And now for something completely different!
In this video, I’m doing some barefoot running in sunny California. I will talk about some usability issues, and also test how waterproof the watch is!
Epson has very kindly sent me this unit to test as part of their 100 Epson runners programme. In exchange for leaving 5 reviews I am allowed to keep the Runsense which I tested without charge.
Judging from the past posts, it is starting to look like that indeed! Anyway, better late than never, isn’t what they say?
So, since New Year’s Eve (and day) a month has passed. New Year’s Eve wasn’t that exciting, I have to say – a combination of not having any plans and the family heading off to the countryside meant that I did not join the festivities in Porto. New Year’s Day was actually spent with some quality time with the family, while eating obscene amounts of food at my grandparents’ 🙂
I had planned my flights to stay for another week in Porto, thinking that I would be able to combine some thesis writing with nice bike rides in crisp, cool January days (same time the previous year the weather was absolutely gorgeous! I remember even taking some work to a seaside cafe and trying to do some work under a gorgeous blue sky, with the waves crashing in the distance…). Unfortunately, this wasn’t to happen this week, as it rained copiously throughout the week – Rui and I barely had the opportunity to go for a little ride to test his new (for him) road bike (and we got significantly soaked in the process anyway!). Even the river became off-limits as the Port Authority closed it to any vessels, so no rowing either :-(.
In the end I did manage to get some work done, my thesis is chugging along OK, although it is sometimes difficult to find motivation to work on it while other things are happening around me, both work and leisure-wise.
So I flew back home (funny how I consider this “home” now, isn’t it?…) and went straight back to work. Two days after I was off to Ashford to spend the day at the hospital, thankfully that had nothing to do with me or anyone I personally know! No, we were invited to visit (and shadow) a pair of ophthalmologists who have been working with our research group for a while. Sylvain has covered the visit on his blog, and I make his words mine, it was a very fascinating experience! (I did not faint though, too many episodes of Casualty and ER did the trick! 😛 ) Rather good to see exactly what are their real needs, as most of the time we seem to think we know what’s good for them, technology-wise, but it is not until we are actually inside the operating theatre that one realises the constraints the equipment has to respect and what is effectively useful for the eye surgeons during their procedures and also during their clinic work.
Afterwards, life became a continuum of work, thesis and training (perhaps I should find a synonym of “work” which starts with a “T”!). As mentioned in previous posts, I have been training at HBARC since September, and it has been an amazing ride. Hard to believe that I’m now pulling sub 2:00/500m splits for 5-6k at rate 19! And if a few things do go forward there might be a possibility of some racing happening this Summer. But I’m keeping that sort of under wraps for now 😉
Anyway, it has been really nice and I’ve been meeting some great people. I may be a bit biased but I feel that any rowing-motivated connection or acquaintance has all the potential to go well – due to rowing I have met quite a lot of great people, some of which I consider good friends. I think it may have something to do with this psyche of working really, really hard towards a common goal, and pulling it together all the way till the end. And I had been missing that for these last couple of years, ever since I left Porto. Not only the training together (the psychological effect of erging together is amazing – I would have never dreamed of delivering what I am doing now, with an added increase in endurance and general strength!), but also the social part: we have been having club meals and events at the boathouse which have been great, brilliant sense of community there. 🙂
Right, I’m going to wrap this up here (this is what happens when I start musing about rowing…). A few posts will start popping up over the next couple of months (in addition to these monthly-that-I-wanted-to-post-more-regularly ones), since I have been selected by Epson to review a running watch/HRM, the runsense SF-810. In return for posting a few videos portraying my impressions when using it, they will let me keep it at the end of the programme. I have already started the video reviews, with the mandatory unboxing and a first (muddy) run in Blean Woods last weekend. Stay tuned for the next ones! 🙂
In this episode, I took the watch on my first run which took place in beautiful (albeit muddy) Blean Woods, on the outskirts of Canterbury, Kent.
I delved on usability and the data the watch provides, along with the issues I’ve had with connecting the watch to my Android phone.
Epson has very kindly sent me this unit to test as part of their 100 Epson runners programme. In exchange for leaving 5 reviews I am allowed to keep the Runsense which I tested without charge.
In this episode, I unboxed it and briefly played with it after powering on. Stay tuned for the next videos! (and apologies for this very long, monochordic video – it is getting better the more videos I make, I promise!)
Epson has very kindly sent me this unit to test. In exchange for leaving 5 reviews I am allowed to keep the Runsense which I tested without charge.