Knocked Out

On Monday I started my training for the half marathon in September. I'm starting early, since I don't wanna do like 4 runs a week. Unfortunately after my run, I had some kind of hair follicle infection in my groin region which basically knocked me out for the entire week. I'm slowly recovering.

So on my first run back from Singapore, I checked out the new gear I got:

I bought the Polar RS200 Running Computer, because my old one was broke after I had arrived in Singapore. The RS200 is really cool. It lets you set different target zones to conduct proper interval training. It gathers a lot of data during the run and lets you send it to your computer to extract information. I'm using the site polarpersonaltrainer.com to plan my training and check my progress online. Unfortunately the site is a little slow and it won't let me share any information.

I also got the nike+ ipod kit, which also collects data during running and lets you upload it to nikeplus.com using itunes. Since the RS200 gives me feedback about my physical condition and the nike+ ipod kit lets me know how much further I have to run, they complement one another very well. To be honest, I never thought I'd like to listen to music while I'm running, but it's very pleasant.

Since I'm gonna run a lot during my preparation for the half marathon and this is not a running blog, I'll share my progress in a weekly post. It'll contain a graph such as the following:



It shows distance, time and pace of the last 5 runs tracked by the nike+ ipod kit. Furthermore I'm going to post the runs I did during the week together with some data like which SportZones I targeted for the run and how many minutes I ran in that zone. It'll probably look like this:

04.06.07 - half marathon 1
distance: 8.99 km
time: 00:51:08

name: time in zone (time targeted in zone)
Zone1: 00:00:20 (00:20:00)
Zone2: 00:00:44 (00:30:00)
Zone3: 00:33:08
Zone4: 00:16:56
Zone5: 00:00:20

This will hopefully show the progress I make during preparation. Maybe I'll also post a couple of graphs using the data of the RS200, but first I need to get back on my feet.