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).
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• 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.
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• 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.

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!
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1. It’s waterproof (sort of!)
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   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.
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2. You can change tracks
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   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.
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3. It’s comfortable
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   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.

There are 9 different events to choose from on the day. Obviously the main event is a full marathon, but also available to participate in is a quarter marathon, 10km walk, ‘mini’ races for children and a handcyles half marathon. However, the most popular distance (with over 3000 more entrants than the full marathon) is the half marathon.

The starting point is a 20 minute train journey away from the finish line, in La Tour-de-Peilz, a cool 13.1 miles away. Handily, your running number is your train fare, but the train runs almost side-by-side with the running route, painfully showing you just how far you have to run to reach the finish line back in Lausanne.

1:30 pacer

The standard of runners is very high in Switzerland. The fastest time in 2009 was a 1:05:58. Brilliantly, this means that there are pacers everywhere. These athletes, with coloured balloons strapped to their backs, position themselves at the correct starting points and run at the right pace, so that if you follow them you will match the time written on their balloon. I followed the purple 2:00 balloon (having not trained nearly enough and feeling very out of my depth). I didn’t see a balloon with a pace slower than 2:10 on the day, which goes to show the calibre of the runners there.

The actual race was fantastic. The road back to Lausanne follows the coast line of Lake Geneva. With the lake on your left the entire journey, you pass through some incredible countryside. However, this does mean that the level of support is very sparse. While you do pass through a couple of small towns, there aren’t many people around to cheer you on until the last half mile. This race is the first that I have run with headphones. Obviously, at one point an ambulance used the route, which I of course did not hear and was pushed to the side of the road by an angry Swiss man. Luckily, my French wasn’t good enough to understand the profanities being hurled my way.

Drink stations were frequent and the road was wide enough to allow a good spread of runners. It was quite congested at the start and around the pace setters, but after the half-way mark the congestion had thinned out. The course did seem to be a constant uphill climb, albeit not very steep.

I crossed the finish line (outside the Olympic Museum in Lausanne) after passing the 2 hour pace setter, in a time of 1:58:13 (a personal best for me). Considering I had only really trained by doing one long run each weekend for the previous month, I was very pleased. The cool weather and clean air must have played a part!

The Lausanne Half Marathon is a very well organised event. It costs around £30 to enter and for the number of people participating the facilities are impressive (ample toilets, free pasta party, an expo, good quality medal and a courier system to transport your belongings to the finish line).

You can enter here for next year but if you do I have three pieces of advice for you:

1. Learn how to convert kilometres to miles. Being a European country, all distance markers are in kilometres and I was forced to do some tough maths in my head to work out if I was going at the right pace to finish in a good time.
2. At the finish, make sure you park your car at the bottom of the hill. Lausanne is full of incredibly steep hills and walking up them at the end of a 13-mile run is not recommended.
3. Hang around a little at the end. If the podium frees up enough you can get some great pictures!

My two running buddies, Gemma and Matt

Last night I went for my first, post-marathon jog. In 4 weeks I’ll be re-running the first race event I competed in, the Bupa London 10K. I’ve set myself a target of getting round in sub-50 minutes. Last year I couldn’t quite break the 55-minute mark but after training for (and completing) a marathon I should be Señor Speedy Jogales.

First things first, I need to keep my level of fitness exactly as it is. I’d had 9 days to recover from the marathon (which I’d spent eating and drinking myself into a stupor) so I went out on a 3-mile jog around Blackheath. As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s important to have another goal or milestone to focus on after the marathon to stop yourself getting the post-marathon blues (sometimes caused from the lack of endorphins produced during regular exercise). Plus, this time Sally is running with me, so I’ll have a bit of extra encouragement.

I also had a new toy to play with. Just before the marathon I was approached by a digital PR chap who had “an opportunity that I think might interest you” and two weeks later this bad boy arrived in the post; an mp3 player designed specifically for running folk.

Herein lies the dilemma. Do I keep my integrity, send the mp3 player back and continue to write the SJAL blog posts for free (or without perks), or do I sell out, review the thing and keep it? From the title of the post you can guess what I did! To be fair, I’ve already plugged a fair few websites and running products and if this PR agency thinks that my audience (you guys) would benefit from whatever they’re trying to get in the press then I’m more than happy to review it.

So here goes… my first review:

I ran the three miles with the Sony Walkman W Series and it was the fastest three miles I’ve ever run (something like 21 minutes). Unfortunately, the reason for my speed wasn’t due to the inspiring music that had been pre-loaded on to the device, but simply because I didn’t want anyone to see me with this thing attached to my head.

The mp3 player is built directly into the headphones and the cable that connects the two, wraps round the back of your head. The theory behind it is brilliant. It gets rid of the annoying dangling cables (that you’d normally have to tuck underneath your shirt) and allows quick and easy access to the controls so you can play, pause, change track and adjust volume really easily. In practice, however, the device is clunky, uncomfortable and a little unsightly. I’m quite a self-conscious person (for the longest time I had issues running in a pair of shorts that show any leg above the knee) so I felt uncomfortable wearing a bright white device* that resembles two bluetooth headsets. You can’t even cover it with a hat because your hat won’t fit!

If this doesn’t bother you (and you have the right shaped head) then you’ll love this device and you’d have no reason not to. The sound quality is brilliant. The headphones resemble the MDR inner-ear series (I have a pair of these and the sound quality is unmatched for the price) and once the device is securely in place there’s no moving it. I’m no Paula Radcliffe head-bobber but the W Series stayed in place throughout my run. It charges in 3 minutes (using a slick little docking station that comes with it) and can hold 2GB worth of music (about 500 songs).

My advice, try before you buy. The cable that connects the two earpieces doesn’t have much give and if your head isn’t quite the right size then it’ll feel odd and you’ll be constantly trying to adjust it, rather than focusing on your run. I was so busy trying to adjust it that I nearly locked myself out of my flat.  It’s a shame because the concept and the functionality works so well.

Sir Jog A Lot rating: 3/5

* The W Series also comes in black, purple, pink and yellow