Sundays are for running, and blogging about running. Fortunately for me, unfortunately for my blog, I didn’t run into much excitement this week – no mountain lion sightings to be had. Which is totally fine by me. But it I don’t have a lot to talk about.

I thought that this would be a good time, then, to talk about some of the things I am finding helpful at the moment.

1. Runkeeper. I have a love/hate relationship with this app. I have used it off and on for years. I am currently in a “love” state with it, but that could change at any given moment. They keep updating it and adding really cool new features. The last update came with a feature that shows you how fast your mile was during particular songs in your playlist. So you can see what song made you run the fastest. The big reason why I love it right now, though, is that I can create my own workouts with intervals. I am currently into the Galloway method (more on that in a moment) and so I can create an interval that repeats where I run 4 minutes/walk 45 seconds.
2. The Galloway Method. This is a method where you run and walk at varying intervals. The walking interval is very short, like only a few seconds. The idea is that you recover in those seconds for the next interval so you can stay strong for the duration of the run and prevent injury later. I am loving it. I have been running longer distances and feeling great, not super tired afterwards.
3. Handheld water bottle. I have this one and it is awesome. Seriously. for years I just carried around a regular water bottle on my longer runs but I got one of these and, wow. I love it. Your hand wraps around it naturally and it feels lightweight and natural. Not like there is a giant water bottle grasped in your hand.
4. Running Light. I have an Amphipod Vizlet Flashing light. And no more excuses for not running in the early morning, predawn, hours.

So there you go. Just a few things that I have found helpful. I’m always finding new things so I might post more on this as I run across other things that work well for me.