I’ve been using The Stick ever since I suffered with a painful muscular injury to my hamstrings.

It has a very simple design – a slightly flexible plastic stick around which a set of plastic spindles can independently rotate. It is these spindles that work on your muscles to ease out knots and release tension.

It’s extremely effective and a superb substitute for daily massages for those not lucky enough to have a full time masseuse on hand.

You can use it almost anywhere on the body but I have found it particularly useful for the larger muscle groups such as the calves, quads, hamstrings and buttocks. It can be incredibly painful when you first start using it but you can control the pressure and it’s amazing how quickly the muscles loosen up and stop screaming.

I came across the Posture Pro and Footeez at the The Running School, I was just preparing for a high intensity blast on the treadmill but I was suffering from a niggling cramp in my calf. I was quite concerned that I was going to do myself a mischief so the running instructor had me sitting on the floor with the blue nobbly gadget under my calf. The trick is to roll back and forth using your body weight to apply quite forceful pressure to a defined spot. I found it to have a miraculous effect, clearing the knot within a minute or so. I bought these two the very same day.

I find that The Stick is ideal for routine treatment as a preventative measure while it is worth rolling out the Posture Pro when rapid remedial action is required. The Posture Pro does take a little bit of getting used to and is tricky to use without giving you carpet burns on your buttocks as you roll to and fro.

The Footeez is similar to the Posture Pro, another knobbly hard plastic cyclinder but is specially shaped for foot rolling. I use the two interchangeably to relieve the pain of plantar fasciitis. The podiatrist recommended the use of a golf ball for focused massage of the PF which is a far more economical method but I find it quite irritating. It’s hard to apply sufficient pressure to the heel region without the golf ball shooting out from under your foot and scuttling across the room. I soon get bored of retrieving it.

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

I have so many wrist and arm gadgets that I am holding out for an implantable chip so I can discard some of the clunky adornments. A chip for blood glucose levels, body temp, steps walked, calories input, distance travelled. It will be ANT enabled and my body can spill it’s beans when ever I switch on my computer.

In the meantime I have to get used to being called the household Lab Rat.

A new gizmo arrived yesterday for me to try out – The Trion:z Double Loop Bracelet.

It’s one of those magnetic bracelets typically associated with chronic sufferers of arthritis but re-styled for the athletic world. The Trion:z brand has managed to deeply embed itself within the sporting fraternity and you’ll see the coloured bands on the wrists of triathletes to golfers.

As with most of these “alternative” therapies, you’ve got to tread incredibly carefully when making any health claims. In fact I couldn’t find any on the leaflet that came with the bracelet. There was an emphasized quote, stating that Michellie Jones wouldn’t race without her Trion:z but it didn’t explain why.

Why won’t she race without it? I am puzzled.

What am I supposed to feel now I’ve put this thing on?

Reading the techy section of the website suggests that the bracelet is going to release negative ions which will inhibit the effects of the positive ion producing technology all around us.

I haven’t noticed any problems from the positive ions so far so I decided to check it out on the treadmill. Fan on, treadmill turning, iPod on – I must have been in positive ion hell or at least I might have been if it wasn’t for the bracelet of wonder.

It was an uneventful run but quite pleasant, no headaches but then that’s normal. No epiphany but maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough.

It’s quite a nice bracelet though and as it’s designed for sporty types it might not get a stinky as my Link of London friendship bracelet. I think it can stay for a while and take up valuable wrist real estate until the next must have gadget comes along. Who knows, the negative ions might surprise me.

I’ve been wearing KiFit body monitor for 3 weeks now and have just downloaded the stats for analysis.

I love this bit. I have masses of data points for each day and feel compelled to create myself a database to store it all in. I can look back on each day determine my calorie intake, activity level, calorie expenditure, sleep quality, nutrient %, alcohol overload and probably more.

At the moment I am having to make do with a spreadsheet but that is fascinating enough.

