New Route, New App, New Shoes

On Sunday, with renewed Chinese New Year spirit and Firecracker remains and smoke in my hair, I went for a run. For a while now, I've been thinking of running around The Tan at the Botanical Gardens, but to get there, I always figured I'd have to run down Swanston St which is normally packed with people. So I had been putting it off til I woke up early enough to run through the city before people are out and about. Meaning, it was probably never going to happen. 

But as I walked out onto the street, I thought of going around to Treasury and Fitzroy Gardens instead. When I ran there, I found that none of the water fountains worked so that killed my enthusiasm for running around there. So I made my way to The Tan instead. And since I had come via Spring Street, it wasn't people heavy at all. 

I didn't really have a route in my head of where I was going to run, I just thought, I want to go around The Tan but did not really plan how to get there, which way to go around and how to get back. So a lot of it was made up as I was running. Which was quite fun actually. Also, my footpod ran out of batteries so I wasn't able to see what distance or pace I was running at. This was a new experience for me and it was quite stress free. I probably wouldn't do it often as I'd like to know that I'm getting faster or going further, but every now and then, just going for a run without caring about time, pace or distance might be nice. 

After the run, I was keen to see how far I actually did go, so I created an account at MapMyRun and charted my route, which you can see up there. The site is pretty cool and the best thing is that it has an accompanying iPhone app called iMapMyRun which can chart my route for me as I'm running using the GPS capabilities in the iPhone. 

I also had on my new pair of runners that I'm trying to break in before Run for the Kids. I got the Asics GEL-1150 with light yellow trimmings from Shoe Logic for $169.95. I used to run in Nike Free 7.0, which is a really light shoe. It was meant to simulate running barefeet so you really feel the changes in the terrain and you can work out the little muscles in your legs that deal with your stability on uneven surfaces. I really liked them but since my right knee and ankle got quite badly injured last year, I thought I should go for runners that would give me more support and take some pressure off my joints. These new Asics are still quite light but definitely sturdier and I no longer feel that little spasm of fear every time I come across cracks and tiny bumps in my path. 

I used to really hate running but with all these new things, its not so bad!