Luddite technologist rant

I am feeling very grumpy about technology today and I felt I needed to do something so I deactivated a Facebook account I'd created some months back. Nothing personal about Facebook, as a technology it's been fine and if I'm ever reincarnated as a 19 year old female, alcoholic, exhibitionist, college student I'll reconsider joining. But like I said, I'm grumpy. I never check the site or contribute to it. At least once a week I received invites from people (many of whom I actually like) but finally decided that accepting them was disingenuous because I'll never check the site. I have an Emerging Runner Fan page that (ironically) I can no longer access. I wonder what will happen with that. Thanks to everyone who fanned it. Sorry to disappoint!

The reason I'm grumpy about technology is that it often doesn't work like it should. I'm not talking about technology that we depend upon daily like elevators and traffic lights, I'm talking about running technologies. Especially those that run on my iPhone. I love my iPhone. It's much more fun than my Blackberry that I gave up with some real misgivings. But when compared to the Blackberry as a business tool it's not very fun at all. Okay, I'll accept that as long as it still does the job. It's annoying to switch from Verizon to AT&T, I liken it to taking a step back in time to the mid 1990's when getting a usable signal on your phone was an unexpected surprise. I've put some GPS apps on the iPhone to help track my running metrics and so far I am not impressed. MotionX GPS, that I paid for ($2.99), has great features (lots of data elements captured: photo utility, interactive maps, iPod integration, etc.) but I'm at about 50% in terms of successful outcome when using it. The other apps I've tried, iMapMyRun and RunKeeper Free, have less capabilities (they're both free) but clever enough. I just bought AllSportsGPS (the company gave me a promo code for a comp version but I managed to screw that up (technology!). I'll see how it works. For $10 I'm expecting a lot.

The performance of these GPS utilities is often undermined by the inherent inaccuracy of public GPS. Despite its potential for getting to an inch of your location it misses greatly and often. If you have to remap on Google Earth every time you use these apps what's the point? I'll try the AllSport app on Friday and see how it performs. So many other running technologies have disappointed. AG tried to use the Qstarz on a 6 mile run recently and it failed to capture any data. What's annoying about that is there's no way to tell with that unit if it's working or not. The original running technology that I used, the Nike+ Sportband, failed so often that I needed to replace it three times before I returned it and bought my Garmin 50.

In truth the Garmin 50 has been a great technology and I won't disparage it although it does consume batteries and each time they are replaced calibration gets out of whack. Running technologies don't all run on batteries either and I'll give due credit to Nike, Adidas and other clothing makers who have perfected the art of sweat wicking technology. But for today I'm just a bit grumpy.

At the edge of 9:00

9:00 per mile has always been a psychological barrier for me. I've broken it many times and even broken 8:00 on a 1.5 mile run but in terms of regular running 9:00 is probably my mode pace. This past weekend, with the hilly trails at Stillwood and the relatively long distance on the Belmont Lake Park trail, I was fine with pace times that edged around 10:00 per mile. But on the street my expectations change and I really want to see an '8' before the colon on my Garmin when I finish a run. I had no real expectations for this morning's run. I wanted to cover about 2.5 miles and with yesterday as a rest day I thought I'd have a chance at a decent pace. I was delighted to see my iPhone acquire a PS signal with MotionX fairly quickly and I took off knowing the belt-and-suspenders combination of my Garmin 50 and the MotionX GPS app would capture my metrics fairly well.

The run was nice but unremarkable. I took advantage of the early morning, barely awake mode and floated through the course thinking about many things. I checked my Garmin for time elapsed, saw 6:55 and again thought I had run further than that. I have become somewhat impatient on these early runs. I noticed that the MotionX interface was continuing to show it had a signal and I was glad of that since I sort of lost track of exactly which streets I'd run. I knew the mapping file would tell me all that later. I turned east to finish the last loop and reached home having run 2.63 miles in 23:40 for an overall pace of 00:8:59:92, 8/100ths short of 9 minutes. I accidently switched to a different screen on the iPhone when I tried to hit the stop button (the touch screen is vey sensitive) but I saw the elapsed time as I did that. Later I mapped the run on Google Earth and saw that I'd covered .15 miles more than the GPS reported due to its margin of error.

I'll admit that knowing I broke 9:00 this morning made me happy. I'm thinking about pace times for the Dirty Sock 10K and I'm hoping to maintain a 9:30 pace or better. But you never know with races, how great would it be to have an 8-something time on that? If that's the case I'm throwing an additional $20 into the Garmin 405 fund.

