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Time to post something on our new blog as well - and yes, I am still alive :-)

Let’s talk about running. I know, I know, I used to say that last year’s Berlin Marathon was a once off: “I just want to see whether I can run a marathon.”

Now in 2012 I am already signed up for Göteborgs Varvet, Stockholm Marathon and Midnattsloppet. What exactly my goal is I am not sure, but I know I am not there yet.

Time to talk equipment tough. As with any good sport, it is all about the equipment and one important piece of running equipment (give or take the shoes) is the pulse clock. Luckily I got a Polar RS300X as a Christmas present and I like it a lot. However, as any gadget loving nerd I could not stop there. For training purposes it might be enough to know in which pulse range I am running in, but my alter ego needs to know distances. Kilometers are what counts.

What I needed was either a GPS based Polar G1 or the Polar foot pod S1. For me the choice seemed easy. Something with a GPS in it must be so much better than a step counting thingy (I just had this little clip-ons in mind you put on your pants). However, if I would have done my research better I would have quickly learned that the S1 is much more accurate than the G1 and that you can actually start running without delay. With the G1 you sometimes have to wait several minutes before it has a signal and if you are lucky you keep the signal for the whole run (often you don’t and wonder in the end why it felt you ran 10km, but the G1 only shows 5km). You also cannot download the actual track you were running. The G1 only measures the total distance!

The biggest frustration with the G1 I had, however, a couple of weeks ago. In the middle of the run the battery died. It was not the first time, but fair enough I could have replaced the battery earlier. The problem was, however, that once at home and with a new battery inside, the G1 refused to restart. I would turn it on and it would blink, just to turn of after about a minute. Replacing the battery did not help. There was no reset button and the manual did not mention anything like it. Even googling I drew a blank (note to self, there are questions Google does not have an answer to) My G1 was “broken”. In the end a friend helped me with the solution. Whether I already had tried to take out the battery for a longer time and then place it back in. I am still unclear about where the difference is between just changing the the battery or taking it out, leaving the G1 without a battery for a while and then placing in a new one, BUT that was the solution. Why can Polar not write this into the manual I wonder!?

Happy running, Hardy