iFriends

Chit-chatting on my long runs with the folks in my training group invigorates me. It takes my mind off perceived effort and makes the miles seem shorter. Often times, one decent story (say, how my friend's son has given up diapers yet isn't quite potty trained) can last a mile. And once the tears dry up after learning that the little boy just wanted access his penis "so it dodn't faw aff," I can look around and say "Whoa, we're already on Main St!"

A few months ago, I found some iFriends (to coin a phrase), for my solo running days. While searching for free stuff on iTunes, I stumbled upon a podcast called the Extra Mile. It's a bunch of runners from all over the globe that submit stories & running updates, recorded while they are running. Some are advanced, some brand new, but all have that slightly stecato speech that you get when you converse on the trail. I love it. And it trips me out when I hear a car coming, then look around to find an empty street followed by the runner announcing "Hold on, I've got to cross this intersection." Most of the episodes run around 60 minutes (pardon the pun), so I can stretch a 45 workout into an hour with less mental resistance. They accept submission from practically anyone, so if I ever figure out how to carry a recorder in my bra, you might hear my voice one day...and we can advance from being e-friends to iFriends.

ABC, easy as 123......

While running today, I got alot of looks and giggles.......................
For Christmas Santa brought me a "stroll a tune" from www.joggermom.com, conveniently located on www.seemommyrun.com!! If you aren't aware, it is a small speaker system that connects to your IPOD and onto the handlebar of the stroller. The first time I used it was listening to my music which was pretty nice. Today, I took out my double, with my double trouble two boys (18 & 36 months), who usually love to fight the entire time. Instead of "my" music, I down-loaded a "babies run" play list from educational toddler songs, oh yeah, and a little classic Michael Jackson ( they really like his music??). Anyways, it made the run so much more fun for them and so much more enjoyable for me since they behaved the whole time. The B-I-N-G-O and A-B-Cs, didn't do much for motivating me (Except when Michael sang ABC....Easy as 123....) but I didn't have fighting boys encouraging me to head home either. The people I passed along the way got a good snicker out of hearing us jam to those tunes too!!

Calibrate Your Nike +

Do you own the Nike + for your iPod Nano? I have it and I love it. I really do. It's a great way to know how far you've gone, how many calories you are burning and what your average per mile pace is. It's also pretty darn cool to see all your runs in graph form on the Nike + site. However, if you do use the system, do yourself a favor and calibrate that sucker! "They", meaning the Nike Gods, advise you to head to your nearest track and walk, then run a set distance for calibration. I never did that and just always took the number with a grain of salt. Surly it couldn't be to far off, could it? Well, this weekend, I learned just how far off it actually is. I ran in an 8K on Sunday and before the race began, I set the distance on my iPod at 5 miles assuming that it wouldn't be right on with 4.9. At the end of those 4.9 miles, my iPod was thrilled to tell me that I had just completed 5.43 miles, ".43 miles past your goal!" So that thing has been a half mile off all this time?! Honestly, this isn't that big of a deal if I have a long run, but on those days when it's all I can do to log 3 miles, I'm kind of devastated to know that I didn't even make it that far! So, do yourself a favor and get up to a track and calibrate, calibrate, calibrate!