I need advice on an MP3 player please:

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

I am training for a 10 K and marathon and would like to try running with some tunes to take my mind off what I'm doing to my body (this weekend I got a dreaded "black toe" and the more dreaded "runners nipples" ;-)

ANYWAY: I am not rich, and I do not need the latest 6000 gigabyte IPod Whatever. I'm looking for something small, basic and inexpensive that I can tuck in a jersey pocket and that is somewhat robust in terms of standing up to sweat, weather etc. I tried rinning with a Sone Walkman (yes - with cassette player) and nearly threw it into oncoming traffic within 10 minutes because of it's weight - not to mention the snarky comments I got from a sweet young gals re. my level of techno-savy. To hear them you'd think I had an 8track player strapped to my arm (not that they knew what that was...)

Any suggestions?

PS: feel free to try to tempt me to the IPod "dark side" (dark side being shelling out $$$ I don't have)

Tanks

Rabbit

[sakabatou]

1. Get something that has a flash drive

Such as the ipod nano, or any other flash drive mp3 player

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

3. is that like those little

memoty things you plug into a USB port? What is the advantage of this (can you tell I know NOTHING about MP3s...?)

[NYCGirl]

8. No, the iPod Nano and Shuffle both have flash drives, as opposed to the

"video" iPod, which has a hard drive. The good things about the flash memory drives, is that you can't break anything if you accidentally drop them — the hard drives can be a little bit fragile at times.

Here's the Nano:

http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/


And here's the Shuffle:
http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/

[sakabatou]

10. Yes, those drives plug into a USB port

You can pretty drag and drop your files into the drive.

[RedStateShame]

2. You could always get a Shuffle. Small, convenient, not that pricey.

You're probably looking at about $70 or so, unless you can find the old ones that kinda look like pregnancy tests. (The new ones are about the size of a matchbook.) The only drawback would be that you get a limited amount of songs, and you can't really choose what songs from your iTunes account you listen to. That is, unless you do a lot of deleting and dragging.

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

4. can I gat about 4+hours of songs (a marathon's worth)?

[RedStateShame]

7. It says it holds "240" songs. I'm not sure how long each song averages to, though....

...but I'd be surprised if they're justing holding 240 1-minute songs, i.e. 4 hours, so that would probably work in running situation.

[NYCGirl]

6. Very good idea! Those weigh practically nothing (half an ounce, according to

Apple).

[MissMillie]

5. ebay

you can get a used MP3 player that will hold about an hours worth of songs (not enough music for my 10K, but I'm slower than molassess running uphill in January--you're probably faster than I).

when I first started running, I went on ebay and for $18 I got an mp3 player that held about 50 minutes of music.

[Omphaloskepsis]

9. iPod Shuffle..

Here is mine..

79$ And it holds about 20 CD's.

[CatholicEdHead]

11. iPod Shuffle or Nano

[sbj405]

12. Unless you're running on a treadmill, don't run with headphones

It's very dangerous.

Even on trails, you need to be aware of other runners, cyclists, etc.

It can be done. I trained for a marathon sans tunes. Besides it's good to get used to it since you can't run with anything in the race.

Good Luck. Which marathon?

[fortyfeetunder]

13. Anti-Apple

There are a couple of flash drive alternatives to iPod

1) SanDisk 1GB (about $60.00), can use Windows Media Player download.
2) Creative Zen Micro Nano (my drug of choice) either 512 MB (~$40)or 1GB (~$60)I've seen. Reliable, though it uses its own software. Has FM radio.

[nedbal]

14. Creative Zen Micro Nano my choice 1GB $60 Has FM radio.