I’ve matched the daily calorie deficit with a predicted weightoss (on the basis of 3500 calorie deficit = 1 pound) and matched it with actual weightloss.

Despite having a marvelous second week, this last week has been pants and my three week total was a paltry 2lbs. The calculated cumulative deficit suggests I should have lost a far more acceptable 6 lbs. I’m not dejected though, as I have the data to fall back on.

A quick glance over the stats reveals a few discrepancies. I didn’t enter any food on the first day of registering the KiFit armband and another day I forgot to enter my dinner. These knocked the expected weightloss down to 5lbs and then Lynn started looking over it with a critical eye. “Did you record those chocolate orange segments on Friday night?”

What chocolate orange segments?

I staggered home somewhat inebriated on Friday and only vaguely remember stealing the kids sweets. Having been prompted though, a few more sins crept out of the woodwork. There had been a stick of rock upstairs for quite some weeks and that seemed to disappear on that Friday night too. I woke up on Saturday to find the wrapper in the bin. I “forgot” to enter the smoothie I had at lunch yesterday and Thursday’s 50g pack of peanuts was recorded as 1 peanut rather than 1 bag of peanuts.

Having cleared up the data my expected weight loss dropped to 4lbs and no doubt a few other items bypassed the recording phase on their way to my mouth. So I think we are sufficiently within the bounds of acceptable data entry error for me to accept the data and start to draw some conclusions.

I haven’t exactly been hitting all my targets and the only one I’ve surpassed is the calories consumed target. Not the best one to pick.

I’ve run over my daily calorie consumption as well and looked back to the days where I came in under the 1700 cal target. I think I’ve got loads of room for improvement and I should be able to make progress without too much pain.

Over the next 3 weeks I’ll be making renewed efforts to hit my step target and to limit the food intake – I need to build that calorie deficit up.

I’ve found the KiFit experience to be fascinating. I really am quite a sedentary beast at heart. I’ve had 25 mins on the treadmill today, running through a high intensity routine and have still only managed to record 600 steps by 8pm. It’s easy to see how you could lull yourself into a false sense of security by partaking in the occasional gym based exercise and spend the rest of the day with your feet up consuming recovery drinks.

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

I’ve been watching back to back episodes of the Biggest Loser for quite some time now and in the later series the Bodybugg became an integral feature on the flabby arms of the contestants.

I’m not sure why the new gadget took so long to register with me but within three days of me acknowledging the device and researching it on the web, I was donning the British version on my own flabby arm.

The British version is sold as the Ki Fit and looks the same as the US Bodymedia gizmo but the subscription service has supposedly been optimised for the UK market.

It’s a fairly pricey piece of kit or at least it becomes so once you’ve bought the obligatory subscription to the web service. I went down the expensive route and bought the premium option with the shortest subscription. Everyone in this household was very keen to point out that gadgets have a notoriously short half life for me, so I compromised and committed to 3 months only.

The KiFit is a 24/7 body monitoring device. It has a number of sensors that pick up movement, skin temperature, conductivity and who knows what else to determine your metabolic rate or calorie burn per minute.

I’ve no idea how accurate it is. Of course the website claims its super accurate and clinically proven but I’m a little cynical. I’ve still be drawn in though and by day 4 I am loving it. As with most things, such as weighing scales, fat percentage monitors and skin fold calipers, it is consistency that holds the key, absolute accuracy is probably a pipe dream.

This gadget enables me to derive some form of analytical study of my lethargic body. Calories out, activity rate, sleep efficiency and providing I log my food intake properly I’ve got the calories in part, sussed as well. It feels as though some element of control has been handed back to me. There is no need to guess whether I’ve balanced the activity and food well enough to put me into a calorie deficit.

The web service is key to bringing the whole thing together and I am incredibly impressed with the system. It works so well – even on a mac!

Here is the activity breakdown from today. I’ve been trying to get on my feet a bit more than usual, so I had a very short stint on the treadmill at lunchtime and a walk around the common before tea. On a working day I’ve been shocked to find that my time at work is no more taxing than a night in bed, my activity level rarely moves above comatose.

