I added a picture with me and my daughter so there'd at least be some non-hideousness to look at.

Bought my first pair of running shoes in my life. I look like L.C. Greenwood.

Love the shoes!

So weren't you using running shoes before for your 10k sessions? wow i feel sorry for your feet.

The color is too flashy for me, but they were the only ones the running store had in stock that were big enough (size 13) and were the right profile for me.Well, it never occurred to me a few months ago that I'd be anywhere near this point now. The crazy thing is that I really haven't had any significant aches and pains with my $35 Nike cross-trainers. (I did have some mild knee pain at night when I was running 3-5 miles at time weighing 250+, but that subsided as I lost weight.) At some point during the 8-mile run last week it occurred to me that I might want to buy a pair of good running shoes to be safe, and when I told my wife that I had run 8 miles, she pretty much demanded that I buy a pair of good running shoes to be safe. ;)

My wife and I have different approaches to the shoes. I am still fairly conservative and wear white running shoes (now more greyish thanks to the dirt and road tar from the running). But my most recent pair of running shoes have a little more yellow in them (but not much). My wife on the other hand in her most recent pair wanted the brightest pink running shoes she could find. :)

I have however converted over to running in pretty bright colored orange or yellow tech shirts often now when I'm running on the roads. I've decided it is a little safer for me to just assume every car that is coming is out to try to run me over. :)

I was a lot like Ben. At first I didn't put any money into running, wearing an old sweat suit and cross trainers for several months. Finally it got too hot to run in the sweat suit and my wife convinced me to get shoes and it was just so much more comfortable from then on.

As far as colors, at first I was a bit concerned with it but now I just don't really care that much. I'm more concerned about fit, comfort, and price. After that if all things are equal I will factor in colors. My thinking is that I probably look like a sweaty dork no matter what i'm wearing :)

This

I am likely in the minority but I view socks to be as, if not more, important than shoes.

I only run in dri-fit socks, never cotton. So far, knock on wood, I've been pretty lucky to not get any blisters or other issues with the feet like that, but I agree with you and am very careful with my feet, especially since I run a ton in the rain and snow.

Even for newbie runners who don't run long distances? I may actually cave in and buy a pair.

What a great story!

ran tonight on back to back days, which is something I didn't do when I was in the swing of things. I really feel like I might finally be getting serious about getting serious

I haven't run since Thursday, and I might not run all week (aside from a frisbee double header tomorrow night, not sure if that counts). Is 10 days off before the half-marathon proper 'tapering'? :D

Well... I guess at least your legs will be fresh? :)

2/3rds of the way to my 40 km badge in the Junedoggle. Baby steps...

Gonna be in my old stompin' grounds this weekend. For my long run (probably Sunday morning around 6am, so no traffic concerns,) would y'all recommend doing a big loop like this, or repeating something smaller?

I like bigger loops when i run as they seem less boring to me than repeating the same area multiple times, but generally when I travel I don't go with the big loop unless I know the area well. I don't want to get caught on a bad place to run (dangerous or bad traffic) plus I don't want to get lost too well. usually when I travel somewhere that I am not familiar with, I'll do an out and back.. I'll run down a street 3.5 miles or whatever, turn around and run back 3.5 so I know exactly what I have to run back through.

Since its your old stomping grounds, if you are familiar with the area, then nothing wrong with the big loop at all. I prefer running those when I can myself.

bigger loop for sure

I use MapMyRide rather than Strava, but hope you don't mind me posting! I prefer to cycle rather than running, but have to run to build up leg strength after snapping Achilles last year.

I have been running along the canal, so very flat - decided i ought to try a bit of uphill too, so mapped out two variations of a 5 mile run along similar routes this morning. En route however i seem to have mixed the two together, and ended up running nearly six miles (I've only done 5 miles three times before, so it was a bit of a shock when I was still running after 40 minutes!)

