How did Badminton sneak up on me?

I never actually played the sport until eight months ago or so and I'm still amateur level nowhere as good as I'd like to be, but this amazingly social sport is so fun that I'm willingly giving up a day or two at the gym or running in favour of playing badminton once a week. And now I wonder how on earth did it sneak up on me and becoming a great part of my active life?

Remember my active goals I mentioned (making time to work out 3 times weekly and maintain a compelling variety) well badminton fits my bill perfectly. Some of the benefits are:

• Improves mental alertness and reaction time
• Builds up cardiorespiratory fitness, bone and muscle structure
• Increases the levels of HDL good cholesterol
• Heart rate and blood pressure gets a workout as well

All that while you have fun bonding with friends and family, and it's so easy to pick up after a few rounds in the game! A big shout out to my close friends and family who shares and enjoys this as much as I do, thx guys.

My lifecompanion: An S60 handset and Nokia Sportstracker

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about the free GPS Sportstracker service that's now part of my daily life. Well to be honest it wouldn't have been a joy to use if it wasn't for my Nokia E71 handset and the S60 FP1 platform it's running on. This is a small preview to demonstrate the power of the S60 platform and the Sportstracker application that I use on my phone to track and upload my daily workouts. Here's a sneak peak with screenshots to demonstrate what I mean:

I start my workout by choosing type of activity (walking, running, cycling, skiing, rowing etc.) wait less than a minute for the GPS to lock and choose my settings for the workout. A setting that I use sometimes is If I want to auto track my laps, every kilometer for instance. As you can see in the above screenshot on the right I'm running multiple applications in the background, listening to some great music that keeps me on the move all uploaded on my 8GB microsd card.

Another application I occasionally have running in the background is Nokia Maps. Sometimes I go on a discovery jog around in unfamiliar terrain or ditching the buss to get where I wanna go, with Nokia Maps I got pedestrian mode to guide me whenever I feel exploring new places. When I'm done, I stop my workout and glaze at my diary (daily, weekly, monthly view) and select todays workout to see how I've done compared to the week before.

I upload my workouts so that friends can see them, post them on my blog or just contribute to the groups I like (my uploaded workouts help the group maintain a high popularity ranking in the sportstracker community)

The power of the E71 S60 handset:
During my workout I use wireless stereo bluetooth headset along with GPS, 3G connection (always online, receiving emails) music player is on maximum volume and other apps going on in the background and the phone chews it all like a small chewing gum. I start my round with two battery bars left, confident the phone will last at least an hour and a half of workout time and it did while capturing these screenshots. No doubt I've been spoiled by the stability and performance of the Nokia E71, now it's grown to a life-companion and I bring it with me running those challenging kilometers, a joy to use really.

Aborting mission - listening to your body!!

Today I was doing an early-before-breakfast-run to find myself really out of sync. My body felt heavy, unstretched with alot of tension in the muscles and couldn't really relax during the run. I tried powerwalking with a little running, light stretching still nothing helped. So I did something highly unorthodox (where most would've kept going bearing with the pain and tension) I did the exact opposite.

I stopped, I aborted the whole mission! After half an hour I went back home and carried on with my daily routines. I felt a bit dissapointed, my thoughts went: perhaps I should've pushed it a bit more but then thought heck I've got tomorrow and the day after. After a bit of dwelling I left this thought pattern behind me!!

Later that day, noonish at 7PM I felt compelled, my body felt warm, relaxed and I was pumped up for a run so I gave it a shot. I ran 8km with ease like a bird catching the right wind under her wings feeling this is one of my most relaxed runs ever. Sometimes listening to your body can actually pay off big time, it did for me!

My top 6 beginner misstakes

I still consider myself as a beginner at doing marathons and running. So are there any beginner mistakes I can avoid and learn from? These are rookie mistakes commonly made at the first weeks of active training, running or any other type of workout. Thanks to marathon rookie for sharing these with me.

#6 Underestimate Stretching

Many beginners finish a workout and neglect to stretch enough or even at all. They then find themselves tight and sore and eventually with a running injury.

#5 Lack of Support

They do not share their goals with their friends, family, or co-workers. Why not? It will give you lots of extra (and needed) motivation.

#4 Lack of Belief

After a few workouts. they stop right there. Done. Finished. Settling for less is a common misstake and forgetting all about goalsetting, consistency, persistence and patience.

#3 Motivation

It is very likely that you will miss a workout or more due to circumstances that comes with life. Whether it is bad weather, illness, working late, mild injury, or whatever, NEVER lose sight of your goal and choose to see the situation as a valuable lesson learned.