Sunday fun running

After a fairly challenging trail run on Sunday morning I thought I was finished with running for the day. The skies were gray and growing darker. I considered taking out my bike for a quick ride before the rain came but my daughter asked me if we could go for a run. She just got a new pair of Saucony running shoes and wanted to try them out. Despite the possibilty of rain we decided to head out and see how it went. My son said that he wanted to join us. Once eveyone had put on the proper gear we headed into the neighborhood starting at a comfortable pace. I'm trying to get my kids to understand the idea of conserving energy. Children tend to go out fast and then run out of energy sooner than they expect. We didn't get too far before my son had to stop to adjust his shoe. He had a nasty toe injury some months back and it's still a problem. The podiatrist put him on antibiotics this week to help deal with the swelling from an infection. It soon became clear that my son would not be able to continue so we ran him back home and resumed our course.

When it comes to running my daughter is very goal oriented. She was determined to cover at least .75 miles before taking a breather and we did that without a problem. She wanted to cover some real distance and we took a long loop around the western part of the neighborhood and made our way back after running close to two miles. It is a joy to run with my daughter. She has no problem running and talking and the conversation is fun and funny. She's 11 and I really hope she continues her interest in running. The weather held out for us and we even had enough sun to justify a post-run dip in the pool. I'm hoping my son is back to form soon as well so the three of us can explore the neighborhood together, going further and further each time.

A trail marked "UH OH"

I returned to the trails this morning to continue my training for the 8/23 race. I now know that the Dirty Sock 10K course is fairly flat compared with Stillwell Woods so I figured that the more rugged terrain at Stillwood would be helpful in terms of developing leg strength. I decided to bring my iPhone along and I listened to the Tiesto Club Life podcast (per a suggestion from a commenter on my blog - thanks anonymous!) using the AKG K321 in-ear headphones. They work great and I kept the sound low enough to detect the sound of the many mountain bikers that I encountered during my run. I liked the mix a lot more than the Podrunner podcasts and I took some different routes than ever before. There are so many twists and turns and ups and downs through Stillwell that I believe you could run it 50 times and not cover every trail. At one point I encountered a particularly scary descent that was marked with a sign that said "UH OH" (see above). I took the bait and with my trusty NB 460's I had little trouble with that long sharp decline. The path wound around and took me through a short paved area that led to a trail marked "No Trespassing" so I doubled back and found a different route that led me through some sandy trails that led further to a large construction site.

I turned back and switched the MotionX to compass mode and redirected north. I was hoping that after looking at the KMZ files from the run that I would get a good idea where I traveled but the files didn't work on Google Earth although they do show the course on the iPhone itself. Some of the trails I navigated were so steep that I had to slow to a walk a few times. I was very pleased with myself at one point when I encountered a couple of guys also running the trails who reached a sharp incline and proceeded to walk it while I breezed by running. They may have already covered a lot of distance and had hit the wall but all the same it was better to be the passer than the passed. I ended up running about 4.25 miles and my pace wasn't too impressive but the workout was daunting. After my cool-down I stayed and watched a few minutes of an adult league flag football game that was being played where I'd parked my car. It looked like fun but I'll leave that for the very fit 20-somethings I saw on the field.

After yesterday's run with Dave and today's rigorous run at Stillwell I'm feeling good about the upcoming race. I'm thinking of getting the Garmin 405 beforehand so I'll have a reliable GPS device to help capture the run. Either way I can't wait to hit the trails again.

Great talk, dirty socks

In preparation for the Babylon Dirty Sock 10K race later this summer I ran the course with a friend from the Runner's World Loop community, DaveADK (picture below), who lives close to the location of the race. Dave is an interesting guy with a really interesting background. He's been running about 18 months and knows the Dirty Sock course very well.

Before we started, Dave explained the way the race was organized, where registration is held, the location of the starting line (and finish) and also where to park. Having run a few races I appreciated knowing all that beforehand. We walked about a quarter of a mile into the park which served as a light warm up. Dave thought we should begin the training run at the stating point of the race so we proceeded to that area and took off at a moderate pace. The trails were mostly packed dirt, often wide enough across for three or four runners. There were many people out running, walking and biking, the temperature was comfortable and the tree cover prevented the sun from baking down. We encountered sections of sandy trail, some singletrack paths and a few that were paved. There were elevation changes but nothing too pronounced. I was grateful for that because the 6+ mile distance would have been a far greater challenge for me if it had the roller coaster terrain I encounter at Stillwell Preserve.

