Week in Review–June 11th, 2011

I’ve long since wondered what to do with all the random tidbits of things I collect each week – or the little thoughts that don’t quite make for a full post.  But I finally came up with a solution: The Week in Review Post.  This takes the place of my Weekly Mailbag – which is over on Slowtwitch.  These are just quick snippets of things that I’ve found interesting.  Nice and easy weekend reading.  Plus, a recap of my Weekly Mailbag post a well.

So with that, let’s get into the action!

Weekly Mailbag over at Slowtwitch.com:    
This week I cover the following topics over at Slowtwitch as part of the mailbag series.  Read all about it over here.

1) How to create repeating mile alerts w/o using auto-lap?
2) Wearing heart hate strap during races
3) HTC Android Phones that have ANT+ Capabilities?
4) Garmin Forerunner 310XT new power meter firmware updates

You can read all my past weekly mailbags at Slowtwitch here.  Or the pre-Slowtwitch days here.

Posts this past week:  
A wide variety of posts this week covering quite a range of stuff – including the widely read two part series on GPS Accuracy.  Here’s what made the page:

Sunday: Week in Review- June 5th, 2011
Monday:  Less than a week away…final training ensues!
Tuesday: Polar RCX5 Run Package Giveaway
Wednesday: 2011 Sport Device GPS Accuracy In Depth- Part I
Thursday:  2011 Sport Device GPS Accuracy In Depth- Part II
Friday: Boise Bound…well…sorta
Sunday (the future): Polar RCX5 Giveaway Results!

Stuff that I found interesting around the interwebs:  
Another busy week around the Internet, with all sorts of interesting things to keep me distracted while waiting for planes at airports:

1) Lapview to count swimming laps for ANT+ watches.  I met with these guys back at the ANT+ Symposium last fall, and have been eagerly awaiting their work.  They’re taking pre-orders now, and I’ll be catching up with them next week on more details.

2) For DC Folks: Openwater Swim Opportunity at National Harbor June 26th: There will be a Swim-a-thon to raise money, at nearby National Harbor.  Legal openwater swim opportunities are few and far between around here – so this may be a good option for many.

3) Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) finalizes device profile for heart rate monitors, and adds schedule for remaining device profiles.  This may be the beginning of device adoption of BTLE…or it may mean nothing.  We’ll see in another 6-8 months at CES if sensors and devices make it to market. (via WSNObservation)

4) 5 Ways to Fake Sports Sponsorship: A funny article that probably applies quite well to triathletes.

5) Lessons Learned From Triathlon Officiating And How It Can Benefit You: DC Blogger and USAT Official (and nearby friend) walks through all the most common rule mistakes, including a look at how he officiates races.  Since he’ll be out at Eagleman 70.3 this weekend…read up if you’re racing!

6) How grand bike tours help local economies.  A good look at the economic impact of huge bike events, like RAGBRAI.

7) USAT launches Elite Triathlon Academy.  Some news out of Colorado on a newly launched program aimed and bettering the pipeline for elite triathletes, while still keeping them in school.

8) Naked man jumps into town swimming pool after run.  Really, just click on, you know you want to.

9) Ironman New York City 2012 announced.  If hot and steamy August days combined with a scenic tour of Jersey and a really dang fast swim are your thing…than this is the race for you!

10) RunKeeper aims to be the Facebook of Fitness.  Interesting story from Wired about how RunKeeper is slowly becoming the single convergence point for numerous different fitness providers – such as Zeo and the Withings scale, amount many others.

11) Good post from Bicycling Magazine on handling bike vs car accidents: You may remember my recent post on my lessons learned from getting hit by a car last year, this compliments that well (thanks Zina!)

Random notes that don’t easily fit in one sentence:

1) Are you racing the Men’s Health & Gatorade Urbanathlon (and live in NYC, Chicago or San Fran)? If so, there’s a bit of an opportunity to get folks featured/profiled in some video work related to the race.  I’ll be detailing more of my involvement shortly, but in the meantime – if you’re planning on doing the race (either as a group or individual) – and want $500 to boot, click on!  The casting is occurring shortly, so don’t slack off.

2) In case you didn’t see it yesterday, Garmin released a new firmware for the FR310XT – this firmware adds a ton of great and highly desired features, including:

– Added an every second recording option. The user no longer has to be paired with a power meter in order to get once per second recording. Go to Settings>System>Data Recording to enable.
– Added zero averaging for bike cadence and bike power. Found under Settings>Bike Settings>Data Averaging. Note: power and cadence are defaulted to include zeros
– Added torque to the power calibration page for wheel based power meter

Plus…about 25 more changes…it’s pretty epic as far as firmware updates go (grab it there) and brings it in line with the Edge 500 from a power meter functionality standpoint.

3) I’ll be racing Boise 70.3 on Saturday, remember you can track along as I hit various mile markers/segments using the Garmin GTU 10 tracker that’s feeding into Twitter over at TrackDCR.

4) I got around to updating the Equipment Closet (aka…Amazon aStore).  I’ve revamped and updated the list of all the products that are offered on Amazon and that I use/used/reviewed. I added new categories and new products.  You can find it all here, and essentially it’s just a mini Amazon section with just tri/running/cycling/etc products.  Also of note is that the Polar RCX5 is now available via Amazon as well, right over here – run and bike packages.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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