Scatter my ashes here...

Scatter my ashes here...
scatter my ashes in the desert...

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Firing Up The Old Eight-Track iPod...

I am not a technophobe. But I have a persistent habit of delaying my use of a new gadget for a long time, once it comes out. Why? Because I'm usually happy with how the old one works and I see no reason to change. I also like to wait until the bugs get ironed out. Sort of like not running a new race the first year.

It took me forever to get a smartphone, a laptop, and move from cassettes to CDs, to my MP3 player, which I've now had for 8 years and I still use it, even though the software no longer works with the newer operating systems and the applications on my computer. Plus it only holds 2 GB, so I have one collection of music on the MP3 player that hasn't changed in over 5 years, because I can't load anything else on it.

Dennis gave me an iPod Nano for my birthday and I spent most of the day yesterday playing the thing, trying to figure it out and putting my entire music collection on it. Then I made some playlists, since I have a race coming up I got it all ready to go.

My back feels better and I ran a little over 10 miles today and took the iPod with me so I could practice using it. It's nice, it's a little easier to read than my MP3 player was, but I don't have a good feel for how to scroll through the screen, apparently I'm not touching it correctly- it doesn't respond as well as my iPhone.

I'm hoping I'll get used to it soon. I like that it's small and lightweight and it fits in the back pocket of all my PearlIzumi shorts and tights. I'm not sure about the battery life though. I hope I'll be able to figure out ways to recharge it because with the old MP3 player I could just replace a AAA battery once in an ultra and that was enough.

With this thing, I'm not sure how long it will work. I've seen all kinds of statistics on the battery life and how to maximize it. I'll have to figure that out this week and bring my MP3 as a backup just in case.

There needs to be an ultrarunning advisor for all new technology that runners use. I doubt that the makers of the iPod took into consideration that some people might want to run it for days without easy access to electricity.

If I were Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, I suppose I could make ultra technology like that. But I'm not. I just run. That's all I have to say today.

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