#2 Starting Too Fast

In any active training, there is a reason for gradually increasing your resistance and distance. If you feel really strong when you begin and want more, resist the temptation. By going too fast, you are substantially increasing the likelihood of injury.

#1 Injury

Many beginners make the mistake of piling on workouts too fast. They notice soreness in their shins or knees and ignore it. They keep training and BAM!, it hits them. They’re done. Game Over. Be aware of the warning signs and how to treat them. Be aware that injuries can sneak up on you with NO warning. Be smart and start easy. GRADUALLY build up and take your rest days seriously.

Upcoming events and completed races

Midnight run Gothenburg


One of the events I eagerly await in August is the midnight run in Gothenburg, it's bowed to be awsome. In Gothenburg in 2008 it was a huge success with over 7 000 participants. No other running event offers the same framing as the Midnight racees with the late start time, the arrangements around the course, the music and the party. Read more about Midnight Run Gothenburg on their homepage.

My workout summary

My day to day workouts uploaded live directly from my phone to the Nokia Sportstracker service. Each workout reveals music I listen to while I do a workout, map route showing exactly where I've been working out and other juicy details. While viewing a workout, you might want to return to main profile & latest workouts page simply click on my profile name, highlighted green in the upper right corner.

Goalsetting series Part 1: considerations & comitment

Where do I stand in this active journey?

This blog is of course intended for journaling and keeping track of my active side of life being simple and easy to follow. Don't expect lengthy posts like this one very often, but deciding exactly what I want to accomplish in terms of excercise and fitness isn't exactly a walk in the park. Is it to increase core strength, run faster, or to gain muscle strength, I guess it doesn't matter as long as I'm somewhat clear with what I set out to accomplish. While writing this post I started to analyze where I stand in my exercise goals journey. Asking myself what my daily workout habits look like. What is my level of current exercise activities? What habits stop me? What habits help me? and other similar questions that guides me in my goalsetting and give me a better judgemenent in my goalsetting considerations.

Considerations - building your own workout guidelines

You might use my set of goals in Part 2 of this goalsetting series as a guideline in your own personal goalsetting and as you noticed there are plenty of other points I neglected to write or slipped my mind that might motivate you even more on a personal level, like acting as an active mentor that channels enthusiasm and inspires readers, friends and family. Perhaps you feel like you lack the extra energy boost at work or at home and you just want to be more active. Whatever it is that comes to mind, start small, having a plan for what you need to do in the next few days is a step forward. True change comes from daily choices and basing your choices on what you need now (instead of what you did or didn't do yesterday) this will make your exercise life much more tolerable.

The service that's now a part of my everyday routines

Nokia Sportstracker on my E71 device

You can use this free GPS service when you're on vacation, on a plane, walking, biking, sporting. With it's advanced measuring features, it tracks my route with google earth export functions, it gives me actual height, speed, distance, speed vs. distance, altitude vs. time, height vs. time, a drawing with the route i went etc. all by GPS so it doesn't cost me a cent! I like Sports Tracker. It combines a lot of the stuff I try to do on this blog – running stats, route maps, etc. – in a way that’s quite easy to use.

Community and webpage interaction

On Sports Tracker beta web site you can create a free account and upload your workouts from your handset directly to the web with a few steps. There you can display a map of your workout route, average speed, elevation, and a host of other statistics. The huge community and the interactive Google Map shows live workouts from people around the world where you can follow friends and groups of members real time, send them a message or give a thumbs up after a good workout.

When you upload your workout to your favourite group you actually contribute in makig the group even more popular and climb in the popular rank. Sports Tracker isn’t just for fitness nuts. Travelers can share data about their trips with family and friends, the maps automatically tags photoes, videos and displays them correctly on the map.

Have a look at Nokia Sportstracker

June workout summary

Thanks June you've been great!

My workout routine has been fairly strong this month and thanks to the great weather I have been adding some extra hours of outdoors training. In summary this month has been a lot of running activity and less strength training at the gym wich I didn't miss that much to be honest (even though fairly important) During this month I've slowly and steadily been trying to increase the distance and duration. As you noticed as a part of my goalsetting and comtiment of reaching an average pace per km around six minutes is shaping up fairly good. Will july strike a good active running record as well? Perhaps, well I can't say I blame the weather for this one. Anyway thanks June, we've had a good ride you and I this month.

A fresh clean slate - jogging 6am in the morning

I've had a pretty lazy weekend and I thought it's time to break the pattern and release all the negative energy so I set the timer at 6.00am and let me tell you what a challenge it was to get my legs of the bed. After five minutes laying on bed I finally got up, got my clothes on, filled up my bottle of water, and was armed and ready to hit the road. I did a warmup walk, I felt little pressured because I was on a tight schedule - I started work at 8am. I half skipped the warmup to gain some running time, wich 20minutes during running my legs felt stiff so I had to restart warming up with a walk. Continously during the workout I did a half and half routine, mixing light jogging and power walking. It paid off good, lesson learned and here's todays round.

