First indications in Tuesday’s body pump session. The 10k warm up run beforehand went fine, no extraordinary observations. In the session the heart rate rarely goes beyond 75% of the maximum heart rate (with me). In the end all exercises are not too dynamic, i.e. the movements are controlled and to 90% slow. But this time the Polar S625x indicated a well beyond 80%, i.e. beyond 160 bpm heart rate when doing squats. All else felt normal, no running nose, no tickling in the throat.
Then, yesterday’s training 5×2000m interval runs came about only half ways. During warm-up the body and especially legs felt tired, but that’s normal after a strength session the day before. It’s generally not optimal to have an interval run training the day after a strength session. That will need to change in the training plan. Anyway, the first 2k run went ok timewise 6:56min, the second however was out of bounds 7:05 and the heart rate closing in on 180. Normally it would stay around 175 on longer interval runs. A slower than expected run and higher than expected pumping of the heart alerted to no good news the next days.
And as anticipated, this morning head ache, a stuck nose, a sore throat and sweat when lifting things etc. A light flu or bad cold came around.
I’ve heard about this phenomenon that the virus infection is actually happening a couple of days earlier than it’s symptoms show up, hence the heart rate is observably higher under stress/when exercising, but couldn’t find anything on the web.
Anyway, after a lot of tea, I guess it was at least 1,5 liters today, an Aspirin and some additional sleep, the feeling is ok now in the evening. Will observe the heart rate tomorrow closely on the long run.
Tags: flu, flu prediction, heart rate
Part V: Eventually, the bigger picture. How does the new Nokia N79 Active package fit into the larger landscape of more or less intelligent training companions. The selection might not be exhaustive, but the point is to provide a target group overview based on the product proposition. The analysis can easily be extrapolated to other existing products on the market.
Let’s use two major dimensions in the product offering. One being the sports functionality and the other entertainment+community features. Sports functionality are the more traditional physical workout data input capabilities, training data representation during the session and afterwards, plus data analysis tools. All those things pro, semi-pro and wanna-be pro athletes want to have. Entertainment and community features are more the new kids on the block. Those are e.g. the addition of playing music, listening to the radio, taking pictures/video, live sharing during the workout session. And post-session web service community interaction around the workouts and the recorded data (e.g. physical workout data, geotagged data and multimedia), such as telling your buddy that he’s a total show-off.
The diagram on the left shows how the different product propositions are positioned relatively to each other. This is not a highly analytical research result, but rather the qualitative assessment from reading reviews on the different products. One factor is left out, price, because it makes more sense to save a little more to get the better matching product than buying a training companion just because it’s cheap.
A brief walkthrough of the different products, their characteristics and why they’re in its place on the map.
Nike+: A motivating running aide that spurs you on with voice feedback and the ability to sync to a website, no Mac SW problem, that’s good. Works with an iPod Nano right now. All very simple, candy shop colorful and easy-to-use, nice widgets of friends that you can integrate into your own Nike+ site and challenge for a next workout. Perhaps a bit too simple on the sports functionality side, there’s no heart rate monitor functionality and no placing the route on a map afterwards. A Nike shoe specific (although you can attach it to other shoes with a bit of tape) accelerometer measures your stride and thus the speed and distance. For more info read a good review on a blog on stuff.tv or sheck out the flashy Nike+ web site.
Nokia N79 Active: What’s there still to say that hasn’t been said already in last weeks’ blog entries. The inbuilt GPS, the Sports Tracker application and Polar heart rate belt covering the sports functionality aspects and the good camera, ample of GB (I use an 8GB memory card) for music and the Sports Tracker service looking after entertainment & community features with route maps etc. The only critical thing that the competitive athlete misses is the wrist unit. With the device sitting on the upper arm is not easy to catch just the data you need in full running speed. For cycling this is different, since you would mount it on the handle bar. See the full spec in part I
Samsung/Adidas miCoach: This is actually a co-operation between Samsung and Adidas, which underscores the more athletic and performance aspects of the proposition. You find a whole array of running plans that lays out your training for weeks and months. A female coach voice spurs you on while out there. And the associated web service is purly training result and analysis focused, no community features. Music you can play from the Samsung F110 handset, but as reviews say it’s fiddly and hence not well integrated into the Sports app. Nokia has nicely circumvented this by putting the music controls on the headset cable. Depending on how important music is for you the Samsung/Adidas combo is higher or lower on the entertainment/community scale. More info on the same blog on stuff.tv or the nice miCoach webiste.