The time went by quickly, Dave is good runner and he graciously ceded to my pace that was probably 20-30 seconds/mile slower than he would normally run. He pointed out some important things about the course that will be good to know on race day. My runs with Adventure Girl have prepared me to chat while running and I did well considering the distance. At one point, when running underneath one of the highway trestles, we encountered a flutist and joked that the improvisational jazz background made it seem like we were characters in an independent film. We were about 1/4 mile near the end and Dave said this is the time to pour it on as practice for the race. Unfortunately my groin pull that always surfaces around the 4 or 5 mile mark prevented me from pressing my luck.

When we got to the end, Dave's Garmin 305 showed that we covered a little more 6 miles. My Garmin 50 was way off, perhaps because I recently replaced the battery. I'll calibrate it tomorrow when I run. The big disappointment was with my iPhone and MotionX GPS. Around the 3 mile mark I noticed the application was confused and had lost the signal. I'm not sure what actually happened after that but I ended up accidentally resetting the unit and losing the run history. As much as I'd hoped the iPhone would be a convenient alternative to a Garmin 405 I'm realizing that I still need the GPS watch. So back to the fund - $160 to go.

On my own in the city

For the first time in many weeks I won't be partaking in my Friday afternoon city run. My son and junior emerging runner has joined me in my office for the day and my trusty running partner, Adventure Girl, is preparing for her three week orientation at Yale that starts on Sunday. I'm going to miss our runs and there's much to be said for running with others in terms of performance and distraction from the effort. I've read some recent articles that support the idea that running with groups helps improve pace. Although the bulk of my running is solo I have run enough with others to know that I generally do better with another person helping to set the pace. It takes commitment to run during the workday because we don't have shower facilities and few people are willing to go at lunch and come back to the office soaking with sweat. I had hoped that our division Fun Run would surface some running partners but no one has taken the bait yet.

Tomorrow I'll be running in Belmont Lake State Park as training for the Babylon Dirty Sock 10K that will be help there later in the month. I'll be joined by someone who trains there regularly and knows the course. I'm slightly concerned about the length of the 6.2 mile run because I have averaged closer to 4.5 miles per weekend run over the last few months. According to what I have read, these trails are moderately flat and that, combined with the shade from the trees should help me deal with the effort. I'm looking forward to being back on the trails again. As for city running, even as AG leaves for New Haven I plan to do a run at least once a week. I hope to find someone to join me on the lower loop in Central Park or down the West Side bike trails every once in a while. Adventure Girl will be back for a couple of days every week starting in September and we'll run if she can squeeze it in. It's been a great summer for running and there are still some weeks to go!

Cool running

Unlike the last couple of days, the temperature outside at 4:00 AM this morning was cool and the humidity was minimal. I almost decided to take today as a rest day but I'm planning a long trail run on Saturday and wanted to use Friday for rest instead. I decided to go simple this morning and leave the iPhone behind. My experiences with the GPS apps have been disappointing and while I'll continue to use them I didn't see a need today.

Equipped solely with my Garmin 50, I made my way out to the neighborhood. Over the past few months I've become impatient with my progress while running, feeling like I'd covered some real distance only to see elapsed time of 7:55 on my watch. You'd think it would indicate that I was running a fast pace but you'd be wrong. I think the issue is simply that I'm outgrowing my neighborhood and the familiarity of the route distorts my sense of distance. Or something like that. I returned home wishing I had another 15 minutes to run so I could extend the enjoyment of the experience. I was feeling fine, the air was still cool and there was a nice tang of ocean breeze in the air. Unfortunately I had run out of time and needed to make my way back upstairs to prepare for the work day. This was the first time I'd ever strung together three consecutive 4:00 AM runs during the week and I was pleased to have done that. I can only hope that I do as well on the trails this weekend.

iMapMyRun Mobile is free and worth every penny

The great GPS experiment continues with addition of two running apps on my iPhone: iMapMyRun and RunKeeper Free. Both of these apps are free and have fewer capabilities and features than MotionX GPS that cost $1.99. I plan to download a few more of these apps and later do a comparison on Runner's Tech Review. For now I'll talk about my experience with iMapMyRun yesterday and today.

