Missed day

I woke up yesterday with a terrible headache.  I had to spend several hours in a very dark room.  Although I feel better today I wasn’t up to do my run.  I’ll have to go tomorrow instead.  Today’s blog post will be about the MiCoach running app that I use.

MiCoach is an Adidas product (I know, too much Adidas) and works with my iPhone.  Currently I’ve set MiCoach to help me train for a half marathon.  My goal this year is not a half marathon but to complete 15ks.  There is no 15k setting on the app so a half a marathon it is. 

THE GOOD

This is a free app unlike Nike plus which costs $1.99 and does not have as many features of the free MiCoach.  The Nike plus app is the one for you if you want Dirk Nowitzki or Lance Armstrong giving you running advice. 

The great thing about this app is that I can choose what music I want to listen to.  I have created a special play list (180 songs) and I can select that play list and click on shuffle.  You can choose different voice prompts (i.e. Female/Male or UK or American) and how much you want the app to coach you during your run.  I have the app giving me feedback every kilometre.  Also the app pushes you to run at different speeds to improve your training (fartlek training.  More on this soon). The app uses the GPS functionality of your smart phone to calculate distance and speeds.  I have heard that cloudy days may affect its accuracy but so far I have not found that to be the case.

THE BAD

The Salvation 3 running shoes that I bought claimed to be MiCoach ready.  They were not.  I have to purchase an Adidas connector for my iPhone so that I could sync the chip in my shoe to the running app.  The problem is that they don’t sell this connector in Australia.  It is coming but it has not been cleared for sale here.  Once I have this connector I’ll be able to hook up the shoe and my heart monitor to give me an overall picture of my run.  Let’s hope that this product is for sale soon.

A friend of the blog is now also using the MiCoach running app.  He was going to buy a Garmin running watch but is now using the app on his iPhone.  At the moment he is training to run a marathon. He thanked me for saving him $300  My work here is done.