Over the next few months the number of running-related posts I’ll be writing is probably going to increase significantly. I appreciate that there probably aren’t many runners amongst The Daily Mumblers, so have decided to set up a new section of TGW dedicated to running.

www.TM2011.com (or tokyomarathon2011.com) is a bilingual site that will track my preparation for the Tokyo Marathon in February 2011. It’ll also be the main repository for the products of my new project, The Art of Running.

Being bilingual it’s also a study aid for me!

My thanks to www.lifeyou.tv for the logo, and @namyhei for giving the text a once-over.

Here’s a post that I wrote tonight:


The second run in my Art of Running series took place this morning in central Tokyo, and saw me joining the Sunday morning crowd for a section of the Imperial Palace circuit, before branching off towards Aoyama. Creating the eye of The 21km Imperial Duck required pausing the tracking software for a section of the run, then restarting when I reached the right spot. I also found that leaving home with only 60% battery on the iPhone 4 is not a good idea if you have two hours of GPS tracking and music planned. Finished it with 2% battery remaining!

It was really interesting doing the beak as I’ve never been to that part of Tokyo before, was stunned to fund such a big park that I’d never been into until now.

It was also useful to identify further issues I might encounter with the GPS tracking. Runkeeper has a tendency to crash in certain situations, and Google Earth just doesn’t have the resolution I need. I was also using Nike+ on my iPhone 3GS, and Runkeeper running with a second Runkeeper account in my bag (that captures the entire run, without pauses).

Here’s the route in Google Earth

4 Responses

  1. Google Earth can be used to track down GPS as well? didn’t knew that!
    how do u draft the GPS art before hand anyway?

    1. You can export a Google Earth xml file from Runkeeper. Drafting the routes takes a bit of time. Still working on that process… which is TOP SECRET!

      It’s turned out to be a bit more tricky than anticipated!

  2. Hey Joseph, I’ve also been using runkeeper a litter; of course first spotted on your site.
    I don’t have such interesting runs to do as you though, but definitely will be doing a few more shortly; the weight is slowly coming back…
    Seems like all is going well for you; as when we met for lunch in Naka Meguro, I could see you going in this direction, there is just too much built up knowledge there.
    Best of luck anyhow with all the new ventures.
    Mine is slowly coming along, we haven’t been updating our web/blog but that is all about to change as the car will shortly be launched, so keep an eye out or join the subscirbers.
    http://www.oryol-cars.com (click on link to go to blog and subscribe)
    Regards,
    Rob.

    1. Rob, fantastic to hear thar the car will be launched soon, great to see things come to fruition. Will subscribe in a moment.

      Let us know if you’re back in japan anytime. Always good to see you.

      Joseph