Vince Collins - Developer, Coach, Photographer

Just a few photos I took this morning proving that New Hampshire's winter is over! 

Enjoy

While working on my Gile Pond Project, It was a particularly gloomy looking scene.  The only thing of interest seemed to be the movement of the water.  I experiemented a bit with shutter speeds and decided this was the best of the lot.  Faster speed and the waves were too defined, slower and they were just smeary.  This is a hand-held shot.  If I had a tripod, I might have been able to make a slower speed work pretty well.

I love these shots.  The lighting was almost perfect.  The pond was still.  The air was almost crystal clear.  The sky was interesting enough to add some drama in the reflection.

Click on the images to zoom.

I've been running for about a year.  I've had my share of aches and pains but recently I had been experiencing shin splints.  I had read that shoes might make a difference.  The shoes I was running with were about a year old and according to RunKeeper I had put on around 250 miles on them.  I'm not sure how long a shoe is rated to last but the reality was that I was wearing them almost every day for other activities ranging from kicking around the house to playing basketball.  I also noticed that it was getting harder to lace up my shoes to keep my feet from swimming around in them.  The bottom line was that my shoes were worn out despite the fact that I had plenty of tred on the bottoms.

So, I bought a new pair of Adidas adiZero Sonic 3 Shoes.

So far I like them a lot.  They are comfortable and my shin splints seem to have dissapeared over night.  The only issue I'm having is that they seem to have a lower heel rise than the New Balance 467 All Terrains I was using before.  Because of that, my lower legs feel like they are getting a huge workout on my runs.  Very tight, which I'm sure will subside in a few runs once they build up the muscle to handle it.

My New Balance 467s served me well for a very long time but so far, I'm glad I made the Adidas purchase.  I'm also going to use them exclusively for running so they last longer.

Early on in my beginning days of running, my friend suggested I use the site RunKeeper.com.  I'm so glad I tried it.

Track All My Runs

I don't own a GPS watch, something most serious runners (and some not-so-serious) seem to have these days.  But that's OK because with RunKeeper, I can easily plot out the route I took and it calculates the mileage and elevation gain and loss for me.  I just plug in the amount of time it took me and it also calculates my overall pace per mile.  I love that!

Save My Routine Runs

RunKeeper also allows me to create routes and save them.  That way I can just pull up that "map", add my run time and I'm done.  Doing this also allows me to pull up that route at any time and see all my past times ordered by the fastest to the slowest.  That's handy.  It also allows me the freedom to find new routes.  I can plot out a what if scenario and see the elevation and mileage to better help me decide if it's a good place to run or not.

Share With Friends

Similar to facebook and other social sites, RunKeeper allows me to share my progress with friends.  I can't tell you how much it means to have like-minded runners to talk to about running.  Some days I'm just not motivated to go for a run and then I read how a friend had a fantstic run that morning.  The next thing I know I'm out the door for the run i knew I needed.

Give it a Try

It's easy to sign up and if you know me, join my "Street Team".

RunKeeper.com