On Running

Against my better judgment, I signed up for the sundown marathon this year.

One of the problems was the actual training itself. I could never get myself to do it. And secondly, when you got down to doing it, you never really know if you had actually covered enough distance or not. If you wanted to keep precise track of your distance , you could run in a track, which quite frankly isn't ideal for long runs - imagine looking at the same stuff for over 40 rounds or so. And that's not even half a marathon.

To conquer problem #1, I decided to train with my friends. It has been only 2-3 weeks but it has been supremely helpful. Most times, the most difficult step to take is the first one out of the house. In fact, I'll go as far as saying stepping out is half the battle won.

Interestingly, the solution to Problem #2 came in the solution of problem #1. During one of the training runs, my friends were recommending a running app on the iPhone called Runkeeper. In a nutshell, it uses the iPhone's GPS to calculate the distance you ran. Not only that, it crunches the numbers so that you know your total time taken, your time taken per kilometer, your average pace and at the end, a map showing the route you ran, with each kilometer clearly marked. At the bottom of that map it charts out your pace against total time and the elevation changes throughout the run.




All that from a free iPhone application. To say I was blown away is an understatement.

But there's more. One of the neat things you can do on it's website is to plot your next run and it instantly calculates the distance and elevation changes for that route. And like facebook, you can see the activities of your friends on Runkeeper. I'm quite addicted to poring over the maps of the routes my friend and I have taken.

You know there is a downside to having the phone do so much at once. Because it uses GPS to track your progress, the battery lasts for only about 2 and half hours - good for clocking half marathon distances but further than that you're on your own. Unless of course if you have an additional portable battery charger.