08 Feb 2010 First Look: The adidas miCoach Pacer
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Gear, Gear Review, Running  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

The package from adidas Malaysia arrived at the office Friday. I was surprise to note the size of the box which measured just. I was to be just one of the two in the community to see and lay their hands on the latest offering from adidas – the miCoach Pacer device. miCoach is adidas’ answer to the many online community based training portal such as MapMyRun, Garmin’s Training Center, Nike’s NikePlus, and Polar’s Personal Trainer. So you can see that athletes have plenty to choose from out there.

The miCoach Pacer allows instant feedback (including voice) while you’re engaged in your workout. Your workouts can be customized from the miCoach website and downloaded to the Pacer unit. There’s also an option to opt out of the Coach mode should you wish for it. Sometimes we just need music to move us along, don’t we?

http://www.adidas.com/micoach

There are actually 2 miCoach devices, the Pacer and the Zone. The miCoach Zone is a scaled down piece of gear worn on the wrist to provide heart rate zone colors in real-time for instant run feedback, displays heart rate, calories burned, and elapsed time. This first look takes a look at its big brother, the Pacer.

2 miCoach devices from adidas

2 miCoach devices from adidas

What you see below are the very first local photos of the miCoach Pacer. Getting the unit out of the box required some effort and I tore the bottom of the box a little. After some careful maneuvering, the top came off and I slid the contents out.

The box measures 5in (H) x 2in (D) x 5.3in (W)

The box measures 5in (H) x 2in (D) x 5.3in (W)

The content of the box

The content of the box

Beside the Pacer unit, there also the Stride Sensor and a lace clip, a CR2032 for the Stride Sensor, a heart strap to which you attach the CR2032-run Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and a couple of user manuals. The HRM is water resistant to 1m and the adidas website said that it can last up to 1,000 hours of active use.

The adjustable button-on chest strap

The adjustable button-on chest strap

The quality of the Pacer unit is good and has a rubbery feel while the really small Stride Sensor is slightly tougher to handle. Due to the size and smooth surface, I had a tough time taking the battery cover off, dropping it a couple of times. Good thing I was sitting on the sofa. Having said that the Stride Sensor has to be the smallest I’ve seen other than NikePlus’ in-shoe sensor. Because it comes with a lace clip, adidas’ Stride Sensor is usable on miCoach compatible shoes (with a hollowed out section under the sockliner) as well as conventional shoes. The small size is a definite advantage over the humongous Timex and Polar shoe units.

The tiny shoe pod with the holder (left). It runs on the CR2032 battery

The tiny shoe pod with the holder (left). It runs on the CR2032 battery

Before you even head out on a run with these babies, there are a couple of things to do. Firstly, you’ll need to head on to adidas’ miCoach website to download a Mac and PC compatible miCoach Manager application. It’s a light software running on Java and this is your interface with the miCoach portal when you connect your Pacer unit to your computer either to download the latest firmware or upload your training data. Download and installation of the software is quick and simple. Secondly you’ll need to register a profile with the miCoach online portal which are pretty simple too.

Signup page

Signup page

The very easy 5-step software installation process

The very easy 5-step miCoach Manager software installation process

Thirdly you’ll need to charge your Pacer unit. The first charge takes 3 hours and a single charge can last you 10 hours of use. So using the miCoach device over an ultra marathon is possible, though I won’t be running one just yet to ascertain its battery life. It’s interesting to note that the Pacer unit acts as a connectivity hub where you can plug in your iPod (it shares the same 3.5mm jack for charging and the iPod) and also an output to your earbuds (also a 3.5mm jack). It’s a nice gesture that the popular 3.5mm standard is adopted instead of odd sized ones. This way you can virtually use any of your favorite earbuds.

I’ve not worked out the operational aspect of the miCoach Pacer yet and it’s best left for a follow up posting. Since there’s a built-in clip to the Pacer, you can either clip the unit to your shorts or armband, chalking up another healthy piece of usability.

The device is Mac and PC compatible. Here its charging off my iMac

The device is Mac and PC compatible. Here it's charging off my iMac

The adidas miCoach Pacer is not yet available to the public as of this posting. Do watch this space for upcoming details on the launch and as I put it through the paces in the coming weeks.

