Congratulations to..

1. Mark Entwisle from Bracknell
2. Graham Cutter from Fareham
3. Shafiq Khan from Lancashire
4. Katy Greene from Pitstone
5. Richard Taylor from East Lothian

Your Lucozade Sport Marathon packs are on their way to you and you should have them before the race this coming Sunday.

Good luck! SJAL

• Lucozade Sport Body Fuel in Raspberry
• Lucozade Sport Body Fuel Caffeine Boost
• Lucozade Sport Jelly Beans
• Lucozade Sport Carbohydrate Energy Tablets
• Lucozade Sport Orange Cereal Bar
• Lucozade Sport Mixed Berry Cereal Bar
• VLM Course Route Runners Guide
• Liz & Martin Yelling’s VLM Tips

To enter, simply leave your name and your predicted race time in a comment below (just for interests sake)! I’ll announce the winners on Monday so we can get your packs out to you before the race on the following Sunday (race day).

Good luck! SJAL.

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

Your email address will in no way be distributed to third parties. Entry to UK residents only.

We had three to give away. The lucky three winners were:

• Toni Quandt
• Laura Snell (@LauraASnell)
• Simon Collinge (@cobbiecollinge)

Congratulations you three! You’ll be receiving an email shortly with an iTunes gift certificate to redeem the app.

We have one more competition coming up before the marathon starts. There’ll be a chance for 5 of you to win a Lucozade Sport running pack!

A chap called Jon, who also runs a blog called My Big Fat Geek Running, emailed me just before the launch of the BMF iPhone app, My Fitness Instructor. His blog is a cross between losing weight and promoting the iPhone app, which launched on Friday 26th March. Jon kindly offered me a chance to review it.

My Fitness Instructor is a premium application that allows you to fit your own little BMF instructor right in your pocket. Instead of paying the price of a gym membership every month, you can splash out £5.99 and choose when and where you do your own workouts.

Step 1. Set the duration of the workout (maximum of 2 hours – yeah right!)

Step 2. Set the intensity (low, medium or high)

Step 3. Choose the focus of your workout (cardio, muscular or both)

…and that’s it! The little Australian instructor (Jim Preece) will start giving you instructions on what to do through your headphones. And I have to say that the exercises are very well described. You’ll be taken through a warm up, making sure that the body goes through the full range of movement, and then guided through the exercises. If you don’t quite understand the instructions you can view little exercise demonstrations as you progress. These little videos are very important as the app claims to have 5,000,000 combinations of workouts at its arsenal, so you never know what exercise you’ll end up doing.

My Fitness Instructor also has a built-in fitness test setting. Remember the bleep tests you did at school? Running between two markers 20 metres apart before the bleep sounds until you can no longer keep up? Well this is included, which I think is a fantastic little feature. Doing one of these each week as you are training for a race will give you a great idea of your stamina. Plus, it is incredibly satisfying to be able to see your improvements each week. The results of the bleep tests can be stored in the app.

Not a bad little tool for the price of a couple of beers (which you’ll work off after one session with this thing).

The downsides:

• You can’t preview the exercises.
  If you’re a beginner like me, you’ll know none of the exercises that the instructor is explaining to you (apart from the obvious ones like press ups). As the exercises become more complicated, you’ll have to stop to watch a video. This can be annoying as you normally won’t want to break your stride. Being able to learn the exercises by previewing a video before hand would have been nice (which you can’t do).
  .
• You can’t invert the videos.
  This sounds like a small point and one hell of a nag (which it is really). But the videos will only show in one direction, which means that you have to wear your iPod/iPhone on your right arm. I’ve always worn my mp3 player on the left arm so it felt uncomfortable. I know, boo hoo for me.
  .
• You can’t be self-conscious.
  Let’s face it. You’re running around a park, jumping up and down like a madman possessed. When you’re with lots of other people it’s easier to feel less self-conscious. But on your own at night, swinging your arms around in huge circles as fast as you can, or doing imaginary breast-stokes through the air, you might feel a little silly. But Jon begs to differ…

After some warm up stuff, we got stuck in. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel that self-conscious jogging and leaping around in the park on my own.
Jon, Big Fat Geek Running

My girlfriend has just signed up to the BMF classes so we’ll have a competition. Whoever has the best looking abs after a month will be the winner. The real thing versus the virtual… thing. You can buy My Fitness Instructor from the app store here.

