No Run for Two Weeks, I'm Sick

I got a flu from my little Pierre, actually, both my wife and me got a flu from Pierre. It was hard the last week but now we are feeling much better, I think I'll be able to run this weekend. :D

20th Run, Juan Les Pins.

Wednesday was rainy again. I guess I need to be more reactive to the weather so run once during the weekdays whenever there is no rain. Also, it's getting even colder these days, it's not easy to convince myself to go out for a run.

Fortunately today is really nice, but when I went out today for my run, it was a bit late and the sun was going down the hill so I decided to run only 5kilo this time, instead of a regular 10kilo.

Right in the middle of the run, I heard some applause from my iPhone, it also pops up a small window saying that my friend Peter just put a comment to my run posted by Nike+ GPS when I started. That is the first time I got the middle run cheers and I feel really happy. Many thanks to Peter, however, I wasn't able to run faster even with his cheers :S

Here is the result.

10 Kilo De Grasse, Results

Today I received a special version of a local newspaper "Nice-Matin". It's a special version about the running competition took place at Grasse last Sunday.

And inside, there are the official results with ranking. So here is mine:

51'32'' ranking: 931/1479

I'm surprised :D

19th Run, Cap d'Antibes, Test Nike+ GPS 2.2

It's an incredibly nice day today, and it will rain tomorrow, so I decided to run today instead of Sunday. It rained this Wednesday so I didn't run that day and this made me feel energetic in this run.

Here is the result.

Also this is the first test of Nike+ GPS 2.2 that has been released the first December, it is announced as a bug fix release. 

Well a dedicated bug fix release  usually means the bugs are really serious :D Maybe it's about the "Last Kilo Problem" I had for my last several runs? 

The result seems quite positive, the map is shown correctly this time, so that the "Last kilo problem" seems to have been fixed, but how knows? I'm still looking forward to the next run to confirm. 

Are you also using Nike+ GPS? So go to app store and update and test it :D

18th Run, Grasse

Yes! It's today the competition "10kilo de Grasse" I've registered weeks ago.

The dark side is that it's a rainy and cold day and my new shirt with long sleeves that my wife bought weeks ago is not delivered yet so I have to run with my bare arms wet.

But the light side is that my friend Jerome lives there and he helped me a lot and was there supporting me together with my wife and my little Pierre. Also, the road is quite flat even though Grasse is a town in the mountain area. Also again, Grasse is a beautiful town who is famous of it's perfume. Running there shall be enjoying even in the rain.

Not a lot to say about the run, just one thing that impressed me quite a lot, it's cold with the rain, but when waiting to start, I didn't feel the cold at all, because, look at the photo below, we are packed.

Here is my number, somebody has his or her name on it, but I don't, not sure how they did it.

During the run, I kept my rhythm quite well and finally, I made it in 50'50 according to my Nike+ GPS which recorded 9.87 kilo. The official result will come soon.

Unfortunately, there is always a problem with the last part of the run which is not correctly shown on the map. I doubt there is a bug somewhere, either the Nike+ GPS, either the Google map. As it's always the last part of the run that can not be correctly shown which is about 1 kilo, I'd like to name it as "the last kilo bug". (I'm a programmer, I usually number bugs but sometimes I name bugs too. :D )

Finally, great thanks to my friend Jerome who is very hospitable and helped me a lot the whole day. Also great thanks to my wife and my little Pierre who were there supporting me in the cold rain.

17th Run, Sophia Antipolis

Fortunately it did not rain today, even though we had really thick black clouds over the head. We decided to go anyway, and this would be my last run before the Sunday's "10 kilo at Grasse".

5.6kilo non-stop in the mountain trail which was still wet and slippery. I felt good and ready for this Sunday.

16th Run, Cap d'Antibes Inversed

It has been another rainy weekend, however, fortunately, we had a short period of two hours clear day in the Sunday afternoon, which is just my run time.My plan today was to run the Cap d'Antibes, unlike usually I take counter clockwise circle, today, I'd like to do a clockwise run. Well, clockwise or counter clockwise, it does not make a lot of differences if the the route is flat, but it's not the case here so I'd like to give it a try.

