My last post highlighted that you’d be able to follow team HTC-Columbia using Google’s services, but no address was yet available. Also, I learned that the HTC Legend is the phone model being used by the entire team to gather data for this project.

Here is Google’s live link: http://www.google.com/mytrackstour

…one for HighRoad Sports live data: http://highroadsports.com/velostream

…and SRM’s TdF live page: http://www.srmlive.de/Data/Telemetry.html

I’ll get to the headline news in just a moment, but first an announcement on Google’s MyTracks Android app:

Very soon, Google’s MyTracks sports tracking application will be updated to support both ANT+ and Bluetooth devices, making MyTracks one of the most versatile apps in its category.

Back to the headline… Exciting news surrounding Tour de France coverage! Google and High Road Sports have entered a collaboration, together with partnerships from HTC and SRM, to bring spectators of the Tour de France closer than ever seen before.

High Road Sports announces a new technology and marketing collaboration with Google Inc., supported by partners HTC and SRM, that brings a worldwide audience further inside the experience of racing in the Tour de France.

Fans and viewers will be able to follow Team HTC-Columbia riders in real time with speed, heart rate, power output and other data provided by SRM, presented and enhanced with Google’s leading applications – Google Maps, Street View, Google Earth, Android, and My Tracks.

As the title sponsor of Team HTC-Columbia, HTC has worked closely with SRM, Google and High Road’s technical team to develop HTC Legend smartphones that operate with HTC Sense with Android™ 2.1. These smartphones will collect real time racing and location information and transmit it wirelessly to Google’s servers.  The phones run Google’s mobile application ‘My Tracks’ which reads the racing data directly from the SRM sensors on the bike.   Racing information is then enhanced with Google’s leading applications and made public to all interested viewers and users via API’s made available by Google.

Google is encouraging Press, TV and web developers to take the data and build rich applications that make use of the data at this year’s Tour de France. The read only API can be accessed through the contacts listed below.

“I’m thrilled about the opportunity to leverage Google’s My Tracks application to deliver real-time racing information to fans watching the Tour de France,” said Dylan Casey, Product Manager at Google and former professional cyclist with the US Postal Service team. “This is a unique, engaging way to help cycling fans all around the world get a sense of what the riders go through during each stage of the race and follow the performance of the world-class riders on Team HTC-Columbia. We’re fortunate to work with such great partners – High Road Sports, HTC, SRM, and ANT+ – to make this possible.”

“Professional cycling is such an advanced technical sport and we’re excited for Team HTC-Columbia to be embracing innovative wireless and location-based technologies like Google’s My Tracks and HTC smartphones to deliver unprecedented rider data to the team, media and cycling fans around the world,” said John Wang, chief marketing officer, HTC Corporation.

“Google and HTC are ideal partners to further develop the sport of cycling and present it to a worldwide audience in an engaging way,” says Owner of HTC-Columbia Bob Stapleton. “The interest of such innovative partners  is very encouraging and we look forward to continuing to develop this project in the future.”

Source: High Road Sports

I purchased my Android mobile with Google’s apps and services integration as the main draw. The announcement above is exactly what I had been hoping for; Mobile sports tracking is about to get center stage attention.

MyTracks already combines a number of Google services to make it stand out in a competitive category. Google Docs, Maps, Maps Editor, and Google Earth all seamlessly integrate with the MyTracks application. Together with support for ANT+ and Bluetooth devices, you can immediately expect heart rate data to be added, as well as the potential for all sorts of new vital statistics to add to your recorded workouts.

Thanks to Rodrigo from the MyTracks team for the alert on the news!

The list below contains the apps, hardware and services I’m currently looking at for use with my HTC Desire Android handset surrounding running. I also will continue to keep up with Sports Tracker using my Nokia N79 Active Edition. I do not have access to an iPhone.

Here’s a list of features that I want in a sports tracker app:

1. Easy access to data during my run. Pace, distance, time and heart rate should be easy to read on a single screen.
2. Map access during my run. Preferably cached to SD card to save on data. OpenStreetMaps allows you to contribute your routes to improve your local map accuracy.
3. Heart Rate Monitor compatibility. Zephyr’s HxM has an SDK that allows quick integration with any Android app, though only supported in Android 2.1 or higher. Other heart rate manufacturers also provide SDK’s.
4. Data should be importable and exportable. Standardized .gpx, .kml and .kmz file types can be used with a variety of services and allow you to keep all those hard-earned workouts together, forever.
5. Direct uploading to a website. You should be able to choose how and when your workout data is uploaded, too.
6. A website that allows you to dig into the data of your workout. Using a variety of metrics, workouts should be organized in a log, preferably in a calendar for ease of access.
7. Configurability. From how often waypoints are recorded, to satellite sensitivity, to user details and lap statistics.
8. Voice feedback. Useful on your run to minimize touching your handset. You should be able to choose what data you want to hear, as often as you need it.

I’ll continue to edit this post with basic notes for each app as I get the opportunity to use them. Please share in a comment what you are using or if I have overlooked something interesting you’d like me to add.

