<p>Which ipod? My 6-year-old nano only stays charged for about 20 minutes . . . pondering whether to see about replacing the battery (no one in my household is handy with electronic things), or buy a new nano, or maybe a shuffle (the newest versions of both of these seem so tiny) . . . Any advice?</p>
<p>If you have a 1st generation nano – the one with either a white or black plastic front and a shiny mirror back – Apple has been running a recall for bad batteries. You log into a site, enter your serial number and it spits out whether you are covered. They sent me a brand new 8g silver 6th gen nano as a free replacement. So do a google search for nano recall and see if you are covered. It did take a month or two, but it was easy. They sent a prepaid FEDEX box to return it. Hassle free.</p>
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<p>I have been VERY happy with the latest nano for general use and for all kinds of fitness stuff. I love that it is so small and has a great clip integrated into the case. In a pocket, clipped to a pocket, clipped to the waistband of shorts. Once you get the hang of the touch screen, I would say that it generally easier to navigate than the old click wheel.</p>
<p>The SHUFFLE would work for me for music because I typically load a playlist of random 5star songs and listen like a radio sation with an eccelectic assortment of everything I like. However, the SHUFFLE wouldn’t work for the amount of podcast listening I do.</p>
I replaced one battery in an old nano. Wasn’t too difficult (but I like to take things apart and try to put them back together). On the other hand, the increased capacity of the iPods might argue for an upgrade.
I have to do the recall thing one of these days - I have a Touch which I use most of the time and a prev gen which works great - I’m just spoiled by bluetooth. You could get an external battery for the iPad Nano - I think that some are fairly small. I don’t know what changing the battery would cost but I think that you’d be better off with a new one than a first gen just because the newer stuff is more efficient.
<p>I have the new little Nano and a little Shuffle. Love them both. I did have to get used to the Nano touch screen. I like it, but it’s VERY small. I really can’t mess with it too much while I’m running- if I want to change something wrt the music I have to stop. I have mastered advancing a song to the next song on the run- i.e. as much as I admire my daughter and her musical talent, her senior recital pieces do NOT make good running music! The Shuffle is nice to just grab up and go and it’s so inexpensive that I’m not worried about breakage or loss.</p>
<p>If you have a Sennheiser iPod headset, you can control the iPod through a little plastic piece along the headphone cord. I have this setup with my iPod Nano.</p>
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<p>One of the software upgrades made it possible to have two options for the large button on the nano: PLAY/PAUSE or SKIP TO THE NEXT TRACK. That was a terrific upgrade!</p>
<p>I use a SmartPlaylists to load my iPod with ONLY songs that I have rated 5 stars. So I can hit shuffle play and be assured of having good songs. I have a smaller playlist with a 2 hour subset of those songs that I haven’t played in the last 12 months. That’s my go-to exercise playlist.</p>
<p>4 miles, 9:09 pace, warm and humid but not sunny.</p>
<p>BCEagle – I did do the Nano exchange – and the Nano they sent me was one of the new generation ones!</p>
<p>New Rules of Lifting for Life today. It’s hot and muggy. Not as hot, but clammy in the world’s best gym 2.0, but I had a nice little workout. Power pushups. Goblet squats. Inverted Rows. Single leg dead lifts. Alternating DB bench press.</p>
<p>The steam bath weather is supposed to break here Wed night, so I’m thinking about another wee hike in the mountains later this week.</p>
It’s supposed to break but not by that much. Saturday is probably the low - but we generally have this weather for the next ten days. Got into the office early today - I saw a lot of people out running before 7:00 AM. I was thinking of running early this morning but I couldn’t sneak out of the house early enough to do that without my wife waking up. Taking an extra rest day this weekend knocked my training schedule off by a day so I think that I’ll just shift it over.
One thing that I noticed was that the four mile run had me considerably more tired than the fast three-mile runs. I think that part of that was the heat and humidity but there seems to be some threshold, either in distance or time where things tire me out more. BTW, the tiredness is a good thing - I sleep more soundly, tend to go to bed earlier, and feel refreshed in the morning.
<p>We are back into hot, humid weather. I got up at 5:30 (ugh) for my 7 mile run. I was soaked when I got home. 74 and high humidity. I did get a little treat and got to run with 3 other women for about 3/4 mile from just after 4 miles until 5 miles. Was glad to get back to the house.</p>
<p>Did weights & core yesterday. More stretching and massaging for the calf muscles. I’m really not sure when I’ll be able to run again 
I’m letting my d use my garmin while I’m on injured reserve. At least somebody is getting some use out of it.</p>
<p>Watching sunrise every Mon, Wed. Fri. Unfortunately these are the only “early bird” swimming. The other 4 days I have to torture myself trying to see anything bsides beaming sun rays. Here is another person who endures torture to the sake of health. But I cannot skip 4 days of swimming every week, then I woudl feel really bad. like being rotten inside the body.</p>
<p>90 degrees but no humidity. 1 hour of hitting balls. Fun, because I was actually hitting well, including my backhand which decided to make a rare appearance and was surprisingly solid. No doubt, that will all change should I decide to play an actual one of these days.</p>
<p>I guess I don’t see that sun while you are in a swimming pool is torture. I used to enjoy my daytime swims back in Dallas as long as the water didn’t get over 80 (which it did by mid-summer).</p>
<p>Blankmind:</p>
<p>You’ll heal up. In the meantime, just look at it as an opportunity to “max out” in some other directions. If you really want to go hog wild, you could grab iPod nazi’s advanced core workouts. 12 weeks, 20 to 30 minutes per session, three times a week. I don’t recall, offhand, any exercises that would aggravated calf injuries (or knee injuries). Burpees maybe, but they didn’t really bother me when I was going through calf/achilless soreness).</p>
<p>I thought I was pretty strong in the core, but 12 weeks of that definitely cranked it up a notch. It would be a good option for someone who is fit and wants to do a pretty advanced program while circumnavigating leg or knee troubles. I did them as part of weight lifting workouts but, honestly, they are challenging enough to be stand alone workouts.</p>
<p>I’ve had lots of practice finding stuff to do when I have knee problems and my list is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stretching</li>
<li>Weight machines that don’t put stress on the knees</li>
<li>Dips</li>
<li>Pushups</li>
<li>Pullups</li>
<li>Abs</li>
<li>Static exercises where you hold a pose</li>
</ul>
<p>Yeah, knee problems are no fun. I’ve been nursing something in my right knee recently and am stepping back from whatever I’m doing as soon as I feel a tweak. Luckily, I could still do my two miles on the treadmill today with no trouble at all.</p>
<p>There are all kinds of knee braces out there too with some that severely restrict your movement (I’ve had the ones with steel rods on the sides). What’s helpful is being able to figure out the level of damage so that you know how long it will take to recover.</p>
<p>3 miles, 7:56 pace.</p>
<p>I took a steady approach with some faster sections. I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish or not in the last half-mile.</p>