Wednesday 16 December 2009

I've slacked a bit but is this the answer?

I've not been great with my running over the last week or so with only a 5 miler with LG on Sunday to my name. In fact to be honest, I'm being put to shame by LG who ran another 4.3 miles yesterday while I went for something to eat and drink with some buggers which was better than actually running! Speaking of which, it's lucky I plan my runs via runningAHEAD before I go out as I managed to get lost yesterday. Twice. In the same place. With a map. Is it worth buying a Sat-Nav just for occasional use? For me, it's like a Garmin. Very useful when you want it but most of the time, I can't really see the point!

Anyway, I digress. Which I'm sure most of you are used to by now.

This blog needs to have a point (well at least should) so here's today's. Like a few others I'm sure, I was recently sent some free downloads of Audiofuel tracks. In fact I was sent most of the same tracks by 2 different people which was nice but a little overkill maybe. However, it has been something I've looked at before to try it out so getting the chance to is all good but here's the thing, as I've been running with LG a lot recently, I haven't really had the chance! As I'm running slower and not pushing myself, it's not the best time to try it but soon, you will have a review from me. In the meantime, my LG used it yesterday so those thoughts are here.

But first, if you haven't heard of Audiofuel, let me explain as best I can. It's not for me to sell this to you so these are purely my thoughts. OK, Audiofuel say:  'AudioFuel is custom composed running music with a beat to match and drive your stride'. OK. Good logic, run to a beat and keep to a pace and therefore have a good workout. They have low, mid and high intensity.... or blue, green and red intensity or indeed..... 'walking and running', 'running' and 'fast running' intensity. Within these they have coaching and non coaching versions. The difference being that the coaching versions have an over-enthusiastic man telling what you're doing like occasionally counting the beats to make sure you're at the correct pace etc.

I was sent a green 'coaching' version and a variety of red tracks. They all last around 40-45mins which I think is quite a good time for a run. With LG being a beginner, only running properly for a month and running on average just under 10 minute pace, the green mid intensity seemed the sensible option so off she went.

LG's thoughts were as follows: In a nutshell... she really enjoyed it. It builds you up to a good pace moves your pace up and down and she felt comfortable and only struggled when it went at 165bpm for a while. One of the negative things was the 5 minute warm down you get. LG was still getting home and wanting to do a fast finish and the voice in her head (as it were) was telling her to slow down. This was resolved by skipping back to the beginning again and listening to that bit to speed it up a bit.

Then came the bad bit. Her pace was 10.22 for 4.3miles which is the slowest LG's run in a while and she didn't feel she was having to push it through most of the run. I'll be interested to see where the 'fast running' intensity gets me when I use it in a few weeks time. Where's that going to pitch me? 8:00 pace? 8.30 pace? 9:00 pace? They're just guesses but seems to be a gap there  somewhere. Maybe someone can let me know. Maybe they're not designed for pace runs and more and all round workout in which case I quite like just to plod along. Does anyone know if the tracks have their own 'pace'? i.e Mid intensity means 10:00 pace??? Hmmm. I'm looking forward to giving one of these a go but a little sceptical regarding how far I can run for and whether I'll end up half a mile from my house and told that it's then end? How do I judge how far to run when I'm not sure what pace I will be running at?? I'M CONFUSED!!!!!

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