Fortunately the last mile was downhill, but I was pleasantly surprised how I feel afterwards. Hopefully i will feel the same tomorrow! Now kinda wishing I'd gotten more confused, as I was only a couple of hundred metres off 10k by the looks of it...

I did that one day, ended up making my long run 11 miles because I got lost in a neighborhood in Worcester once.. woops :)

I was just telling someone else earlier today that even though you use mapmyride, there are 3rd party tools that can let you export mapmyride rides to TCX files that you can then upload into strava if you wanted to join the group there (We have a few bikers as well as the runners here). Or it is even easier to use strava and then download the GPX file that you can then upload to mapmyride (even though I find Strava far superior for biking personally). Or if you just want to stay there, feel free to friend me on mapmyride, most of my biking/running co-workers use that so I usually upload all of my data there too

I have a few connections to the area in the link. I'll be staying at my brother's house. He lives in the subdivision right in the middle of the loop (right off of Mobley Road. Looks like it's a half mile warmup walk from his house to the starting point I selected at Mobley and River.) My high school alma mater's campus is bounded by River Road, Bradley Park Drive, Roaring Branch Creek, and (sort of) Graystone Ct. The first golf course I ever played on was Green Island Hills, and several of my buddies lived in that subdivision. And I went to church (and got married) on Double Churches Road. So, yeah, it's safe to say that I know the area fairly well. ;)

Sounds like it will be fun to run through the old neighborhood and see everything :)

One of the things that I've been itching to do is plan one year to come back down and run the peachtree road race. :)

Testing...

Editing that sucker into first post in thread. ;)

Sweet

Just did my first ever core workout. OW.

What is the "correct" heart rate for an "Easy" run? The various calculators all have me at a pace of around 11:15, but I wonder if because it's so flat around here that's not as accurate. I tried to stay at 11:15, but was constantly being told by that iSmoothRun gal to slow down. I was at around 11:00 for the run, but the heart rate was in the mid-130s or lower for a good majority of it. Thoughts?

According to Jack Daniels, an Easy Pace should be between 70-75% of your HR max.

Your maximum performance from your PRs are pretty similar to mine, so likely your VDOT score would be something similar to mine. Using the spreadsheet that I posted about in my running log (in the dynasty thread), it has my Easy pace between 10:54 - 11:38 to match that 70-75% HR Max. I would guess yours is about the same based on what I know of your fitness level.

Is that 70-75% using Karvonen (sp?) or just the straight calc?

I remember our running instructor showing a chart that had paces (easy, fat burning, etc) along with heart rates and then also a way to gauge it without a heart rate monitor, which was generally how well you could speak. So for example, at an easy pace you should be able to have a conversation fairly comfortably, using full sentences. I wish I could dig up that chart now as I can't remember it all, but it was pretty useful when I knew it :)

To be honest, I'm not sure if I know that answer. I don't actually do HR running training myself and look for pace based training based off of my VDOT scores. Most of the advanced marathon books have an easier calculation for HRmax to be: 220 - your age or 207 - 0.7 * (your age) but that approach is pretty inaccurate as different people are well different. I know the suggestion that I had was finding it through this method:

From a scientific standpoint, I'm not sure which method Karvonen or Zoladz is more accurate.

I am pretty much ignoring heart rate now, as I think I may be one of the outliers. Running in the 150-175 zone seems fairly comfortable to me, and at the end of a couple of sprints I have reached the mid to high 190s without feeling like I am going to drop dead.

My resting heart rate is about 60, and going by previous runs I would guess that my max is somewhere near 200.

You guys expose me for the hack that I am. I know nothing. I just started jogging to keep in shape for basketball until I screwed up my knee so bad, so many times that the jogging took the place of the basketball.

I had a brutal run today. It was around 94 degrees, 50% humidity, with a strong, steady 20mph wind out of the S-SW. I may have sweat a gallon or two. Running the square felt like an accomplishment today.

That's what the weather's like here too. I hope those clouds give me some rain.