Garmin: Taking the Forerunner 405 as Garmin representative, it has a wrist unit with GPS and a heart rate monitor, which places it right away closer to the Polar and Suunto guys. The display is clean and well readible and the wrist unit has a novel input method, a bezel around the display. Of course there are no music, camera or other handset entertainment feature. A PC software comes along (sorry Macs, apparently PC only) that helps with the link to the web service. The web service features a Google Map, different performance views and a very thin community offering (there’s a share button somewhere), but it seems that Garmin hasn’t quite sorted out what that should be good for. The reason for the 405 being not quite equal with Suunto and Polar on the sports functionality axis is due the lack of depth in workout data analysis. For more details here Garmins web shop and here a review of the 405.
Suunto: Now we are at the competitive training companion forefront. The difference to Polar is not much sports wise. Some reviews pointed out that the Suunto tc6 is a simplified Polar S625x, but with simplification in the positive sense. Well, it seems to come ot personal taste and what data you need. The PC software (again no word on Mac support) apparently isn’t as smooth as Polar’s and there’s no web service included. For more details the conclusion of a lengthy review and the Suunto heart rate monitor web site.
Polar: Finally the market leader in competitive sports oriented heart rate monitors (and most probably also in the fitness area). We’re using the Polar S625x ourselves for this 400days project and see why it’s top. The relevant data is generated from the wrist unit, the GPS or accelerometer foot pod and the heart rate monitor. The PC software (again no Mac support) is the offering a plethora of analysis functionality. Further the Personaltrainer.com service is the community and motivational web service. Just registered to try it out. For more info the same conclusion page of the lengthy review and the Polar web page.
How important are the sports and performance aspect and how important the entertainment and community aspects are for you? We’re using two systems right now. Yes, it feels sometimes like turning into a terminator with all the attached technology. But the Polar is needed for all the analysis features and the Nokia N79 Active for getting some entertainment while out there on a 20+k run. Plus with more and more friends and colleagues on the Sports Tracker service, the community is becoming fun. Although in the long term this should be part of a larger community platform, OVI if Nokia does it themselves or Facebook if someone does an integration.
Part I: the nokia n79 active, a runner’s companion
Part II: nokia n79 active, out of the box
Part III: nokia n79 active, experiences of the nokia running man
Part 3.5: nokia n79 active and polar s625x, becoming a humanoid
Part IV: Nokia N79, out for a test drive
Tags: Adidas miCoach, Garmin, Garmin Forerunner 405, Nike +, Nokia N79 Active, Polar, polar s625x, Samsung miCoach, Suunto, Suunto tc6
Running in snow is tough. Was out today for almost 16km, mostly on the home door step standard running route around the Vanhankaupunginlahti bay. And what do I see? There’s a cross-country ski run put into the snow along the way. On my running trail! Now all those rigorous and ego-centric skiers come along and think that this annoying runner should find his routes elsewhere. Fortunately, this time no-one said that. I thought that the trail is wide enough to accomodate both runners and skiers. They have the ski runs on the sides and I can run in the middle. Although it would better to run on if a snow plow would come along and clear the trail… 
Anyway, there was no snow plough coming along (and I guess the skiers made sure of that) and hence the underground was a tramped down snow field, with a lot of loose stuff on top. That’s tough to run on. Every step results in gliding back or sidewise when the foot puts pressure on the ground. Average km running pace were on that part of the trail somewhere between 5:30 and 6:15 min/km, whereas normally on a basic run we’re going at a 4:30min/km pace. The running co-ordination as learned and improved during teen years in the numerous middle distance training sessions, are totally down the drain and it feels more like stamping through mud, although it doesn’t stick to the shoes.