I’ve set the target at 10,000 steps per day, and given my days are generally pretty sedentary, its a reasonably stretching challenge. I was still on the treadmill at 11:45 last night trying to reach the desired number.

The sleep monitor perplexes me somewhat, I can’t decide what it detects. This recording comes from Friday night so I managed a long lie in and the best sleep efficiency rating to date. The past two nights I’ve recorded less than 5 hours sleep and regardless of the duration, my night is always broken into multiple chunks. Is it normal to wake so often?

Monitoring the calorie intake is obviously a vital part of the equation and I’ve found the website offers the best interpretation of a food diary that I’ve tried to date. The search facility is fast and accurate and enables you to select items by serving size or weight, which is very handy if you are eating out or with friends and don’t feel able to pull out the scales. Where food items aren’t available you can enter them extremely easily. I actually prefer to do this anyway so that I can be sure the data is accurate and it is particularly useful when when you make up a meal from scratch.

My only problem is that I can’t easily access the website from work so I use the Tap and Track iPhone app to record my intake during the day and then manually transfer the details in the evening. I notice the US site is offering a native iPhone app for recording food intake on the go and hope the UK version isn’t going to be far behind.

I’m going to maintain a photo food journal and kifit stats resource on the semi-anonymous posterous site. If you are interested in seeing my daily intake, feel free to check it out.

I think I’ve arrived late to the party but I’ve just stumbled upon a brilliant piece of software that can actually give Sporttracks a run for it’s money. TrailRunner is a superb piece of kit that acts as a standard GPS enabled training log but with added mapping and routing wizardry. I haven’t had enough time with it yet to provide a comprehensive review of all its features but I do still want to alert you to its routing functionality.

I’ve been looking ahead to the 16 and 20 mile long runs that form part of my marathon schedule and wondering how to find an inspiring route, possibly with some remote off roading and still ensure that I can get safely home at the end of it. The London Loop offers up some fairly secluded long distance trails but although it is signposted in parts, I know I would still get horrendously lost and throw my teddy out of the pram at mile 19.

I’ve therefore been looking for some way to carry the route with me. I’d just started looking round for yet another GPS gadget when I discovered that my trusty Garmin Forerunner 310XT will do the job for me (as would the 305). For some reason I had got it into my head that the 310XT didn’t support routes. In actual fact it doesn’t support routes but does support courses – I don’t know the difference but I do know that courses are just what I need.

This is where TrailRunner comes into the picture. TrailRunner is a 3 in 1 application: an activity journal, a mapping application and a route planning app.

Trailrunner stores all my routes, whether imported from GPS or created using it’s routing functionality, into my own personal network of tracks. I can also access the GPSies community to import nearby tracks and thereby beef up my own personal network.

I get the impression that network building could become quite a techy task. I’ve been reading the instructions and you have to get to grips with a glossary of GPS and mapping terms and occasionally help the program out by splitting and merging tracks.

Having done this though, the program unleashes functionality number 3 – the route planning function. Trailrunner can create a workout of a set distance based on my network, and if I rate the tracks in advance it will do it’s best to choose a loop taking in my favourite segments. Wizardry!

I’m importing my old workouts as we speak and mapping out the London Loop into 10 mile segments.

I can export any route held with TrailRunner to a number of different formats. If I choose TCX I can import the file to Garmin Training Centre and then send the course to my device. From here I can access it through the training menu. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

This isn’t a feature restricted to TrailRunner by any means. MapMyRun enables you to create routes and then export as a TCX file as does Google (I think), but TrailRunner is such an accomplished piece of kit that I can’t resist investing some time and effort into it.

DCRainmaker has prepared a useful illustrated walkthrough of how to create courses for the Forerunner 310XT (or 305/500/705) using MapMyRun as the route maker and Garmin Training Centre to upload to the device.

