Week 15: Five miles

20:40 sec run/walk ratio
1:24:09 hours
5.42 miles
15.5 min/mile

Ah, a nice short run today. I was thinking of running on Dennison & Valley today, but went on to Meadowbrook Park instead, as I always seem to do.  But it's so pretty and pleasant to run there, I suppose it's worth the extra ten minutes to drive down to the park.

The weather was pleasant, mostly clear but not too hot. The weather report had been for clouds and thunderstorms today, but it didn't really start to cloud up until I was nearly done with my run.

I decided to practice taking pictures along the way, since I'll be wanting to do that during the marathon, and wanted to make sure switching back and forth between camera & my running app wouldn't be a problem. It wasn't, it was very easy. I took some pictures just in the camera and a few I took from the Instagram app and posted them to my Instagram, since I thought it would be fun to live-Instagram my marathon. Both worked fine. One problem might be that I'll have to run with my phone in my hand, or else be fumbling it in and out of my running belt camera pocket all the time. I didn't mind holding it while I ran for a mile or so, but then I started to get tired of it. I suppose I'll be able to put it away when I don't want to hold it. I won't be taking pictures constantly, maybe a few every mile or so.

The other problem will be making sure my phone battery doesn't run out. My battery was getting low after the 17-mile run last week. It might have gone another mile or so, but I was getting low-battery warnings, so it definitely wouldn't have lasted a full 26 miles. On the one hand, I was using the GPS  last week, which uses more power, and I won't need the GPS during the actual marathon, so that will help. On the other hand, I will be taking and posting pictures, which will take some battery power. Probably not as much as the GPS, but will it last out the marathon? I might also turn off the vibrating notification, since that probably takes more battery, too. And I do have a battery stick I can take with me to recharge the phone if it gets low. Problem with that is, I have to plug it into the same slot the headphones use, so I won't be able to use headphones and charge at the same time. One option would be to get another interval timer and just use the phone for camera. Or hold the phone while it's charging and either watch the intervals or turn the vibrating alarm back on so I can feel them. I guess if I have the volume turned up loud enough, I can hear the intervals without headphones. Will have to experiment with that some more on the next long runs.

(If I had Bluetooth headphones, I wouldn't need to plug them in. But Bluetooth uses a lot more power, too, so my battery would drain even faster.)

Anyway, had a good run today.