Thursday, October 20, 2011

A Runner's Reward: Prairie Sunrise

(Apologies to my Facebook friends who have already seen this photo)

Every time I go for a run, my iphone is grasped in my sweaty little paw (I really need an arm strap/holster for it). I carry it for a number of reasons. It's always smart to have a phone if one gets into trouble, main reason - especially as we head into a prairie winter. Also, I can listen to music (fast upbeat music is best for my pace - news and current affairs podcasts such as NPR's The Diane Rehm show are informative but slow me down). And, the Nike Plus application logs my progress, and makes me look forward to logging better pace times and distances. It's curious how, if I couldn't log my run digitally, a part of my brain would think the run was wasted - curious.

I also carry it for the camera function, which I upgraded with the HDR app. Occasionally I see things I like to capture, and to be honest, a few minutes break never hurts either. Today's reward for getting out in the dark was this sunrise, seen just south of CFB Suffield. The Alberta prairie can seem quite monotonous at times, but every now and then it offers its blessings.




I'm also happy to report that my pace is slowly coming down, even for long runs. Today it was a 6.05 min per km average pace for a total of 11kms in 1:07:04, despite some persistent knee pain which I'm going to have to get looked at. My goal this year is to get the down to a 5.45 race pace, break 2 hours for the half marathon and do a full marathon before I turn fifty in November 2012.

2 comments:

J Goreham-Penney said...

I run with my phone, too (Android). I use adidas MiCoach to capture the data about my runs, and like to have a phone for emergencies. Like you, I also need an armband or something- I was trying to avoid buying one online but it's proving to be sort of ridiculous to look for one locally ;_; I might just get a SPIbelt from the Running Room. My phone just needs to not be in my hand, it's at high risk for getting accidentally thrown off the MacDonald bridge some hot sweaty day (good thing it's cooling down for fall!).

Anonymous said...

Awesome photo - looking forward to moving to Canada in April. Are you based at Suffield? Regards

Mad Padre

Mad Padre
Opinions expressed within are in no way the responsibility of anyone's employers or facilitating agencies and should by rights be taken as nothing more than one person's notional musings, attempted witticisms, and prayerful posturings.

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