You don’t even need to have a Garmin sports watch to take advantage of these features either. RaceBunny is an iPhone app also by Berbie software that works seamlessly with TrailRunner. You can record GPS trails from the phone and import to the desktop software as well as downloading pre-recorded routes into the iPhone.

I’ve got quite a lot of dabbling and learning to do before I become adept at using TrailRunner, as you can see from my mapping example above I’ve got it riddled with waypoints. This isn’t necessary at all as you can link your trails to the map background. So in this case I am using the OpenStreetMap background which has all the legal trails already mapped, all I need to do is click to start my trail and the software miraculously follows the twists and turns to spit out a track.

When I’ve got a little more familiar with TrailRunner I’ll be back to give it a full review but if you love maps and gadgets and have a mac I’d really recommend you give this a go – it’s free and fantastic!

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

My new shoes arrived just in time for the weekend and as luck would have it the forecast was horrendous – perfect for a trail running showdown.

I’ve been looking around for some minimal trail shoes and as the New Balance Minimus doesn’t seem to be available in the UK yet, the clear choice was going to be inov8.

I’ve tried inov8 before and found the mudclaw to be a little on the narrow side, fortunately the Roclite 295 has a softer upper and a wider fit.

I thought they were marvelous and pranced around the house joyfully in my new shoes.

Our weekend plans saw us hiding away in a beautiful romantic Yurt, toasting our feet in front of the open wood stove, nibbling chocolates and sipping champagne.

My plan for a mudfest interlude didn’t go down too well, especially when I pulled out pre-ordered trail shoes for me and the old Mizuna Wave road shoes for Lynn.

I was in my element, mud, trails and forest – just perfect. It’s a long time since I’ve felt this happy on a run and cantered in out of the puddles and gloopy hollows and probably came within inches of getting a countryside ASBO.

Lynn wasn’t quite so overjoyed and maintained remarkably clean shoes despite sticking with me all the way.

I was offered a pair of Merrell Siren shoes to try out recently. They are a far cry from my recent spate of minimal running shoes but as I had a planned expedition to the Peak District I thought they’d be ideal for a few rough walks.

I’ve worked my way through many pairs of Merrell women’s shoes in the past, they look great and feel extremely comfortable but I’ve always felt let down by the soles which have proved to be very slippy on wet rock and pavement. These Siren shoes have very sturdy Vibram soles so I was hopeful that things might have improved in the intervening decade or so and with a lining of Merrell Gore-Tex they are clearly designed to be worn in all weathers.

We were in the Peaks for my birthday so my folks joined us for our first walk. We’d picked accommodation by the highest pub in Derbyshire which was fine when it came to drinking real ale with a view but became a bit hairy when we tried to descend the valley through a jungle of Gorse.

After 429 metres of moaning we abandoned the descent, got back in the car and headed off to Grindleford for the obligatory chip butty and a walk up and around the Longshaw Estate.

This is one of my favourite walks around the Peak District and it isn’t all about the chip butty.

It’s a steep climb up through the woods with a stream cutting through the valley to the right. When you reach the Estate the fields there are always teeming with an amazing variety of fungi.

The most exciting point of the weekend came when we spotted a clump of Stinkhorns. At least I thought so, the others appeared somewhat less impressed.

The Merrel Siren shoes held up extremely well but then they are so sturdy it is only to be expected. They were fairly clumpy for day to day pavement walking but on the trails they offered a degree of confidence that you only usually experience with a good walking boot.

When I think of ways to describe them I come up with words like, solid, dependable, secure. I really felt as though I could bound along the trail oblivious to the conditions underfoot and the shoes would get me through. The protective toe area was much appreciated in the rocky conditions.

The Merrell Siren shoes are an excellent alternative to the full walking boot. They are solid yet light enough to walk in for hours and provided you don’t get them submerged above the ankle line they’ll remain dry.

It started raining with a vengeance when we’d cleared the cover of the woods, so I got to try out the performance of the Vibram soles on the wet rock.

