The great experiment

One reason I enjoy running is that the sport allows me to indulge my interest in technology. From my first few months using the Nike+ Sportsband to my switch to the Garmin 50 I have tracked my performance and progress and studied the results. Technology isn't limited to sports watches, I started a site within emergingrunner.com called Runner's Tech Review to provide feedback on every type of fitness technology I use. To be sure, some of this technology is battery powered but much of it isn't. Sports drinks, running shoes and energy bars are all technologies in their own right.

I've just replaced my Blackberry with an iPhone and I'm learning to deal with it. In many ways it's a step down from its replacement but it offers some capabilities to runners that the Blackberry cannot match. For one thing I can finally look at comments posted on my Runner's World Loop blog without being tethered to a PC. I thought I would have better tools for mobile posting using Safari but Blogger doesn't really work right. There may be issues with Flash or Java. I can post simply by sending an email to a special address so I've found a good solution for that. The big exciting technology opportunity is leveraging the GPS capability of the iPhone. I mentioned MotionX yesterday and put it to the test walking a few places in the city. The system had a difficult time acquiring a signal but that could be related to the many tall buildings in mid town NYC. Today I will try a run with the iPhone using MotionX to track my speed, distance, elevation and route. I'm hoping that it works better than the Qstarz Sports Recorder.

To hedge my bets, I'll have my trusty Garmin as backup and it will be interesting to compare results between the two. The only concern I have is the weather. Storms are expected and I don't want to soak the iPhone.