One difficulty I've encountered with MotionX is GPS signal acquistion. This problem is more pronounced in the city than on suburban Long Island but even there it can take a few minutes to get an accurate read. I was able to get a green indicator very quickly with iMapMyRun but that might be related to threshold. iMapMyRun considered the GPS signal viable at an accuracy of 162 ft. where MotionX prefers to get closer before it glows green. Or in the case of MotionX, blue. I went out this morning and selected "Start recording" on the iMapMyRun interface. It was still white when I was ready to start my run but within ten seconds after I left my driveway it turned green. I liked that it had large numbers that showed distance covered along with average and current pace and I thought, hmm, maybe this will work. The darkness helped me see the display as I ran, unlike during the day when the sun reflects off the plastic armband cover. About a mile into my run I looked at the display and everything said 00:00 despite the fact that I'd hit the start button as I left my house. I fumbled with it as I ran and succeeded in getting it working but I knew I'd only recorded half my run at best.

I ended up running 2.25 miles at a 9:06 pace according to my Garmin and the iPhone recorded just 1.1 mile of that. The route map it created showed a similar margin of error to the MotionX routes, again making it look like I cut lots of corners and ran through homes. A Runner's World Loop blogger told me that the Garmin GPS watches are much more accurate than the iPhone location apps. If that's the case I'm back to considering the Garmin 405 because I suspect Run Keeper will perform in a similar way. I did have a little fun with iMapMyRun last night. I set it up to record a run as I drove home from the train station. I covered a little over 2 miles at a 3:15/mile pace. The amazing thing is that many elite runners would have given me a run for my money despite my 300 HP advantage.

Motion(X) sickness

I promise that I'll eventually stop complaining about the GPS functionality of the iPhone but this morning's experience made me wonder if the whole concept needs a few more years to develop into a viable technology. I got off to a good start today in terms of timing, I was dressed and ready to make it out the door by 4:00 AM. This was important because that extra ten minutes would give me more time to run and I really wanted to work on distance as I train for my August 23rd race. If I'd ignored the iPhone on my way out I would have been much better off since it added to my setup time and - therefore - took away from my run time. That would have been forgiven if the result was even remotely accurate but the GPS app did not come through. More on that later.

Yesterday, instead of doing my usual elliptical workout, I decided to work on my upper body that I've sorely neglected over the last month. I started with 20 minutes of arms-only elliptical and followed with 15 minutes of free weights. I didn't want to overdo it so I stopped there. I worked up quite a sweat in the process, something I'll attribute in equal parts to hard work and oppressive humidity. Today I was anxious to get back out on the road and after having a carb-rich lunch and small but well balanced dinner I woke up feeling ready. As I mentioned above I started a few minutes early and even with the extra work stuffing the iPhone into the armband I was outside stretching by 4:09 AM. I turned on the MotionX application and was disappointed, but not surprised, to see that the GPS wasn't acquired by the time I was ready to leave. I started off anyway and switched on the app knowing it would start tracking eventually.

I got a little confused along my course because so many of the streets look the same, especially in the pitch dark and saw that I was on a different street than I'd expected. I figured that the MotionX map would show me where I went wrong when I reviewed it post-run. I felt great and could have easily gone on well past my time imposed limit. I ended up covering 2.6 miles at a 9:09 pace. This was good considering that I wasn't really thinking about speed as I ran. The MotionX was completely off with the path showing me running through people's homes and across lawns and through back yards. I thought in the early morning there would be far fewer things that would interfere with the signal. While the Garmin (accurately) showed 2.6 miles traveled, the MotionX showed 2.09 miles. It did show me where I veered off onto a different street so at least it keeps a true, if sloppy, record of my course.

Expectations for my 10K trail race

I'm three weeks away from my first 10K and I'm having some anxiety about how well I'll perform. I've run 6.2 miles and longer in recent months but that isn't a regular distance for me. Lately my runs have been shorter owing to weather (hot, sunny, humid), available time and tough trail conditions. My Friday city run was exhausting and not quite five miles. I'll admit that I sabotaged myself by running on an empty stomach and ran out of energy near the end. Perhaps with more nourishment I would have been able to go all the way to South Ferry as originally planned but I'll never know. Saturday was a relatively fast run over 3.8 miles so I understand I traded distance for pace. Yesterday's four mile run in the heat and humidity had similar conditions to Friday's, the difference being I had a carb-rich breakfast an hour before I ran so I couldn't blame a lack of food on my performance.

