Fat Runner back from holidays

Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun sun - as the theme from Red Dwarf states. Also a pretty good description of The Fat Runner's recent holiday!!

Unfortunately he has no photos of where he was running to post here, so he'll just describe it for us in his own words:

"I step outside of the house, set on an island in Scandinavia, and breath in the fresh air - warm from the many hours of sunshine which have been blazing already this morning, and heavily laden with the scents of the nearby fields and forests.

Strapping on my Garmin 305, two quick checks to make sure it has locked on to satellites and to my heart rate monitor, I walk down the gravel track by the side of the old barn and towards the deep blue sea. Once I'm at the boat house, a sharp turn right up to the fence which marks the end of our property, a flick of the 'start' button on my forerunner, and I'm off!

The trees close in a little over the gravel track, but it is still possible to peer through the trees to my left and see a small motor boat humming its way out to sea.

The gravel track merges with the road after about two minutes of running, the trees pull back slightly, and the air feels a little less close.

Now is the time to relax and not push the speed too much - make sure that I have enough in the tank to push harder towards the end.

To the left of me is a steep bank down from the road to the sea and I see some locals getting into their boat at their small pier, almost falling into the sea itself now.

Around a right hand corner, away from the sea and a short and deceptively steep hill. I make sure I slow down even further here, as running up hill stretches the plantar fascia and risks triggering my injury again. But soon I'm past the steep part, and around the next left hand corner is the old school for the island. It is only a few rooms - I think it never had more than about 30 students or so, and closed down over 50 years ago. It's now owned by the local landowners who collectively rent it out to a lady in her seventies. It's also where the traditional midsummer activities are held.

Past the school, and eventually the road plunges downwards and I let my speed pick up naturally with gravity. One of the things I do have is gravity!!

The hill again flattens out, probably about 15 metres or so above the sea. Again, to the left is a very steep bank, covered in pine, spruce and fir trees with the odd house. I'm sure the first one has its own smoker, because the smell of strongly smoked fish comes up towards me - I really need to get my own smoker, as I've been getting better at catching (and filleting) pike this holiday.

But before I know it, the smell has gone, and the only monotonous part of the run starts - I'm about 1.5k in now, and I'm only doing 5k runs.

The few things to look at are the yellows and purples of the roadside flowers which are left to grow virtually unmolested - there is very little traffic which comes down this road. And sometimes peeking out between the flowers you can see the bright red of a wild strawberry - which looks like a normal strawberry in miniature - about the size of a large pea, and as sweet as candy. No time to stop to pick one up though, and I press on.

Once again, the trees give way, this time to farmland which is used to raise cows - dairy cows I think. Only a minute or so and then I reach the fence which marks my turning point.

Back into the trees, past the wild strawberries and the fantastic smoking smell, check the forerunner - could be a good time!

Up past the school, and now downhill back towards the sea - let the speed build up but not too much, and carry it onto the straight. Past the public pier and back down onto the old track. Again check the forerunner - this will definitely be a personal best!

Push for about 90 seconds down the gravel track and get to the fence, stop the forerunner, and yes! A personal best by about 25 seconds!

Quick stretch before walking back up to the house past the barn, and time for a well-earned shower!"

Sounds rather idyllic!

The Fat Runner is dead...

...but still running...

Well that's what his Garmin Forerunner 305 is saying.

Before he bought the Forerunner, he researched a bunch of running forums, including the Runner's World forum to see what other runners were saying about the Forerunner 305.

Most runners seemed to be complementary about its features - fast GPS lock-on to satellites, able to track satellites while running in the woods, virtual trainer feature etc. Many of the negatives seemed to be around two things. Firstly, one of the metal contacts seems to go black, stopping the forerunner connecting to a PC and also stopping it from charging. Secondly, some people felt that the Forerunner battery didn't get close to matching the 10 hours battery life promised in the specification.

TFR decided to take a risk on the first concern, and realised that the second concern would be unlikely to be a concern for him - 10 hours of exercise in one go? He's not The Fat Ironman!!

But TFR has a third issue with the forerunner 305 - and that is the life of the battery in the heart rate monitor chest strap. Garmin promises that it will last 3 years, used 1 hour per day - in other words around 1200 hours. TFR, however, has had to replace the battery three times in two years - and this is running on average (perhaps) a few hours per week. So he's getting at most 100 hours out of a battery.