I’d prefer to think about the benefits of running in snow (need to keep things positive). So what does the web say on those? Well, see for yourself, a hilarious discussion on LetsRun.com. Otherwise, of course higher energy consumption and training all those small muscles in the ankles and knee that look after stability when the feet are gliding around.
Further tips on running on snow are plenty on the web, a good summary here on runningonline.com
Tags: cross country skier, slower, snow
The average daily amount of km went up from 10k after 100 days to 11km now after 150 days. In a brief estimation for the total project length, we won’t come out much higher. I.e. the initial idea was that the total run distance in 400 days would be about 4000km, now it looks like going more towards 4400 - 4500km. Still, that’s not more than 11,xkm a day. It’s really funny to break it down like this. Running 4500km in a bit more than a year, sounds just crazy and not really doable for most people. But running 11.x km a day isn’t that an extraorbital number and many can relate to going out and doing such a run, right?
With the marathon training for Rotterdam (on April 5) now underway, the weekly (and thus also daily) kilometers will increase in the next weeks but not dramatically anymore. It’s the speedwork, i.e. the overall intensity that will make the difference when the objective is to run anything below 2:50. We can see this very well at the top right now. In the 80’s and early nineties Marathon Runners were a separate breed, they hadn’t been before running marathons popular athletes on the 3000m, 5000m, or 10.000m. Then Paul Tergat and nowadays Haile Gebreselassie came along and improved the marathon world record substantially. I don’t think it’s because they train so much more. How much more can you train than any African marathon runner already does? Some go out three times a day and do up to 240km a week. It’s the speed this new breed brings along from the shorter distances, that’s the difference. Hence speedwork, down to 400m intervals is essential in a good marathon training program.
Tags: progress, speed, speed work
Part IV: Finally, we take the Nokia N79 Active out for a spin. As earlier mentioned, once the heart rate belt is paired with the N79 (it’s Bluetooth), the Sports Tracker application finds it right away as soon as it is opened. In the gallery below is one pic on the pairing wizard that you use once for the initial set-up.
For the screen to be somehow visible during the run, the device is attached to your upper arm, it makes sense to select the “switch orientation” menu option to turn the display around by 90 degrees. Yes, of course, the orientation sensor of the device does it automatically as well, but I can tell you, this is not a helpful feature on a swinging arm.
Otherwise it’s attaching the headset properly to your clothing, you don’t want the cable flying around your neck with every step, switching on the music in the music player, and off you go. The music is conveniently controlled from the headset, there’s are the standard buttons for play, pause, stop, next, previous, volume, take call/end call.
Taking pictures, while on the run/walk/bike/skis works this way, that you pull the N79 out of the armband (again, we hope that it will loosen up over time, it’s really tight when new) and flip open the lens cover at the back of the dive. The camera app opens up automatically and the device is ready for putting some really nice picture postcards on the 4GB memory card (see the test pics below). The pictures are now geo tagged so th at they can be placed on the running map in the service later on. Closing the lens, closes the camera app and the Sports Tracker is visible again. All hardware, no software buttons or menus, works very well when running and when wearing gloves. Putting the device back into the armband, well you learn it after a while not to accidentially switch off the device. The on/off button is at the top as well.
After the workout, when pressing “stop” - this function is in the option menu, not so good, should be assigned to one of the softkey buttons, perhaps in a combination with “pause”, still room for improvements in later versions for Nokia here - you get a work summary on the screen. That’s neat, but the real interesting parts are in the training diary. Opening up a workout from this calendar based view shows a workout summary, a map view of your run with the taken pictures on it, and a more detailed heart rate distribution. The neat thing, you can send those screenshots to a friend over MMS or post them on OVI Share or Flickr. Of course you want to pick your best workout and show off in front of your buddies. There are a range of more geek options as well (Export to Google Earth, as GPX data, bla bla bla), but find out for yourself.
