Hello!

[angrboda]

Anybody still reading this comm?

For the first time in oh-gosh-let's-not-talk-about-that! I decided to attempt to take up running again. My last aborted attempt was little over a year ago, I think. Because of Reasons I just didn't possess the extra energy for it when coming home from work.

But we're trying again now, because I should like to shed a few excess kilos this year and yoga, although pleasant, isn't really cutting the mustard. Especially not when I don't remember to do it daily. So time to supplement with something else.

This time I decided not to use the NHS program, primarily because my ipod battery was flat but also because I've done that so many times that although I do like Evil Laura's tips and tricks and gentle encouragements, I know them pretty much by heart now and that means they just don't seem to work as well anymore. If you know what I mean. I know what I mean.

So I had a poke about for something to put on my phone and decided to try an app called Start Running. I just wanted something completely simple. It works with whatever music or other you want to listen to and just blends in. Each change in pace is preceeded by some beeps and the voice saying 'Running/walking for x minutes' and then it gave the halfway point of the whole program and a message at the end and that was it. It was discreet and the beeps were clear enough that they were easy to tell apart from the music.

Have to say, though. One minute running nearly killed me! There had better be some praise for me when Husband comes home.

Comments

[liv]

Hello! I am still reading, and indeed I was thinking of making a similar post about restarting running after a long break. I haven't yet settled on restarting C25K though I think that's probably the right answer.

Start Running sounds great as a simple, non-distracting app. At the moment I'm messing about chaining multiple apps together, so that's an option worth investigating.

Most importantly, well done for restarting! It's so incredibly hard to get back to exercise after a break, especially if you're right back at step one and running for a minute is hard. Hope the programme goes really well, and I'm happy to cheer you on if you find the community helpful.

[angrboda]

After I came home (and recharged my phone) I had a closer look at it. It has some very rudimentary statistics about your run, but I don't imagine I'll be using those much. I've got Garmin for that. Mostly, it's got a full program divided into four levels. Level 1 where I started is to learn to run for 20 minutes over a set number of runs, level 4 for 60. I don't imagine I'll be doing level 4... Most wonderfully, it keeps track for you and remembers which one you got to! I'm quite pleased with it so far.

[rmc28]

Wooo, well done!

I have my favourite app Get Running which sounds similar, although it doesn't have beeps, just verbal directions to "start running now", "keep running for another 30 seconds" and "stop running now". Sometimes it says "stop running in 10 seconds" and if I'm particularly tired or inattentive I'll begin to change to a walk and then realise "oh bugger, another 10 seconds" and have to rapidly change back again.

I am doing an incredibly slow and careful restart of c25k, hedged about with qualifications and delays. But maybe I will post about that here anyway, if I get done what I plan to on Friday. (There, I've made a commitment!)

[angrboda]

Yes, the beeps come before the verbal directions as a sort of heads up, it's going to change now. At this point it only did it when changing the pace and when I reached the program's halfway point. I hope it'll add a bit more when the runs get longer. The halfway point is really useful, because then I can just double back at that point and not have to worry about when I'll need a longer route or where to go or remember which way I wanted to go. We're on the end of a long road, so I can just follow that towards the next village. Couldn't be easier. :)