It's all Greek to me

I received an email this morning inviting me to join Google+ now that it is in 'open beta'. In open beta? Why do I need to know that? As far as they're concerned, I'm just a run-of-the-mill internet user. Why? Why?

Anyway, the point is I'm a bit of a technophobe. Something I had temporarily forgotten when I decided that gadgets were the best form of defence against a marathon. I was reminded last night when I tested my Nike+ app at running club.

I was quite excited about donning my running armband. I usually run a little faster on club night and I was looking forward to all the lovely stats the app would produce concerning distance, calories etc... However, I had a bit of an issue.

First rule of running club: don't talk about... actually, that's not it. If there is a first rule, it's that the wearing of iPods or mp3s of any kind will result in death or worse. Therefore, I could wear the iPhone on my arm, but I could not wear the earphones. This is fine, I agree with the rule. Except I was mindful that on Monday's run the workout paused when someone rang me and I had to manually restart it. Had the voiceover not told me that the workout was paused, I wouldn't have known. Hence, last night I had a minor logistical problem. If someone rang me, my workout measure would stop and all my hard-earned stats would go out of the window. A bit of poking around pre-run appeared to solve said problem: Settings>Pause on Incoming Calls>OFF.

Right, so that would turn off the facility that pauses the workout on incoming calls. Surely. And yet... and yet... three quarters of the way round I'm waiting at traffic lights and I contort to check all is well on the Nike+ front and !!!!!&*^ *insert expletives as you see fit* my workout has paused and is waiting for me to press resume. I've had a phone call and, in spite of my best efforts, it has hamstrung my run. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal, but I still did a lap of Green Park with a very angry face. It's just as well it was dark because it was not a face you'd want to run into. Thankfully the final wheezing mile lifted the fury and relieved the desire to welly my iPhone into the Serpentine.

Apart from that it was a very nice run. I know that it was at least 6 miles because it's mapped out on the running club website. And that's what I'm keeping in mind, even when my Nike-poxy-+ tells me it was only 5.37 miles. Right, time to dig out the as-yet-unused Garmin Forerunner. Now I just need to browbeat someone patient into showing me how to use it.

(Stats: 6 miles; time: no idea thanks to Nike+; minute/mile: no idea for same reason as before.)

(Pic: This was supposed to be the Christmas lights on Oxford Street on the walk back to running club HQ. At least my iPhone was good for something.)