I just looked up the heart rate monitors for the Nike watches. Those things go around your chest? I'm a big, sweaty dude and I'm not sure that would work very well for me. I think I'm just going to pretend like I didn't read these interesting, stat filled posts.

Yea, around the chest. I sweat a ton, and don't have problems with my HRM. It took a little getting used to, but now I don't even notice I'm wearing it.

I'm getting my Forerunner 210 tomorrow and I was wondering about the HRM strap too.

Had a good run alone tonight as my son is studying for his finals. Good pace steady for some 38 minutes or almost 4.5 miles, my longest and fastest yet. Very happy with it...

FM

I don't think sweat is a bad thing with heart rate monitors as the sensors need to be moist. If you sweat a lot you may need to clean the strap after every run.

Just joined this thread/app/club with Strava. Maybe this will be the kick in the butt I need for myself.

I imagine I'll be doing more cycling than running (running blows, amirite) - is that kosher for you guys??

I generally wash it off by hand after every run. There are some tips out on the internet about ways to take care of the strap so you don't have problems with it. I generally wet the connectors just lightly before putting it on for a run also. I haven't had any problems with mine other than twice I've had it come off during a run, but that was probably more due to my not readjusting it after losing more weight.

As alan said, sweating while running is good for the HR band as it needs to be humid, in fact i put mine under water before wearing it or it shows incorrect values for the first minutes until i start to sweat.

Just clean it with water after each run to remove the sweating salt and it will be fine.

First bike ride of the year was expected to be terrible. It was worse. How much worse? I ended up running.

Pulled my bike off of the stationary, realized it probably needed some air in both the tires. I pull my air pump out, take off the cover on the front tire and twist the pump onto the tire. In the process of pumping tire #1, the top of the airpump breaks off and I struggle mightily to no avail to re-connect it properly. It seems as if the top piece just couldn't hold to the latch and after probably 30 minutes of trying, no air in the tires. So I begrudingly take the bike upstairs and decide to run.

Running is much more of a pain in the ass to me for many reasons. 1) More physical. More importantly, 2) no where to keep all of my possessions. Had to abandon my ipod, as I can't have it bouncing around, plus, my earbuds kept falling out. Ended up taking my house key off of my keychain, but then it kept flying out of my pocket, so I had to tape it to my arm (that looked kewl). No place for my wallet, either, so I just took my ID/debit out and put that in my pocket. Not to mention my phone that's keeping track of all of this had to bounce around in my shorts. With a bike, all those things are easily contained in a case in the front.

As for the run. Well, I suck at running. I was winded very easily, ending up doing about 55/45 on the run-to-walk ratio. Took 29 minutes to do 2.4 miles. Right as I upload it I see digamma did 4.5 miles in a little over that time. Sweet! :)

It might be slightly skewed as I was getting hosed on the intersection crosswalks. How do you all account for those? Do you pull your phone out and pause the timer? EDIT: Ok, I see upon my results it says my moving time was 27:04... that's pretty cool that it adjusts like that.

Welcome, shorty! Err... korme ;)

Yes, most apps have moving time and it will auto-pause internally if you stop long enough at a cross walk. Not a big deal when I go for easy runs, when I do intervals or tempo runs (more of a speed run where time is important), I just try to run places without crosswalks such as bike trails or tracks.

For how to manage the stuff, I generally will take my house key , ID and Credit card and stuff them with my iphone in my iphone arm band if I am listening to music when I run. If I am running without music/phone I don't carry my arm band and instead I just tuck my key inside of my running hat that I wear on my head. I know other people will tie their key to their shoe lace. For headphones, I ended up getting over the ear phones so they don't fall out of my ears anymore. Some people get bugged by having headphones over their ears though. I can't stand having things in my pocket though..

As for the speed.. Running is not something that you can cram for like a test and suddenly come out and run super fast. Looking at your run, you were going really fast but then had to stop because you got winded. Since you haven't run much, your aerobic base is not able to handle running that fast for that long. My best suggestion for you to make running a bit more enjoyable is to slow down.

