How Far Can You Go? (Running / Walking Distance PvP) [June 26th - Aug 5th]

[Xena]

Had a great trip, but was a little disappointed in my running performance. Thinking I'll need to work harder on endurance in order to improve. Or maybe I just need to get lucky and have a good day :-)

[WhiteGhost]

I finally got another run in this morning, bumping me up out of last place

[Xena]

9 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I finally got another run in this morning, bumping me up out of last place

 

I saw a cute shirt at my recent race "Last place is still a place"

[EricMN]

45 minutes ago, Xena said:

I saw a cute shirt at my recent race "Last place is still a place"

I live this.

[Jarric]

Passed 100 miles this morning  .

 

Glad you had a great trip @Xena and well done on finishing your marathon!

[Kestrel Grey]

I passed 20 miles this morning, nowhere near 100 but improving every week.  I'll get you next time.

 

@WhiteGhost I likely won't get any more runs in this week, so you have three days to get your last 3 miles and pass me for last place. Challenge issued.

[WhiteGhost]

6 hours ago, Kestrel Grey said:

 I likely won't get any more runs in this week, so you have three days to get your last 3 miles and pass me for last place. Challenge issued.

I thought about running after my workout this morning, but was completely drained.  I leave for holiday tomorrow so it looks like I am not getting any more runs in this challenge, so last place it is.

 

Need to find me one of those "Last Place is still a Place" T-shirts  

[jonfirestar]

My final count is 145.6. Giving me a solid second place. I'm, of course, not playing in the same league as @Xena well done! 

[CheshireCrab]

Forgot to get in my weekly mileage and decided to put it in all at once with a trail run. Dang near collapsed due to the combined non-stop running and no water. Oh well, I'm pretty happy with my total. I would love to do one of these type of challenges again, it was really fun!

[Kestrel Grey]

Quick question, how do you all track your runs? Super fancy GPS/HR watches? run with your cell phones? or look up your route on a map and wing it?  I am looking at some watches now but it feels a little bit like overkill when I am not a competitive runner (that isn't necessarily going to stop me though!).  I was thinking about the TomTom Spark 3.

[CheshireCrab]

16 minutes ago, Kestrel Grey said:

Quick question, how do you all track your runs? Super fancy GPS/HR watches? run with your cell phones? or look up your route on a map and wing it?  I am looking at some watches now but it feels a little bit like overkill when I am not a competitive runner (that isn't necessarily going to stop me though!).  I was thinking about the TomTom Spark 3.

 

I make sure to have at least a 2-step verification in case one ends up being wrong. I use Google Maps to look up any road runs or find a trail map online for trail runs.

I also use the Strava/Zombies Runs/Runkeeper app on my phone but they're only as good as your Phone's GPS can be. When it's a cloudy day any one of these apps has logged me running at the impossibly fast 2-minute mile. So I would be weary on GPS unless you have a REALLY good GPS.

Otherwise, I've been recently using my iPod's running app(Essentially a Pedometer). It has so far been giving me some pretty accurate measurements most of the time.

[jonfirestar]

33 minutes ago, Kestrel Grey said:

Quick question, how do you all track your runs? Super fancy GPS/HR watches? run with your cell phones? or look up your route on a map and wing it?  I am looking at some watches now but it feels a little bit like overkill when I am not a competitive runner (that isn't necessarily going to stop me though!).  I was thinking about the TomTom Spark 3.

I use one of them there fancy GPS watches. I bought it because I got tired of the GPS on my phone being so inaccurate. The watch, so far, has been much, much more reliable. The one I have is, in fact, the TomTom Spark 3 and I quite like it. It seems to be reliable and accurate, as far as these things go. It is waterproof and you can go swimming with it. Or, more to the point, don't have to worry about wearing it to an OCR that might involve dunking. If you are thinking of getting the one with the HR monitor on the wrist that works okay,  for me anyway. I've talked to a few people about it and it seems to vary from person to person. For me my fitbit and my tomtom work about the same. It is fine for steady state cardio stuff but it doesn't react quickly enough to be much use for intervals. 

 

The CONs: The battery life isn't great. I only wear it for running so it doesn't bother me too much but I can get maybe 2 runs out of it before it needs recharging, although I wore it all last weekend and it survived so maybe every 3 days or so. The screen can get scratched a little easily, if you are thinking about wearing it for an OCR you might want to get a screen protector too. The GPS can take a little while to lock on, which is a little annoying if you just want to get out for a run  

 

In all though I'm happy with it. It is much better than using my phone or my fitbit to try and track my runs. 

