I have somehow managed to go through my entire life without buying a ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ album. Not even when the series started in 1983, when I was 13 and probably knew not only the words to every track but also the names and favourite colours (thank you Smash Hits) of each member of every band on it.
You decide how long you want to run for, and the app will create a playlist of that duration from the tracks on your phone. Or, alternatively, you can buy tracks from the complete NOW catalogue from within the app. You can also choose the energy filter which will create the playlist based on the energy level you set.
It has an incredibly intuitive interface, and I was set up in a few clicks.
Not wanting to break my 30 year streak of never owning an NOW album, I let it choose 30 minutes of music from the selection on my phone.
As you’d expect from a running app, it tracks your distance, pace and calories and lets you share your run with Twitter.
This is the perfect app for people (like me) who can never decide what music to play. Please excuse the pathetic time it recorded. I’d foolishly gone for a run after having a dodgy stomach and anything above a walk had me almost doing a Paula.
NOW Running App costs 69p and is available to download on iPhone and Windows Phone 8.
I’m currently writing an article about leaving your desk and getting outside so, as I’m not one to be a hypocrite (ha!), I thought I’d better leave my desk and get outside myself and not just the outside bit that covers the quarter of a mile between my house and the gym.
Sometimes, my Garmin gets a signal while I’m still in the house. That day was not today though. I got goosebumps waiting for it to get a satellite, so I thought sod ya then, I’m going without you and I set off Garminless but it soon caught me up and I did about 1.5 miles in the cold and the drizzle.
I’ll be cycling later when I go to see my university’s production of Witches of Eastwick.
Stats Running: 1.5 miles Cycling later: 6 miles Goosebumps: lots
You’d think that as the UK’s number four fitness and exercise blogger, I’d actually do some fitness and exercise stuff, especially as I’m still on my Operation Stop Being A Fat Lazy Cow thing. So, yes, I have been to the gym over the last few days but I haven’t done any running though. I haven’t run for a month or more – anyone got any tips on how I can get back out there?
I woke up grumpy. I saw people making the same lame Tesco jokes (you thought beefburgers were only made of beef? Seriously?) and I didn’t get any less grumpy. I saw people posting status updates that it was cold (it’s January. Der.) and this didn’t make me any less grumpy. I went to the gym at 9am and no one had opened it yet and that didn’t make me any less grumpy either and so I came home with the hump.
What did make me smile though was seeing Travelling Hopefully had changed her Twitter avatar to a penguin, so me, HelsBels and Fairweatherrunner all changed ours to penguins, just to confuse her. Well, that and because we like penguins too.
Even in my red mist of rage, I didn’t forget about Janathon. Instead of walking back from the gym, I ran. I know it’s not far, but I would have stomped back if it hadn’t been for the J word.
Stats Grumpy moods: 1 Tesco jokes I am sick of seeing: Flipping billions of them Open gyms: 0 Penguin avatars: 4 Runs back from the gym: 1
Since when did Saturdays begin at 7am, huh? Well, this one did. After Nici said on a previous blog post that one of her mini-Janathon challenges was to finally get to a parkrun, this reminded me that I’d kept meaning to get up (down? across? not sure…) to Whitstable which is the venue of my nearest one.
Whitstable, although only 30-40 minutes away by car, takes nearly two hours on the train and so I asked iliketocount if he would drive there and he said yes and, so, this morning, off to Whitstable we went.
It was great! I’d run the Folkestone Half the year before last and found out that coastal runs are pretty dull. But the Whitstable run had enough scenery going on to make things interesting and although it was mainly an out and back along the seafront, there was a muddy bit before looping back which broke it up a bit.
Coming back down to the finish though, I saw the runners ahead going up a hill at what appeared to be a 45 degree angle. NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WERE GOING TO BE HILLS! BASTARDS! I got to the bottom of the hill and it didn’t look too bad from there, it definitely didn’t look as bad as it did from the distance and I told myself that I could run up it, or at least stagger in a fashion not too far removed from running.
I made it to the top of the hill and looked at my Garmin: 34:08, which is mighty fast for me at the mo.
Michelle has been doing farmer’s gate press-ups. Yesterday she posted photographic evidence and this inspired me to do some farmer’s gate press-ups too. I’m not sure if my gate belonged to a farmer but it was in a field, so it counts. Because I thought Michelle had been doing 20 press-ups, I decided to out-press-up her and did 30. I’ve just checked her blog though and she did 30 yesterday. BAH! Oh well, it’ll be 40 for me next time. Anyone else want to join in the farmer’s gate press-up challenge? If you haven’t got any farmer’s gates nearby, any gate will do. Bonus points for photographic evidence.
Oh, and I forgot to mention the flash fiction (short, short stories) collection that was published yesterday that contains one of my stories, ‘Fog’.
The Flashing Type is a collection of 50 pieces of flash fiction by new authors and, at the mo, it’s only 77p for Kindle on Amazon UK or 99c for Kindle on Amazon US.
Stats Run: 2.69 miles Farmer’s gate press-ups: 30 Flash fiction collections published yesterday that has one of my stories in it: 1
It was back to school today (for those of you who don’t know, I’m in my second year of a creative and professional writing degree). And it was an all-day day (at least in student terms) which meant I wouldn’t be able to go for my usual run-before-getting-dressed-in-normal-clothes thing. But, I hadn’t forgotten my pledge to do an afternoon run and today was to be that day.
