Anyway, in my search for greater productivity, I came across a couple of great little apps and programs and tools and I thought I would recommend them for anyone who is into that kind of thing.

ReQall
The first is Reqall, which you can get at www.reqall.com and which has a great accompanying iphone application, which is also great. It’s effectively a speech to text to do list. SO, you open the app, click + and say “Reminder to call John about new song today at 4pm” – It uploads the audio to the interweb somewhere, then it sends you and email of what you have said and adds it to your to do list as text. Put on push notifications and you get a reminder half an hour before your task is due and you can also set it to send you and email or text reminder. Genius. The only problem I have with the whole thing is that syncing between other things like google calendar or pocket informant. It now syncs with google calendar, but only syncs about once an hour, and only to-do’s with specific times are synced. So if you have a general to do, it doesn’t but if you have a to do due tomorrow at 4pm, then it goes into your google calendar as an appointment. That bit is a bit frustrating, but otherwise this is a must have productivity app in my book. I bought the pro version (because I’m a sucker like that) and also downloaded the firefox toolbar plugin which is handy as fook!!

If you have an iphone, go get this now!

Dial2Do
I have to say, this service absolutely blew me away. Go to www.dial2do.com and sign up for the free version and you get 30 days free of the full pro service. It’s supposed to be a hands free assistant, again in the speech to text vein that Reqall above is. How this works is that you set up your account online, and then you’re given a local number to call in Ireland when you want to do something. You can write emails, send texts, update facebook and twitter, listen to emails and texts, all kinds of things. There is a huge amount of intergration with other websites and services also.

I was sceptical, but used it to update this blog (test posts, which I have now deleted), update twitter and send an email and it worked perfectly. If you go to their website you will be able to see exactly how it works and watch an example video (the company is Irish and the girl in the video looks very familiar, must know her from somewhere). But you basically call the local Dublin number from the mobile number you have registered with. The computer voice goes “What do you want to do”, You say “Update twitter” or “text orla” or “email paul” or whatever you want to do, then it says “Start after the beep” you say whatever you want to text, email or update, then it goes “that is done, now what would you like to do” and that’s it!!! And it works. Perfect if you’re on the road a lot and have a car kit (which I now have). I’m not sure about it’s uses outside of a hands free environment, but I just couldn’t get over the technology and how well it worked, I highly recommend giving it a go.

The only problem with dial2do, and every other comparable service I have found, is the time restriction. I was hoping that I could use dial2do to update my blog with posts like this one, but unfortunately the most audio you can use is 30 seconds, which is fine for updating twitter and sending a text, but means very short emails and blog posts. I am going to email the company to see if there is any reason this 30 seconds couldn’t be a few minutes, or whether it is purely a monetary issue.

What I would love to find is a speech to text program that meant I could use my iphone in the car to effectively dictate blog posts during my commute into and out of work. Dragon Naturally Speaking have a new ihphone app, but it’s only available in the states, and jott.com is similarly also only available in the states and canada. If anyone knows of any good speech to text programs and apps please let me know!!

Other names that pop up a lot when talking about productivity are Toodledo and Evernote – I saw Graham Linehan on twitter saying that once he got into Evernote he thought it was amazing. Neither have done it for me yet, but to be honest I’m trying not to spend much time getting to grips with them so I can spend my time doing what I’m supposed to be doing to start with, like typing this!!

Ok, so let me get things up to date so we’re all back on the same page. Back on Wednesday 27 January, I last posted about my daily training for the Dublin City Marathon. Things weren’t going too great, because I had recently had a bad case of shin splints that had kept me out of action for a week. Back at the end of January I had gone back to doing some cycling, cross training and swimming, but no running. I actually continued to train to the end of the last week in January (31st) but had lost some motivation and so not updated the blog.

