Three Things To Help You Move Faster

My learning project’s focus has been running, and it’s been going pretty great if I do say so myself. If you scroll through my previous posts you’ll notice that I use the Nike Running App, and I love it, but today we’re going to be talking about three things I do to help with my running progress that isn’t… well… running. We’re going to be looking at the Headspace App, the My Fitness Pal App, and yoga.

My experience with both the apps is explained in the following screen cast video I made with Screencast-O-Matic:

Basically, I use the Headspace app for meditation, and it’s helped me learn to focus. This has allowed me to be at ease when I run rather than focusing on when I should stop, if I should stop, and where I should stop. I’ve found that meditating also has made me a calmer and more positive person. In small instances I notice that I’m less jumpy and more at ease… It’s taken a long time to get here (about 890 minutes…) but it’s definitely worth it.

Being a vegetarian, I find it’s hard to regulate my nutrition while I’m being active. So while I’ve been running I’ve been using My Fitness Pal to record my food intake and calories burned to stay on top of my meals. It’s a great app because it allows you to scan barcodes of food rather than typing them in every time, which makes it so much faster. It also would allow a person to track their food in order to gain or lose weight, if that’s something they need. My favourite part of this app is the breakdown of major nutritional goals. It allows me to say where I need to be better, and where I’m meeting my nutritional needs.

The next thing I want to blog about is my new relationship with yoga. I’ve gone to many yoga classes “in my time” and I always have wanted to do more. After going through a bit of a tough winter mentally, my friends suggested that I work on focusing my energy into finding a balanced and positive morning routine to start my days on a good note and get me on my way to work or school. Immediately I started doing yoga in the mornings, on my own, with some music, and I haven’t looked back.

My progress isn’t very substantial since I started. I only do about 10-15 minutes everyday, and I make up the routine as I go. I know there are apps that show people routines to use, but I wanted to move my body to benefit my muscles specifically for running. My small background in yoga has allowed me to choose moves that work well with my tired and sore muscles from running. The time-lapse video above, made with my iPhone, shows you what I’ve come up with. Try out my routine and let me know what you think!

Thank you for reading my blog about the tools I use to be a better runner. This week I did my longest run, 10.5 kilometres! Next week I will be doing an even longer one, so stay tuned for my next post on how I’m doing since cranking things up a notch. Did you like the resources I shared with you in this post? Let me know in the comments!