I was all geared up for it. My playwriting seminar was supposed to finish at 2, which meant I’d be home at 3 and so I’d planned to go out for a run at 3 but then the seminar didn’t finish until 2:30 and so that meant I wouldn’t be home until 3:30 which meant that I wouldn’t be running at 3 as planned which unsettled my poor little brain which likes plans not to go awry.
So, as I was cycling home, I wondered how I could get out of going for a run. Then I realised that I couldn’t really get out of it and when I saw someone running down the dreary dual-carriageway in the rain, I thought, well, if he can do it, so can I.
But, as we all know, there are pitfalls and dangers in the house to keep you inside instead of going out running and so I said to myself, when I get in, I will not touch the computer, there will be no email checking, no Facebook checking, no Twitter checking, no emptying my books out of my rucksack, no feeding the cat (sorry looey), no nothing, just
GET IN, GET CHANGED, GET OUT
and, lo! it worked. I got in, I got changed (using the fortnightflo method of getting changed while pretending not to notice you’re getting changed) and I put my Garmin on and did my 1.5 mile route and, sssh, don’t tell anyone, but I actually enjoyed it.
So there you are, the JogBlog 3G Mantra™.
And that’s my first week of Janathon done. How’s your first week been?
Yeah, that’s how I felt when I looked at the calendar this morning. I could have sworn it was nearer six weeks away. Bugger. Oh well, I have been slightly reassured that I won’t be walking the entire ten miles (despite lately having a bit of a dodgy knee) as on Saturday I had a good training run of 10k when I actually ran 11-something minute miles for a change and didn’t have any walking bits. So, I probably won’t win, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be last either. Yay for me.
Today’s five mile run wasn’t the greatest run in the world but it would have been a flipping lot better if I hadn’t got a blister at two miles. Anyway, I limped through my five miles and still managed an average of 11-something minute miles (I’m keeping the –something bit secret, ok?) then I went to the dentist which was less fun than having a blister.
As you’ve probably noticed, the Great South Run is sponsored by Bupa and you should really go and ‘like’ the Bupa Running Facebook pageand follow them on Twitter where you’ll find regular advice on how best to approach race day, a great running community and regular Q&As with sports medicine experts to assist runners with any injuries.
Maybe they can help me with my blister.
Stats Distance: 4.75 miles Time: quite a long time Pace: 11-something m/m Weeks until GSR: 2 on Sunday Blisters: 1 Facebook pages you should go and ‘like’: 1 Twitter accounts you should follow: 1
It’s 6:15am. I shouldn’t be awake at 6am, I’m a student, dammit. I shouldn’t be up until at least lunchtime Neighbours (If there is still such a thing as a lunchtime Neighbours. There was in the olden days when I was on the dole in Liverpool. I need to stop saying ‘in the olden days’ though as I said it twice yesterday at my first day back at university and I’m 42, not 92).
The reason I’m up at this unstudently hour is because I want to go for a run before going to university (I’m getting fed up of spelling university in full but Shaun tells me off if I call it uni although even my mum calls it uni and she’s hardly down with da kidz) for the first playwriting seminar of the year. I also want to go for a run early so I can try out my new Run Safe running light.
The Run Safe running light is a little light that attaches to your running shoe laces. It just clips on, so there’s no faffing about threading laces through holes.
The light comes on automatically when it senses motion, so you don’t have to worry about turning it on or off.
(Sorry about the blur but it turns itself off quickly and so it wasn’t easy to get a photo of my foot not moving.)
It’s a sensitive little soul though and will come on at the slightest movement, i.e. if it’s on a table and you walk past it. The box says it will flash for 520 miles but it’s going to be flashing in transit so I wouldn’t order it from America if I were you.
I was a bit worried about looking a bit of a dick with a red light flashing on my foot and I expressed my dick concerns to Twitter who reassured me that it’s ok to look like a dick if it’s in the interest of health and safety.
By the time I left the house, the sun had come up but I took my red flashing light for a run anyway. There’s not much to say about the Run Safe light really – you can see what the benefits are. It’s light (10g), easy to fit to your shoe, and turns itself on and off automatically. The only downside is that I could hear it clacking against my shoe when a quiet bit of music came on, so if you don’t listen to music when you run, that might be annoying (or I might not have fixed it firmly enough to my lace. Also, I have super-sensitive hearing).
A three mile run was on the schedule for today and I’d plotted out a roads-with-pavements-only route and dodged children walking to school (they start early, don’t they? I was pleased to see them walking though and not being driven. Loads of kids round here get driven to school. In my day I had to walk all the way from Essex to London to go to school (yeah, ok, so it was only about a quarter a of mile but that’s not the point)) and dog walkers.
I got back to the house at 2.87 miles and decided to carry on and do the final .13 miles and anyway, Liiines by Ghostpoet had just come on my iPod and I wanted to listen to that.
When I got back I was a teensy bit pleased to see that – although I had walked a bit – I’d done my three miles in 11.01 minute miles which is my old slow-average. Now I need to get back to my old not-so-slow-average which doesn’t mean that’s a fast-average but just a not-so-slow-as-really-slow-average.
