I Dorked Up My Exercise Because That’s What It Needed

So, I’m pushing winter down the seasonal stairwell by starting my running program up again. I’m looking to blend in some interval training with some increasing mileage and the interval training led me to this.

The guy developed some Windows Visual Basic scripts that will take an iTunes playlist, limit music to playing for a certain time, and add transition sounds in between time intervals. Then, you just need to take that playlist and transfer to your iPod. The effect is that you can run for however long you want and then the music stops, a transition sound is played, and you can slow down for whatever other duration you want and so on.

Since the scripts are Visual Basic, they work only with Windows iTunes. What isn’t obvious from the site is that your time intervals don’t have to be the same thing over and over again. You can put in a string of different length times and the script will do everything. For instance, 3,4,5:30 will make a 3 minute, followed by a 4 minute, followed by a 5 and a half minute interval, and then it will repeat that pattern for as long as there is music on your playlist.

In this way, you don’t need to look at your watch at all which I have always found to be a distraction when I’ve been running. You just keep doing what you’re supposed to until you hear the cue.

If you download the scripts from the guy’s site, make sure you substitute my replacement transition sound file.

The good: I went for a nice, consistent 45 minute run with my interval method this evening. Also, people doing their laundry drying when you’re running is like a little treat.

The bad: Running in the town where I live results in my mouth tasting like succulent arse.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Goings On, Techno Gadgetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.