Sir Win A Lot

The man himself has kindly offered to give away a copy of the My Fitness Instructor app to three lucky Sir Jog A Lot readers. To win your copy either click this link to tweet about the competition or leave me a comment below!

Again, I will, in no way, look upon entries more favourably if they also leave a £2 donation to my London Marathon charity, the Lymphoma Association. ;-)

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

*Winners will be contacted either by email or Twitter and announced on 13th April. Your email address will in no way be distributed to third parties. Entry to UK residents only.

The lucky comment came from Chris Campbell. Congratulations Chris! Your armband will be with you in the next few days.

For the rest of you, keep checking back here, follow SJAL on twitter or subscribe to the SJAL RSS Feed, for details on further competitions.

I recently won an iPod Touch in a competition and have been wearing out the batteries on my long runs using the Spotify application. It’s awesome. But not being able to change tracks has been a pain. Plus my little mp3 holder now has so many holes in it that it’s not exactly waterproof.

Now, a colleague at work thinks that this will be the shortest review ever. “It holds your iPod while you’re running. Done!” But one thing he underestimates about bloggers is their ability to waffle for endless amounts of time about absolutely nothing. So watch this!
.

1. It’s waterproof (sort of!)
   .
   I tested this armband to the brink on the weekend during my 20-miler before the marathon. It was raining cats and dogs on Saturday, plus I was sweating like Tom Jones so this thing needed to be water resistant. And it was to an extent. Your iPhone slots in really nicely into the back underneath a little flap, keeping it nice and flat against your arm. But while the front screen is waterproof, the material that touches your arm is breathable and moisture does get in, leaving little sweaty droplets at the end of your run (see photo). Of course, there are holes for the headphones (and the lock button) so it’s never going to be fully water resistant, but I don’t think enough moisture will get in to damage your iPod.
   .
2. You can change tracks
   .
   Something that most of you will probably take for granted with your current armbands. But I’ve been using a pouch for the last year and haven’t been able to switch songs. This can take it’s toll on your sanity when the shuffle button hasn’t worked and you end up listening to all 15 minutes of Rapper’s Delight twice in a row. So having a clear screen and being able to access all of the iPod’s controls is brilliant. But, this does mean that everyone you run past can see what you’re listening to. So if you’ve got something a little embarrassing playing like ‘Finally’ by CeCe Peniston, the whole World will know.
   .
3. It’s comfortable
   .
   Again, something you might take for granted. But the last thing I want is for the blasted thing to start chafing or itching when I’m out on a massive run. An iPod is an expensive item to ditch half-way through a run if it’s slowing you down. So the Cygnett armband is slightly elasticated and made from neoprene (a synthetic rubber), which is really snug.

Okay, so that wasn’t the most in-depth article I’ve ever written. But the longer I waffle, the longer you have to wait for me to tell you how you can win one for yourself!

Sir Win A Lot

Now, I’m in my girlfriend’s bad books this week because I won’t let her win this competition. So before she steals the armband for herself and I get in trouble with the PCC, you’d better enter.

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

I will, in no way, look upon entries more favourably if they also leave a £2 donation to my London Marathon charity, the Lymphoma Association. ;-)

Thanks to Mobile Fun, who have all sorts of other iPhone accessories, for providing another armband to give away. I won’t make you wear my sweaty one!

*Winners will be contacted either by email or Twitter and announced on 5th April. Your email address will in no way be distributed to third parties. Entry to UK residents only.

Not only could you simply re-tweet @sirjogalot, but many of you were given an extra shot at getting the answer to the question right! So how many miles is a marathon race? Well thanks to my typo, it was either B, 26.2 miles or C, 26.2 miles.

This week’s winner is Daniel Lambert from Watford. Congratulations Daniel. You win a load of running goodies (pictured here) including a Reebok Running Pack.