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07 Feb 2010 The Debate Resolved
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Gear  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment

Sudden recent developments saw a need for a notebook acquisition. Hitherto I’ve been operating on the iMac and a dying Dell laptop. The 15″ Dell laptop is already in its death throes, the ticking of the hard disk getting louder by the day. A medium spec’d machine (but outdone in every area by today’s midrange netbooks), it’s now into the 4th year and I’m using it for some downloading and disc burning duties.

So there I was needing a notebook to handle presentation, email and other light social media work on the go or on-the-bed surfing. Since I needed one, I might as well get one that’s going to be thrashed by Carbokid 1 and my wife. It would’ve been a simple decision to make had Apple launched its netbook equivalent last week and I’d have snapped it up in a shot. As it stood yesterday, I had only the white Macbook as an option while on the Wintel corner laid  too many choices.

Everyone knew that I’m a Mac head but given the need and not wanting to spend more than I should, the Wintel platform held the edge with the Lenovo X100e, HP DM3 and the yet to arrive Lenovo S12. The difference in price between the Macbook and these netbooks are big – between RM1500 to RM1600 – a sum too much for me to justify.

Build quality is pretty good with no give and flex on its chassis.

Build quality is pretty good with no give and flex on its chassis.

Fujitsus infinity logo on the piano finish. Its a fingerprint magnet.

Fujitsu's infinity logo on the piano finish. It's a fingerprint magnet.

In the end I settled for the Fujitsu P-3010,an 11.6-incher. The specs are better than many netbooks in the market, missing mostly a HDMI port, which actually isn’t a big deal since I don’t have a HD TV. This AMD powered unit runs a little hot and doesn’t have a good battery life though which seems to be a mark of AMD netbooks. But with a 3GB 800 Mhz DDR2 RAM, backlit 1366×768 LED widescreen display, sites load very quickly and I like the colour rendition better than the Asus which I also auditioned. The embedded ATI Radeon graphics chip makes it possible to play the Delta Force game. Its 320GB SATA HD is also larger than most makes. To cap it off, there’s a webcam, 4-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth and a spill resistant full-size keyboard. The keyboard size and feel play an important role since I type very quickly.

The parting of RM2045 concluded the personal debate.  But c’mon Apple, make a netbook.

Slim on top. Compared to the dying Dell behemoth

Slim on top. Compared to the dying Dell behemoth

You can read about the P-3010 from the Test Freak and PCMag websites.

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03 Feb 2010 Seeing Double
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Photos  | Tags:  | Leave a Comment
Click on image to view the larger photoClick on image to view the larger photo

I think the title of this post is very apt for several reasons.

  1. It’s been a long week at the office with no off days, so my colleagues and I are already seeing double.
  2. My previous post has something to do with the moon and so is this one.
  3. How about 2 moons like the photo I made above?

Let me get some much needed rest and look forward to the coming Chinese New Year holidays. After which, I can start to work my way back to being fighting fit. Lots of work to be done in that department!

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02 Feb 2010 Midnight In KL
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Photos  | Tags:  | One Comment

Activities at the office last week reached its peak. Everything moved at a furious pace and except for a handful of “non-involvers”, everyone else was expected to be making use of their extra limbs grown over the last year multi-tasking. Yeah, we were pushing the evolution theory rather hard.

I missed several photo opportunities on a couple of nights when walking to the car park I spotted some workers laying some cables in the middle of the road. With the spotlights and passing traffic, the scene would’ve made a fantastic shot. So I brought the camera to work the next night hoping to catch them at the same spot. But a few steps from my office building I saw that they were gone, their task completed the night before. The night was well illuminated by the full moon. Even the white clouds were well contrasted against the black midnight sky.

Of the several shots made, the one below was the best, even though it really wasn’t a good work. I processed it this way as this was how I felt at that time. Yet to have my dinner, I went back to the office and packed up to go home.

Blue Moon

Blue Moon

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31 Jan 2010 February Wallpaper
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Wallpaper  | Tags:  | 4 Comments

In the spirit of the Lunar New Year celebrations coming up in 2 weeks’ time, on Valentine’s Day no less, February’s wallpaper is a Chinese-themed one. A simple shot of a heavy door at a traditional baba restaurant in Melaka. Click on the image to go to the Download page. 