*SportsTrackLive www.sportstracklive.com Currently my favorite. Highly configurable with loads of options. Currently the only app to support Zephyr’s BioHarness, which brings functionality and data never before seen outside of sports labs. Complete review to be published with my next post.

*Endomondo www.endomondo.com Lots of good features in a great-looking app. Missing some important configurability.

*Run.GPS www.rungps.net No other app in my list has as many tools. Highly configurable, missing nothing. However, it does this with too many menus to navigate through, especially during a run. Needs a graphics overhaul, imho. Heart rate is supported in two premium versions: Run.GPS Trainer UV Full for €15 and Run.GPS Trainer UV Pro Full for €39.95.

My Tracks (Google) mytracks.appspot.com This simple app does everything I’m looking for, save for heart rate data. Plus, it integrates with Google services like Docs and Maps Editor. *(Stay tuned for more on MyTracks as I just learned it will soon support heart rate monitoring using the Zephyr HxM.)

RunKeeper runkeeper.com Heart rate support will be added soon. (I’m stopping here tonight for lack of time. I’ll continue to add more info soon.)

SportyPal www.sportypal.com Heart rate monitor support will be added soon.

JogTracker www.jogtracker.com

CardoTrainer www.worksmartlabs.com

runstar runstar.se They are looking into adding heart rate data at the moment.

Biotrak http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~jleehey/Biotrak/

Buddy Runner www.buddyrunner.com

SoftRace softrace.net

SmartTraining awwa500.blogspot.com (Japanese)

AllSport GPS by Trimble portal.trimbleoutdoors.com

runtastic runtastic.com

Handy Runner handyrunner.com integrates with RunningAHEAD athletic logging services

zephyropen (Google code project) code.google.com/p/zephyropen Open source SDK for Health Monitoring Devices. Using Zephyr’s HxM.

OnTri www.ontri.com

eRunners Body www.physiosensing.com

Running Calc isakson.info

*Heart Rate Monitor androidheartmonitor.com For use with Zephyr’s HxM.

Frwd B Series Heart Rate Monitors for Mobiles (discontinued distribution outside of FINLAND) www.frwd.fi

Kyto Electronics Heart Rate Monitors (Bluetooth) www.kytocn.com model HRM-2805

Zephyr Technology Heart Rate Monitors (Bluetooth) www.zephyr-technology.com models HxM and BioHarness

*(These apps currently support heart rate monitoring using Zephyr’s HxM. Many of the other apps above have said they’re planning to add support for the HxM soon.)

Polar officially (finally!) announced heart rate monitor support for iPod users through Nike+ software and accessories. I’ve been hearing rumors about this for the past year but got the official word last Sunday via @ChrisPolarUSA on Twitter.

A look over the WearLink for Nike+ spec sheet and pricing details reveals versatility and value. With a MSRP of $69.95, you’ll get a heart rate transmitter for your iPod Nike+ set-ups that’s compatible with existing Polar hardware using familiar coded 5 kHz transmissions.

No word yet on what impact, if any, this might have on Sports Tracking Technology’s popular Sports Tracker app. Many a Sports Tracker fan knows their app was the first to officially partner with Polar Electronics using a nearly identical Polar WearLink transmitter back in January 2009. It was an extremely limited offering in three international markets that sent unlucky but ardent Sports Tracker fans into an eternal holding pattern which remains in effect for Nokia owners.

Having been one of the lucky few to get my hands on one, I can say the WearLink transmitter performed like any Polar product I’ve owned and gave me good feedback for over 200 runs over the past year. The Polar for Nokia product, as it was called, differs from the latest WearLink for Nike+ in that its transmission signal is limited to the Sports Tracker app on Nokia handsets. Other than that, the two have seemingly identical spec sheets.

The only disappointing feature carried over is the Polar WearLink’s use of Lithium “coin” batteries. Perhaps Polar re-engineered the product for better power efficiency, I don’t know. The Polar for Nokia WearLink gave me less than three week use between changing batteries. On an added note, the actual process of changing those batteries was not so easy; The battery was difficult to remove once the door was removed.

Nevertheless, this Polar/Nike+ offering will allow millions of iPod users to economically rediscover, or rededicate to, their fitness routines like never before within their handsets using heart rate data.

Have a look at Polar’s site for more information.

*EDIT* This post originally stated iPhone support which is incorrect. See the link above for all current supported hardware. Thanks.*EDIT*

Just a quick note that I’ve switched from the default WordPress comment handler to Disqus. In the process, I have run into a problem importing my old comments. Nothing’s been lost, and I’m working on a fix.

I’m also doing some house cleaning to ready for a new series of articles to be published in the coming days, including a review of my new Zephyr HxM Bluetooth heart rate monitor.

See you soon.

It comes as no surprise to those who know me that I’ve been a Nokia/Symbian fan since the 90′s. Every mobile I’ve owned, save for my first in a 1991 Fujitsu, has been Nokia. Over the years that meant I had a lot of “firsts”; 1st mobile browser, 1st camera, 1st multi-band, 1st BT earbud, 1st to load a 3rd-party app, 1st to use my mobile for music and video, 1st to make VoIP calls… All of this before any iPhone was even rumored.

