As I approach 40, I’ve been more aware of the extra weight which seems stuck around my middle region. On top of that, I’ll be spending a week by a Spanish poolside next month. I decided something had to be done, so I started running.

Quite some time ago, my better half (@loveli) was entering a 5k with my sister and sister–in–law. We went shopping for running shoes and I came across a pair of Nike+ in my size: go–;go–gadget shoes. If you’re not familiar with Nike+, here’s the deal: they have a little widget which sits in the sole of one shoe. That measures the details of your run (speed, distance, etc), and then, via the magic of bluetooth, it transmits that data to the Nike+ app on my iPhone. Upon finishing a run, the app syncs the data with the Nike+ site and charts my progress. Ace.

Typically for me, the shoes sat unused for months, until a few months ago when we bought a treadmill. I started using it fairly regularly, but my running playlists needed attention. Enter technology! I figured I needed a way to set the BPM of the music in my iTunes and then I could create playlists based around BPM. At first, I tried MixMeister’s BPM Analyzer, but that yielded poor results. Another search and I found Cadence, which comes in both iPhone and Desktop versions. Awesome. I let the Desktop version do its thing, synched it with iTunes, pressed another button, and then I had a ton of BPM playlists. Cowabunga.

Now I can run along to the right music for the right speed, and all without leaving the house. I’ve managed 5k a couple of times, so I need to tighten up the time I do that distance in. I should really try and slow down a bit for some longer runs, too. If you have any running tips in general, please leave them here.

I know I should venture outside soon. This posh prancing is all very well, but I should be getting out there and entering some races. Besides, my Twitter mentor, Craig Zielinski (@craigzielinski), will probably never let me hear the end of it if I don’t man–up and get out there.

This article is copyright © 2012 Phil Sherry.