Trail: 8 miles at CVP on Friday. 12 miles at Skullbuster on Saturday.
Easy: 2 runs for 10 miles.
Cycling: N/A
Total: 4 runs & 0 rides for 30 miles.
I was very fortunate that my calf strain only put me out for a week. I'll take 7 days of missed runs over a year of dealing with a nagging injury. I guess that's the only good that came out of last years struggle with hip & achilles issues. I've learned to not run through pain & take time off to heal up. Old me would have tried to run through this & spent the next nine months trying to get the train back on the track.
This week was to be a step back week, so not too worried about the lower mileage. Got in some good trail running with the dry conditions at both of the local trails. Even got the kid out for a nice hike along the Sheltowee Trace on Sunday, showing her some of my favorite places to hike as a kid. Hopefully her interest for exploration sticks & we get some more hiking in this summer. So much to see, so little time!
During my down time I've been doing some thinking & research on GPS. In particular the GPS on my phone. Due to work & family I always carry my phone with me when I run. This sort of makes my GPS watch redundant, but the phone is super awkward to use for mid run stats since I keep it in a belt most of the time. Enter the Magellan Echo smart sportswatch. I found one on Ebay for $30 which is cheap enough that I'm not burned if it doesn't work out as expected. This watch will pair up with iSmoothRun & allow me to setup customer screens, etc. This gives me that mid run stats view that I need so badly for a fraction of the cost.
I've also been looking at external receivers for the iPhone, mostly the Garmin Glo. This system basically pairs with your phone over bluetooth giving it a 10Hz GPSr. Not something I would carry on every run, but deep in the woods with good canopy coverage I can see it being of use. I found my phone really struggled in spots along the ST this weekend. This device will be useful even outside of running, so if I decide to go back to a dedicated GPS watch I'll still use it for hiking or way finding in difficult areas.
I'll be running with both systems for a couple of weeks to find the optimal placement of the phone & to see if this is a viable alternative. The tracks laid down by today's open sky run look very promising. This post on GPS accuracy also ranks the iPhone very high: http://fellrnr.com/wiki/GPS_Accuracy.
That's gotta be wicked fun on a MTB
I also got in some rock stacking practice
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