This is an alert of reviews and content to follow in April as well as an update of some of the changes being made on this site.

All of the social media side of sites like this is ever-changing. The idea of what the ‘best’ overall solution might be, changes too. For example, I recently decided to devote more time to providing additional imagery on Instagram accompanied by new, ‘short-form’ commentary on the images.

Techy improvements already made on this site include investing in a Content Delivery Network (CDN), which effectively duplicates this site in the USA and in the UK to make it faster. Alongside that I have invested a considerable amount of time in improving the general performance of the site through image compression and other technical stuff that I now understand better than I ever wanted to!

One of my important revenue sources are the ads that probably annoy you a little bit and which also slow the site down when the USA comes online. I’ve negotiated the removal of some of the most annoying ones (I see them too!) but, even so, the occasional errant ad slips through that contravenes the guidelines that I signed up for with my ad provider – monumetric.com. For example an ad might start playing audio – none should do that. Apparently it’s an industry-wide problem. I seem to have exhausted all that I can do with that, otherwse helpful, ad provider. Sorry.

On a related note, DCRAINMAKER kindly pointed me in the direction of COZMOSLABS software that can be used to manage reader types and hence to turn off ads for certain reader types (subscribers/supporters)

Consequently I am now offering readers who want to support this blog, in a small way, the ability to provide some help AND to get an ad-free experience. To start off this will be 49p/month – approximately 65cents/mo – the ad-free subscription service will ALWAYS stay at that price if you sign up for the introductory offer.

I will also be releasing one or more pieces of new content each month exclusively to supporters of the the5krunner for a day or two. Everyone will still be able to read that content but will have to wait a day or two until it becomes available.

April and May should start to hot up with new product announcements. As a few examples, I have the following posts planned:

• Ditch the Smart Phone: Running with onboard and streamed music – did you know there were 3 notable sports watches that could live-stream music? ie more than Apple Watch 3. Did you know that TomTom’s Runner 3 Music still had a firmware update in March 2018?
• Garmin Forerunner 645 Music Review – Will the sensors live up to the feature set this time? Has the GPS improved over the Vivoactive 3?
• Suunto Fitness 3 – Either a review or at least some more detailed commentary. Suunto recently partnered with Barclays (bPay). Will that be in the Fitness 3 or will it just be the Adaptive Training algorithm from Firstbeat? And really…no GPS, how does that work then? Connected-GPS?
• An update to the expected watches and cycling computers for 2018 – I’ll organise it a bit better and add some new stuff.
• There should be some super exciting triathlon gadgetry announcements, I think Ray has one already. But if it’s the one I’m expecting we’ll be looking at May/June (don’t ask I won’t say!)
• On a less exciting, but still interesting, front I will probably later review existing products like the LG Watch (WearOS) and maybe another of the WearOS watches.

What prompted the Supporter, ad-free service? Apart from the need to continually change and adapt I am devoting more time to the5krunner and less time to my day job. With the increased time spent on the5krunner, I’m earning far less money. The day job pays for food and I’m working harder overall. I’m loving it but I’m hungry and need to eat 😉

More details here if you want to Support the site to go Ad Free now

Comments very welcome below – especially if you think delaying content and adding a small charge for ad removal is a BAD idea. I don’t want to unduly annoy people.

Supporters: I am not a salaried journalist and rely on support from readers to keep the free content coming. If you want to support the work here then ad-free subscription starts at 49p (about 65c). Alternatively buying anything from my partners, below, also helps and may also get you a great discount. Thank you!

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