This blog post is part of a series that starts here.

Well, beautiful and peaceful isn’t all, is it? The current condition and health situation surely makes running a lot more enjoyable. And in order to get in fit which makes running a great sensation, you have to run faster and push yourself a bit.  So this blog post is basically about finding this motivation with something called the Running Mate.

In order to motivate myself to run a bit faster, I clock the time it takes to run the distance. But unfortunately I seem to be stuck at about 55 minutes for 10 km run which is a bit too long time I think... I know. There are various good ways to improve the time: run more often, vary with shorter distances etc. If lowering the time would have been of really strong importance to me, these ways of doing would probably suffice for me. But as it, my level of interest makes me look in the direction of technical tools to help me out…                          

My problem when I run is probably motivation and focus at the running process itself. I let my mind wonder and I think of everything except keeping the correct pace. Running is great for problem solving by the way. Anyway, the clock does not give me this feedback since I have no idea of what time I am supposed to have when I am looking at the clock during the run. Naturally, this can be solved by having a number of part times at specific distances. And I do, but I don’t really want to keep track of too many of these part times since it disturbs my thoughts on other things. I would like to be able to know instantly, at the time of interest, what my pace is compared with a previous run at that exact spot of the run.

So the answer is obvious: The running mate application. It has been possible for quite some time now to buy a GPS equipped watch with this type of applications. The main idea is that it should be possible to run against yourself, i.e. being able to compare your current running time against a previous time you have had in a previous run at each and every spot of the run.

So I could have gone ahead and bought this GPS device. But something has stopped me so far. Of course it would be cool and exciting to fabricate this tool myself with the help of a mobile phone and a GPS device. Not that I know if I will ever get around constructing the whole thing, but I intend to build something in code and blog about it. I do this partly because it is a fun thing to do, but also since I think this application could be the basis for future examples both on the blog as for presentation I do.

So next blog post, coming up soon I hope, will be about the mathematical geometry needed complete such an application. Fun stuff I think.