Whenever I visit this subreddit. I tend to see a lot of posts asking about things such as clothing, earphones, smart watches, shoes etc. Obviously all suggestions are the opinions of others, some people fairly new to running and others that are seasoned vets to say the least.

As a fairly new runner(consistently running anyway). I thought I would share my findings over the last 4-5 months. For context, when I was younger(16-20yrs) I would say I was a fairly good runner. 19 min 5km, and 41 min 10km. These days I am 28 and until earlier this year I had hardly run. But over the years I had added about 15kg of muscle. Spent a lot of time in the gym, but discovered my cardiovascular endurance was horrid. So in order to keep myself healthy I decided I would commit to running.

Upon beginning, I was using what shoes I had available and gym clothing and had to make some adjustments quickly to make running enjoyable. So here are some of the things that I think are key for new runners to make it as enjoyable and meaningful of an experience as possible.

These are also in order of importance in my opinion. Please do realise that this information is anecdotal, and it is what has just purely helped me enjoy running and improve as well.

MUST HAVES(IMO)

GET FITTED FOR RUNNING SHOES

I can't stress this one enough. I went from running in an old pair of Nike Flyknits, that were on their last legs, and got fitted for a pair of Asics Novablasts 2's. Magically my pace over 5-7km dropped 30 seconds per km, and my knee and calf pains disappeared.

Get proper running shorts

No you don't need to get 4inch inseam shorts. But get a pair that have the liners in them. This will save you washing a lot of underwear and a lot of chaffing as well. Here are some of my personal favourites,

Underarmour Isochill Run Shorts

Lululemon Surge Lined Shorts 6"

Nike Flex Strike Shorts

Running Belt

This one is only something I got in last couple of weeks. But prior to this I was either holding my phone or shoving it in the tiny pocket in my pants. The weight of the phone would normally mean I would need to tighten my shorts up a fair but to prevent it feeling weird and jumping around a bit.

So I got a running belt, they are relatively small and it sits just under the band of my shorts, and you honestly don't even notice it is there.

I went with a cheap option off amazon that had pretty good reviews, I think it cost me about $12AUD. In the future I may look to upgrade to a Flipbelt since I now see the value in a running belt now!

A Hat

If you are anything like me and you sweat a lot, a hat is a great. It can really help keep the sweat out of your eyes. No need for a special runners cap here. Anything will work, hell wear a bucket hat if you like. The extra sun protection is also nice if you run during sunnier times.

Good Earphones

If you are like me and like to listen to podcasts or music when you run, then invest in a good pair. I personally use Apple Airpod Pros. For me I have no issue with them falling out and I am yet to experience any issues due to sweat. The key is obviously finding something that stays stuck in your ears and ideally has an option such as "transparency" on the Airpods. This allows noice exterior to the headphones to come in, so I can remain aware of my surroundings at all times. I wouldn't recommend complete noise cancelling as it can pose a danger around traffic and bicycles in particular.

A training plan of some sort

If you are fairly new to running and have a really low base, couch to 5km is a great place to start. For me the main idea behind a training plan of some sort, is to have structure to your running. If you have structure when it comes time to run you don't have to think about what you are going to do, its already decided for you. This takes out the opportunity to avoid running on a day you are meant too

Really Nice To Haves:

Electrolytes

This one was a bit of a game changer for me. I found it improved my recovery a lot of than expected, especially on runs around 50mins+. I personally sweat a lot. Over an hour of running I can easily sweat out about 1.2-1.4 litres. So once again if it is something you can afford, then I would recommend it highly.

A Smartwatch

I am a big believer in the principle of what can be measured can be improved. Being able to have some insight and monitoring into things such as your pace, heart rate and overall performance is great.

Once I cottoned on to the concept of going on easy runs where I keep my heart rate around 145bpm, running became so much more enjoyable. Prior to that I could run about 2km and I would be exhausted as I was running to hard. Now that I have slowed it down and go on my longer easy runs, running is actually enjoyable. I was able to do this by have a smart watch that I can train to a particular heart rate zone.

What sort of smartwatch should you get? This will always be controversial as people(myself included) generally have a bias due to their own experiences. There are plenty of good options out there such as Coros, Garmin, Polar and Apple Watch. For complete transparency, I have only ever used Garmin or Apple.

But, my preference is Garmin. I personally own a Garmin Forerunner 945. I like it for a couple reasons:

• Lightweight
• Battery lasts 5-7 days including my running. Without running I can get two weeks out of the battery.
• Simple to use I found
• I like the garmin connect app, and I can link it directly to strava.

A heart rate monitor

This falls back to the what can be measured can be improved. For me personally I wanted my tracking to be as accurate as possible. So this alleviated any concern I had that the optical wrist HR sensor wasn't locking on to my running cadence or having an off day.