Everyone has different fitness levels, and you're probably in far better shape than I was when I started running, so its hard for me to tell you how much slower you should run, but the general recommendation I hear is when you first start running, you should be able to have a conversation with someone comfortably as you do it. If you are too short on breath or are getting winded, you are going way too fast. Next time, try turning it down a few notches and see how much further you can go before you get winded. You don't have to run fast to improve your aerobic base, and as you do it more, you'll be able to run fast for longer down the road.

Lots of people with 80k/40k badges today. Good job all of you!

Looks like Strava lets you Star your favorite segments to watch now too as a new feature. Playing with that now to see how much or useful it will be for me. I imagine in a city with very commonly used segments it would be more fun than out in the boonies where I am often the only one running my segments :)

Thanks for the tips/motivation Alan. :thumbsup:

thanks to this thread and the motivation is has provided, i'm running my first 5k in over a decade this saturday.

Good luck! Race magic is great! :)

Hopefully I'll do a 5k or two down the line. Will have to wait until I get a better base. Today, my legs have been incredibly stiff/sore. I need that to get past the initial aches and pains stage.

That's great! Have fun.

OMG! You wear a hat on your head?!!!!

J/K..

I tend to take my apartmentand gate keys, my iphone, ID and a credit card, sometimes a $10 depending if i remember or not.

I run/walk carrying my phone with the other stuff in my shorts pocket. I have earbuds that fall out and if I can get back into it now that my wife is not doing night floats (EF27, how the hell do you deal with those?) and can stay with our child after he goes to sleep, i'll look into getting the over-the-ear earbud things. With/without mic i haven't decided yet.

I have these headphones and I love them.

http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-PMX...ds=adidas+685i

I love running with bluetooth headphones as I pretty much hate wires but am kinda pissed at the latest I just bought...

The ones I was using are these:
Motorola MotoRokr S305 BlueTooth Headphones Earphones / Microphone: Amazon.ca: Electronics

They're a somewhat old model and can get hot over the ears.

The model I'm pissed about is this one:
Jabra 100-96600000-02 Sport BT Stereo Bluetooth Headset (Black): Amazon.ca: Electronics

Technically, they should be perfect, if they were not cutting off all the time from my iPhone 4. Not too sure if it's the "outdated" iPhone 4 or I just got a faulty pair, but cutting off has been mentioned in reviews. Probably will keep them anyway as they do great with my iPad and don't cut of if I'm not moving the iDevice around. Even walking, if I keep my phone in a hand without balancing it too much, it won't cut off, but as soon as I start running, it starts cutting off. Very annoying...

These Sennheiser looks quite nice though.

FM

I find that in-ear headphones either always come out, or are the kind that stick right in my ear so far that it feels like I'm underwater. I can't stand that. So I always wear on-ear headphones.

As with FM I love the freedom of bluetooth, but it's been a challenge. I mentioned it in the headphones thread, but I went through 3 pairs of JayBird SB1's over the past 18 months as they seem to just die on me (they claim to be sweat proof but maybe not so much?).

Just this week I received a pair of GoGroove Airbands that I had ordered after JayBird refused to honor the 'lifetime' warranty on my latest pair. I guess the GoGroove are an SB1 knock off or off-brand or something, but aside from the GoGroove logo looking kind of jank on the one side, they are basically identical to my SB1's.

As for all the stuff, 85% or more of my runs are home from work, so I have a backpack full of clothes, shoes, jacket, etc. Sometimes even my laptop and an iPad, I've had that thing up to 20lbs. Keys and ID are the least of my worries at that point. :)

On the times when I get to run without the backpack I will stick ID and a single card or $20 bill in my pocket and carry my phone in my hand while I run. If I need to have a key with me I'll tie it to my shoelaces as Alan suggested.

I know you hate running, and would probably jump right onto the bike 100% as soon as you are able. But if you ever do consider running regularly, I would suggest you look into one of the many Couch-to-5K programs (C25K) out there. It's a beginning runner's training program geared to build your endurance over an 8 or 9 week schedule.