Also, I'd like to test the new Nike+ GPS v2.1 functionalities. However, I had several problems in this run. First of all, the tracking data seems incomplete, I ran 11kilo and Nike+ GPS reported this correctly but the route is not correctly shown on the map which is powered by Google. Not sure where has been going wrong. In the snapshot below we can see that the kilometer marks are correctly placed but the run ends at about 7 kilos which is marked in the finish point information as 11kilos. The actual finish point is 4kilos later though.

This reminded me last time I had the similar problem, I accelerated a lot for the last 600 meters that time and Nike+ was unable to collect the right data. I did accelerated for the last part this run because it's all the way down the hill!

Conclusion, I shouldn't run too fast with my Nike+ GPS otherwise it won't be able to track my run data.

OK, now the new functionality, as claimed on the upgrade page, post to Facebook is enhanced, let's see what's that enhancement.

After I finished the run, there is alway the button lets me to share this run, and I tapped on it and now something is different, I'm able to give a summary of  the run now. Like this:

That's better, let's say, "I feel much better now!" :D Then here is what has been posted on Facebook.

Well again, I did that twice because the first time Nike+ GPS just crashed and I was brought back to the springboard, I had to restart the application and share the run again.

Anyway, I achieved my fastest 10k today, it took me 55'36. Contributed today 11+1 kilos (I ran another short 1kilo to go back home faster :D ) to the PACA, always at the third place.

Also contributed to Run Back To Beijing 12kilo, now I have achieved 130kilos in total. 

Nike+ GPS Version 2.1 Release!

There is another update from Nike+.

The version 2.1 enhanced previous one with one feature, now you can shuffle your music. Well, personally, this is not quite interesting for me because I do not listen while running, listening distracts me. But it should be interesting those who enjoy music while running.

Also the Facebook post is improved, I'll see how it is improved with this afternoon's run :)

Go to App Store and get your v2.1 quick!

15th Run, Sophia Antipolis - Carrefour

Yesterday's rain made the mountain trails extremely slip so dangerous. My colleagues were discouraged and preferred not to go, as a result, I went alone. At least, I can run on the road which is less risky.

Also I'd like to take this opportunity to buy a piece of sausage for tomorrow's small party to celebrate the 2010 Beaujolais Nouveau arrival, proposed by my French colleagues. So I went running, and on the way back, I paused my Nike+ and went into the supermarket Casino hunting some sausages. Interestingly, they put the sausages right at the entrance, how smart they are :D  Finally, I end up with one piece from Corse, hope it's a good choice.

Here are the results. One thing to mention, it seems that Nike+ managed to calculate the time and the pace correctly with the pause-continue. However, the pace shown on the map is not correctly calculated, the paused time is not subtracted.

14th Run, Golf-Juan, Juan les pins

It's late autumn here in the region. By the definition of the so called Mediterranean Climate, the winter is wet. 

It rained quite a lot last week, including the Wednesday, as a result, we didn't run that day because it's unsafe to run in the mountain area in or right after the rain.

This Sunday is not ideal neither, it rained a little the morning and it was cloudy all the afternoon. However, I felt strongly that I need to run, not only because I need keep in a ready state for the competition end November, but also because running makes me feel better. I'm addicted or what?

I set off faster than usual, and got quite exhausted soon because the last run had been seven days ago. At that moment, I realized the importance of the Wednesday's run. Then I had to slow down for all the rest until finally, I regain some energy and courage to accelerate just a little in order to finish the 10km in 1 hour.

Here comes the result:

I run a pipe :D

Registered to 10Km at Grasse, 28 Nov, 2010

I registered to the 10km at Grasse 2010!

It's little late and I missed the good price, which is 11 euros before 1 Nov, and 9 euros before 10 Oct. Now it is 13 euros :( But OK, as a payback, I have the right to run on the Avenue Thiers dedicated to the runners, and a T-shirt. 

The run is interesting also because Grasse is a beautiful town itself and it's famous for it's long history and most importantly, the perfume making. So it will be a good reason to bring my wife and my little Pierre together with me there.