I didn’t end up on my arse once!

Through dry rock, wet rock and mud the Merrel Siren shoes didn’t let me down.

The RunAmoc shoes from Soft Star arrived just as we were setting off for our weekend adventure in the Peak District. I whipped off my Nike Frees and socks, slung them into the back of the car and slipped on the moccasins instead.

Apart from a brief interlude where I had to review some hiking shoes, the RunAmocs became a bit of a permanent feature – much to Lynn’s disappointment – I’m not sure she approves of my new obsession and it’s associated crusty geography teacher fashion accessories.

My initial thought on the sizing was that perhaps they were too big. There was a very big gap, lets say an inch, between my big toe and the end of the shoe but I’d measured my foot according to the guidelines on the website so decided to try them out. Despite having loads of room in the toe area they didn’t slosh around my foot and felt generally very comfortable.

It’s normally my toes that suffer the most in standard shoes so it was quite a blessing to leave them feeling so free. The roomy toe box creates an obvious point of difference between the feeling of running in the RunAmoc vs the Vibram Five Fingers. Although there is a huge degree of movement available with the Five Fingers, I still feel constrained by the toe compartments while the RunAmocs left me feeling as though I had only a very light drape across the top of my foot.

I ordered the RunAmoc with the slightly thicker sole. At 5mm it is not huge but it is designed to give maximal protection for trail running while still enabling you to feel in-touch with the ground surface.

On Sunday we were running along the Manifold River in Ilam and the tracks varied between limestone paths and root laden trail runs. I was grateful for the protection and managed to run amongst the pebbles without too many exclamations of pain. These soles are thicker than on my Vibram Sprint Five Fingers and were noticeably more comfortable on the rougher surface but I didn’t lose any of the barefoot feel.

As I was running up the limestone steps built into the side of the valley I was aware of my feet bending and hugging the surface. It was a huge contrast to the previous days hike in the solid Merrel Walking Shoes.

Barefoot or minimal running can become almost a spiritual experience where you begin to feel part of the landscape and the track you are running along. It’s a much more involved and gentle way to interact with the trail.

All this barefoot running is reminding me of a trip to Vienna.

At Kunsthauswein I tuned in to the amazing architecture of Hundertwasser and tried to scribble down his writings on the uneven floor.

It seems that Hundertwasser may have been an early adopter of the barfoot movement, this photo shows him wearing a pair of his handmade shoes (summer & winter) – very minimal.

The Uneven Floor

The flat floor is an invention of the architects. It fits engines – not human beings.

People not only have eyes to enjoy the beauty they see and ears to hear melodies and noses to smell nice scents. People also have a sense of touch in their hands and feet.

If modern man is forced to walk on flat asphalt and concrete floors as they were planned thoughtlessly in designers’ offices, estranged from man’s age-old relationship and contact to earth, a crucial part of man withers and dies. This has catastrophic consequences for the soul, the equilibrium, the well being and the health of man. Man forgets how to experience things and becomes emotionally ill.

An uneven and animated floor is the recovery of man’s mental equilibrium, of the dignity of man which has been violated in our levelling, unnatural and hostile urban grid system.

The uneven floor becomes a symphony, a melody for the feet and brings back natural vibrations to man. Architecture should elevate and not subdue man. It is good to walk on uneven floors and regain our human balance.

Hundertwasser, April, 1991

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

Somewhere along the line I seem to have developed a shoe fetish. I started off in life with a classic shoe phobia and made it into adulthood with a pair of red wellies and a work shoe.

An interest in sport increased my repertoire but even then I managed to live in a pair of Specialized Sonoma cycling shoes throughout my student days.

I blame running.

It must have ticked disturbing boxes in my psyche. I have now commandeered the shoe rack that spans the length of our hall and still have an overspill. I still only have one pair of work shoes but there is a tremendous glut of running shoes and my stockpile is set to increase.

