I would love to be able to run in the winter, but I can't. Most of my issues stem from my Raynaud's Syndrome. As I have mentioned before, it takes a while for my body to warm up. My fingers are usually white and numb for the first fifteen minutes of the run. Sometimes, I will be fine starting off the run, but because it is cold, my fingers start to lose circulation, and they become white. Even though I am doing vigourous exercise, like running, it will take 15 minutes for my body to realize maybe I am not cold afterall. My fingers will almost instantaneouly lose blood flow, but it takes much longer for them to warm up again. I have the same issue with cross country skiing, but then I have to worry about my toes too.
My second issue with winter running is finding a safe running route. I tend to run on side residential roads, but I have to use sidewalks, walking paths and cross a highway. Some parts of my route are sheltered from direct sunlight. There is about half a metre of snow on the footpath I use to get from one neighbourhood to another. I modified my circuit accordingly, to avoid the worst of the snow. Fortunately, the roads and sidewalks are clear. I need clear sidewalks to safely cross the highway. There really is no good place to run outdoors near my home when there is snow.
The final issue with winter running is what to do when you do warm up. For some reason, I do not mind running in hot summer weather. I usually run first thing in the morning to avoid the worst of the heat. However, I still prefer running on a hot day to running on a really cold day. I draw the line at zero degrees. Even if I am dressed warmly, my body heats up, and then I have to decide whether or not to take off the mitts and hat, or suffer the increased heat. Taking off the mitts usually leads to cold hands again. So, I am constantly fiddling with my mitts during the run. Today, it was sunny, and a tad warmer, so I suffered some cold initially, and left the gloves at home.
For four months of the year I have to find another way to keep fit. Often, I let things slide (or sag) in the winter. December is my lazy month. By January, I decide to get back on the exercise wagon. This year, I was shown an app by a friend. It is called Nike Training Club. It is like a personal trainer in your phone. I downloaded the app to my iPad, and was pretty good at doing three to four workouts a week.
I liked the timed routines and that you could select the difficulty based on your fitness level (or motivation). The routines are also divided into categories depending on what you are looking for: getting lean, toned, etc. most of the exercises are similar in the different routines. The use of weights, addition of jumps or duration of a particular exercise is what differentiates the routines. Some of them are not as good as others. For example, one routine had a two minute rest after the five minute warm up, but then no other rests.
I thought since I was synching my information with the Nike+ website I would be able to transfer my routines to my phone. This was not the case. I think if I had chosen to save the routines it would have worked. I had over 750 minutes accumulated on my iPad, but I had to start from scratch when I downloaded the app to my new phone. I was running out of space on my iPad, and was not able to update the app.
The new update gave calorie counts for the rountines. Turns out each of the routines I was doing only burnt about 150 calories. Kind of disappointing, but I was noticing results from the routines. When I started the exercises in January, my legs and arms were sore from the squats and pushups. As time went on, I felt less sore. I must have been building some muscle and increasing my strength. I heard muscle loss is an issue after 40, so whatever helps to keep up the illusion of being younger.
For running, I downladed the Nike+ Running app. Both apps link up to the same Nike+ account. I had created an account because my iPod Nano has a pedometer associated with Nike. I rarely used the pedometer as it interfered with my podcasts. I decided to use the Nike+ Running app on my phone, and continued to use my iPod to listen to my podcasts.
Yesterday, the phone was having issues with the GPS tracker. It said I ran about 6.5km, but could not map my route. It tracked my pace and indicated when I was running faster or slower. I am not sure how it figured out the distance I ran. Today, the GPS tracker was working. It showed a map of where I ran, and it roughly followed the roads. It calculated the distance I ran at 6.8km. I drove my running route and it came to 7.2km. I was able to recalibrate today's distance, but not yesterday's.
The app creates badges and gives you comparisons. If you log into Facebook and choose the Facebook cheers option, you will hear cheers when one of your friends likes your status. This app also gives you an estimate of the amount of calories burnt while running. According to Nike+ Running, I burnt 450 calories during each of my runs.
No wonder I lost weight last summer. I was running almost every day. This is another reason to get back to regular running. I burn three times as much in roughly the same amount of time as one of the Training Club routines. Although, running is not helping with the muscle loss issue. I suppose I could throw in a routine twice a week for a well rounded fitness regime.
All in all, I liked both of these fitness apps. They are both free, but sponsored by Nike. In this day and age we are always tweeting our status or monitoring our progress. Everything has become a bit of a game, with achievement levels. These are just two more ways of keeping yourself motivated and enaged while getting fit. Check out the links below to get more information.
http://www.nike.com/ca/en_ca/c/womens-training/apps/nike-training-club
http://nikeplus.nike.com/plus/products/gps_app/
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