Grasse is a town located in the mountain area, however the organizer managed to figure out a route that is perfectly flat.

   

This year's event is more interesting because there will be a "La Grassoise" run meaning literally Grasse women which aims at attracting more female runners. The distance is only 5.6km and requires two person, a man with a woman to register together and run together! Also all female runners will receive a surprise at the end.

13th Run, Cap d'Antibes

It was a great weekend to run. Unfortunately I went out a little late at 4:40pm and at November, the sun goes down at 5pm. As a result, I ran with the lamps by the roadside and the headlight of cars all on. A little bit annoying but never mind, I finished my 12km.

Here comes the result:

Also with this Sunday's 12km, I ran accumulated more than 100km already since I started tracking my runs with the Nike+ GPS.

I burned out 6872 Calories which, by a rough calculation, can push a car to move 8 meters :D

However, this run has not been populated to Facebook when started neither when ended for unknown reason.

Haile Gebrselassie Stops Running

Just read this in the news. A runner of miracle.

Here is the wiki of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Gebrselassie

12th Run, Sophia Antipolis

This weekend was probably the worst day I've ever had here in Cote d'Azure, it had rained continuously for four days, ruined completely not only my Sunday's run but also the holiday of Toussaint which was Monday and Tuesday that I was off too.

So today it's necessary to have a good run and fortunately it's really a nice day with great sunlight and comfortable temperature. We were three today and we took the usual route. The girl took a shortcut, however, after twenty minutes and the rest of us ran without any stop and we did it in 39 minutes.

Today we took a long long lunch break and got back to work quite late, it's really the best time to sit under the sunlight eating and chatting with friends after running.

Confirmed, Empty Map Problem is Temporary

I tried to display my pace of the last run I have, now everything goes perfect. So I can conclude that the empty map is just temporary caused by unknown reason.

 

11th Run, Sophia Antipolis, First Test of Nike+ GPS 2.0.1

 

Again, it’s an ideal day to run, but what excited me more is I’m going to see what’s new in the Nike+ GPS 2.0.1.

I started a new workout then at once, I noticed that there is another option in the “Run Setup” page. That is the “Get Cheers” option.

With a facebook icon, I immediately guess what this option does, probably it will sent a post to facebook saying I’m starting a new run so friends will know… OK, anyway, I turned it on then go on running.

And when I came back and open my facebook, guess what, I had two post there already. One is when I started the run and the other is when the run ended. Here is what I got for the start:

As we can see, “Comment of Like to send me some mid-run cheers”, well, nobody just commented or liked this post during I’m running, but it seems that if somebody every did that, I’ll get a kind of notice on my iPhone when I was running. It could be wonderful if it really works this way.

On the contrary, I don’t like very much the post at the end, mainly because the link brings you to the NIke+ main page instead of my run page as before.

Here is the old automatic post with a link to the run page:

Then, there is nothing special to say about the run itself. What surprised me is when I tried to see the route info as usual, I got an empty map. This really disappointed me. I hope this is just a temporary problem instead of a bug in 2.0.1.

An the same when I looked at the Pace page. BTW, I liked the way the pace is displayed with colors that shows you directly where I was fast and where I was slow. And this feature is not available on the website, so I really hope the empty map problem get fixed as soon as possible.

 

Summary,

Pros:
the “Get Cheers” during the run is pretty interesting, still to see how exactly it works.

Cons:
Run finished post on facebook does not have link to the run page, less informative.
Route info shows empty maps, to see if the problem persists.

Nike+ GPS, what's new in the latest 2.0.1 release?

The latest version of Nike+ GPS was released the 19 Oct. One interesting to mention in this new release is that you can share your activity directly from the application. Here I'll show you how to do it. 
First you need to upgrade your current Nike+ GPS 1.0.1 to 2.0.1. Just go to AppStore and search Nike+ GPS.

Tap on the search result will open the Nike+ GPS application page. For a user that already have Nike+ GPS installed, the update is FREE (well, shown in the screen capture is GRATUT in French).

