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I’m a geek. There are few parts of my life where I cannot apply some degree of geekiness and running is no different.
It may be redundant to also say that I’m an engineer (an electrical and computer engineer who somehow couldn’t manage to explain electricity to Angela at dinner at Affiliate Summit) and I love numbers.
Naturally, I’d want to keep track of my runs. Distance, time, etc. Of course I’d always have the standard issue Timex Ironman watch to time my runs, but simply that and driving off distances in the car was very dissatisfying.
Wanting more, a few years ago, I bought a Polar RS200 Running Computer. It has a wireless heart rate monitor and with the S1 Foot Pod, it tracks distance and speed.
With it, while I’m running, I know my heart rate, pace, distance, time, etc. I get a quick summary after every mile. After the run, I know my min and max heart rate and pace, as well as a bunch of other stuff I don’t even use.
Reviewing the data in my watch right now, I know that this morning at 8:42am:
I ran for 1:02:40 a total of 5.89 miles.
My max pace was 6:28 with an average of 10:38 (gettin’ there. I like to be in the 8’s).
I burned 1151 calories.
I also know all that info for each mile but I’ll spare you those details. 
The watch keeps this information back for many days, so I can see my progress and weekly summaries. For example, I know that so far this week I’ve run 17.7 miles in 3:17:24, and burned 3489 calories.
I can upload the data to a PC (through an audio signal transfer into a microphone. hello? bluetooth?) but I don’t use that because it’s a hassle and it doesn’t have Mac software.
Why do I need all this info? Well I don’t really, but to me it’s a big motivator.
Running can be a boring activity. When I’m always trying to beat my best time even by a second, it adds some fun to it. Plus, the real-time feedback of my pace and heart rate helps me push harder up a big hill. Knowing that every push will shave off seconds is a big motivator to me.
I bought this a few years ago, and I haven’t looked into similar products since. Nike and Apple came out with a shoe insert that connects to an iPod Nano to provide pace and distance info. Anyone use one of those? I didn’t like the idea of buying the shoes to fit the device.
I guess I should take a new look at what’s new in running tech? Got any up to date info? Comment here and let me know what I’m missing.
