What Running App Do You Use?

I have decided to do a comprehensive review of running apps for Android phones, I need to find out what the top 6 or so are and review them all as it is becoming apparent that there are lots out there.

My thoughts so far are to review:

Runtastic (because that is what I have been using)
Runkeeper
CardioTrainer
Edomondo

However, this could all change depending on your responses.

Please could you leave a comment to tell me what Running App you use, why you use it and whether you'd recommend it. Then, based on the responses, I'll download the Free versions of the apps (as I think the free versions may be of more interest to people - may review the pro versions at a later date when feeling a bit flush) and over the course of however long will try out each of the apps. It is likely I will only use each app once or twice as it will take me forever otherwise!!

Thank you for your help

Running App Review: Watching this Space!

I was going to write a review comparing the two running apps that appear to be favourite among me and my fellow runners and bloggers – Runtastic and RunKeeper.

Having already been using Runtastic for a while and have upgraded (and paid!!!!) to ProRuntastic, I downloaded the RunKeeper app and went to use it today. I went to settings and tried to set it to automatically update Twitter (as my Runtastic app already does) and it wouldn’t let me, I had to log into runkeeper.com through a web browser. Hrmph! Not a good sign as I could do this straight from the app on my phone with Runtastic. I start up my laptop and load up the site – I have forgotten the password I used so reset it. Fine, set up Twitter and save any changes I’ve made to settings, go back to phone. Doesn’t recognise the account because the password doesn’t match! Of course! I log in again on phone with the new password. It wont do anything now because of some error. I give up. I load up Runtastic and go for a run!

So far this probably isn’t a fair review as it is probably down to my incompetence rather than the app’s set up (though so far I am definitely finding Runtastic more user-friendly), so I will try to get to grips with RunKeeper – I will also pay for the ‘elite’ version or equivalent to the Pro account on Runtastic so that it is a fair comparison. The other thing I guess I will have to do is take a couple of runs without my iPod so I can make use of the audio features on both apps. Perhaps I’ll have to put an album to run to on my phone and see if the audio interrupts the music to give updates and encouragement etc.

Will play around with all the settings and will write a proper, fair review soon.

Spiritual Pamper Fayre

I went along to a psychic fayre today. The Reiki Master that will be teaching me Reiki, Lorraine, was the organiser and told me about it.

The event involved a number of stalls selling jewellery, spiritual books, aloe vera products, scrummy looking cakes as well as, as you’d imagine, spiritual ‘practitioners’ offering Reiki treatments, aura photography, past life readings, Tarot readings, Ascended Master readings, mediumship, psychic art plus much  more. There were also a number of free workshops running throughout the day with an hour of mediumship as well.

It was nice to see it had attracted a lot of interest as the one I attended in Surrey was a bit of a let down – there were hardly any stalls and it was empty of visitors.

As I say, this was quite the opposite. That said, there wasn’t much on the stalls selling stuff that took my interest – except the scrummy looking cakes but I really wasn’t hungry. I would have liked to see more crystals on sale – in fact, I didn’t see any (think I was after them when I went to one in Surrey but they didn’t have any either). However, there was such a wide range of readings available which, for me, was my main interest in going anyway.

I would have loved to have gone to the past life reading but it was one of the more expensive sessions and was unsurprisingly very popular with lots of times booked up so I decided to go for an Ascended Masters reading. This isn’t something I had heard of before so was intrigued to see how it varied to Angel Readings and Tarot (Angel readings are what I do and I have had a Tarot reading numerous times in the past and have also read my own Tarot card in a workshop once). Afterwards, I felt it was not too dissimilar to a Tarot reading though perhaps with a slightly different focus, I can’t really explain. The practitioner,Pauline, did say that because she reads Tarot as well, this may have an influence over how she reads the Ascended Masters cards.

Anyway, on with the reading. I pulled out 8 cards one at a time which Pauline placed on the table in a sequence. She then turned them over in turn. The first one up – Angel Healing and she said “I get from this that you are a healer yourself or you should be”- well, if that wasn’t a sure sign that I am starting on the right path with my Reiki, I don’t know what is! The reading also said the path I was embarking on was the right one – there was a very positive and definitive ‘Yes’ card!