The heat seems to affect me more than any other factor and the Dirty Sock 10K is due to start at 8:00 AM rain or shine. The combination of a a fairly early morning start, trail conditions that promise to be easier than Stillwell Woods ands the shade provided by the trees may just give me the boost I need to get through this race. In the meantime I'm going to concentrate on distance, perhaps running double my morning distance tomorrow and repeating that later in the week. I'm planning to meet another 10K participant on Saturday morning to run the 10K course. That will give me some familiarity and hopefully some confidence that I can perform credibly on race day.

Who says GPS is more accurate than a foot pod?

My running this weekend has been firmly focused on the tech side. Friday's, Saturday's and today's runs were documented with both my Garmin 50 and with the iPhone using MotionX GPS software. I also used the iPod feature within MotionX to listen to music while I ran. As an experiment I downloaded two Podrunner Podcasts to accompany my runs. These Podcasts, that are available from iTunes for free, are mixed by DJ Steve Boyett to match specific heart rates. On Saturday I chose the 147 BPM Serendipity mix that was highly repetitive House music with a driving beat. At about a mile into my run a female singer began repeating a single sentence that grew old very quickly. Unfortunately that sentence was repeated in various forms for the next ten minutes causing me to want to rip the iPhone off my armband and into the gutter. I didn't want to stop and figure out how to turn off or fast-forward the podcast so I endured it and the mix mercifully switched back to an instrumental after a few more minutes. As aggravating as that experience was, I'll admit that the driving beat contributed to a quicker pace than I would have normally achieved.

The GPS software measured my run at 3.73 miles and the Garmin measured it at 3.8. After observing the course from the exported KMZ file I noticed that the accuracy of the line was far enough off to explain that difference. This morning, after our weekend guests departed, I went out for a run with a goal of covering at least 4 miles. It was due to storm by mid-day so I was anxious to get out and finish quickly. I played the 150 BPM Square One Podrunner mix that was vocal free (which I liked) but a bit soulless and electronic (which I liked less). I'll admit that it did help me focus but I'm thinking about loading some more tuneful music on it to see how that will work. I wanted to broaden my range so I ran west on Jericho Turnpike far enough to enter neighborhood #3 from the north. I had never actually run in this neighborhood so I was excited to experience some new roads. It was growing very hot and humid ahead of the impending storm. I was (and still am) concerned that I haven't done a 5+ mile run in a while and I'll be participating in a 6.2 mile trail race later this month. I had hoped to complete 5 miles today but the humidity had sapped my energy and it was all I could do to make it home. Very soon after my run the storm came through and I snapped a picture (see above) of where I had just run in the scorching heat.

When I finished the run I saw that my Garmin reported 4.07 miles at a pace of 9:18. The MotionX software said I'd covered 3.92 miles at 9:40. I pulled the GPX file onto Google Earth and used the path tool to trace my actual route that almost exactly matched the Garmin with foot pod. The path from the GPS had its margin of error with the GPS vectoring sharply around corners and even on straighter paths. It was easy to see why it under counted the actual distance. I don't know if the Garmin 405 somehow accounts for this and provides a more accurate report. I think the accuracy of GPS is the limiting factor so MotionX is probably as good as it gets. I'll continue using the Garmin 50 because it's easy and superior in terms of accuracy to GPS measurement. However, I'll also use MotionX to document my route so I can view it and share it with others.

City bookend run

Yesterday afternoon AG and I completed our last city run before she heads back to school. The weather predictions were for storms through the afternoon so we switched our plans to run the trails in Van Cortland park in favor of the West Side bike path. Instead of rain the weather turned extremely hot and humid as we made our way west from the office. I wore my iPhone with MotionX GPS to track our route and also used the Garmin 50 for comparison.

Before we started our run we had some honey energy chews, but nothing for lunch. About 15 minutes into the run I began to feel tired which I'm sure related to hunger. It reminded us of how I struggled the first time AG and I ran together. It was on the bridal path in Central Park where the heat, hills and mud made it a rough time. In between these tough ones were a bunch of great runs. That's not to say that yesterdays run wasn't great. We moved along well and ducked into Chelsea Piers where we could run some blocks free of the sun. The run along the water was beautiful and the breeze was welcomed but the heat forced a quick hydration stop after 3.8 miles. We ran another mile before calling it a run. Despite the conditions we averaged 9:13/mile. I'm going to miss these summer city runs.

We have some guests this weekend so I got out early before they were up and ready. I used the iPhone again and the GPS application did much better outside of the city. In the interest of time I kept it under 50 minutes covering 3.8 miles at 8:53. That's another $20 to the Garmin fund but with MotionX I'm re-thinking whether to even make that purchase.