Click on image to go to the Download page

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27 Jan 2010 The End Is Near
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Ramblings  | Tags:  | One Comment

Well I survived a 3rd working weekend. The project is at its final leg – think of it like the last fifth of a really really long race. You can envision the finish line, but there remains quite a few hurdles strewn along the way. In a marathon, you could possibly cramp up, or trip on banana peel.

As you can imagine, fatigue is ever present. My “panda-eye look” already rendered permanent some months back, that no La Mer cream can remove. My fellow colleagues have lately been fighting illness as well, undoubtably brought about by stress and lack of rest. But we’re all soldiering on. We just need to get to the finish line. We, well me at least, desperately need to regain what’s lost.

With the recent weekends lost to the corporation’s “cause”, I’d rather use whatever time I’ve left at home catching up with the kids. Which meant house chores can take a back seat and scaled down for the time being. If there are some cobwebs here and there, so be it. Perhaps the arachnids can help snag some pesky insects while we’re hosting them.

I also want to reduce the ironing to just C1’s school uniforms. Ironing takes just too much time with the stacks of clothes. My Mom didn’t complain in her years of ironing everyone’s clothes so I really shouldn’t too. The “torch”, in this case, iron, has been passed to me. Yes I iron the household’s clothes, including my wife’s. The little reward is seeing C1 in his spiffy uniform every morning as he cheerfully boards his ride to school.
To reduce ironing, my corporate mufti will be t-shirt and khakis. They’re easier to wash and require less pressing of the iron therefore saving my precious time.

On another note, C1 told me that he won one and lost another of the races during his PE class. So his runner Dad imparted a valuable tip: maintain the elbows at 90 degrees and use the arms swings to propel forward. C1 tends to run, rather inefficiently I might add, with both his arms down his sides. His way of emulating a comic in one of the Japanese sitcoms.

The end is near and I can’t wait for it.

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23 Jan 2010 Tokyo Trivia
Author: Jamie Pang |  Category: Marathon, Running, Tokyo  | Tags:  | 4 Comments

Which world-class marathon is even tougher to gain entry to, statistically, than Boston and NYC? You need to be physically gifted to enter Boston (charity entries notwithstanding) and you need to be very lucky to run NYC. Broadly speaking, 100,000 applied for NYC and about 35,000 lottery submissions are successful. You therefore have an approximate 35% success rate, which isn’t much. Comparatively the 2009 Tokyo Marathon had 130,000 applicants to fill the 30,000 spots, which drags down your chance to a paltry 23%.

The entry fee for Tokyo is Y12,000 which is around RM446 (USD135), making it a cheaper race than NYC. Plus there’s no processing fee to pay, so you’re charged only if you’re successful. Flight to Tokyo in February is also much cheaper than to NYC if via Singapore. The cost lies more in the expenses from the moment you touch down at the 5th most expensive city in the world. Tokyo is a point-to-point race and its popularity in marathon-mad Japan has elevated its stature to that of Fukuoka. The race starts from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and finishing at the Tokyo Big Sight where the expo is held. En route, runners will pass the Imperial Palace and Ginza. Temps between 2 to 10 Celcius will make this a chilly race. Several friends who ran there before remarked that it can get rather windy as well.

The race starts at 9:10am and is basically a mass start (a downside) with the 10K runners, so it’s advisable to jockey for a good spot. But get this; despite the 5,000 cap on the 10K entries, only 3,179 was filled for the 2009 edition. That makes the 10K less popular than the marathon. Never have I known in a race with multiple categories that the longer distance is more popular than the shorter race. Not in Unfit Malaysia anyway.

Lotteries are open from Week 3 of July and closes in September. But don’t let that deceive you. The full race quota is reached within 2 days of opening! So if you intend to try your luck, mark your phone calendar to buzz you early July. Malaysians require Visitors’ Visa to enter Japan. No cost here as it’s FREE! Details from the Embassy of Japan website.

It’s still a long way off till July, but I’ll just let the idea simmer for awhile. It’s certainly a to-do race for me, just a question of if and when. Meanwhile do check out Kelly Johnson’s 2009 race report here and view the exciting photos.

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