Oh, the iPhone. In the year leading up to Apple’s iPhone launch, all those who knew me as “that Nokia dude” asked me if I was going to get one and what my thoughts on it were. Made sense, I’ve also remained a Mac user over the years. Well, armed with knowledge from a vast community of ardent Nokia/Symbian loyalists, I knew better. My answer always politely leaned, “The iPhone is a cute effort but I’ll stick with Nokia, thank you”. Why? Simple: Nokia is the largest, most innovative, most user-friendly… A company with a reputation for these and a lot more points was surely baking an answer to the iPhone that no loyal customer would want to miss out on. Nearly four years later it’s clear that I was wrong. For all the Nokia/Symbian fanboys that taught me to laugh at the competition, sorry, the joke was on us. The iPhone, love it or hate it, changed everything and Nokia is now choking on a contrail of silicon dust that’s not just coming from Apple’s charge forward. Nokia are still good, they just aren’t doing anything market-leading to earn my business. Time to try the competition!

So last month I broke form, went against my sensibilities and decided to buy a mobile not made by Nokia. I bought an HTC Desire. Before it was delivered, regret was everything I feared. Touch-only UI, “new” OS, buggy apps, poor multi-tasking, less-than-Nokia quality… I was leaving free(not) Ovi Maps and my beloved Nokia Sports Tracker for Frozen Yogurt with little green robots from Google. What was I thinking?

My HTC Desire arrived and within 15 minutes I felt like I was using a device I might have dreamed about as a little kid lost in sci-fi novelette fantasy. From purely my user experience, this mobile corrects and exceeds every standard Nokia had set for me. A month of use later and exploring the Android community, I have to say I’m thoroughly thrilled with my Desire. In fact, the only thing negative my new mobile has brought about is my attitude toward Nokia and it’s die-hard community of “Stick with us, a fix is on the way!” loyalists. I realized yet another lesson in life: Brand-loyalty makes fools of us. Save your loyalty for family, friends and… perhaps football:-) Am I an Android fanboy now? For now, yes. Google has taken what Apple revitalized and made it friggin’ exciting!

Why am I writing this post in a blog about running? My mobile is a part of my training and I use it to track my performance and health. Required tools to do these things are not only offered in the Android Market, but in a competitive one with many capable applications and accessories. With what I’m after, Nokia/Symbian really offered just Sports Tracker and Endomondo. You may perhaps debate Google’s part in a closed-versus-open argument when it comes to OS development, apps and tools. With what I’m after, Android gives me access to all the things I want, NOW, without a wait; Something Nokia/Symbian simply cannot do at present.

Nevertheless, my only wish in making this switch to Android is that I could have Sports Tracker along for the ride. I was really hoping to see their talents in the Android Market, nearly a year since leaving Nokia. An Android Sports Tracker presence would be all-benefiting.

My next few posts will highlight my Android running companion in all of its parts. Reviews of the latest sports software and services to available heart-rate hardware. Sport-friendly accessories will get coverage too, such as headphones and comfy arm-pouches.

If you’re in the market for a new mobile, I hope you get the chance to try before you buy. HTC, and Android, are doing some incredible stuff right now.

Just a quick post here to let you know about a newly created Sports Tracker group on Facebook. Over 200 members strong now.

Thanks, Ykä!

A new version of Sports Tracker became available today in the Ovi Store for S60 touch-screen mobiles. Soon after the app was added to the store I received a call from Jussi Kaasinen, one of the developer/owners of Sports Tracking Technologies Ltd (STT for short on my blog) I was informed of the new release and asked to share some details of our conversation as official Sports Tracker news. There aren’t volumes of information to report, nevertheless its great to hear from our friends after such a long winter of silence.

Beginning with platform support, Jussi said that in addition to today’s release we should expect new versions for all S60 mobiles in the coming weeks. He says, “We are now giving all necessary attention and support to S60, as there are millions of existing users out there to serve.” The STT team wants to be sure all of us who have been there through the years are taken care of first. He also said that other platforms will be supported at a later time, but refrains from any details or promises as those versions are still in development.

Moving on to user data Jussi explains that, as promised, great care has been taken to insure no loss of data, aiming for a totally seamless transition to the new service. This includes user name, profile, settings and all details of your workout history. The STT team had hoped that the new website would be ready for today’s release version, unfortunately its not quite ready to launch. Soon!

The next bit of news surely leaves us with a lot of questions; Polar heart rate monitors. Jussi only says that the STT team includes the heart rate features in the new versions to provide continuation to exisiting N79 Active users, “…who have changed their primary device to a touch model (and there’s quite an impressive number of them- based on the huge number of folks who have contacted us recently).” We’ll just have to wait for more STT/Polar news.

Jussi and the rest of the team are thrilled and thankful for all of the loyal Sports Tracker users who have been longing for news and support. He said his inbox has thousands of emails in it (naturally impossible to reply to them all) but is continually energized and touched by all the comments of support for Sports Tracker. Especially those of you who were inspired to become active as a result of using the app/service for the first time.