Uploading to the Sports Tracker service works fine as well. A bit many dialogs, could be simplified, especially for those of us with a data flat rate it’s a couple of confirmation clicks too many. Btw. the upload works through both cellular and WiFi. No desktop needed, good news for th eoften neglected Mac users. Workout and media data gets to the server and can be seen in a moment later on the web interface under http://sportstracker.nokia.com/index.html
This much on the Nokia N79 Active test drive.
Part I: the nokia n79 active, a runner’s companion
Part II: nokia n79 active, out of the box
Part III: nokia n79 active, experiences of the nokia running man
Part 3.5: nokia n79 active and polar s625x, becoming a humanoid
Part V: Nokia N79 Active vs. Polar, Suunto, Garmin, Nike+ and Samsung miCoach
click on the picture!
He’s definitely a runner! We all knew it! He’s just way too good, not to be a runner. Those shoes are Ascis running shoes. That’s proof enough. Congratulations America to such a good choice for president. Mr. President, if you have your way around over here in the European north, bring your Asics shoes along and we show you some of the nicest spots on earth. We’ll also see to it that we exchange your Blackberry with a Nokia E71 and install the Sports Tracker application on it, work life balance, you know. That doubles the fun and keeps you going.
part 3.5: yesterday’s race needs still digestion. although the trainings plan says “rest” for today, a 6-8k “active rest” was supposed to loosen up tight muslces that slightly hurt after the race. speaking about hurt, the left leg’s calf started hurting again, in fact it really never went completely away after those galactic 1000m interval runs in the espoo indoor arena. the calves gone hard after running on the slightly too hard indoor track. although the pain goes away after a couple of easy outdoor sessions, it comes back when going on the track again or after the 10k race yesterday. as far as the internet can serve as a medical aid here, it says stretching, magnesium nutritional supplements and easy workouts for a while should get it back to normal.
an easy workout it definitely was, 7.3km in something between 5:30 and 6 min/km. although, getting ready for it, took a while. there are quite a number of bits and pieces now that are to be attached and set-up since testing the nokia n79 active in addition to the normal use of the polar s625x.
first two heart rate monitors, the “polar for nokia” one connects through bluetooth only to the handset, the other one through polar’s proprietary link to the watch. next is the watch around the wrist, followed by the mobile phone to be put into the armband. the new armband is quite tight, hope it will loosen up a bit over time. the mobile device definitely won’t fall out. the armband goes onto the upper arm. finally the polar system’s footpod that measures distance and pace is put back onto the winter running shoes. hardware attachement wise we’re almost done now. the headset is kept tied up with the armband, this way it doesn’t get lost. it’s just to plug it in and pull the cable under the jacket so that it doesn’t bounce around.
software wise we need to adjust the speed calibration factor on the s625x wrist unit, since the asics winter running shoes need another speed calibration factor than the adidas cushion shoes. and then of course switching on the sports tracker and music player applications on the n79. it helps a lot if you create shortcuts for those applications directly on the home screen. especially with gloves on, it is a bit tricky to navigate through the menu structure.
with all this gear attached to you, the thought of becoming a humaniod is hard to aviod. to be clear, the nokia n79 active and polar s625x are two from each other independent systems. i’d like to continue documenting this whole running project in the polar system, in addition testing the nokia system. fortunately, clothing is covering it mostly up. i guess soon we will have add-ons with needles that take and analyse your blood while running. if training intensity is measured as too low, they switch the music to metallica. let’s hope they just measure the blood and don’t pour additional substances into it…
part I: the nokia n79 active, a runner’s companion
part II: nokia n79 active, out of the box
part III: nokia n79 active, experiences of the nokia running man
part IV: nokia n79 active, out for a test drive
Part V: Nokia N79 Active vs. Polar, Suunto, Garmin, Nike+ and Samsung miCoach
Tags: Nokia N79 Active, polar s625x
minus 7 degrees celsius, the pair of running gloves needed a pair of thin cotton hospital gloves as additional lining layer to keep the hands warm. still about 250 runners found their way out to this third round of the winter running series called aktia cup in hakunila, vantaa, north-east of helsinki. for this project, this was meant to be the fourth measuring point and 10k test race. and it went soooooooo well!