[Kestrel Grey]

Thanks guys. It sounds like the TomTom spark 3 would be worth it for me, since I don't carry much on my runs. My husband has offered to get me one for an early birthday present so I think I'll take him up on his offer. 

[WhiteGhost]

I had a Tom Tom (Cardio Spark Music) that on paper had everything you could ask for. It had internal GPS and music so I didn't need to bring my phone, which was great).  My only complaint was that the app that goes with it was absolute rubbish.  I couldn't stay logged in, it took forever and multiple tries to sync (manual sync only) and it had no analytics to speak of, so I had to manually export everything to other apps to make any sense of the data it collected. 

 

In the end I switched to a fitbit and have been quite happy with it (wish it was waterproof, though)

[jonfirestar]

6 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

 My only complaint was that the app that goes with it was absolute rubbish.  I couldn't stay logged in, it took forever and multiple tries to sync (manual sync only) and it had no analytics to speak of, so I had to manually export everything to other apps to make any sense of the data it collected. 

 

In the end I switched to a fitbit and have been quite happy with it (wish it was waterproof, though)

 

I did the opposite. I like my fitbit well enough for tracking my day to day activity but found it kind of useless for meaningfully tracking my runs.

 

The app on the TomTom is worth bringing up though. I've got an iphone and the app works okay. Sometimes it needs some coaxing to start the sync but otherwise it's fine.  It's not particularly great but it also auto uploads my runs to Strava, which is what I actually use to log my runs (and also what I used when I used my fitbit/phone combo, the data it gives me is just far more accruate). I have heard (from @Charlie_Quinn, maybe?) that the android app doesn't work too well. 

[WhiteGhost]

2 hours ago, jonfirestar said:

I have heard (from @Charlie_Quinn, maybe?) that the android app doesn't work too well. 

That could be. I run on Android

[Charlie_Quinn]

The TomTom app isn't great, although it has got a little better recently. It's a complete nightmare to get it to sync, but I find if I switch my blue tooth on, open the app  and then just leave my watch near my phone while I shower, my run will have uploaded by the time I've finished. I do like info on the home screen that tells me at a glance if I've been running quicker or further recently. I've got the TomTom multisport, which was the model before the spark I think? I only brought it because it was waterproof and I wanted something I could use on OCR's. It's pretty sturdy and despite putting it though a few races, it's only got one scratch on the screen, which came from me falling over my own feet on a training run, not in a race!

[Charlie_Quinn]

I hope everyone has enjoyed this little distance challenge? If anyone has any mileage they haven't logged yet, if you can get it logged by the end of today (Sunday) and I'll put the results up on Monday!

 

[Jarric]

On 05/08/2017 at 9:22 PM, Kestrel Grey said:

Quick question, how do you all track your runs? Super fancy GPS/HR watches? run with your cell phones? or look up your route on a map and wing it?  I am looking at some watches now but it feels a little bit like overkill when I am not a competitive runner (that isn't necessarily going to stop me though!).  I was thinking about the TomTom Spark 3.

 

I just use Runkeeper on my android phone and it's pretty accurate for me. I do start the app up while I'm putting my shoes on to let it lock on, but otherwise it's great.

 

On 06/08/2017 at 6:15 PM, Charlie_Quinn said:

I hope everyone has enjoyed this little distance challenge? If anyone has any mileage they haven't logged yet, if you can get it logged by the end of today (Sunday) and I'll put the results up on Monday!

 

 

Thanks for setting this up! It's been really fun

[Charlie_Quinn]

Sorry everyone, I got a little busy yesterday and forgot to do this.

 

Here are the winners! 

1st Place: Xena (192.6 miles)

2nd Place: JonFirestar (145.6 miles)

3rd Place: Jarric (104.68 miles) 

 

Well done! Enjoy your beer fueled podium celebration!

 

and the rest of the table looks like this:

Position	Name	Distance (Miles)
4	Charlie_Quinn	89.65
5	Inazea	76.25
6	CheshireCrab	74.45
7	NeverThatBored	59.67
8	EricMN	54
9	Coco P Loco	31.52
10	Zeroh13	26.5
11	Kestrel Grey	20.64
12	WhiteGhost	17.65

 

Well done everyone! We did an incredible 875.56 combined miles. How cool is that!

[Jarric]

2 hours ago, Charlie_Quinn said:

Well done everyone! We did an incredible 875.56 combined miles. How cool is that!

 

Well done all! That's far enough between us to travel from London, UK to Warsaw, Poland, or to travel from New York City to St Louis.