Jussi and I will stay in touch to bring you more information and updates as they become available.

I just received a call from Jussi Kaasinen of Sports Tracking Technologies and will share the details in a post later this evening. A new version of Sports Tracker has been added to the OVI Store.

Just a quick one here…

In my last post I mentioned, “Sports Tracking Technologies is slightly larger now than the original two-person core team”, without a name to provide. Well, now I have that name: Antti Sorvari. Antti is a former Nokia colleague of Jussi and Ykä, and now joins them on their executive management team.

Jussi, Ykä and Antti have been busy over the past two days moving into their brand new office.

Congratulations, guys!

I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to bring news to the Nokia Sports Tracker Beta migration to Sports Tracking Technologies issue!

I received a surprise phone call two days ago from Jussi Kaasinen, one of the two-person core team of developers responsible for bringing the Nokia Sports Tracker Beta project to us since March of 2007. Together with the other half of that team, Ykä Huhtala, they founded their own company named Sports Tracking Technologies back in June of this year. Jussi told me that his call was partly in response to my earlier post and partly just to touch base with a long-standing user of the service.

Jussi wanted me to let everyone know that the Sports Tracking Technologies (STT) incarnation is very much alive and kicking, and that they have appreciated the huge volumes of suggestions and feedback that continually flood their inboxes every day. He also apologized for the “quietness” throughout the exhausting process of migrating from Nokia. STT is slightly larger now than the original two-person core team, but their available resources have been especially limited due to complicated intellectual property issues; Jussi said, “You wouldn’t believe the amount of diligent individuals it has taken to make this transfer the amicable success that it is!.” Our conversation lasted for about a half hour.

I will not be able to make any major announcements on their behalf today, sorry. What I can tell you is that STT are working around the clock to ready a variety of feature enhancements and compatibility refinements for products and services which promise to remain wholly sports-centric. Jussi agreed with my opinion that the “Ovi Journeys: The Evolution of Sports Tracker” recent write-up is more of an evolution of the former “Vine” project than anything to do with the new STT. Nokia wil remain in the picture, solely and importantly (imo), as a client of STT.

One thing is clear: STT are passionate about their horizons and are committed to the development and integrity of the Sports Tracker service.

I will continue my dialogue with STT later this week, so stay tuned.

I ran the 2009 TjurRuset terrain race on Saturday and although my intention was to just have fun with the event, I wound up learning more about myself as a runner than I had in many years. 10 truly grueling kilometers of the annual run called “Tjur Ruset”, which literally translates into “The Bull Rush”. Essentially, the one-off design of the route  through forrest, marsh and boulders reduced most of us to appear as if we were indeed, a stampede of nervous bulls who were escaping from a slaughterhouse.

This year’s course was the toughest one in memory for anybody I interviewed. The event location doesn’t change, but the routes and *edit- changes every year, but kept secret until weeks before each start.-edit end* Additional obstacles are brilliantly arranged to be about as difficult to run as possible. Mother Nature decided to kick it all up a few notches with cold rain in an already wet Autumn. This year’s location was quite unique with sand dunes, rocky alpines and marshy quagmires, all in the same 5km radius. Add to that a few obstacle courses drawn right out of a Navy Seal bootcamp and you begin to get the picture. Most of the run was as fun as it was frustrating, save the 25% which we ran over slick, wet roots which I just didn’t have the right shoes for. (I ran in retired Asics Cumulus with no traction left)

The entire length of the course was a virtual roller-coaster of sick ascents and dangerous downhills with your eyes glued to the ground ahead. After an immediate climb of a 50m, steep and sandy dune, the route narrowed quickly into single-track trails, bottlenecked with cold and anxious runners jostling for any shot to jump ahead.

Advice was issued to all to take it easy in the beginning, which is usually sensible for any race of 10km or longer. However, it’s advice which I’ll blatantly ignore next year and here’s why: The more runners that get by you in the beginning, the more congestion you’ll see later on when the field bottlenecks with hundreds of runners. More than five times my efforts were helplessly reduced to a slow queue of hikers rather than runners. In the end, one’s finish time and placement would not be a result of their physical condition and fighting spirit alone. Lesson learned: Get and stay ahead early and hold on as long as your body can handle it. Those who had this strategy had run this before. Most of the top finishers, and both male and female winners, were orienteers.

The wrong strategy aside, I had magnificent fun sloughing through the mud. That said, I ended up with an embarrassing 1:04:58, just coming in in the top 1.500 of 5.000 terrain-trotters. With a little more conditioning, an aggressive strategy and proper orienteering shoes, I’ll be looking forward to doing this event again next year.

At the finish line.

**A special thanks goes out to my wife, Sanna, who made her debut appearance of support for me on my last event of the year. It wasn’t easy as she had our five month old daughter in the cold and rain for about two hours while waiting for me. Muahh!

*New* Added 20.10.2009…

Click here for an article by Torbjörn Sköldefors of Marathon.se covering this year’s event. (Swedish)

Click here for a photo gallery of TjurRuset 2009 by photographer Martin Ekequist.