Hiking shoes arrived last week, Nike Free 3.0 trainers yesterday, I’m awaiting stock of a pair of Vibram Five Finger Bilkilas and my Soft Star Run Amoc moccasins are slowly winging their way across the Atlantic as we speak. We have a romantic weekend booked away and my only packing demand after spare pants was a selection of running shoes. I may have to hunt out an appropriate 12 step program when we get back.

In the mean time, here are my thoughts on the Nike Free 3.0

I’ve pinned a lot of hopes on minimal running shoes and expect them to revolutionise my mornings and long runs by removing the crippling pains of plantar fasciitis. With this in mind I’ve been diligently introducing Vibram Five Finger runs in to my schedule but reverting to my standard shoe for long runs.

My standard shoe is a heavy duty, cushioned, supported, mega structure so I started looking around for a suitable transition shoe. RunBlogger provided me with some much appreciated advice and Donald from Running and Rambling has written an excellent overview of the options.

Hence the arrival of the Nike Free 3.0

It’s not a truly barefoot experience or even an almost-barefoot-best-described-as-minimal experience but its half way there and a half-way house was just what I needed.

The shoe is incredibly flexible, in fact you want to pick it up and mould it like playdoh. It has a peculiarly innovative sole, made up of little cubes of rubber that enable it to flex freely, this way and that.

We were at Waterloo Station last night picking up one of the kids of Railway Children fame. We were waiting patiently on the platform when I leapt up onto my toes and declared: “Tadaaaa….bet you can’t do that!”

Well it seems they all could but I maintain that it means something that I was the only one who felt suitably empowered by my footwear to display such idiocy in public.

These are flexible shoes.

The uppers are fairly minimal, a little padding around the ankle but in the main these are made of a lightweight waffle fabric. I’m used to shoes with rigid plates in the heel and all this floppiness comes as a bit of a shock. It makes for an incredibly comfortable shoe though. Regardless of your views of Nike and the position of the Free 3.0 on the barefoot-standard shoe scale, you can’t deny that the word on the block is “comfort”.

We went for quick midnight run when we got back from the station and it was such a joy. It was only a short so I need to test this further with a weekend long run but the first impressions were great. No pain from my feet at all. When I wear standard shoes I get the impression that my second toe nail is being ripped from its bed but there was no discomfort at all with the Nike Free 3.0

The run was silent and fast – at least by my standards. The sole felt as though it had a strange stickiness to it but it didn’t seem to hold me back as we knocked a minute off our usual mile pace.

I think I might have found my half marathon shoe.

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

Having abandoned treadmill running in favour of the great outdoors it wasn’t long before I began to bemoan the loss of my preferred running watch the Garmin Forerunner 305. I long for pretty maps to illustrate my outdoor running routes and spur me on to explore my surroundings and for that you need GPS.

Fortunately for me I am spoilt, and my good lady wife didn’t listen to my moans for long before coming home with a beautiful orange gift – the Garmin Forerunner 310XT.

The Forerunner 310XT has been the long awaited upgrade to the Forerunner 305. The Forerunner 405 (reviewed here) let us down with it’s silly bevel features that went haywire at the first hint of moisture, so the Forerunner 310XT marks a back to basics approach, stick with the tried, tested and much loved functionality of the 305 but add the long called for water resistance that should mark this as the triathletes choice.

Not of course that I can call myself a triathlete having done only one sprint event about 3 whole years ago. I am occasionally known to dabble in open water swimming though, or at least I have done twice, but I don’t think one should limit oneself, who knows when I may decide to pull on the wetsuit and explore the local waterways.

So the biggest change between the Forerunner 305 and the Forerunner 310XT is that Garmin have made the 310XT waterproof and therefore suitable for the swim. Having looked into the watches swim capabilities though I think I understand why Garmin took their time to introduce the feature and make a truly triathlon oriented GPS watch.

This review of the Garmin Forerunner 310XT is continued on warriorwomen running blog.