Then I went to see my Chiropractor about my leg to see if there was anything about the way I was standing etc that might have been contributing to the problem I was having around my shins. In short, there wasn’t. Gemma said that it was nothing to do with the bones and was a purely muscular thing, so to go see either of my friends who were physios. And herein lies an important point in self-diagnosis. There’s a fair chance that whatever you think is wrong having consulted google, may not actually be the problem at all. I, it turns out, never had shin splints (as I would understand them) at all. What I had was damaged/aggravated/buggered up muscles in my leg surrounding the shin (I want to say the soleous muscle, but would probably be wrong….again.). My physio hero Clare worked on it for about half an hour and gave me loads of stretches to do to try and strenghten everything that needs strengthening and some more exercises and strecthes for other purposes which were very clearly explained to me at the time, but which make little sense now, some 2 weeks later.

Then, from 6 February to 13 February (whichever training days they are, 103 to 110, I think) I was away skiing, and you can’t realistically be expected to do proper training while spending whole days on the ski slopes in Meribel in France can you? I mean, I am only human and skiing is knackering tiring and very tough on pretty much every muscle in your body, particularly the way I ski. In point of fact, I suspect I got more and better exercise in the week skiing than I have in the last few months. Thankfully whatever miracle Clare did perform, my legs didn’t give me any trouble during the week and I actually think that the skiing my have been good conditioning and strengthening for the muscles that I need to build up.

SO, when you think about it, even though you might be fooled into thinking that nothing has happened with my training plan/regime for the last 17 days, there has only really been about 6 days of inactivity. Looks can be deceptive and all of that?

Anyway, the week away renewed my enthusiasm for the whole marathon affair and so training begins again in earnest tomorrow with a run/jog in Marlay (which until 2 minutes ago, I always thought was spelled Marley) Park and some light cross training. I’ve learned that I have to take it slow with the running, that I have to start on grass and work into it, that I have to stretch every day far more than any reasonable person might think necessary, and that if something starts to hurt, then I have to stop immediately, and not stubbornly continue until there is more damage done and more days training that I have to take off. Christ on a bike, I’m nealrly one third of the way through the year with very little to show for my efforts. This faffing about will have to stop……starting tomorrow

Spin1038 DJ Ryan Phillips is training for the Dublin City Marathon 2010. If you’ve just read this, then you’ll know it’s not gone well from Days 94 to 111. More Marathon Training tomorrow!

Anyway, after swimming yesterday I was scheduled to hit the cross trainer and the weights again today. My arms weren’t able for the weights, so I just did the cross trainer for half an hour. Is it just me or does anyone else find it quite difficult to keep any level of fitness up? About 3 weeks ago I was doing 40 minutes on the cross trainer and not being too bad afterwards, then I take a week of with injury and I am close to death after 30 minutes. I guess some of it depends on the day and how tired you are when you start off and all of that, but it’s still always a bit of a leap into the unknown when I get onto the gym gear as to how far or how long I wlil go before I need the conside a lie down.

Today, that was 30 minutes.

Spin1038 Radio DJ Ryan Phillips is taining for the Dublin City Marathon 2010 – Today was Marathon Training Day 92 – Wednesday 28 January 2010

Going to try and up the ante tomorrow and do a lot more in the gym and keep things moving, even though there’s lots to be done tomorrow, including going to Eddie Izzard!! Woop Woop!

Half an hour of one of these bad boys, good for what ails ya!

Anyway, i pushed hard when i played and probably got a good 20 minutes or half an hour out of the session, and since i was wrecked anyway, i’m going to count that as a result.

I met a friend for lunch, but had a “healthy” 30% less fat pizza. As far as i can work out, what Milanos do is cut the centre out of the pizza and bung a salad in the gap. Hardly surprising it’s 30% less fat, there’s 30% less pizza!

The Low Fat Pizza Theory

I finished off the box of after eights i had bought myself on Friday and also had a packet of hula hoops today, so overall, it has not been the best of days. I’m down at the cheerios childline concert all day tomorrow, so i dont know when i’ll squeeze any exercise in…arse, arse and double arse…here’s to a more successful tomorrow!