Another thing that came out from the reading was that I have an artistic talent and that I need to do more of whatever it was. She felt this was music but this is not something I’ve actively pursued. I really enjoy music but I think I’m a bit late to be becoming talented in anything to do with it. I have, however, been trying to do more drawing recently and wonder if this is it. I’m no expert, I’m not the next Van Gogh or Monet, I wouldn’t even call myself an artist, it is just something I enjoy doing and the end result mildly resembles what I intend it to look like (she also said I should speak of my strengths not play them down or highlight may faults…yeah, this is me trying to do that…one step at a time). As an example, here is my latest offering. Its the tree that lives on the green in front of our house – it looks lovely with the autumn sun shining on its yellow leaves – it inspired me to draw it!

The reading was so clear and the majority of it made immediate sense to me.The reading was meant to be half an hour but the cards were so clear that we were finished in 10 minutes so she asked me if I had a specific question and to choose 6 more cards.

With my thoughts being very much around work at the moment and whether I should be pushing myself harder to find a job and what that job should be, my next question was “should I get a job?”.

The cards were showing that, for now, I shouldn’t be looking for a job as I needed the time to really figure out what I wanted to do and to ‘find myself’. OK, she didn’t use such a cliché but that’s pretty much how I interpreted it. I needed to work on a few things with myself and to not stress about a job. When the time was right, I’d meet someone who would help me get the right job. She also said that, once I had made up my mind what I wanted to do and when the time was right for me to get a job, I should make sure I get a good work/life balance and that I shouldn’t fully adopt just one area of my life and let the others go by the wayside.

This was reassuring. I may have said before that when the time is right for me to do a particular ‘thing’ it kind of just falls in my lap. I’m very lucky that I don’t have to fight hard for it. Yes, I usually (not always) have to go through the hard task of an interview or interviews like everyone else, and they are often far from easy, but it will happen that the job almost seeks me out rather than me seek it out. I have also fought hard for things that weren’t right for me or didn’t come about. So, perhaps I haven’t been searching for a job as hard as I could have and I couldn’t help but wonder if I was being lazy by putting all my faith in fate. I am very lucky that I have this privilege and I appreciate that if circumstances were different I’d be taking whatever job I could get but I was reassured to hear this is the right approach for me. She said if I stress about it then it wont happen but if I relax and take my time it will all fall into place. This is so much like my life. Something I should remind myself of often.

She then did a third general reading of a further 6 cards which did more to enforce what had already been said with more of the ‘Yes’ card!

I did go to the hour’s mediumship too. There were 3 mediums that did a 20 minute session each. The second one came to me with a young boy who was in spirit world that went to my school and that I was close to who passed away young (when I questioned her on this she said between the age of 6 and 17) from a childhood illness. The only person I could relate this to was one of my best friend’s brother who died of Leukaemia when my friend and I were in the final year of Junior school (her brother was in senior school). I remember it well and it was terribly sad at the time but I can’t think of why he would be coming to me. Although I was close to my friend, I wasn’t close to her brother and I was at the age where I didn’t fully appreciate death and illness in the same way as we might do adults, unless you lose someone close to you.

Other than losing enthusiasm for my studies and that whatever I am doing this boy thinks it is the perfect thing for me I didn’t really get anything else from it. She finished with a name, Christopher or Chris, but didn’t say whether he was living or in spirit and didn’t give any further information about this.

The other thing that came to me was psychic smells. The third Medium was asking someone else if it meant anything to her. She asked her if she had started to notice unusual smells (which she calls psychic smells) like flowers and orange scent. This struck a chord with me because when I was running at the beginning of the week all of a sudden I’d smell a really strong smell which was completely strange for where I was – one of these occurrences was the strong smell of orange. It wasn’t quite the fruit but more like an orange scent or another flower with an orangey smell. There was no obvious source for this smell (I think I was running past a hotel carpark at the time) and it stayed with me for quite a while like it was following me. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me and I often smell scents which don’t make sense (pardon the pun) for what is happening around me – often they’ll be in my own home and will remain unexplained and will disappear as quickly as they arrived. When the lady she was talking to couldn’t understand it she asked the room so I raised my hand. She said when you start to open yourself spiritually your vibration becomes lighter enabling the spirits to try to ‘show off’ to you and this is one of the ways in which they do it. There have been a few strange things happening recently – more than normal – so this would make sense.