Thanks to Vaibhav Sharma of TheSymbianBlog, we had news yesterday from the Ovi Maps team that Nokia Sports Tracker Beta (NST) is “evolving” into a Maps component, called Ovi Journeys. I’ve been anticipating a move like this ever since Nokia made a statement that they would be “…giving Sports Tracker wings…” a couple months ago.

For those of us who have been following NST closely from the beginning, the last time the it’s developers (Ykä Huhtala and Jussi Kaasinen) engaged their audience directly was about a year ago. Since then there’s been a virtual blackout, save for server change/downtime announcements. And yes, I am including the Polar for Nokia heart rate monitor experiment. In today’s fast-paced and crowded application market, many notable apps have been refined by developers directly responding to user feedback. However, if our guys at NST are listening, no one would ever know.

When Ykä and Jussi were last publicly asking about what NST users were thinking, it was surrounding the Nokia Vine Project. Those of us who had fallen in love with SportsTracker saw Vine as a probable successor to the sports-centric app. It made perfect sense when you considered the most universally applicable aspects of NST; Geo-tagging captured media along a recorded route. All the runners, cyclists and skiers using NST combined would be dwarfed by a well-impemented social geo-networking service using the same tools NST provides. Admitting this to myself, I was waiting for Vine to take over NST sometime soon in December 2008. Then, suddenly, Vine went dark and its embeddable tracking widget stopped working in January 2009.

February rolls around and Nokia announces NST will be adding heart rate monitors in a joint venture with Polar. Looking back, this had to be one of the worst handled bits of news for NST. Initially I was elated that my favorite app was not only showing signs life, but seemed to have more momentum than ever. The addition of heart rate stats confirmed NST as the king of the mountain. Packaged and promoted correctly, I saw NST as a potentially better athletic tool than anything Suunto, Garmin or Polar currently had. You got route recording, vital statistics, maps, camera, music, phone and everything else typical of a S60 device versus an expensive wristwatch with all kinds of accessories to buy.

So, what happened? The NST/Polar for Nokia (N79 Active Edition) announcement had an incredible public response initially. A cute YouTube video promoting the package gets hundreds of thousands of views. Nokia Beta Labs (NBL) Sports Tracker forum lights up as the most actively commented application. Questions came often and from everywhere looking for release dates. NBL moderators told us the NST devs were overwhelmed with their workload and would no longer be able to respond to questions, but that the team was “silently listening” to all feedback given. Eventually, we learned that the N79 AE and Polar for Nokia accessory was just an experiment, a test if you will. No details were ever given to the status of the project and NST’s devs became more silent than ever before. Only three test markets (NO, FI and ZA) would see a very limited release of the N79 AE and the Polar for Nokia accessory would only make it into the hands of a lucky few.

Then, on July 30 of this year came this announcement from Nokia Conversations: “Nokia is not killing Sports Tracker, but giving it some wings and will discontinue the Nokia Sports Tracker beta towards the end of 2009 migrating it to Sports Tracking Technologies…Given more breathing room, the Sport Tracker guys will be able to start developing other related sports apps.” 10 weeks later and we have yet to hear from our guys at NST about anything.

Back to the news which broke yesterday calling Ovi Journeys an “evolution” of NST.

I don’t care how you spin it, as good as Ovi Journeys sounds as a more practical implementation of NST’s basic tool-set, please don’t call it an evolution for the app. To the contrary, it’s the death of Nokia Sports Tracker Beta and is Nokia’s way of salvaging their stake in the popular app. An EVOLUTION for NST would be a more stable mobile app, adding richer workout analyzations and fitness calculators/tools to its web services and for it’s developers to re-establish open dialogues with their loyal users.

With nearly 3000 km recorded in the last calendar year alone (running only) using NST, tons of forum feedback, bug reporting, assisting other users, promoting the service and proud owner of a N79 AE, I’m self-qualified as a loyal user. How about some news from Sports Tracking Technologies? Please.

Lidingöloppet 2009 medal

Two days after Lidingöloppet and my body is giving me all the signs needed to finish writing my race-day assessment of my 2:44:02, 2009 performance:

Distance Training- 8/10. Following a three month training gap, I began preparing for this event in August. I jumped right into the last nine weeks of my 20-week marathon schedule. 635km in 9 full weeks for an average of 70km/week; 10km/day. This may have been too sudden but the distance workouts all went well, including a slow-dry run on the actual course three weeks ago (30km/2:52:00). When I say slow, I kept an even 5:25/km pace and a heart rate under 140 bpm to preserve my legs, while adding endurance and mental stamina.

Adjustments for 2010: Foundation should have started at least a month earlier.

Speed/Hill Training- 3/10. I basically failed in this category. I normally allocate one day a week (Tuesdays) for speed work. This was simply not enough for the hilly demands of Lidingöloppet. But I didn’t even stick to that schedule and missed all but a few sessions which came toward the end of the nine-week plan. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to have done the last few speed sessions without having done the earlier ones; Too much late program body fatigue.

