There's an app for that?

upbeat
I picked up this new app that counts your strides per minute and sets your music to your pace. On top of that, there's an option where Sally Edwards will coach a running workout. I thought it would be a new challenge - as if Lori kicking my tail in class Monday through Wednesday, and then subliminally all the other days isn't enough.

So, I get the app and decide to test it out on the track at the gym while the kids have their swim lessing. I follow all the directions, get it all set up, and get started, and the first song is Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song". That's weird. I mean, I know my pace is a little slow, but really, that's kinda harsh. Let's try something else, so I skip ahead and it goes to Adam Sandler's "The Adventures of a Cow". Although poignantly titled for said adventure of said cow, this isn't even a song to match up with my "strides per minute" pace. It's a comedy skit. Okay, I get it. Real funny, y'all. I try to pick up my pace, and the Sally Edwards app senses my keen effort. And switches to wait for it...wait for it...Young At Heart by Frank Sinatra. Oh. My. Gosh.

Really guys? Come on! And goes from bad, to really bad, to insulting to super worse with "May It Be" by Enya. How is this even on my ipod, it's from that Hobbit people movie. Finally I get some Ali Farke Tourre which is my relaxing & cooking tunes, but I opt to go with it, motivated only because it's got a pretty good beat. Heck, it's got a beat, folks. Let's do this. I'm finally getting the groove of the app and the run coaching and the strides per minute and all that.

And Sally Edwards comes in my ear and tells me I'm in the middle of some kind of up-ladder torture workout and to increase my run stride to 80%. Uh, ok Sally, cuz I'm pretty sure I'm already way beyond 80% with that whole Adventure of a Cow kind of a stride, but okay. I resolve that this is going to be a great workout...tomorrow...when the kids are at track practice. And then Norah Jones comes on and serenades me while I'm still running. Dangit! That's it. I quit for now, since I was just testing it and all. I consider the fact that I've been laughing - out loud with ear phones on so probably extra loud - each time a song has been dealt to me and imagine the smartass who did the programming for this app. My workout is just as much of the laughing as it is the running. I walk down the steps, noting that I've stopped running, or jogging at 80%, whatever, and I've started walking, and yet apparently my strides per minute hasn't changed because the music hasn't changed. My lack of challenging myself is all right there in the only thin part of my body: my eardrums.

I make it down to the the kids finishing up their swim lesson and sit down. The app is still going, and a few seconds after I sit down, it switches, because clearly my pace has changed from barely moving to not moving which necessitates a music change to Tracy Chapman's "Let it Rain" comes on. Nice. I have a faster pace sitting down than running to "Adventures of a Cow."

I'm pretty sure this is not the swift and sarcastic kick in the ass that Sally Edwards intended. But for once, someone one has gotten the message through to me. If I want my gangsta rap and hip hop to run with, I'll simply have to pick up the pace. Sign me up.

So, there's an app for getting me to workout harder? Apparently.

As it turns out, there's a method to how you get your strides per minute calculated and I was not holding my ipod correctly. My pace should have been double what it recorded. So, there's hope for me and Sally Edwards D-Jaying my run for me yet.
That's how I roll.

Song of the day: If I Only Had a Brain - Harry Connick, Jr.