After the hour of mediumship I left the fayre to go and meet Stuart and Callum, who I had left exploring Moors Valley Country Park.

The event certainly left me with lots to ponder on.

My Reiki Journey–My First Treatment

Following on from my last post, Friday was the day of my first Reiki treatment experience.

To find out more about Lorraine Tricksey, and what she does, please visit her website at The Healing Garden Centre.

Lorraine, knowing my wish to learn Reiki myself, was very kind as to spend time with me to find out my current knowledge and experience of Reiki and to go on to explain more about it. So much of what she said made sense to me.

On arrival I was feeling a bit embarrassed that I actually knew very little about Reiki and yet here I was turning up to a treatment wanting to learn it. For anything else, I would have researched it within an inch of its life but I was turning up very unprepared. For some reason, it just hasn’t occurred to me to fully research Reiki – which sounds like madness considering it is something I have wanted to learn for so long. But Lorraine put me at ease immediately and assured me I wasn’t mad and her journey started off very similar to mine.

I did know that, for everyone that has a Reiki treatment, it is completely individual what that person experiences. It could be healing for the mind, body or spirit. Personally, I could probably do with all three so I was very eager to find out what would happen on my treatment.

I didn’t really know what to expect – maybe some feelings of warmth in the ‘problem’ places of my body but other than that, no idea.

Firstly, Lorraine used a Dowsing Crystal which she ran down the length of my body to see if there were particular areas that showed up as ‘needing attention’ more than others (she could probably put it a lot more eloquently than me). Straight away the vibrations were evident at the various chakra points in my body and I could, myself, see the crystal and chain tighten as if being pulled. She said that my intuition and my third eye were closed and the crystal was vibrating quite clearly at these areas around my head.

Following this initial reading of my body, all I then had to do was relax. Lorraine was very respectful to my levels of comfort, checking what I was comfortable with before proceeding with the healing. Lorraine started at my head and I instantly felt the heat but what surprised me was the colours I saw behind my eye lids. Having never particularly (knowingly) been aware of colours or auras, this took me by surprise. It started off a kind of turquoise colour and then turned slowly to bright green and almost yellow and took over the whole of the inside of my eyes. As Lorraine’s hands moved the colour reacted differently. Its hard to describe without drawing a picture. What it reminded me of, if you’ve ever played music through a Playstation, and you get that those patterns across your TV screen – it was like one of those. When Lorraione moved her hands away from my head and on to other areas of my body, the patterns started circling in one direction, then it would change and go the other way, next would be a circle that would pull into the centre into a dot. It was fascinating to watch. At one point I remember my eyes really start to flicker – a bit when you are watching someone going through REM sleep.

The place I felt the strongest reaction physically was in my back. Not a huge surprise as I have suffered with non-specific back pain for some time now and I am taking regular medication for but I did not tell Lorraine any of this. The feeling I  got when Lorraine was concentrating on this area was a bit like when I had my epidural when in labour with Callum, like a cool liquid was passing through my back in waves, yet Lorraine’s hands still felt hot (not warm, hot!).

After the treatment, Lorraine said she felt a lot around my stomach and chest perhaps in relation to anxiety and described it like bubbles as if releasing the bubbles of anxiety. It is not something I am aware of but it is not the first time I’ve been told this (with the same bubbles reference too). I wonder if it is largely more to do with my feelings as a child as there was a period when I was living on my nerves due to a bully friend and a bully cousin. I hadn’t thought about this at the time so not sure if this would still pick up from when I was a child. Otherwise, I would say any anxiety I feel now wasn’t anything more than the average person feels. She also mentioned a sensation like a heartbeat skipping a beat (my heart does actually do this) and said that the healing here is likely to be around emotion and feelings of the heart. This also linked in with the colour I was seeing as, apparently, green also relates to the heart and emotions.

She then questioned me about whether I suffered from problems with my hips – my back pain is in my hip area.

