Archive for August, 2007

running to avoid the tube in london

My journey to work goes like this:
overland train, Forest Hill to London Bridge - about 15 minutes
tube, London Bridge to Old Street - about 6 minutes

except that getting from the train to the tube take about 3-4 minutes walk, plus a wait for the tube - about 2-5 minutes, plus a 5 minute walk to Leonard Street. I’ve never done the whole thing faster than 35 minutes and it’s often much longer as the tube is crap and hot.

running time & paceSo here’s my solution and its much more fun - run from London Bridge to Leonard street, its 1.55 miles and i can do it with a heavy backpack in about 13 minutes (i hope to improve on that - and normally not carry a heavy backpack). My new Nike + Ipod helps me improve - have a look at the images (by the way the Nike + Ipod doesn’t plot a map for you, i did that myself using their Google Maps API on their site).

Run mapIt did gauge my running distance to within 0.02 miles, which is small enough to be accounted for by inaccuracies in the mapping or just running round junctions, cars etc.

So now my total time is about 30 minutes including waiting about for the Forest Hill train which i didn’t include above, and I save at least £2-3 (offpeak/peak) per day by not buying a travelcard

nike + ipod with any shoe

Heres how to use the Nike + Ipod kit with any shoe. Cut a small hole in the tongue of your shoe and slip the sensor in - works fine and costs nothing. Tongues are usually two pieces of material sewn together, by cutting a few stitches along the join you can make a hole big enough to fit in the sensor. Make sure you then stitch either side of this hole to prevent the tongue stitches from unraveling further. You can make this hole quite tight to ensure the sensor doesn’t fall out - or just push the sensor down a bit toward the toe so the laces hold it in.

Now go and run.