Polar M400 Sync Fail Workaround

tl;dr – First put the phone in airplane mode.  Next, sync your activity  to the phone.  Lastly, take  airplane mode off and sync your activity to Polar Flow.

I ran after flying and hadn’t taken phone off of airplane mode; happy coincidence.  Here’s the complete rundown that works for me.

First, put the phone on airplane mode, then open the Polar Flow App.  A popup asking for permission to turn Bluetooth on appears; say yes.  Next, sync your M400 with your phone as usual.

On the phone, you will be able to tell that your activity has been uploaded (to phone, not to Polar) by looking at the daily activity window.  This window will have noted your activity in the doughnut chart.  Your activity will NOT show in the training portion of the app.  Close the Polar Flow app.  This completes step on.

Lastly, just take airplane mode off and open the Polar Flow app again.  Now just wait for app to syn to Polar site.  After the usual wait, your activity will show up in the training portion of app, success!

Once the activity has been recorded (you will see the circle graph

Polar M400 syncc Fail Android Workaround

Two-step.  First sync watch with Android phone in Airplane Mode.  Watch will state sync fail… let it be.  Run will NOT show up in Flow app in phone. Lastly, turn Airplane mode off and sync app again (so that it syncs with Polar service this time.)

2015 Gasparilla Half-Marathon

Highlights

• PR!
• First time running with a pacer. Way to go Kristen.
• First time racing with Polar! M400 ftw.
• Running in the dark for the first few miles. Street lamps had lots of style but gave but a nice glow that didn’t light road.
• Half marathon may be sweet spot. Not too long not too short.
• A big portion of course was out-and-back along Tampa Bay.  This gave us, the slow runners, a clear view of the elites on their way back to finish line.  It was breathtaking to see the game these runners are playing.  Lets just say that their stride looks very different than mine.  Wow, I’m looking up!

Lessons

• Include water stations in training/race strategy. I usually walk the stations and had to play catch-up to pace group. Every, single, time. Goodness, they can drink and run at the same time.
• Review course, at least on map. Right after mile 12, an awesome person on a crane overhead us runners blasted ‘finish-line after bridge’ over megaphone.  Jolt of excitement goes thru my body, which is starting to ache.  I kind off see bridge in the distance.  Off I go, empty my cup! Finnish line was after SECOND bridge. Thanks dude… I almost did my dance 200 ft from the finish line.
• Plan breakfast ahead of time. It’s about impossible to wing breakfast at 4am.  Ran on empty stomach and just about fainted an hour after run.
• Plan post-race reunion with loved ones ahead of time. Winged this and it caused unnecessary aches (and extra walking).

Lastly

Best race yet.  I would definitely consider revisiting Tampa next year for Gasparilla Half.

2014 Miracle Miles 15k Race

Another great, and wet, run!  Non stop rain did not stop the enthusiasm for the thousands of runners the met this year for the 5k and 15k Miracle Miles Event in Orlando.

Highlights for me:

• First race-in-the-rain!
• Second race without wearing headphones (in fanny pack as security blanket).  First one was Disney, by choice; more later.
• Longest race without any walking.
• (Sub 🙂 ) 9 min/mi.
• Lots of fun.

I even knew a bunch of runners at event; neat.  Lastly, I feel happy about performance.  First 15k, hence reference for distance, and time-to-beat for next 15k’s , hopeful, PR!

Building on my previous race analysis for the Oviedo 5K, I debated whether to use Tableau (rocks!) again or try Oracle’s Cloud Analytics.

Disclaimer – Happy Oracle Employee.

Even thou it has a 30 day trial, I think free developer accounts will be more suitable to accelerate adoption.  I’ve inquired and await response but they know best I guess.  Oracle does offer such a service for APEX; maybe its a matter of time…

Maybe next time; Tableau to the rescue it is.

Analyzing the 12th Annual Greater Oviedo 5K with Tableau

I had been meaning to write about this semi recent 5K run in beautiful Oviedo at First Baptist Church.  With by Raul’s insistence, I decided to check this local favorite out.

Held this past May 24th, 2014 on a hot Saturday morning, the course was florida-flat (42 ft elevation gain) but had plenty of shade and had that small-town feeling Oviedo is known for.

With a few weeks to ‘train’ I set out to ramp up the miles in order to reduce my time.  No medals for me yet but I enjoyed the race sights, the crowd and the location.  Nothing like an early short run to set one up for a nice weekend.

For fun, I decided to play around with the results in Tableau and try out the OSX version of the software.  Feature-wise, both Windows and OSX versions are the same, with the Windows version being just a bit more stable with big sets of data.

A Savannah Runaround

As far as scenery goes, this is the most distracting run I’ve ever done. I found it impossible to focus on running.  Savannah is a beautiful city.  It is small, yet packed with life and activity from the touristy bits to family life and business.

For a better write-up about Savannah Squares than this post, read this; an eloquent intro to the squares.

Disney Marathon 2014 Report

 

A Brooksville Runaround

In the spirit of my previous runaround post, I decided to do the same for my latest long run.

This time I ran in Brooksville, FL instead.  The combination of week 7 of training plan (Disney here I come!), the kid’s school camping trip and the opportunity to run in a new place warranted this post. 

Call me weird, planning the run was half the fun.  Between Google Maps and Garmin Connect, I was able to plot a route around our camping site that lined up with planned run.

The only thing I did not plan was the expected humidity. According to NOAA’s site, average humidity was 69.  That is a lot of water in the air.  Thankfully, it was cold enough that it was not a bother.  Accordingly, however, my printed route paper was completely wet 2 minutes after I took it out of pack!

 

An Orlando Runaround

For runners… 

You may know about the site DC Rainmaker, what I think to be one of the best run/swim/bike blogs that I know.  I find Ray Maker’s Run-Around-The-Neighborhood posts very entertaining.  As of this writing, his latest is A London Runaround.  Go check it out, he is very enthusiastic and you can’t help but enjoy his runs. 

Paying homage to these, I decided to find out if these are as fun to do as they look!

May in Orlando means we try to schedule our runs early in the morning or late in the evening.  This morning before work, I decided to head out for a morning run. 

Sidenote – If you’re in Orlando for business, this run is close to the airport.

I start my run imagining I am cruising down Beverly Hills.

Garmin Forerunner 10 Running Tip

The Garmin FR10 running watch has 2 screens to display data when you run. Each of these screens can, in turn, display 2 data fields.

During a run, you can scroll thru these two screens, plus time and date screen, using the lower right button on the watch. In this way, the watch can display up to 4 data fields while you run.

On a different setting option, you can set Pace to be average pace or instantaneous pace (default). This setting is absolute, you cannot have 2 pace data fields, one for average and another one for instantaneous.

Having set the two display screens already, including (now average) pace, you have the option to include instantaneous pace as well.

Just turn on Virtual Pace. This feature takes a pace given and informs you if you are ahead or behind it.

Now, as you run, you can scroll thru these screens with the Virtual Pace screen now displaying a fifth data field.

Sweet!

Lake Minneola Half Marathon 2013

4:30 a.m. – It is dark.  Alarm goes off.  It has been raining all night. Awake for half an hour, I’ve been thinking of the day about to start.  Having picked up running five months ago hoping to improve my health, today was going to be different.

I had registered to run my first half marathon, Lake Minneola’s Half Marathon.