in the first three races, i think the improving results were mainly attributable to improvements in endurance. but can that go on in such a short timeframe? after all those test races are only 3 to 5 weeks apart. there must be a role for other parameters as well. this time, in this fourth test race, i drew the ace card by putting on real race shoes, not the training sneakers. also body weight is now below 75kg.
what’s then for next time? it’s only three weeks to the february race. hm, training will intensify, this means most probably we’re more tired next time. no big improvements expected in this time frame from further weight reductions, speed or endurance improvements. the gear ace, the shoes is played as well now. hm, not much left to count on, the weather? hopefully.
official results of the 10k distance
Tags: 10k race, improvement parameters, race shoes
part III: there are a couple of nice introduction videos of this nokia n79 active bundle on youtube. in addition to the marketing video showing the romantic parcour runner and a how-to-use video, there’s a short clip of a real life user, the Nokia running man. he talks about his experiences with this bundle and about the target group it is made for.
part I: the nokia n79 active, a runner’s companion
part II: nokia n79 active, out of the box
part 3.5: nokia n79 active and polar s625x, becoming a humanoid
part IV: nokia n79 active, out for a test drive
Part V: Nokia N79 Active vs. Polar, Suunto, Garmin, Nike+ and Samsung miCoach
part II: actually, it wasn’t delivered in a box, but all the parts were there, the n79 device, the heart rate monitor, the armband and the ear plugs. very nice, the device I mean, the n79 is a nice nseries device. in comparison to all the other black ones (not quite my cup of tea), the colour choices of the n79 that come with it are kind of refreshing. you put on the green or the blue back cover and the display color changes with it, neat detail.
i guess the armband isn’t top of the line - i’ve seen nicer ones for the i-thingy - and the ear plugs most probably have trouble competing sound quality wise with your big sennheiser or bose ones. but they do the trick here. it’s about running, not about locating every instrument in a beethoven symphony. the heart rate monitor belt however is top shelf, no doubt about that. polar quality, solid sensor area, antibacterial fabric for the rest of the strap, the transmitter using a standard bluetooth connection is a standard polar element. it is attached with two push buttons onto this belt, but could also be attached with the older mechanism where the transmitter is combining the two ends of the belt. so if the belt gets lost or breaks, you can get another one or digg out your old one and use the bluetooth transmitter with that one. There’s a standard battery in the transmitter as in all other polar belts, don’t know how long it lasts though. you can’t attach a phone charger or something as assumed on some other blogs.
one good aspect is, this whole sports bundle is applicable to a next mobile device you buy, one, two or three years down the road, because it’s standard bluetooth connection to the belt and the sports tracker application goes on all nokia s60 devices. for now the heart rate belt is only sold in this n79 active bundle. EUR 375 before subsidies and tax.
the sports tracker application comes pre-installed on the n79 active. it’s been around for a while as after sales app that everyone can install on a nokia s60 device. that’s also still the case. the latest version is found here on the sports tracker service or here from the nokia research center directly. we earlier had a review of an older version, part I and part II. so let’s focus on the differences to the older versions.
when opening up the sports tracker application the first time, a wizard starts that walks you through the initial connectoin to the belt. workes neatly, it finds the belt almost immediately and pairs it, that’s bluetooth stuff. it’s now connected and you see right away the current heart rate on the top of the basic application display. this bluetooth connection in general is working well and reliably. as soon as the app is on, the connection takes only seconds and is completely automatic. of course you’d expect that, but here is also really works that way.
tomorrow, we’ll take it out for a spin, the review follows in the evening.
part I: the launch yesterday + data fact sheet
part III: nokia n79 active, experiences of the nokia running man
part 3.5: nokia n79 active and polar s625x, becoming a humanoid
part IV: nokia n79 active, out for a test drive
Part V: Nokia N79 Active vs. Polar, Suunto, Garmin, Nike+ and Samsung miCoach
Tags: Nokia N79 Active, out of the box, polar heart rate monitor