Start time	06.07.2009
Duration	37 min 17 s
Distance	5.39 km
Pace (average)	6 min 55 s per km

Lap time	Total time	Lap distance
7:03,91	7:03,91	1 km
7:01,93	14:05,85	1 km
7:48,87	21:54,72	1 km
6:17,11	28:11,82	1 km
6:40,68	34:52,51	1 km
2:24,78	37:17,30	0.4 km

View full workout

Goalsetting series Part 2: My active goals

Being realistic - balance between comtiment and focus

The questions I wrote in Part 1 about goalsetting considerations makes perfect sense in knowing how realistic my goals are. How high is my bar set? Am I capable of reaching these kinds of goals in days or months? The better judgement of mine knows I'm not a professional athlete with 100% fulltime focus, I need to find a good balance and the right amount of comitment, time and energy. An injury may force me to modify my goals. If my goals are to run a certain marathon and I'm injured, I may need to change my goals accordingly and do a half marathon, or some other event. An injury doesn't need to mean I abandon all my plans. At the same time, I may find myself progressing quickly and need to raise my goals.

My active goals and journaling comitment

Patience and persistence is key in my goalsetting process, they're like a muscle, the more I practice them the more they develop. With this blog I'm making it a good habit of journaling my workouts, revising and re-evaluating my goals on a monthly basis and rewarding myself after completed workouts and races. Lets have a look at my goalsetting plan:

• reduce average running time and keeping it under 6 min 30 s /km
• run 5km-10km weekly, longterm complete my first 20km marathon
• improve my walking pace and keeping it under 10 min 10 s /km
• make time to work out 3 times weekly and maintain a compelling variety
• journal my workouts, revise my goals, blog activities on a monthly basis
• engage in races, mini marathons, other activites to remain motivated
• enjoy being active, reward myself after completed workout and races

While 20km marathons may be my long-term goal, I want to shoot for the 5km and 10km short term and half marathon on the way to my marathon goal. I'd like to take the time and comit to my workouts, on a weekly practise I want to stay active 3 times a week, team up with friends and retain a good crosstraining variety, powerwalking, running, core strength training at the gym, playing badminton or perhaps try a new workout activitiy. This sort of progression in my goalsetting feels to me very motivating, healthy and realistic. Each month I'd like to compare, revise and summarise my workouts to see how I'm doing according to my goalsetting plan.

Running 030709 Personal Best Pace average 5min59s/km Distance 7,23 km
(with google maps kml file)

Notes: high laps at the end, running level medium. Overall good workout!!

Start time 03.07.09 11:25
Duration 43 min 14 s
Distance 7,23 km
Pace avg 5 min 59 s / km

Lap time	Total time	Lap distance
06:35,8	06:35,8	1 km
06:28,8	13:04,6	1 km
06:00,6	19:05,2	1 km
05:29,8	24:35,0	1 km
06:03,2	30:38,2	1 km
05:27,7	36:05,9	1 km
05:44,8	41:50,6	1 km

About me - the Swerunner

I'm constantly in a battle of catching up with everything in my daily life and routines while still finding time to stay active. This blog is intended for journaling and keeping track of my active side of things being simple and easy to follow. Thanks to todays social web I'm constantly inspired by other bloggers who share the same passion and I get the chance to inspire friends and family. I still consider myself as a beginner at doing marathons and running. Along with my quest of active goals, upcoming races, finding inspiration and staying active I'm pretty much pumped with motivation to keep this active passion going.

Interesting tids and facts about me:

Runner, writer and tech blogger. Different profiles - Same sense of passion In the Sportstracker community I'm known as Taffe, on tech blogs when I do reviews and on twitter people know me by Swestar and with my runningshoes on you'd probably recognise me as a swerunner in the running community.

The passion Loves to stay physically active, share new services and features that might improve or inspire ones daily habits.

Written multiple articles and reviews on different tech blogs, some articles:
email-on-e71-review-of-nokia-messaging
my-daily-companion-nokia-sporststracker
nokias-maemo-os-goes-after-web-natives.-who-why-are-they-important

Creator of the biggest Nokia Sportstracker active movement with more than 40 countries represented and over 800 members in total staying physically active and sharing it on the sportstracker service (that's a one big active international family)

Love outdoors activities like hiking in different terrains and landscapes

Any tips on upcoming races and events in Europe or Sweden? Let me know! Follow me on twitter and track my latest activities, reviews and news.

Stay tuned for more!