The math of running

Last night I purchased the much a-stressed over running watch. This morning I decided to take it on a trial run (so to speak LOL). Once again I grabbed my iPod, put a leash on Mercedes, and we were out the door. I very quickly realized that the countdown feature on the watch (which was a big deal to me when I was buying it) was of very little use on a real life run because the chime/alarm can only be heard when the watch is fairly close to my ears - close enough that I can see the time on the watch. And if I can see the time on my watch then there is no need for an alarm to tell me that a minute has passed. Now, lest you blame the iPod, I must say that the iPod was turned down low.... just enough for me to hear the beat, when I was testing out the countdown feature on the watch.

So I turned off the coundown timer and just used the stopwatch for the run. It is set up to time how long it takes to run a lap and remembers up to 30 laps for future analysis. But since I'm running on the street and not on a track that really doesn't mean much to me.... I just plan a route and go. So the stopwatch is much fancier than I need.

But here is where the math comes in. I'll be picking up the pace a little in the coming weeks but for now I'm doing a run 1 min, walk 2 mins rotation. I found the easiest way to do that is to start running on every minute that is divisible by three. So I walked/warmed up for the first 3 mins. At the 3 minute mark I started running for a minute then switched to walking at the 4 minute mark. Then repeated the process starting at the 6 minute mark. So you can see that some simple math is involved especially when you are up around 25, 26, 27 minutes and have to remember (while running and tired) which number is divisible by 3 LOL. It'll be easier when I switch to run 1 min, walk 1 min as I can start running at the odd minutes and walking on the even minutes or vice versa. I guess this is where I earn the true title of "mathlete".