Tap on the button FREE/GRATUT then install the update.  Just enable your WIFI connection if you have it, this will make the download much faster, After the installation finishes, open the application and go to settings, you will see two settings one for facebook and the other for twitter.

Tap Connect facebook for example. You are asked to enter you facebook login and password, then again, for security reasons, you are asked to authorize Nike+ to access your facebook information. Once your Nike+ GPS is connected to your facebook, you can enable Auto-Share so that your activities are posted to facebook at real-time.

That’s cool, isn’t it!

However, what confused me a little is that we also have the same functionality on the nikerunning.nike.com website, if you logged into your account, you can setup to post your activities to facebook and twitter and it works pretty well for me now. So what happens if I also enable Auto-Share in Nike+ GPS, will I have my one activity posted twice on facebook? That is one thing to be tested tomorrow.

10th Run, Antibes - Golf-Juan

As the weather becomes cooler, the running also becomes more pleasant. Today, the weather forecast said that it should be rainy again as last Sunday, however, it turned out to be a pretty nice day, no rain at all with a comfortable temperature of 15°C.

I decided to make a tour to the Golf-Juan port, it's a nice place that I love very much. It's been a place that I run frequently during the summer but I haven't been there for quite a few weeks. The best thing about the Golf-Juan port is that it's located exactly 5 kilometers away so the round trip is the ideal 10 kilo.

I set off a little bit late than usual and kept a pace of 5:30 per kilo. It's quite a surprise that I did not feel difficulty until 4 kilo. On the way back, I can still run up to the hill which is the last part and normally I can't do that.

Here are the stats:

With today's run, I contributed to the CAPA region another 10 kilo.

9th Run, Sophia Antipolis

Wednesday routine run. Not quite ‘en form’ but as we ran with a moderate pace it’s still enjoying.

8th run, Antibes Fort Carré

It’s not the best day for a run, the wind is strong, a little bit cold, heavy cloud, but I don’t really care.

I set off with a normal speed this will warm me up faster, and after two kilo, I stopped feeling any cold even with the wind becoming really strong at the beach. The sea became violent also and I can feel the sea water brought by the wind.

Nobody was there on the beach, I can remember how many people were there enjoying the sunlight during the summer, compared to that, the beach is really deserted now. The coming winter is also confirmed by an old man at the beach, who was collecting the broken tree branches brought by the wave. With his small hand saw, he cut the branches into pieces and put them into his old car. That’s for his fireplace, I believe.

At six kilo, it started to rain, quite big drops, accelerated by the gravity and also by the strong wind, it hurts a bit when hitting me. That did not bother me, the only issue is I tried quite hard to protect my iPhone, the only cover it has is my hand. Fortunately, it survived and continued working.

Took a picture of the old Antibes with the heavy cloud.

Also found a funny building on the way in the old Antibes. Big blue snails.

The cost of the pictures is that I lost about 5 minutes record, I forgot to resume the Nike+ GPS workout after taking the first photo. So here are the stats.

Notice that the straight line at the second kilo is not true but the approximation is acceptable. However, the pace is funny and buggy as usual, here it is.

With this workout, I contributed another 9.5 kilo to the CAPA region in the competition, now we have only 3200 kilo to catch up the second place!

Finally, I was quite impressed that when I got home and logged in my facebook, I already saw my run published! Then I remembered that I enabled the “Share my Activity” at nikeplus.com, that’s really cool. I highly recommend you to activate that too.

Courir pour une fleur, the Followup

Got an email weeks ago from the organizer, with a nice bird view picture of the start point. Share with you.

 

If you are interested in the final result, here it is, in brief, man’s first is 31’06 and woman’s first is 38’. Twice faster than me…

http://www.le-sportif.com/exe/main_resultats_fiche.asp?resma_id=520&cafi=MINIMAILING

7th Run, Sophia Antipolis

We had a bad day this Sunday so I didn’t go running, as a result, I’ve been waiting for today’s run impatiently. Friends said they would like to come and run together, but unfortunately, none of them finally came. So I ran alone. 

With today’s 5.6km, I finished my 50th km and reached the orange level (what are the levels?) I’m quite happy :D