RunningBlog (and RunKeeper!)

Those of you who’ve been watching my Twitter feed or Facebook page over the past month know a secret: I’ve been running again! I finally managed to get going again after taking most of the summer off. (For those that don’t know, I did a lot of running last year.) I’ve been easing back into it gently. My speed’s taken a bit of a hit, but my fitness level is better than I expected. I had a vague idea that I might run the Sydney Half-Marathon again in May, but I scrapped that plan this week. I’d like to do another Half this year, but I don’t think mentally I’m quite prepared to do it again yet. Instead I’ve decided to focus on shorter distances right now. I registered last week for the Mother’s Day Classic, which is an 8K event that I ran last year. My previous time was 55 minutes, but this year I’d like to do it in 48 (which would equate to a 60 minute 10K time). The race is in 9 weeks, so I started my training plan this morning. So far so good!

Also, I’m using some new software to track my runs. I downloaded RunKeeper for my iPhone, which tracks your progress via GPS. It seems to be a lot more accurate than the Nike+. I was using the free ad-supported version before, but yesterday I upgraded to RunKeeper Pro. The Pro version just introduced audio feedback, so you can tap the screen to hear your current distance and pace. It’s not quite up to Nike+ standard yet (you can’t set a workout goal yet or challenge people on the site), but the developer seems to have a lot more planned. RunKeeper has a few distinct advantages too: you can use it while cycling, and you don’t need any special shoes (or a hack to hold an accelerometer). If you’d like to track walking/running/hiking/cycling and you’ve got an iPhone, you should definitely try it out.


Important Note

This site features content going all the way back to 2000. The posts you’ll read reflect my views and writing style at the time. While I have gone back to clean up a few of them, I think it’s important not to sanitise too much. This site is a record of who I am and how I’ve grown. Any blog post written years ago may not reflect who I am today, nor how I would write about the same topic today.