest of the way and as I’m going through a particularly deserted bit there’s a young lad by the railings crouching and looking at his phone. I’m deciding whether to be scared or not and I decide not to be scared as it’s a gorgeous day and loads of people around and he walks towards me and I think he’s going to ask me the time or something and I must have my worried look on my face (in fact, I think that’s probably my usual look) and he puts his hands up and says “it’s ok, don’t be scared” and I smile and say “it’s ok, I thought you were going to say something” and I carry on walking/running and I get home after doing the slowest 10k ever (although the Sportband has registered this as 7.2 miles) and I’m going to need to speed up as I’ve got a 10k race in about 3 weeks. And a 5k in about a month. And it’s about time I managed a 5k in less than 30 minutes.

 

Back to the Sportband. Did I like it? Hmm, yes and no. The display is small and a bit hard to read, although this is because the band is small and cool, unlike my Garmin which takes up half my arm and is neither small nor cool. Also, because I am so used to the Garmin telling me on one screen my distance and pace, having to press a button on the run to scroll through the different units might take a bit of getting used to. Saying that though, distance is the default and that’s the only one I’m really interested in while I’m on the move so I’m probably being picky.

Set up was easy as was uploading the data. Stick the link in a USB port and you’re done. Your run gets automatically uploaded to the Nike+ website and there you can view some pretty graphs and get the code for a widget on your blog/website/social networking page. There’s lots of other ways to waste your time on the Nike+ website too that I haven’t fully explored yet.

Pros:
No need to stand around for three hours waiting for a satellite signal
Looks cool
Doesn’t take up half your arm or make you look like a Star Trek extra
Can get pretty graphs from the Nike+ website

Cons:
Needs calibrating
Small display
Fiddly button while on the move
Need Nike shoes or pay extra for a pouch or use masking tape and look like a freak

Summary
Looks cool, might work well when calibrated, probably won’t be taking over from my Garmin but would wear on a treadmill

Stats (Garmin)
Distance: 6.22 miles
Time: 1:15:14
Pace: 12:05 m/m
Calories: 601
Huge blisters: 1
Weird alien pointing things: 1
Nike+ Sportbands: 1
Fake 27 minute 5ks: 1
Stats: (Nike+ Sportband)
Distance: 7.19 miles
Time: 1:15:14
Pace: 10:28 m/m
Music
 Jeff Buckley
Secret Machines
The Ruts
Jamiroquai
Muse
The Go! Team
Lush
Jane’s Addiction
Marc Almond
The Cooper Temple Clause

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