Rory Franklin

Last year, during my time working in industry (a year out as part of my University degree to work with a company doing something computing related - it was worth 10% of my final degree), I started running quite a lot.

It all started when one of my fellow industrial placements sent an email around asking if anyone wanted to take part in an event called Hellrunner - a 10-12 mile trail run on an Army base. As the company we worked for were preparing to launch a drug helping people with Type-2 Diabetes (the company I worked for was a pharmaceutical company), those who were taking part in the event would be raising money for Diabetes UK.

Having not done much exercise since school (and even then, that was limited to playing football one afternoon a week) I was a wee bit apprehensive about taking part. I decided I would though, as it was a great motivation to get fit, it was a way to get to know more people within the company and it was for a good cause.

Hellrunner came and went, and was much fun (if not lots of pain!) and a few of us decided that we wanted to take part in a few more events. So following Hellrunner some of us signed up and tool part in the Reading and Watford Half Marathons. Some of us also took part in the UK Corporate Games, representing our company in the running events (other friends of ours competed in different events such as football and go karting).

Having finished my year in industry I’ll admit that I have struggled to keep up with my running. It was much easier training when I was working, as I would be in the office 8-4, come back home and go for a run. This gave me plenty of time to do whatever I wanted to in the evenings. At University, things are different. My schedule was quite scattered and I generally had work to do in the evenings along with general socializing.

A few of my housemates from last year went and bought the Nike+ running accessory for their iPod’s, and although I don’t like running with music (my headphones block out a lot of sound and as I run in the evenings, during the winter months this is quite dangerous), I decided to purchase the adapter. It only cost £20, and I don’t actually need to run with music to benefit from using it. (The adapter can change your music to encourage you to increase your pace etc.).

The Nike+ website tracks all your stats such as distance, time and calories burned. There is also a large community aspect of the website allowing you to enter challenges with friends or with other Nike+ runners that you may not know. I’m currently in two challenges, both of which are “Who can run the most miles in 2 months”. It really makes you push yourself and ensure you actually go for a run as you are competing against people.

After some fiddling around I managed to get a plug in working for my blog that displays some of my stats [look on the sidebar]. Ideally I’d like to get the stats that display recent runs as well as total mileage etc. but I haven’t figured out where I can access that. I stumbled across the plug in here and after a little trouble setting it up (it requires PHP 5, and I was running PHP 4) I got it working.

Next challenges for me? I’ve just signed up for the 2009 London Marathon, so fingers crossed I get a place. I’m also looking at doing the Great North and Great South runs, as well as this years Hellrunner (down South). If anyone has any suggestions for good events to take part in (or could get me a place on the New York Marathon!) then let me know!

Tags: Hellrunner, London Marathon, Merck, Nike, Running