thirtydegree

It’s the Easter bank holiday weekend, so I’ve taken a few moments to scour the App Store for new and popular iOS apps.

I found that Groupon have finally released their app for the UK market, so I’ll give them another chance. Hopefully this time around their offers will be more interesting than my prior experience last year.

What really caught my attention was a new app by Microsoft called Photosynth. What particularly caught my eye on this app was the fact that it takes 360° pictures in all directions, creating spectacular images of views. This app is going to be loads of fun making it extremely simple to create full wraparounds of landmarks and other places of interest. Even capturing a moment in time for someone the other side of the world to experience is a simple process. The ability to post your image direct to Facebook or Bing gives the added benefit of being instantly available to others.

I’m going to take the opportunity of the extended Easter break to try this app out and post some of the images I take online. In the meantime, have a look at photosynth.net for some images other people have taken. Keep you posted!

My post birthday runs now come with the added benefit of heart rate monitoring.

I have been attempting to run the Hyde Park Figure 8 Top Route which is a new take on getting people to claim running routes.  It uses the GPS data to ensure that you’ve run the (exact) route and qualify to be entered on the leaderboard.  I was struggling with this as I thought I had been running the route, however it requires a high level of accuracy and running a ‘close and similar’ run will find you not being rewarded.  Yesterday’s run resulted in me becoming the “The Local Legend”.

As for the HRM data, Monday looked good with an average of 153BPM, whilst yesterday was a less impressive 159BPM.  The difference in HR definitely bears a direct relation to how I felt during my run.

The knee injury seems to have cleared up, although at the moment I’m suffering from shin splints at the beginning of my run, easing off during the run. Something to keep an eye on and possibly choose a shorter route temporarily.

Keep Running

I Popped over to Niketown early lunchtime to try the Nike+ SportWatch GPS out. I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit recently, as the weather has been improving and I’ve had a few runs in shorts again with my iPhone in my running shorts crackpocket. Worried that the phone will eventually fall out and I’ll end up with a shattered screen, alternatives have been the (now released) SportWatch or iPod Nano with Nike+ SportKit.

The overriding factor for getting the Nike+ SportWatch ended up being the fact that it has GPS technology, as well as being compatable with the Polar WearLink+, as I want to be able to track my pace, location and heart rate. The iPhone isn’t currently WearLink+ compatable.

After work I took it out for its first run around Hyde Park. I haven’t bought the Polar WearLink+ yet, so this run was only to check its functionality and ease of use.

As the instructions said, all you need to do is press and hold the Select button for three seconds to link the sensors. My run was solely using the GPS signal as my shoes aren’t designed for Nike+ and I don’t have a sensor pouch to attach to my shoes yet.

I took my normal 6km run route, as I’ve run it many times using my iPhone, so know the 1km markers and end to end is 6km with reasonable accuracy.

It was my first experience seeing my pace realtime as my phone has always been kept tucked away in my running shorts/tights bum pocket. What was unusually nice was to have the freedom to “just run”. Not having the Nike+ GPS iPhone app technology telling you your stats at certain milestones leaves you to get on with running. It’s a positive experience!

The run itself went well, with the SportWatch clocking 6.03km with a pace of 5’10″/km and 450cal burned.

Synching the watch is as easy as setting off to run. All you need to do, once the Nike+ Connect software has been installed, is plug in the SportWatch to your computers USB port and it syncs automatically and updates your run to nikerunning.com automatically. My run data is pretty spot on, however the elevation data is not as accurate as I’d like. This said, it is still more accurate than my phone’s. I like the split information posted below the visual run detail.

My only reservation at this point is tapping the screen to activate the backlight or mark laps. It requires quick, strong taps, as it isn’t a touch screen, so needs to be treated different to an iOS screen.

To sum up the experience, running without an iPhone in your crackpocket is a positive experience!