Alan T started his running not too long ago with C25K, and look where he is now.

Radii did it before he dumped/modified it to a program more suitable for him.

Dodgerchick and I are using a variation of it called Zombies, Run! 5K Trainer app for iOS and Android.

Like Alan said, don't worry about speed right now. Look at me. I'm at 16:00 min pace, running probably 80% of my route. A week from now, I'll be completing my 5K training with a 5K race, and will hopefully be able to run the entire 5K without having to walk a single step.

Just two months ago, I couldn't run 30 seconds without thinking my heart is going to explode.

When I started to run as part of my rehab, the physio told me to started out running two minutes, walk three, for three sets (so 15minutes total), and every week up the running and reduce the walking by 30 seconds per set.

Then to get up to half an hour it was 9 minutes running, one minute walk three times, half an minute change again, 14 minutes + 1 minute walk, etc

It really made it easier to break down the effort into small chunks, and was surprisingly not too difficult to move from one level to the next (this was three times a week)

I know that was based on not overdoing it because of injury, but the principle should work regardless I would have thought.

Heh. I commented on my run yesterday that it was over 80 by 7am. Turns out that it never got under 80 yesterday morning....

These are the bluetooth headphones that I use:

Motorola S11-Flex HD

They are a little heavier than some runners like though, but have great sound quality for bluetooth in my opinion. I haven't had any problems with them so far and I sweat like a pig and run in crappy weather. Admittedly when it is pouring down rain, I generally don't bring them along.

My wife has:

Jaybird Freedom Sprint

but hers are a little newer so maybe not had enough time to see if she has problems with them. They are pretty light weight and she likes them better. I dont think the sound quality is as good as mine, but they seem to make her happy.

in the last 4 days, I did 3 runs and 1 ride. very pleased with myself

Both of those pairs look like the kind that would make me feel underwater. I don't know how to describe it, I just know I bought a pair once that had that style of in-ear piece and it just sort of suctioned into my ear and was horrible. Is that how those work? Or do I just have weird ears or had a strange pair of headphones?

Not sure to be honest. I know that I have read before that you can get different size ear buds for various headphones, maybe you just need a smaller/bigger ear bud to be more comfortable? I've read some runners that get annoyed by those the same way and just run with old school ear phones, but usually have more moisture issues with those.

you have every right to be pleased, that's a pretty nice streak. Well done!

You, among a few people, with your reporting of workouts on FB have been one of the sources of inspiration for me finally deciding to get serious about training. Keep it up! :)

FM

I can totally see what you mean about button style earbuds and the suction. I kinda get that feeling too... That's why Ì found the Sennheiser that were posted earlier interesting as they seem to simply sit in the ear instead of being pushed in...

FM

Alan and others have been doing a great job dropping the knowledge here, but I thought I should offer some tips I've picked up over the years. In no particular order, here are some thoughts on running I've developed.

* Training is cumulative. What you do today builds on tomorrow, which builds on the next day and the next week, month and year. Now, sure, if you are training once a week for one week and then not running again for 6 months, you won't see anything. But if you are reasonably dedicated, you'll see progress. And you'll be surprised that after that progress, if you do have a lay off, you'll be farther along than you thought.

* Variety in training provides huge dividends. For years I ran sort of to stay in shape. I'd go out and run my 3-5 miles at roughly the same pace over roughly the same routes. That's great, and there are benefits to doing that. At some point, though, you plateau, get bored and stop running. To fight that, add variety. It spices things up and improves your results greatly. Alan has posted his training schedules and when I was running for races, my schedules and plans were fairly similar.

When I was doing my most serious training, I ran 5-6 days a week. Sunday would be a long run. Monday rest or easy. Tuesday, a medium run. Wednesday easy. Thursday was a day of either intervals, tempo or hill training. Friday rest. Saturday was generally a hard run of an intermediate distance.

