Run 36, 2010 …broken apps and running gadgets…

Today’s 13 km run was a bit weird. The snow was so thick and the flakes were big and wet. The snow stuck to the bottoms of my shoes and it was like running with upside down ice cream cones on the soles. Every few steps a chunk of snow would break off and I’d be flat again for a step or two, then the process repeated itself. I didn’t like it much.

I think, for iPhone users anyway, that RunKeeper is the best application anywhere and a real steal at only 10.00 for the professional version. I love that application! I was using RunKeeper as usual but I also wanted to test another app I got for my iPhone called CellFlare (cellflare.com). It uses GPS to let (with your permission) others know where you are via the cell network. You can even allow others without cell phones to know your exact location by giving them your cell phone number and a PIN number which you can input into CellFlare’s home page to bring up a map with your real time location on it. I won’t go into all the details here.

Because Apple refuses to let applications run in the background, you have to turn it on for it to work. If you turn it off by, say, wanting to use RunKeeper, your location can’t be updated in real time. So I was using RunKeeper, and at the 5 km mark I stopped and paused RunKeeper. I know that it pauses automatically if you answer a phone call, and you can also pause it manually, shut it down, and when you turn it back on you can resume from where you left off. So you shouldn’t be moving while paused or RunKeeper can’t be accurate.

Anyway, to keep a long story shorter, I paused RunKeeper, phoned home to get my wife to check my location online. As I suspected CellFlare reported my last known position which was at home because CellFlare was not turned on. I turned on CellFlare, and got my wife to check again and sure enough the location was updated (the default is an update every minute while it is on) and accurate. Satisfied, I decided to resume my run – unfortunately, RunKeeper refused to start. I thought that although CellFlare had been turned off, perhaps there was still something in memory that was keeping RunKeeper from restarting so I deleted the CellFlare application from the phone but RunKeeper still would not even load.

My conclusion is that CellFlare broke my RunKeeper application in some way. I need to test this more to see if CellFlare really is the culprit or whether is is merely a coincidence caused by a glitch in RunKeeper.

So I had to continue my run without any tracking whatsoever. I was surprised by my reaction in that I felt so very used to and dependent on high technology to track and map every aspect of my workout. I am now so reliant on the technology that I felt somewhat nervous and upset that I had lost today’s run and that I would not know my pace for the rest of the run. (You see, RunKeeper has options that when set can tell me via audio my average pace, total time, and total distance every kilometer so that I can adjust my pace up or down). Now I had nothing and I didn’t like it. I remember in the days before I had the advanced technology, I knew practically where every kilometer marking was from the landmarks. I had a printed pace band and a stopwatch. Since I got the GPS technology, it has given me the freedom to ignore landmarks, and decide arbitrarily to take a different route and still know when I had passed the next kilometer mark as well as the pace and time.

This little event that happened to me today has caused me to re-evaluate my reliance on technology. Instead of putting all my eggs in one high tech basket, I will combine both the new high tech method and the dead reckoning method I had been used to before. In other words, I am no longer going to turn off my brain while running.

I guess in terms of Darwinian evolution, the fastest way to die is to become a specialist and rely on only one thing. Now to see if uninstalling and re-installing RunKeeper will fix it…