Hence the title of this post. According the his Forerunner, TFR now has no heart rate...

Does anyone else find the same? Perhaps the strap "switches itself on" even when it's not being worn? I'll contact Garmin to see if they have any idea...

Fooled by Garmin

The Fat Runner was running around a park in Paris this morning in the drizzle.

There is something about Paris that simply doesn't exist in any other city I've been to - it's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.

There is a sense of style almost everywhere you look - in the buildings, the parks, the way people dress. But above all, there is a sense of harmony, and of calm purposefulness. Something I only really feel in London very early in the morning before about 6am...

So Paris was a very nice place for TFR to run - he managed to fit in 30 minutes between his morning meeting and the cab to take him back to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar.

For those who have read this blog a few times, you'll know that TFR's pace is around the 9-10 mins a mile area. So when his garmin forerunner (set to autolap every half mile - I recommend this strongly) started showing I was getting through half miles in around 4 mins he was feeling rather chuffed!

Until he got back and looked at the map on the garmin. It was very spikey and not like the clean ovals he ran in the park, so it was clearly over-counting the distance he ran...

Oh well, at least he ran twice this week!!

Running music

When The Fat Runner started running, he used to do it without music. Since then, he has seen the light (so to speak) and started listening on his runs.

Initially, he used to listen to standard podcasts, either comedy or news or business. It enabled him to focus on something else other than the run, which seemed to work for him.

However, he always wondered how he could get some good music on his ipod - ideally a long mix which would just keep playing throughout his run. Well obviously he could buy some tracks from iTunes, but he's too tight for that.

So after a little searching, he found some podcasts with pre-mixed music and a minimum of talking, which he is now (or at least was) listening to on his runs.

The first ones are just general kind of 'music with a beat' mixes, but are actually quite good:

• Beatport.com burners
• Radio 538: Tiesto's club life podcast

The next one is specifically designed for working out to, and has a nice website to go along with it!

• fitPod.com: fitMix Archives

TFR's favourite, however, is actually a podcast which has published a set of hour-long mixes, all recorded with different BPMs - and the BPMs are included in the title so you know exactly what speed of music you are listening to:

• PodRunner

Now TFR has heard that running with higher BPM music can be a way to help your legs turnover faster, and therefore create some more speed. Perhaps this is true for elite athletes, but right now TFR's leg speed is more limited by the fact that when he increases leg speed, his heart rate goes up and he hits the limit he has set on his Forerunner.

But right now, by picking a song with a BPM which is close to his typical running speed (which is about 155 steps per minute) he can run, trying to keep time to the music, which just adds a little bit of a game to his workout, and means he doesn't hit the limit on his Forerunner quite so many times.

Try it out!

Running gadgets

Running gadgets have substantially helped my motivation to run. Perhaps it's because I'm male and I like gadgets, but I certainly seem to run more with them.

So what is my number 1 gadget? Very easy question - it's the Garmin Forerunner 305.

You will be able to read many other reviews of the Forerunner, so I'm just going to provide a brief description and tell you how I use it.

So what is the Forerunner?

The Forerunner is a GPS HRM watch. It is a watch with a GPS receiver built into it, as well as having the ability to track your heart rate through a chest strap. You can therefore use this watch to understand your current speed, speed since you set off, your lap speed (more on that later) etc. as well as making sure you are keeping your heart rate where you want it!

So how do I use the Forerunner?

These are the things I set up most on my Forerunner:

For training runs, I try to keep a relatively low heart rate - around 150bpm - which means I run far more slowly than I can run, but I also can run longer. The Forerunner allows me to set an alarm for when I go over a particular heart rate and reminds me to slow down.

For runs where I'm pushing myself to see how fast I can run a course, then I'll set the heart rate limit much higher - at around 170bpm. It's there just to make sure I don't run so fast that I'll need to walk part of the course. The other thing I'll do is to set the Forerunner's 'virtual partner'. This allows me to run against myself, the last time I did the course! There are two main screens I can use to see if I am running faster or slower than my previous time - but it's a great motivator to run against the best you've ever run!

Lastly, for both types of run, I set the 'auto-lap' feature. Again, the Forerunner gives you lots of different options for how it calculates laps. I set it to auto-lap every half mile, which means every half mile, the watch beeps and I can look down at it to see how long my last half-mile took.

Anyway, those are the ways I like to use my Forerunner - let me know your favourite functions too!