Lorraine is also a medium so often sees spirits around the table when healing. She informed me there are lots of people around me so she wondered whether I had known a lot of people that had passed over or whether they were there waiting for me to begin my Reiki path and they were there waiting to help me.

My instinct tells me that they are waiting for me to learn Reiki as, although there have been a few people in my life that have passed away, I would say the number is relatively few for my age. Also I have been told this before, that there are lots of people waiting for me to open my mind spiritually, and I have also been told I have a lot of people around me that I haven’t necessarily known well, if at all (like my Mum’s father who died when she was 3).

Lorraine didn’t tell me anything that surprised me which pleased me because she told me things I had been told before. When you go for a reading of some sort, there are so many charlatans out there, and we’ve all watched Derren Brown, that sometimes you just don’t know what’s true and what’s not. What Lorraine told me made a lot of sense to what I had already been told. It actually wasn’t Lorraine’s authenticity that was in question, I had a lot of faith in her but her reiterating what others had told me gave me confidence in those people I had seen previously.

We talked a lot and I could connect to so many of the things Lorraine talked about whether they were her own experiences, the way she explained what Reiki was to me or what she was aware of during my healing session.

She also told me something that I can’t quite connect to at the moment but it was so beautiful that I wanted to write it down to come back to later.

She saw a scene of me when I was about 6 years old where I was sitting on a swing in a green area with trees around that wasn’t completely rural but more like a garden. I was on my own but rather than feeling lonely I didn’t because I knew I wasn’t alone because there were spirits around me.

I am going to ask my mum if she remembers such a place where I might have been. She did say sometimes it is an event that has happened but other times it is symbolic or a metaphor, so it could be the latter.

Overall, my first step on my Reiki journey was a very enjoyable one and I am looking forward to the next step.

Recently, I have been having more and more unexplained experiences so I know I am slowly opening myself up again to my spiritual side. I am learning to relax about such experiences and instead of feelings of fear as I used to feel I am actually getting quite excited by them.

I am very excited to be starting my Reiki path and I hope you will join me as I will continue to blog my journey and I will share with you any more ‘experiences’ I may have.

My Reiki Journey – the Background

Yesterday I had my first ever Reiki treatment. I’ll go on to explain how it went in the next post but first a bit of background.

When I was a child (we are talking about 11 and upwards here) I used to give massages to my family – nothing ‘funny’, they had a headache, sore neck, shoulder, back, foot pain etc and I used to have a natural ability to massage it better. Clearly, at aged 11, I had no training or knowledge about what I was doing, I just did it intuitively. They used to ask for me to help them so it wasn’t just a polite “oh, how sweet of her” praise. I used to ask them later or the next day how their ‘ailment’ was and they were amazed that it had improved.

So that lead to the family commenting that I should do something along the lines of healing massage when I was older as I appeared to have a natural gift.

On the spiritual side, I have always had an interest in the paranormal, supernatural, spirit world etc. I am intuitive to emotions and events often knowing in advance when something is going to happen. Sometimes I know exactly what it is and sometimes I just know ‘some thing’ is going to happen, sometimes I will know if it is a good thing or a bad thing. This intuition used to be a lot stronger when I was younger but as I have got older and been preoccupied with other things in life, with friends and family, this intuition has, admittedly, got weaker. Or more precisely, it is there but I often don’t stop to listen to it.

I believe in Angels and I do Angel readings. Mainly for myself but also for friends and family if someone asks. I ‘speak’ to the Angels and, if there is a friend or family member I am worried about or who is going through a challenging time,I will ask the Angels to help.

So, it may be no surprise to many, that I have had a ‘calling’ some might say to learn Reiki and become a Reiki healer. Until yesterday, I had never experienced it and had very little knowledge of it but, within me, I’ve had this unexplainable drive to learn it for a long time. People that don’t know me particularly well, have said they think it is something I’d be good at, not knowing it was already something I felt strongly about.