Once I started varying my workouts, I noticed a performance increase pretty quickly. Pretty dramatic, actually.

* That said, not everyone wants or needs to train for performance. The bottom line is getting out there. I had a short post earlier--Feet on the Floor, Out the Door. Get out there. There are millions of reasons you can come up with not to run. But you forget those a half mile in.

* Double that said, do as I say not as I do. In other words, don't pay attention to my Strava stuff right now. I have an about to be 3 year old and a 1 month old. I'm just trying to run when I can, and I am typically running harder shorter workouts just to try to be efficient. Not much variation in how I'm running.

* Run a race. They are fun. Invite your friends or family to cheer for you. That's the best. Again, I'm not really in a spot where I can take time before and after a race to travel to it and run and everything, but I do think that there's nothing better to introduce yourself to running than to run an organized race. There are likely online calendars for your community. Find one and do it. I will make you a bet that you will not be in "last place," that you'll probably do better than you think and you'll have a ton of fun.

* Read a book about running. Not necessarily a training book. There are a lot of training books. I like those fine. Hal Higdon and Brad Hudson are probably my favorites. But read a different kind of running book.

Born to Run is a great one and recent NYT best seller. The Perfect Mile is probably my all time favorite running book about the quest to break the 4 minute mile. Once a Runner is a cult classic that you should get your hands on if you can. I've also enjoyed Running with the Buffaloes and the biography of Bill Bowerman, the name of which slips my mind right now.

* Read Runner's World. It has info for all levels of running. One of my favorite regular features they have is a column called "The Athlete's Palate." It is a column with a chef or other foodie where they talk about diet and offer a recipe. More than one recipe from that column has become a staple in our house, the best being an Italian vegetable soup called Ribollita.

* I am not as technical a runner in terms of gadgets and tracking as others here. I have a Garmin and have logged workouts, particularly during marathon training. Usually, I look back at them later in the same day or look at the previous week's work, but don't do a lot of analysis. I'm more of a feel runner. I know when I'm going fast or slow by feel. That said, a lot of the techy tools are awesome, so use whatever suits you.

I tend to divide my runs into conversational (you can easily carry on a conversation), at pace or hard.

* I listen to podcasts or books when I run. Nothing heavy. Podcasts are about perfect because they are usually contained and not heavily dependent on prior knowledge or concentrated listening. Some people call me a nerd for my running listening habits.

* There are a ton of ways to challenge yourself, be it by time, distance or whatever. One thing I've done during races is to try to count how many people I pass. Who cares how fast you are going, just pass the guy in front of you!

* I think the half marathon is an awesome distance. You've run far enough that you feel like you've really accomplished something, yet not so far so that you've wrecked your body for weeks.

* I think the 800 is the perfect interval. It is really hard to maintain a pace for 800 meters. There is also this thing called the Yasso 800, where if you are training for a marathon, you run your 800s at two zeros less than your marathon goal. So, if you are gunning for a 4 hour marathon, you would try to run a 4 minute 800. Obviously not perfectly accurate, but kind of surpising how close it is.

* Have fun--run with a buddy or alone. Mix it up. Just get out there.

I think I'm addicted to Strava.

Great advice, I really appreciate all your guy's posts.

Thanks digamma! You're definitely one of the runners that I see your runs and use it as motivation to keep doing the effort to improve to some day get to that point hopefully. Love your insight and experience

that was a very inspiring post digamma. FWIW, The Perfect Mile is selling for 2.99 for kindle...

FM

so, who's gonna attempt the "Any way 10k" Strava challenge that's happening this weekend?

If I understand it right, you have to get one run of at least 10k in either of the two days, right?

My longest run so far has been 7.2k but I followed it with a 1k cool down walk. I was planning on running a long loop around where I live this Sunday morning. Mapped, it comes at about 8.5k or so. Definitely a challenge, but not impossible especially if I finish it with a cooldown walk that I leave as part of the run and not do it in two separate workouts...