Adjustments for 2010: Not only for Lidingöloppet, I simply have to value my speed work more going forward. Specifically for Lidingöloppet, I need those speed sessions and hill-work. Also, I want to plan my daily routes to play more specific roles within my training plan.

Sleep- 4/10. Nothing I could have done to change this. My four-month-old daughter continues to bring us all the perfect joys and challenges of parenthood. We’re still doing feedings at 24, 03 and 06. Add work, home-improvements and 12-15 hours/week for running… getting proper sleep is a challenge. I manage to piece together five hours a day for sleep, which works for me mentally. Physically, the recovery demands my body requires have not been met. I know I would have performed better with eight hours sleep.

Adjustments for 2010: Obvious.

Nutrition- 7/10. I ran this race 5kg over what I planned for. Prior to the nine weeks of prep, I gained nearly 10kg during summer holidays and not working out properly. My diet over the last nine weeks has been fairly good, with a few indulgences (homemade ice cream) on the weekends. Out of respect for my lack of sleep, I should have been compensating with higher protein ratios.

Adjustments for 2010: Hmm. Don’t gain 10kg.

Race strategy- 5/10. My plan was good, it just wasn’t right for my current fitness level; Fail. A week ago I ran a routine 8km run at a 4:30/km pace while keeping my heart rate out of my upper zone and feeling like a moderate effort. I felt great and energized afterwards and thought I’d be able to keep, at least, this pace for the first 24km. Instead, zig-zag’ing, bumping and running off the trail pushed my heart rate up and my pacing down. Continued…

Race-day variables- 6/10. The event was spectacular, and so was the weather. Of the things in my control, my start group placement was pretty miserable; I was in group 4 of 9 and showed up late to the starting line. There is no “net-time” on this race, either. I wasn’t able to run interrupted until km 8, zig-zag’ing and bumping along. Soon after km 8, I fell on a steep downhill section, leaving me a bit battered and bloody. Bottom line: I need a better start group.

Adjustments for 2010: For my benefit at every large event, I need to find a good, flat and fast 10km race to nail down an excellent qualifying time. This year, Lidingöloppet start group “2″ qualifying time was 43:00/10km, 39:59 for ‘”1C”. Also, wear gloves in case of falls.

Next race: Tjur Ruset on October 17th is a 10km “tuff-man” event.

I suppose it’s a little bit funny that I’m so excited for this event after reading my “Urban or Suburban” post, but I am. The Lidingöloppet’s main race on Saturday is a 30km cross-country run on the picturesque island of Lidingö, a Northern suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. I lived here back in 2001 and I’ve missed it ever since I moved.

Lidingö has an area about 25% the size of Manhattan, but with only 30,000 inhabitants, leaving a lot of room for outdoor recreation. You’ll also find Sweden’s best sports training facility here, Bonsön, nestled on the island’s North side in the midst of Lidingö’s vast network of well-maintained trails. Many of these trails see race activity year-round; X-country skiing, running and triathlon.

I’ve been looking forward to this event for a number of reasons, mostly because I missed out on the majority of my intended races, thankfully due to the birth of my daughter now 4,5 months old and beaming with beauty. I’ve since worked out my time budget with my wife to allow 12-15 hours a week to train.

Lidingöloppet is a tough course which only gets tougher as you go. The first 20km are relatively easy, but it’s the ups and downs of the final 10km which puts strain on everyone’s threshold of pain. The killer for me comes around 25km with an uphill section that leaves you tempted to use your hands to help climb it.

No excuses for this race: I’ve done all the training I could fit in; Injury-free and feeling strong; Weight is… OK, I’m as lean as ever but all the extra hill work has added muscle all over. The added strength is much needed but I can feel that extra weight sapping efficiency from my stride on long distances.

Participants who finish the 30km race under 2:15 (4:30/km) receive a silver medal honor. Realistically, this is just out of reach for me as I predict a time closer to 2:30 (5:00/km). If the course was flat and the temperature fell to 14C, I could hit 2:07 for right now. However, Lidingöloppet will be crowded, forecasted at 20C and saturated with late leg-destroying climbs. Bottom line, I’ll be happy to remain under 5:00/km for the end tally.

My start number is 41257, in group 6 of 11 at 13:00. Lidingöloppet’s 30km race is Saturday, the 26th.

Lidingöloppet race profile image

In other news, this weekend is also the last of a two-week Stockholm Beer and Whisky festival. I’ll stick to melon post-race, my favorite recovery food.

I’m not sure when I first began using the term “beta” with my Nokias, but I think it was Opera for S60 Symbian on my Nokia 3650. However, I really ramped things up on the beta-front when I bought my E61. Back then (2006), I was excited for the E61′s connectivity, namely WiFi. Not for the most-used app’s like web-browser and email, but for VoIP calling which I had been using for years via PC. The E61 was one of Nokia’s first handsets to get WiFi and it was rumored that VoIP calling was possible on it, so I bit.

