Week 4 is through and Lisa and I finally did it: We got smart phones. I had been thinking about getting a smart phone for awhile simply because they seem so useful, and of course, they're so cool! (which in turn would make us cool, right?) On new years eve and new years day, Best Buy had some really good deals on phones from HTC which made the phones free. It was really intriguing and was going to do it, but after talking with Lisa, she talked some sense into me how much this would cost us per month and she was right. Currently we were spending $59.99 a month for our AT&T family plan which gave us 550 minutes and no texting/no data. This was plenty for us and we never went over (had rollover too).
The phone I was looking at was the HTC Incredible which was on a Verizon plan:
It was supposedly listed at $599 but was free for the new year's special. It's the Android equivalent of the iPhone. But the plan we would have to get (we would each get one) would cost about $120 a month which was quite unacceptable.
So we ended up going with a real cheapo plan (suggested by a co-worker of mine) and a real cheapo phone but it had GPS and Android which is what I wanted. It's a Samsung Intercept:
The phone is on the Virgin Mobile plan which uses Sprints cell phone towers. Therefore we don't really get phone coverage in our house and the overall coverage is bad. But the plan is a non-contractual plan (unlike Verizon's 2 year contract) and it gives us unlimited data and texting as well as 300 minutes for $25 a month. The other problem with a non-contractual plan is that you have to buy the phones in full and they were $170 each. So now we're paying $50 a month for both of our plans.
The phones are really poor quality for an Android smart phone but we have found use in them and use them for various things. One thing I really wanted to use it for was tracking my running. Since it had GPS in it, I could use it while I was running and it would track my distance/pace/time, etc. I didn't know what the "best" running app would be but I searched the Android market and came up with:
Adidas MiCoach. I hadn't heard of it but I liked it right away. I learned that there were tons of training/running apps and it was hard to determine which one would work the best. Here is an image of my very first run with MiCoach and the phone:
(click on the image to see the workout). The up and down nature of the run shows the varying heart rate. This was a 34 minute run (straight from the workout sheet) that I did around my work on Wednesday. I stopped the run on the phone as soon as I stopped running but had to jog back to work so it ended up being about 3.125 miles.
Results from Week 4 of the Juniper cardio/fitness challenge.
Week 3 of RaceRx study
Week 2 of Marathon Training
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