MOTOACTV: A follow up

It's the little things in the life.

A sunny day at the park with my lil man.

A post-race martini (or two).

And learning that one of your running idols has one of the same gadgets as you.

Eric, who manages the local running store and placed second at this weekend's 20K (on the left), is training for the Boston marathon. A 2:35 Boston marathon. He's been chronicling his training on a Tumblr page - the good runs (5:38 pace) and the bad ones (7:21 pace), all of which make me feel slow and in awe.

This week's training highlights included that 20K and the fact that he has a MOTOACTV. You know, the same thing that I have. While I've been in love with the device, I felt sort of uncool for shunning the Garmin. Eric using it - and liking it - validates my love all the more.

"But, why?" you ask. "Why do you love it so much?"

Here are some things that I didn't get to in my first post:

*Instant, easy to read stats. When you end your workout, it gives you a summary. There are the basics, of course - duration and distance - but if you "scroll" down, you can see splits. I find this to be especially helpful after a race when I'm not going to immediately sync my workout.

*User friendly. If you are at all familiar with an iPad, iPod, iThing, you can easily figure out how to use the device. Yes, there's a learning curve but it takes about a week. With my Garmin, after two years, I was still trying to figure out how to find things.

*Cross training. The Garmin is great if you are a triathlete but not everyone swims and/or bikes. Some of us like Zumba. Or try to like it. With a new software update, there are 40 trackable activities - everything from yoga to yard work, pilates to punching. Oh, and Zumba.

*Battery life. I had heard a lot of negative feedback about the MOTOACTV's battery life before I said "yes" to the device but a software upgrade fixed many concerns. I'm able to use the device for my weekday runs without charging - and that's even when I forget to turn it off and it "sleeps" for a day.

With anything, there are some things I'd change.

*Elevation. I can see the minimum elevation, the max and net change but I'd love to see an elevation chart when I log on to the MOTOACTV website. Especially after the weekend's hilly 20K. Update/clarification: You can do this - I just hadn't figured it out. When looking at workout details, click on "Select Metric" and choose elevation.

 From Saturday's 20K

*Daily Mile. You can share your workouts on Facebook and Twitter but not Daily Mile. I like to log my miles on that site as there are a few "friends" I only have there.

*Reports. I like that Daily Mile sends me reports each week that includes my mileage and pace. It would be great to see something like that.

*Online milestone reports. The MOTOACTV will congratulate you when you end a workout if you've done something new or awesome - ran your fastest mile, burned more calories than ever before, worked out for the longest period of time or ran the farthest. However, there's no way that I know of to see those benchmarks on the site.

Have you tried the MOTOACTV? What do you think? Or, are you scared to try something new?

Disclosure: As you know, I received the MOTOACTV device for free but all opinions and suggestions are my own.