Last weeks blog was very much one for the women, so this week I’ve got technical with gadgets to please the rest of you!

Over my running career I’ve have polar heart monitors, garmins and various other gadgets so goodness knows how much I’ve spent!

Now that I am taking it less seriously I’ve started looking at the different apps you can get.

I now take my phone with me, and considering I run with 4 dogs and a buggie I didn’t think the extra weight would affect me too much! Not only is this for safety but also kills about three birds with one stone. I am contactable if I choose (to get picked up mainly!), I have my music on hand but also access to hundreds of different running apps!

Some are free whilst others aren’t. Some measure your route before you go, some even measure out your intervals. Which gets me to my point. These apps, I use ‘map my run’,  can help massively with interval training. Some people call it the Farlek training, others speed work, but they are all variations on the basic theme of a fast bit followed by a slow bit, which is repeated. It’s the fundamental issue here that is important, not what you are calling it and these apps help massively to measure distances so you can run 500meters then walk or jog 500meters repeatedly. It’s this type of training that will help you greatly improve not only distances but the time you take to run your races. At least one of your weekly sessions needs to be based on interval training in a good balanced training plan.