I have been looking into actually learning it for a couple of years now but it has never actually taken off. Either the Reiki Master who ran the lessons was unavailable or the course was too expensive or some other reason, therefore it just hasn’t happened yet. When moving to Bournemouth, I had several activities or hobbies I wanted to pick up again or start, Reiki being one of them. But there were just too many to be able to realistically dedicate time to all of them. In a conversation with my mum, I said I just needed a sign for which one was the right one to concentrate on. Often, if it is the right path for me to take, things just naturally fall in to my lap, so to speak. Two days later, my mum finds out that the mother of the beauty therapist we both see is a Reiki Master and teaches Reiki.

Here was my sign. When I thought about it, this was no real surprise, of course, my Angels had a vested interest in me learning Reiki as the two go very well together but I was still very flattered they, too, felt it was a skill I could learn and share with others.

So I made enquiries and found out the lovely lady and Reiki Master, L, who ran the courses was running a Level 1 course in December for a couple of people that missed her last course. For those of you who are not familiar with the levels of Reiki they are as follows:

Reiki 1 (First Degree) – self-healing and healing close friends, family and animals
Reiki 2 (Second Degree) – enables you to become a Reiki Practitioner
Reiki 3 (Masters &Teachers Degree - sometimes broken down into 3 separate degrees) – As the title suggests, it enables you to teach Reiki yourself

I spoke to Stuart who said I could only do the course if I had a treatment myself first – how could I understand what the other person was experiencing (if I went on to be a healer) if I hadn’t experienced it myself. He had a point and L wholeheartedly agreed and explained she had a very similar experience herself. Something within her told her she should learn Reiki then she had a treatment herself and all it did was cement the thought in her mind even more and she then took the next steps to be where she is today.

In truth, there is very little I actually know about Reiki, I’ve just known for a long time it is what I want to do.

I will share with you my experience of my first Reiki treatment in my next post.

Running Against Gravity

I have one key frustration with running – gravity! It must be that, its the only reason I can think of! People naturally gravitating towards me when I am running.

For instance, I’m running behind a couple on a 1.5 meter width path (or there abouts) and there is loads of room for the couple and me. They are facing the other way and are nicely over to one side so plenty of room to run past them so I start moving to that side of the path (at this point I’m about 15ft behind them), out of the blue they move too! I doubt they can hear me yet, I’m not a loud panter when I run (as far as I know) or a heavy footer, so why do they suddenly move. Fine, I move to the other side of the path and, sure enough, they do too! What’s wrong with these people? Are they heavily under the influence and struggling to walk in a straight line? If that’s the case then so is every other individual or couple out and about at 8am in the morning!! I move again, and by now I am literally just about to pass them, and they knock into me and glare at me as if I did it on purpose – rude, bolshie runner that I am!

So, I try saying “excuse me” but they don’t hear as they are deep in conversation or whatever so I say it again, but a little louder this time. They jump about a mile as I’ve half scared them to death. Maybe my manic, out of breath squeal sounds like a psychotic murder excited by his next kill? By now I’m right on top of them (literally, because they jumped into my path in fright!) and again, I get the glare! Particularly from old ladies this one!

So, yesterday, I ran on the road to avoid the pavement dancing and guess what? Someone decided, right as I was about to pass them (but with me on the road and them on the pavement), yes, just at that precise second, to cross the bloody road! Why???? Have I been magnetised? Is there some magic in those running shoes of mine? Perhaps the toes emit the female version of Linx and projects it forward where men and women are instantly drawn to me!? OK, I’m just dreaming there – if that were true, I’d never take them off.

I wouldn’t mind but I don’t make a point of running down a busy street with everyone walking to work or college or whatever, I run down side streets, down the beach, through public gardens. Whatever it is, I’m either going out with some kind of advancing alarm next time or megaphone!

Is it just me or are there any other runners out there that shares this running phenomenon?

Run, Rabbit Run, Rabbit Run Run Run

We all have an exercise or sport that suits us a little more than all the others, even if you don’t know what it is yet. For me it is running.

Now, I love lots of sport/exercise:

• Climbing
• Horse-riding
• Body-boarding
• Running (as I’ve mentioned)
• The gym
• Football (yes that is playing!)
• Boxercise
• British Military Fitness (although only attended the trial session, I loved it)

To name just a few and I am sure there would be more from those I haven’t yet tried. However, out of the above, most cost money, whether it be initial start off costs for all the gear or whether it be for an on going cost per activity. Most are time consuming to travel to and/or to actually do.

