Garmin Forerunner 405 update

It took a while but last weekend did my first run with the 405. It was quit easy in operation, the only bummer came afterwards when I wanted to hook it up to my Mac. Oeps the soft from Garmin for Mac OS is still in development, and is to be released in the 4th quater of this year. And it seems to be on schedule (before it said fall 2008) so between now and christmas I'll have to hook it to a PC and transfer the file's.

The satellite reception is great even indoors close to a window it will get a fix. During the run along buildings and under tree's it didn't lost signal. During the week I hooked up the hart rate monitor and that worked also flawlessly.

Operation with the touch ring is very nice only pity that it is painted; I got a small black spot on the bezel, when I accidently touched the wall. Hope they can change it to aluminium on the next version.

You have also a virtual partner witch is switchen on by default. I switched it off so I don't need to touch the bezel to see the time an pace. With the hart rate monitor it will show the hart rate for about 20 sec and than the pace distance and time for 20 sec.

The display is easy to read after I have the data I'll post some runs.

Healthy Air

The 2 most asked Questions when you tell you are running outside in Shanghai are in no specific order: Is is not to hot? What about air pollution? 

These are both facts, you have to cope with in a wise way. For the air pollution this one is also personal to me as I have Astma and even with this I still do most of my runs outside. 

On Shanghai Environment online you can check the pollution of yesterday and the forecast for today: http://www.envir.gov.cn/eng

Explaining what is measured: Pm10, SO2 and NO2 

Pm10 are inhale able particles les than 10 microns in diameter (100 times thinner than a human hair); solid or liquid; natural ones ar mold spores and pollen and dust, others are smoke; diesel and two stroke engine fumes.

SO2 is Sulfur Dixide; it has a sharp irritating odor; a side product from burning fuel, aseptically coal fueled power plants; erupting vulcanos are a natural source; together with water it formes assid rain.

NO2 is Nitrogen Dioxine; An other side product of burning fuel combined with sunshine it produces ground level ozon O3.

The levels: 

As all these 3 are related and the Pm10 is most common known lets focus on this;

In US Pm10 up to 50 are considered good in Europe up to 40.

The values from 50 to 100 are considerate moderate and 101 up to 150 are considered unhealthy for sensitive people. 

People with respiratory deseases like Astma and these people should limit their outdoor activity's, the scaling does go up: http://www.airinfonow.org/ed.particulate.html

Considering we are running and use our lungs more intense lets skip those.

Next to the measured level there is also considered the place to run and time to run

Place; although Pm10 particles can travel up to 50 Km, if your running in a park in stead of along a road side the exertion is off 2 different levels.

Time; it is understandable that running before ore after peek hours is preferable.

So with logic thinking, a nice park nearby and an early or late run, we can do happy running, for your info I'm running in Shanghai outdoors sins 2006.

More to read:

http://www.parkwayhealth.cn/newsletter/breath.html

http://www.parkwayhealth.cn/newsletter/airquality.html

iPod Touch Second Generation Nike+

Yesterday Steve Jobs launched the second generation iPod Touch.

New features are extra butons for volume control external speaker (that is fun in the subway, not) solid chrome back and integrated Nike+

So is this a good thing? It is not as light as the Nano, and nike plus indicates that you still have to buy the shoe sensor that has died on me twice without notice. Lucky they are now a lot cheaper because you can buy them separately.

The great thing is the software Nike+ web is ok and trailrunner is really cool.  So all in all if you lost your receiver (I have red some story's of people who did this is a great solution if your about to buy a new iPod) otherwise if you have one just buy a Nike+ sportband  (don't forget to bag it when it rains) and use your old iPod.

 

Shanghai Marathon for the Toray Cub

12 weeks to go for the Shanghai Marathon for the Toray Cub:

30th november 2008 time 7:30 am

http://www.shmarathon.com

Interested in improving your time on the half or whole?

www.start2run.cn has designed a great running program with some trail running on the way:

25 october 2008: 30k mountain relay in Hangzhou (each participant runs 15k) see previous post.

15 november 2008: Moutain Marathon Hangzhou whole or half (informal race as preparation for the www.ms2s.org)

contact me trough mbodt ad start2run dot cn or 136 36323531

Garmin Forerunner 405

Writing about running routes nothing is better than having a picture with the actual route. That brings the Garmin Forerunner in the picture.

Having said that as I'm on a Mac there is a second thing to consider and that is compatibility as I didn't have had as much fun as I could have had from my Polar RS200d.

Luckily there is a great application called TrailRunner that runs exclusive on a Mac and that has great intergration for nike+ as well as for the Garmin Forerunner.

The looks:

The 405 looks like a watch and that is amazing considering the 305 was more a personal computer folded around your wrist.

Compared to the previous model it has better fix, this is connection time needed to get connected to at least 3 satellites. And it also stays connected better when close to buildings and on trails covered with trees.