Not so fast. What it took a bio-chem engineer with little IT knowledge to get a VoIP account set up on that E61, months before a fix via firmware update helped everybody else, was countless hours of frustration and just as many handset hard-resets. Most importantly though, my quest to find a workaround led me to a whole new world. I began to see that there were lots of new developers with budding applications and tools which were designed to unlock the potential of my handset, be it VoIP or something else; A file browser which gave me access to previously hidden folders/drives, or a GPS logger, a scientific calculator or translating dictionary. No I didn’t need an “app store”, Google was fine.

Early 2006 there were hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny apps for Symbian and Java. Many of which used the term “beta”. I soon discovered that many devs never intended to finish their “betas” due to copyright and/or compensation ambiguities/workarounds. These were the “eternally beta” selections; Basically, these are mostly stable apps with flexible developers. And a SMART developer could apply user feedback to instantly help his fan base, or his “donation” pot, grow a bit larger.

Enter Nokia Beta Labs. With a small handful of apps to begin with, including Nokia Sports Tracker and Gizmo for S60, Nokia seemed to have a brand new playground for me. Just don’t look up “beta” in any dictionary for its useful definition. No, Nokia Beta Labs is a beta project in and of itself and every application on their site comes with its own rules and stories which, too, are constantly changing. Some apps have devs extra curious to their user’s wants and needs, while other dev teams might be surprised to find out that their app is a part of Nokia Beta Labs in the first place. Regardless, I can’t figure why a dev team wouldn’t want to be all over their user feedback. Granted, as a Contributor of the Month recipient at Nokia Beta Labs myself, I have seen a heaping ton of worthless feedback. Yet amongst the noise you’ll find some fantastic ideas and realistic user participation/expectations… full of excitement.

So the term beta, as it historically applies to software applications remains as vaguely defined as ever: Use at your own risk, Use may be revoked at any time, May cause damage, May not be used in a production environment, May be eternally in beta, May not be used in your region. Beta may be a marketing tool; Spread the word, get’um hooked. Nevertheless, if it means unlocking my handset’s potential, with a chance to help mold an app or simply glimpse at what’s around the corner… If it looks like it will add functionality… Back up my phone and load it on.

If today’s beta projects ever had a shining example of what to do and how to do it, then it might be Gravity for S60 Twitter client. Near perfect execution by just one developer, Jan Ole Suhr of Mobileways.de. Conversely, perhaps the worst example of a beta-phase execution is in my beloved Nokia Sports Tracker; In 2007, it had no competitive counterpart. Now, its two developers, Ykä Huhtala and Jussi Kaasinen, besides an occassional note about server changes/status and the rare app update are going to find it difficult to stand out after their separation with Nokia. Their style of, as quoted on the Nokia Beta Labs website, “Quietly listening” to feedback will have to change.

No matter what, “beta” should imply and encourage momentum, if not velocity, in ever-growing application markets. It should be the budding developer’s calling card and handshake.

I have to ask, what is your preference, “Urban or suburban?”.

I moved out of the city in June to be near my family after the arrival of my first child. All-in-all, it was a great decision. Grandmothers, parents and sister-in-law, all here to help out with my wife’s extended leave of absence to take care of our daughter, Amelia.

Running-wise, the conditions are ideal. Especially for our local network of well-lit and perfectly maintained walking/cycling paths.

However after a couple of months in, I find myself longing for the subtly-more-exciting streets of Stockholm. Yet I feel a bit guilty; Here in Åkersberga I’m on the edge of a vast wilderness. Kilometer upon kilometer of rolling trails, fresh air and no one to see or get in the way.

The problem is, I miss the city.  I miss the nightly stories I used to put together with all the sights I took in on my nightly runs. Be it a crazy panhandler, a rowdy group of party-ers, or simply the company of fellow runners, I just miss the aspects of the city which made the time fly by and the excuses to leave the earbuds out so I might hear what’s going on as I passed by.

Now, I get fresh air without automobiles. I get kilometer after kilometer of wilderness; Trees, horses and the occasional fox, deer or moose. So why does it sound like I’m complaining? I shouldn’t be. Life out here is billed as cleaner.

Stockholm Urban

Still, I long for my city runs. 24km of woods is a bore compared to the same through the heart of congestion, potential trouble and wear on the knees.

This is where I live and I’ll be happy here regardless, but I just thought I’d see if I was alone in my city running preferences.

Åkersberga Rural

Tomorrow’s run… A trip into the city for a lovely 25km jaunt around what I miss so much.

Midnattsloppet 2009

The timing of this race is perfect for me. Not because I’m prepared to reach for a new PR, far from it, rather this 10km race is designed for some fun.

Held on my old stomping-ground of Södermalm (nearly all my training runs took place here before I moved back in June), Midnattsloppet will be packed with 21.500 participants of all abilities. Nine start-groups will start five minutes apart, beginning at 22:00.  Some dressed in costume while the entire rest of us will be donning the official, strange-shade-of-green, Midnattsloppet 2009 shirts.

I entered just days ago and, out of 21.500, I am nr 20.431 and in the last start-group. So no personal-best tonight, just a great night out around Södermalm and maybe a recovery beer afterwards.

Pictures from the event tonight will be fed back to this post, so check back.