FM

I run a half marathon on Sunday morning so I'm in.

Doing mine tomorrow. I need to make a small adjustment to one of my repeat routes that gets me to 9km currently in order for it to be 10km's tomorrow.

I was going to run 10k this weekend for the challenge and to beat my 10k time done past month but being with a cold for 7 days already is going to make it impossible. I tried to run 3 days ago and was so tired after 4k as I can't breath by my nose that is still congested and my lungs are not fully clean yet.

Might try to run a bit again today or tomorrow but doubt can do those 10k. Sucks to feel like shit for a week when I felt like superman a week before, beating a few pr.

Doing relay for life with the family all day today, so woke up at 5am to run the 10k challenge. I screwed up my pacing big time, but set a new Personal record on the 10k for myself!

wow, have fun! :)

FM

I thought I read in here that all-downhill segments didn't count on Strava for PRs. I'm pretty sure that the one-mile PR today was heavily downhill-aided. There was one area that was downhill for dang near a mile.

Nice! Congrats!

So umm... I think I overextended myself. On my last run I added 1/4 of a mile but ended up with heart palpitations for 2 days (I still feel it a bit, but not as bad as Thursday). I read up on it and it seems that I'm either dehydrated, or it's part of my body adjusting to runs. I'm sure it's nothing serious, so I think I'm either gonna walk, or take it r e a l l y slow.

hey, take care, that's kinda scary...

FM

I'm weighing between getting a watch versus running the app on my phone. A couple of questions for those running this on the phone from someone who probably has not quite wrapped his head around exercising with a work phone:
1. I'm assuming that people strap the phone to their bicep? If so, how difficult is it to view the app during a run? Or potentially toggle screens for different info? In my mind, I guess I'm seeing the strap holding the phone in place blocking part of the screen and the buttons being more difficult to manipulate. Am I way off base?
2. Do the mobile apps integrate with the foot pod? A quick look at the Strava iPhone site seemed to suggest that it does not. I'm likely to do a decent amount of treadmill running in the winter, and would like to capture that data into Strava as well.

You are running in pretty severe condition weatherwise.. with the high amount of heat there. So you definitely want to make sure that you are keeping yourself hydrated. That doesn't just mean during the run, but also the days leading up to it. If you're planning on running in that heat a few times a week, you really need to make sure to drink enough water every day (even on non running days).

Also in hot weather, you really need to take it back a hair over what you expect your pace should be. Go by feel, if your heart is working too hard, its always better to slow things down, or even stop all together. Heat is serious stuff and nothing to mess with.

1) Yes, that is generally where most people wear their phone. (Some do choose to carry it in their hand, or others will slide it into a belt/fannypack/pocket) When I use an app on my phone, I don't even bother trying to look at it when I am running. Most of the better apps will tell you over your headphones while you listen to music basic milestones along the way or different intervals. often it is fairly configurable if you want it telling your distance/pace/etc every 5 minutes or 1/2 mile or whatever. So you don't necessarily have to look that way.

2) There are various ANT+ type footpods and even I believe a bluetooth footpod out now that can work with the iphone, but I do not personally know if strava supports any of them or not, or which apps do. I believe somewhere on his site DC Rainmaker has done a review of iphone supported ANT+ footpods (and heart rate monitors). I'll try to see if I can dig that up and edit it in here later. If you use a watch with a HRM/footpod or an app that supports them, you can later upload that data into Strava and it will support it (ie: my footpod information when I do a run on treadmills is picked up just fine by strava when I upload it from my watch). I'll try to find which iphone apps support ANT+ footpods natively for you.

Ok, from what I can tell, Garmin, Polar and Wahoo all have ANT+ footpods for the iphone. Polar has the only bluetooth one.

