My First Run without a Phone
If you are a runner you obsess over your accessories. You will understand.
If you are not a runner - let me explain to you, why we runners obsess over the accessories.
Even when you are lacing your shoes - the devil part in your brain will keep shouting - Do you really want to run? - it is cold outside, or why not take a break today or it is already 8:30 - sun is out in full force... blah blah - the chatter keeps going on and on - asking you to stop and relax in your sofa.
The devil should be quietened. Unless you are a Buddha for us ordinary mortals it is not possible. We need tools.
A Smartphone is perfect for this. There are podcasts, music, audiobooks. The devil needs to be fed with these - so you can run at peace.
My first smartphone was Samsung Galaxy S in 2010. My running took off with this. Used the stock wired headphones but it will hurt my ears. And it will keep slipping once sweat builds up. Had to keep adjusting it and never got into a good rhythm.
Second problem is where to put the smartphone. You put it in pocket it will jostle. I finally settled on a runner’s water pack carrier from Decathalon - with a pouch for holding phone and keys. This solved the problem.
Sangeeta saw me ogling on a Sennheiser sports headphone - an around the ear neck band kind - around Rs.4000 in a mall. Our combined salary that time was Rs.50,000 or so and Rs.4000 was a big luxury ( we were bootstrapping ADDA and we were taking the bare minimum to keep our home running ). She bought it for me.
My running improved really well. The headphones did not hurt my ear. Quality was too good. But the headphone lasted only a couple of years. The headphone jack became a loose conduct and it will only work in some weird angle.
My running will get affected as I stop to adjust the headphone jack. Red electric tape did not help. I switched to stock headphone and hated it.
Also I could not find this specific version of Sennheiser headphone. Much more expensive ones were only available. It was around 2014 I think - Amazon and Flipkart were getting popular, and I could find my kind of headphone online - and I ordered the next version of this headphone - and it lasted another couple of years.
In 2016 I upgraded to iPhone 7 which had no headphone jack. I ran with the dongle - but it had lot of loose connection issues and suddenly my perfect headphone became useless. Back to square one.
I knew I had to invest in a Bluetooth headphone. AirPods cost around Rs.10,000 - a cost of a good android smartphone. Bought a cheap Bluetooth Panasonic headphone. It will take some time pairing, and I have one more device to charge. It hurt my ears and will kept slipping. Sigh. Started hating the iPhone. I keep making fun of San as 1.5. ( First invest in half the price of something, find it to be good for nothing then invest in the real thing - 1.5x - I had committed the same mistake ).
Then San showed me her AirPods. Did a trial run with it and loved it. Invested in AirPods.
My running form was back. AirPods never slipped out. Pairing was easy. When I had to talk to someone a simple tap on the left and it will pause. Double tap it starts playing the audio book without me having to pull out the phone.
I got excited about the Apple Watch ( series 2 had just come out and I fell for the Nike version ) - thinking I can now ditch the phone and run just with the watch and AirPod.
If you are not a runner - let me explain to you, why we runners obsess over the accessories.
Even when you are lacing your shoes - the devil part in your brain will keep shouting - Do you really want to run? - it is cold outside, or why not take a break today or it is already 8:30 - sun is out in full force... blah blah - the chatter keeps going on and on - asking you to stop and relax in your sofa.
The devil should be quietened. Unless you are a Buddha for us ordinary mortals it is not possible. We need tools.
A Smartphone is perfect for this. There are podcasts, music, audiobooks. The devil needs to be fed with these - so you can run at peace.
My first smartphone was Samsung Galaxy S in 2010. My running took off with this. Used the stock wired headphones but it will hurt my ears. And it will keep slipping once sweat builds up. Had to keep adjusting it and never got into a good rhythm.
Second problem is where to put the smartphone. You put it in pocket it will jostle. I finally settled on a runner’s water pack carrier from Decathalon - with a pouch for holding phone and keys. This solved the problem.
Sangeeta saw me ogling on a Sennheiser sports headphone - an around the ear neck band kind - around Rs.4000 in a mall. Our combined salary that time was Rs.50,000 or so and Rs.4000 was a big luxury ( we were bootstrapping ADDA and we were taking the bare minimum to keep our home running ). She bought it for me.
My running improved really well. The headphones did not hurt my ear. Quality was too good. But the headphone lasted only a couple of years. The headphone jack became a loose conduct and it will only work in some weird angle.
My running will get affected as I stop to adjust the headphone jack. Red electric tape did not help. I switched to stock headphone and hated it.
Also I could not find this specific version of Sennheiser headphone. Much more expensive ones were only available. It was around 2014 I think - Amazon and Flipkart were getting popular, and I could find my kind of headphone online - and I ordered the next version of this headphone - and it lasted another couple of years.
In 2016 I upgraded to iPhone 7 which had no headphone jack. I ran with the dongle - but it had lot of loose connection issues and suddenly my perfect headphone became useless. Back to square one.
I knew I had to invest in a Bluetooth headphone. AirPods cost around Rs.10,000 - a cost of a good android smartphone. Bought a cheap Bluetooth Panasonic headphone. It will take some time pairing, and I have one more device to charge. It hurt my ears and will kept slipping. Sigh. Started hating the iPhone. I keep making fun of San as 1.5. ( First invest in half the price of something, find it to be good for nothing then invest in the real thing - 1.5x - I had committed the same mistake ).
Then San showed me her AirPods. Did a trial run with it and loved it. Invested in AirPods.
My running form was back. AirPods never slipped out. Pairing was easy. When I had to talk to someone a simple tap on the left and it will pause. Double tap it starts playing the audio book without me having to pull out the phone.
I got excited about the Apple Watch ( series 2 had just come out and I fell for the Nike version ) - thinking I can now ditch the phone and run just with the watch and AirPod.
But there was no audible watch app. Discovered this after purchasing the Apple Watch. Grr.
Went through the forums and saw so many people like me upset over audible. To me it was a no-brainer. Why the hell will audible not release a watch app.
The problem was not audible but Apple. Only iTunes music app had the ability to run in the background.
My hacker mentality went into over drive and researched how I can move the audio book from audible to iTunes music library - so I can play it from the watch.
The problem was not audible but Apple. Only iTunes music app had the ability to run in the background.
My hacker mentality went into over drive and researched how I can move the audio book from audible to iTunes music library - so I can play it from the watch.
This means I had to break the DRM of audio book and had to invest in crack software. Did not feel good about it. Felt let down again by Apple and kept running with the iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods. However - being an Apple fanboy - I forgave apple. Perhaps the hardware is not good enough to support too many background apps.
And apple released Watch OS 5 and hidden in this update was the freedom for 3rd party apps to function like iTunes - to stay in the background. And audible had released it’s Apple Watch version. Thank you Audible. [ Bad apple - so you already had a capable hardware but you were just lazy ]
It was already 8AM. I started syncing the audible book I was listening - Innovators - to the Apple Watch.It was excruciatingly slow. After almost 50 minutes it completed syncing. There is no cable to quickly sync stuff to Apple Watch - it has to happen wirelessly through Bluetooth I think.
I decided to go for a run still. Wanted to experience running without a pouch jostling around me - or someone interrupting my run with a call.
And finally did it - my first run without a Phone. It was bliss. It felt odd to run without the smartphone - but felt liberated from the shackles of the necessary devil in our lives - The Smartphone.
Life is good.
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