The touch ring sins the iPhone everything with touch is cool so is the ring on this 405 no more bulky buttons just touch the ring to operate.

New feature the USB ANT Stick, Wireless connects you watch to your computer. Don't know if I have to be enthousiast about this, why couldn't they use Bluetooth?

The last to me cool thing is you can charge it trough a USB connection so just a cable and with the USB car plug you already had for your iPod Phone etc you can charge it in your car.

Models:

There are two models one with and one without a heart rate monitor. There are different models for europe us & asia, that has to do more with the manuals and the languages.

In the package:

Frontrunner 405 (black or green)

Depending on your choice:

USB ANT Stick or

USB ANT Stick and Heart rate monitor

The packages comes with:

AC Adapter (with USB)

Charging clip (with USB)

Owners Manual

Quick reverence guide

Optional:

A Foodpod for your tred mill workouts

Bike Speed/ Cadence Sensor

Bigest disadvantage so far is the battery life it won't last a 100K trail run have to find a solution for that.

Hangzhou 杭州 mountain trail Running Route

Only 1 hour 20 minutes by train, from Shanghai 上海 Hangzhou 杭州 is one of my favorite places to run. This weekend I met with Xiping Lou of FXoutdoor. FXoutdoor http://race.fxoutdoor.cn/running07.html is one of the organisers of a 30 K run in the Hangzhou mountains on the 25 of october 2008.

We ran 2/3rd of the trail. 20 K and great fun as always. Temperature around 28 degrees and moist.

Shanghai 上海 Suzhou Creek 苏州河 Running Route

Trail running at Suzhou Creek(river) 苏州河 (2008-9-29)

The nice thing about Suzhou Creek 苏州河 is that it curving its way trough the city. They are reconstructing the area again and hopefully the big wall (protection against flooding) that is blocking the view to the water will moved back so the new green area will be facing the water.

Together with Nicolas www.ch-ina.com and one of the founders of the www.ms2s.org we had a morning run from 6:15 to 7:15 the temperature was a perfect 25 degrees with some cold drops of rain.

Because of the reconstruction the roads were broken up and it became a trail run in the center of Shanghai.

Shanghai Railway station is on the top left we started close to the center of the map on the left and ran 3/4 up and down the river towards the Huangpu (Jian) River 黄浦江 right lower corner

Vibram Five Fingers

At home I'm mostly barefoot and when temperatures reach above 15 degrees Celcius I prefer to walk on Teva Sport Sandals outside.

When I saw the Vibram Five Fingers I was sold.

To my surprise they are already one year on the market and Time Magazine awarded them with the Best Inventions of 2007 (the reason why I mist them: iPhone was also awarded)

They come in 4 models:
Classic; first, and most open model
Spint; with an extra velcrow band on the top to secure it to your feed
KSO; closed model wraps arround your food to keep dirt out
Flow; closed model with 1.2 mm neopreen for when it gets cold

Sizing:

This is new as they fit like a glove on your feet you need to mesure your longest tow, I layed down a ruller against a doorpost and as mine is in metric I converted it to inch (type in google: 270 mm to inch) 275 millimeters = 10.8267717 inch, this is a 10 3/4

My choice:
Classic: male, gray-black, size 43
KSO: male, black-black, size 42

I'll keep you posted about my experience with the Vibram Five Fingers.

Nanjing 南京 Xuan Wu lake 玄武湖 Running Route

A weekend (31-8-2008) run in Nanjing 南京, lucky me! My family in law lives in Nanjing 南京1,5 km from Xuan Wu lake 玄武湖 this is a great place to run it meanly flat you'll pass Nanjing railway station 南京火车站 on 1/4rd with one smal clime at 3/4rd if you run clockwise and start at Xuan Wu Gate 玄武门 that is in the center on the left with a almost horizontal road leading to the islands in the middle of the lake. I prefere to run it clockwise but if you run counter clockwise there are stones at the side of the road with distance markers on it.

I ran quit late 9:45 am and because of the rain on saturday it was perfect weather for running and to my surprise there were quite some other runners. After the climb I saw a orange shirt and light hair in front of me running clockwise as well.  Yes it was an other Dutch; Armin who works at Basf Nanjing 巴斯夫 南京, drove his bike up to the lake from his house in the south of Nanjing for his weekend run. We ran back to the Xuan Wu Gate 玄武门 where he finished his workout by biking home and myself by speeding up again for the last 1.5 Km.

Over the last few years Nanjing 南京 has done a great job in rebuilding green area's especially along its city walls (the longest in China) it has become a great place to run these day's. Next to flat road you can also go up the mountains. See on the map in the right botom corner. As we will be there during the Moon festival 中秋节 you will find a post about the trail running in two weeks. Below is a picture of the road around the lake 20 meters after you turn left at Xuan Wu Men 玄武门