This week we have another little running-themed goodie bag (see picture) to give away to a lucky reader. You can win yourself…

• A Reebok Running Pack and set of workout wallets
  (courtesy of www.dietandfitnessresources.co.uk)
  .
• A 3-month supply of Wellman Sport vitamin supplements
  (courtesy of www.wellman.co.uk)
  .
• A box of 12 Focus 5-hour Energy Shots
  (courtesy of Focus 5-hour Energy)
  .
• 4 boxes of Nairn’s Oatcakes
  (courtesy of Nairn’s Oatcakes)
  .
• A pack of 6 CLIF bars
  (courtesy of CLIF)

You can enter the competition in one of two ways. Either:

1. Post a message on Twitter by clicking this link and follow @sirjogalot (so we can message you if you win) or…
2. Answer the following question:

HOW MANY MILES IS A MARATHON RACE?

A. 26.1

B. 26.2

C. 26.3

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

*Winners will be contacted either by email or Twitter and announced on 30th November. Your email address will in no way be distributed to third parties. Entry to UK residents only.

Thanks to all of you who entered the competition to win a pair of SOLE Custom Footbeds. The answer to the question was A, 90°C.

Congratulations to Karen Railton (@krailton), from Surrey. You win a pair of SOLE Custom Footbeds. Make sure you set your oven to 90°C (not 200°C) and let us know how they worked out for you!

For the rest of you, keep checking back here, follow SJAL on twitter or subscribe to the SJAL RSS feed, for details on further competitions…

.

If Paula Radcliffe has one bit of advice for runners, it’s don’t scrimp on shoes. Getting your gait analysed can mean a pair of trainers could last you a year, instead of a few months. You’re also far less likely to pick up an injury.

However, this isn’t always an option. You might not live anywhere near a sports shop that provides such a specialist service (I know, can you believe that not every trainer store is equipped with a treadmill, a 3D foot scanner and a gait analysis expert these days? It’s scandalous!). If money and specialist athletics shops are a problem, then a possible solution is a pair of SOLE Custom Footbeds.

SOLE contacted me a few months back (we actually gave away a pair of their Platinum Sandals in our recovery competition) and offered me a set of their footbeds to test out for myself. The idea is simple. Most good trainers these days have removable insoles. You simply replace the standard insole with SOLE’s version and viola! The trainers that previously gave you blisters or an awkward running style, are now custom designed for the shape of your foot.

The Custom Footbeds are moulded to the shape of your feet in one of two ways. You can either wear them for a few days and bed them in, or you can use the oven in your kitchen to heat the new insole and mould them to fit in a few minutes. Once heated, you just slide them in your trainers, slip them on and stand up straight for two minutes while they set.

It’s a great idea. For £35 a pop, you could turn your old trainers into the most comfortable shoes you have ever worn. But, if your oven is anything like mine (a UK oven, measured in Celsius, not Fahrenheit) you can accidentally overheat the footbeds and ruin them. Which is exactly what I did.

It’s a real shame because if I’d checked the instructions correctly (I’d only had a few months to read them!) I’d have noticed that the footbeds need to be heated to 200°F (90°C). I’d overheated them by a full 110°C. The softer black rubber underneath contracted, meaning that the top layer curled around at the toe end, becoming too narrow for the shoe.

Luckily, the kind people at SOLE have provided the SJAL blog with another pair. But instead of me foolishly ruining this set, we’ll be giving them away to one lucky reader to test them out for themselves!

You can enter in one of two ways…

Sir Win A Lot

1. Post a message on Twitter by clicking this link and follow @sirjogalot (so we can message you if you win) or…
2. Answer the following question:

AT WHAT TEMPERATURE SHOULD YOU HEAT THE SOLE CUSTOM FOOTBEDS TO IN A CONVENTIONAL OVEN?
Click here for a hint!

A. 90°C

B. 80°C

C. 70°C

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED

*Winners will be contacted either by email or Twitter and announced on 4th November. Your email address will in no way be distributed to third parties. Entry to UK residents only.