I won the N79 Active Edition Grand Prize through Nokia’s “Track a Heart” contest!  It arrived about a week ago and, now that I’ve had tome time with it, I’m going to share my experiences here.

This review will mostly cover the experiences unique to the N79 Active Edition, including the Polar for Nokia Bluetooth heart rate belt.

First, I have to thank Nokia Innovations and the NST Dudes (as they affectionately refer to themselves) for providing me with the N79 Active Edition (hereafter N79AE).

Regarding the N79 handset itself, detailed reviews have been around for quite a while, so I’ll make this brief. The N79AE only differs from the standard N79 by adding an arm pouch and the Polar for Nokia heart rate belt (hereafter Polar4Nokia). My first impressions of the handset are very favorable and its S60 3rd ed fp2 is a nice upgrade from my former E61. The phone is gorgeous, lightweight and packed with all the Nseries features, making it one of the best valued Nokia handsets when considering features to the price. At present, only “Seal grey” color is offered for the N79AE. Regardless, at 97 grams, it’s easy to see why the feature-laden N79 was chosen for the AE bundle. Very good choice, guys!

The arm pouch.

pros- Well-constructed, attractive, lightweight, breathable backing with a wide, soft and easy to put on velcro strap feels comfortable against my skin. I hardly noticed the arm pouch during a recent four hour long run. When the handset is in place, navigating the menus through the neoprene face works quite nicely, albeit for the major keys only (forget the numeric keypad).

cons- Snug compartment makes it difficult to pop the phone out for on-the-run captured media. Putting the phone back into the snug compartment often causes buttons to be pushed on the face and top of the handset, activating things/menus you didn’t want and worse, turning the phone off. The phone compartment isn’t merely snug, the clear plastic window sticks to a clean handset face like glue and handset sounds are muffled too much.

Polar4Nokia.

This accessory comes in two components; 1) Fabric HR belt and 2) Bluetooth heart rate monitor.

The first component is a Polar-standard, soft fabric HR belt. You can find these anywhere Polar products are sold and, for the ladies, can be found in special Polar sports bras. The belts are fitted with two snaps which hold the receiver/transmitter in place and double as electronic leads.

The second component is the recent Holy Grail for NST users, the Polar Bluetooth transmitter. When worn, the belt is comfortable and is no different than any other fabric Polar belts. The electrode snap interface from the BT module to the fabric belt is a Polar standard. The Polar4Nokia transmitter activates when it is worn and detects your heart rate. The unit requires a small battery which is supposed to be good for 150 hours of use. I wish it was rechargeable, especially in light of Nokia’s hope for a green reputation. My old Polar belts saw up to 1500 hours of use before replacement.

GPS

GPS chipset performance is very good. So good, in fact, that I want to confirm whether or not the N79AE contains an upgrade. I cannot find any specs on the specific chipset used, although Nokia has always used chipsets from Texas Instruments in the past. I’m able to observe 32 channels of reception, with relatively fast TTFF (time to first fix). I recommend waiting a couple minutes AFTER the familiar NST green “GPS ok” light to lock in the max number of satellites for better workout data accuracy. GPS performance so far without using A-GPS has provided me with better data than I’ve seen with three different external BT GPS receivers I used in the past with my former E61.

Accessing rolling data.

This is going to take some getting used to. I have used Polar wristwatch HR monitors continuously since 1992. The whole point of a heart rate monitor is to make accessible current HR data for the purposes of your activity. So, for 17 years I have been used to looking at my watch for instant HR figures and preset alarms for necessary HR ranges. Presently, this is the only real design flaw of the N79AE as easy screen access takes some adjustments and the phone has NO alarms for HR range values. User suggestions for the current setup are as follows:

1) You must wear the arm pouch on you forearm or wrist. You simply cannot see the data if the pouch is on your upper arm.

2) You should switch the screen orientation to landscape only, disabling auto-rotate. Otherwise, the constant motion of running makes the auto-rotation feature go crazy.

3) You have to wear the earbuds if you want to hear the faint lap tones. The snug arm pouch muffles away even most ringtones in urban environments. I may not have the best hearing anymore but I couldn’t hear lap tones, nor ring tones while running next to traffic. Earbuds in with no music playing, problem solved. Still the faint lap tones need to be addressed in future builds.

4) Disable auto-keypad locks. If you want to see your progress with a single tap, you need to disable auto-lock. The N79AE has a nifty unlock slider at the top of the handset, but accessing it gets a little tricky in the arm pouch.

Summary

On a scale of 1-5, I’m giving the N79AE a “4″ , citing the following minor obstacles in the way of a perfect rating: Difficult to remove phone on run, Access to data on run and No HR range alarms. Otherwise, I couldn’t be more happy than I am with this setup. Overall, the N79 on its own is a fantastic representation of why I love Nokia. But the N79AE bundle is a real treat and an excellent addition to one’s workout arsenal. When I first heard of the N79AE, I knew I had to have it. Now that I do, it doesn’t disappoint.

Absolutely recommended!

I’ll post more about this innovative fitness bundle after a bit more use, including a Sports Tracker introduction and details on product availability. So check back in a couple weeks!

-David