Polar Bluetooth Smart Stride Sensor (Footpod) In-Depth Review | DC Rainmaker

Garmin iPhone ANT+ Adapter and Garmin Fit app Review | DC Rainmaker

Wahoo Fitness ANT+ iPhone Adapter | DC Rainmaker

Wahoo Fitness ANT+ iPhone Adapter | DC Rainmaker

Edit: according to Wahoo's page, Strava app on the iphone does recognize the ANT+ footpod, as does like 150+ other apps

Second Edit: From Strava's support page:



Third edit: I can't find many apps that seem to support the Garmin ANT+ adapter for the iphone. You might be stuck using garmin connect app on the iphone and then copying that data over to strava or elsewhere. So if you want to go the way of ANT+ for iphone, you're better off with the Wahoo brand. But I think if you're going to invest in that, you would be happier with a watch.

i just carry my phone in my hand, and look at it from time to time.

That's what I do too. And I have no need for the heart monitor or footpods. I just run with my phone in my hand (along with my iPod).

I just watched Spirit of the Marathon on Netflix. Makes me want to go out and run right now.

I also carry the phone in my hand and look at it from time to time, also have set audio cues in ismoothrun to tell me if I'm running too slow or two fast and times heart rate, etc every half k. I have an arm strap but it's too tight around my biceps and find it uncomfortable so I don't use it. I have no problem at all with carrying the phone in my hand, but I know some people find it distracting. I also wear a bluetooth heart rate strap monitor around my chest.

Of course also listening to heavy rock in the phone too :)

punched in my first ever 10k for the Any Way 10k this morning, clocked in at a pace of 5:03 per km over 10.2 km. Don't need to say that I'm VERY happy with this run. 7 PR in all with my 8th km clocking in at 4:58...

FM

Oh yeah it's great huh? It's because of this movie that I started running.

Very nice run!

I leave my phone in my shorts pocket and use ismoothrun to keep me on pace.

Anybody know of any Strava promo codes for Premium?

It hasn't sunk (synced?) to Strava yet, but I just uploaded my half marathon results to Garmin. New PR of 1:34:02, I'm very happy! I placed 106th overall and 13/239 for the M35-39 category.

The only disappointing part was my pacing. I was a bit overconfident, came out too fast for the first 6-7 miles and then couldn't sustain it. There was a time when I thought I might be able to come in around 1:30 or so, but that was crushed in the second half. The last 4 miles were really, really hard miles. Live and learn! :)

Awesome job! Sounds like a pretty large field in that race. Did you have corral starts or just a free for all? Very impressive time!

Very nice!

That's awesome Fidatelo!

FM

I see you have upgraded anyway but I did look last week and couldn't find any. I ended up signing on a month to month basis, at least for now... I really like the pace distribution and heart rate analysis so far.

FM

I didn't ever find any strava codes for a trial and I had looked for 2-3 months before finally pulling the trigger a couple of months ago. I got premium for an entire year when I did it. I think premium has some pretty cool stuff, but so far any of the premium stats analysis stuff in strava I feel is so much more powerful in the SportTracks desktop application I use.

I can't honestly say it enough, if you're a stats geek like me, you'll love Sporttracks. Since it is a desktop application, the only thing it is missing for me is the social interaction that comes with a community, things like the segments, challenges, kudos, and comments that help provide extra motivation or encouragement. But from a stats analysis standpoint, it is easily my favorite. Plus since it is an application, there are tons of plugins that people have written for it to do other extra stuff. I know some of you may enjoy doing that type of thing too *cough Ben*

The stats show 3800 in the half marathon, plus another 650 full and an equal number of relay participants (not sure if that's teams or total relay members). There is also a 10k run and a 'super run' and I think another one. So not super massive, but still reasonably legit (it's a Boston qualifier).

Anyways, they send you out in waves based on the event you're running. For the half they split it into two waves, 1:50 and under are supposed to go first and then the rest. I was stuck in line for a porta-john so I ended up starting in between the waves, basically by myself, which ended up being pretty sweet. I caught the back end of wave 1 in reasonably short order but it was still way more manageable at that point than the giant herd start I'm used to.