Then there is running which is free and you can start from right outside your front door. I say free, I suppose there is the cost of trainers and, being a sufferer of shin splints in the past, a good pair of trainers that suit your individual running style are invaluable. I always know when I’ve had mine too long as my shin splits return. I have often spent the same amount on them as you would a fashion pair, sometimes less,so they aren’t necessarily going to break the bank – unlike the equipment/gear for other sports/exercises.

I still can’t believe I ran a 3.5mile race with serious shin splints without stopping – I’m bloody stubborn when I want to be, so much so that it crosses the line into stupidity – I could barely walk by the end and had to take 6-8 weeks off running. The reasons for the shin splints – an old, tatty pair of non-running trainers!

I get bored of repetition and, even in the gym, I used to have a huge bank of different exercises that I used to rotate round and then drop/add another exercise every 6 weeks! Running,again, is great for avoiding that. You get bored of your route, you change it. Go down a different street, run around a beautiful place like a park or, if you are lucky enough (like me) to live near the sea, then run down by the beach.

The next criteria to be a good sport or exercise in my book is I have to be able to see an improvement quickly and have the potential to be ok at it. With running, I can count the distance and can always, very quickly, see an improvement, striving for the next mile.

It is a great way to ‘clear your mind’ too. Particularly, if there is something troubling me or I’m angry about something, I can spend that time processing it in my mind and, in fact, it helps my running if there is something on my mind, because I don’t focus on the run, therefore getting through the miles without even noticing.

Of course, you can run competitively against other people but, for me, there’s no better competition than myself – always trying improve and do better than the last run!

Then there are the sports I don’t like:

Swimming – In my opinion, swimming pools are there to play, splash and have fun in. I see nothing fun about swimming up and down in straight lines trying not to splash or catch the eye of the swimmer in the next lane that’s doing butterfly strokes with goggles on and, in my case, swimming 6 lengths to my one – that’s if I manage the one. I am not a strong swimmer having cheated at many of my ribbons and badges at school by walking along the floor, kicking up my legs once in a while. Not something I’m proud of, I wish I had tried harder and was a better swimmer – I’ll encourage my children to swim – but you can’t change the past and I am not that fussed about trying to change the future, where swimming is concerned!

Bikes that don’t actually move! – How dull can you get? and they are bloody hard work! Yes, I know the bike is fab for your bum and legs and is a great exercise if you get shin splints, but nope, not for me. And don’t even think about suggesting Spinning! What cruel, satanic, person dreamed up that exercise. I did try it once – and it was a beginners class. All these people were standing up, peddling for the walls (why don’t they put a poster of hills or something on the gym walls, surely there must be some kind of motivation even if it is static?), with the wind in their hair (could just be the high powered fan or maybe wind of another kind from the ‘cyclist’ in front) with a stark look of determination on their face. Whereas I was sitting down collapsed over the front handlebars wondering how I was going to survive the next 43 minutes (of a 45 minute class). I survived, just, but did most of it sitting down and on the least resistance!

Aerobics – Now, it isn’t that I dislike aerobics, I actually quite enjoy it – usually because I’m laughing my socks off at the back of the class as I bump into everyone next to me and am always a move behind. Its just not ‘my exercise’. I’d do it again if I was up for a giggle and had a good friend to go along with but its certainly not something, with my co-ordination (or lack of it), I’m ever going to be good at and I’m not sure the rest of the class found my bumper car impression as funny as I did! It is for this reason, I have never chanced a dancercise style class, despite the fact it always looks like lots of fun when I’ve seen it on the TV or heard people talk about it.

So there you have it – that’s why I love running! I’m never going to be an Olympic champion and may not ever even make it to marathon standards (though I dream that maybe one day I will) but hey, I can do it and I like it! Listening to my Running playlist on my iPod while my Runtastic App on my HTC Desire records my stats as I run down Bournemouth beach just after sunset. What isn’t there to like?

So, just so you know, you may get the odd post from me relating to running - like my next post that tells of a particular woe I seem to suffer from…