Just a little faster...

Yet again I braved the elements yesterday evening and took myself out for a shortish run (8.5km). This is the third time I have travelled this route and have improved my time by over 2 1/2 minutes. I'm hoping this proves that my level of fitness is increasing, as is my confidence in my knees. I am, however, still being incredibly cautious and will remain so throughout this running experience.

Details of yesterday's run can be found by using the following link:-

http://runkeeper.com/user/grahamtutt/activity/68718767

As you may recall: my iPod Shuffle died a couple of weeks ago (on the same run as my right knee) so I replaced it with a new one.

I've jumped a couple of generations in going from an iPod Shuffle 2nd Generation to an iPod Shuffle 4th Generation. Even though I've jumped 2 generations I find this new one to be a bit of a step back.

Firstly you need to have the fingers of a pixie not to press the stop / start button whenever you're trying to change the volume or track. This results in much frustration when you think you've moved onto the next track, can't hear it, turn the volume up a few notches, then finally realise the music has actually stopped. Of course when you start the music again it's more often than not at a deafening volume setting.

The tiny size of the device is also a problem when attempting to clip it to your clothes. You have to pinch the clip to open it, but as there's so little clip to play with you often end up launching the iPod across the room. I can't see someone elderly, with the DTs, or both, getting on with one of these.

Lastly (so far) is the feature that tells you what track you're listening to. All you have to do is locate and press a tiny button, and a robot sounding woman tells you the name of the artist and the track title to which you're listening. The problem here is again one of proportion: even though the music volume is lowered when you press the button, the voice of the robot woman is just not loud enough to hear the artist and track title. This is an even worse problem when there's background traffic noise which effectively renders the feature useless.

Enough warbling on about iPods... It's been four weeks since I started my training for this Half Marathon and the 'running total' of funds raised has now exceeded £500 which was my original target. Thank you so much for your support.

I have been a bit cheeky and increased the target to £750 in the hope of attracting a few more £££s before the big day.

Next run is tomorrow evening, slightly later than normal (sometime around 19:30). I'm thinking 10.5km is a nice distance for a freezing cold Wednesday night.

Until then... Nanoo Nanoo