Perfect day for a run. Around 4 degrees today. Chilly. I’m really enjoying France. I reached GIsors today after 5.6 miles. I had a rest day yesterday.
Gisors is a small French town – on the edge of Paris. Gisors is lovely. It has a huge castle, and some pretty old buildings. It is in Normandy, and it’s population is around 11,000. I am so excited about getting to Paris (42 miles away).
I mixed things up a little today by running fartlek during my run. Quite interesting. Never really done it before. (check it out here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek). Basically, it is periods of fast running intermixed with slower running. Good for stretching out the pace. I tend to find with my running that I settle into an easy pace too quickly (I guess mostly because that’s my pace when I run Ultras). I am going to incorporate more Fartlek into my running. It helps keep music out of my head (usually “Let it go”, or “All about the Bass” right now!).
In terms of tracking my running, I have been importing my data into Strava and Runkeeper. My app on my Pebble is AutotrackerPro – which is connected to my Moto G (2014) phone running Android. How does it work? I put my phone into high accuracy GPS mode, start the AutotrackerPro app on my phone, and then select the app on my Pebble. The screen tells me to wait for GPS fix and once it has it, I longpress on the middle button on my Pebble. This starts the tracking. I can pause at any point by a single press to the middle button, and I can change the data displayed on the Pebble screen (three lines) by longpressing on the top and bottom buttons. Finally to end the session, pause by pressing the middle button, and then long pressing – and following the steps shown on the screen. I have set mine up to export to Runkeeper and Strava automatically. Why? Because I am testing out both of those apps and I want to compare the functionality with the same data. I’m interested to see how each process and allow me to explore and get insights from the data.
What do you use for tracking your runs? Do you use Strava, Runkeeper or perhaps something else? What are the pro’s and con’s of each? Do you use a GPS watch? Do you use a Pebble for tracking your fitness?
Catch up tomorrow.
Phil
The Untraining Ultrarunner 