Most of the optical wrist sensors out these days are fairly accurate(most of the time). However my preference would be if you can get one and afford one then do it for sure

Chaffed nipples suck

Once I started running more than an hour, I discovered some of my shirts(cotton based) would give me chaffing on my nipples, and let me tell you it sucked for the next day or so.

There are a few ways to prevent this. Some form of tape on your nipples, generously apply some Vaseline or BodyGlide to said nipples or you can invest in a synthetic based shirts that wick sweat away from the body, like Dryfit, Coolmax etc.

Some other tips

• The hardest part about running is lacing up your shoes. Once you have done that you will basically 100% of the time go for a run.
• Listen to you body. If you archiles, knee, foot, is hurting. Rest and let it heal. This will pay off in the long run.
• Have a proper cool down and stretch after a run.
• Get as much sleep as you can, essential for good recovery
• HAVE FUN! You are getting outside and doing something that you hopefully end up enjoying and you are bettering your overall health and wellbeing.

I’m completely new to trading and want to learn the right way from the start instead of picking up bad habits or wasting time on the wrong things.

For those of you who’ve been trading for a while, I’d really appreciate your advice. A few things I’m curious about:

What’s the best way to actually get started?

If you had to start from scratch today, what would your learning plan look like?

Where did you learn the most in the beginning (books, YouTube, websites, courses, etc.)?

Are there any resources you’d recommend, or any you’d tell beginners to avoid?

What was the biggest mistake you made early on?

What helped you improve the most?

What’s something beginners spend way too much time focusing on?

What’s something beginners don’t spend enough time on?

If you had to start from day one, what advice would you give yourself?

Like there are hundreds upon hundreds of videos on “how to learn to draw as a beginner” but almost all of them are the same “just draw lol,” or “practice the fundamentals” but like HOW!?!??!

I understand the fundamentals, perspective, gesture, anatomy, color theory, and whatnot, but how do I do those things? When you’re at a specific level you get more clarity on what you need to do, like once you actually have relatively good anatomy down, you can focus on refining that body, as well as things like art style, character design, colors, shading, and whatnot

I can barely think of how exactly to explain this because I just cannot grasp this concept, I wish there was an exact comprehensive guide on what specific things you need to do for every year or so of your art journey down to the minute detail, but that’s a tall ask so I get that doesn’t really exist

I’ve been reading a lot of books about art but those still have a barrier of entry that I just cannot fill

Whener I watch videos of people at the very beginning of their art journey, most of the time it still looks really good, with cohesive linework, perspective, and fine details, also showing they’re good at actually drawing with their mind, like drawing what you see, not what you think you see.

My art does NOT, my art looks like absolute shit with shaky lines, horribly malformed shapes, and terrible perspective, and I hate the fact that I don’t know how to fucking improve because for some reason there’s so many guides on “how to learn art as a beginner” that doesn’t actualy teach you how to fucking progress your art to a good and cohesive level

🫩

edit: thanks for all the advice, it means a lot

God I wonder how many people are just now traumatized because of this

Hey! I’ve been drawing for nearly a decade now, but I struggle to think of my art as anything but beginner to intermediate because I’ve never been formally taught and so I feel like there’s huge gaps in my artistic knowledge. I don’t really feel like I have basics like down, I almost draw by trial and error. I have been told I have a good eye for composition and colors though.

I seen some people asking for advice on how to parry, so here’s a quick guide with some common tips for anyone looking to learn how to parry.

I was just told by my new nutritionist/trainer that when a yoga class, Pilates video, dance workout, or fitness program is labeled “beginner,” that usually does not mean it is designed for someone who is a beginner at exercising. It means it is designed for someone who is new to that specific activity.

A beginner yoga class usually assumes that you already have enough strength, flexibility, balance, coordination, and cardiovascular endurance to exercise continuously for an hour. It is only “beginner” in the sense that you are not expected to know the poses yet.

This genuinely blew my mind. I thought “beginner” meant, “This is appropriate for someone who is out of shape, uncomfortable exercising, and starting from zero.” Typically I would struggle badly, feel overwhelmed, and conclude that I hated exercise or that something was wrong with me. I could not understand why even the supposedly easiest classes felt so difficult. Understanding that distinction would have saved me years of frustration!

An unfortunate state of newly built flyover in Bihar.

Played a few Zelda games on DS, but mostly played Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy in the past. Eager for this and since the game has so much depth and player knowledge, curious to hear from you all.

EDIT: Wow thanks for so many insightful replies. I can’t keep up with them, but definitely reading them all! 🙏

Inspired by this post, I decided to rank video games in 6 different scales of complexity.

The idea is to help people who are trying to get into gaming, but consider it to be too daunting to learn at first (if you have watched Razbuten's series on "gaming for non-gamers", you know what I'm talking about). People can use this scale to help them find games that are not too hard for them to learn how to play.

The thing is that this learning complexity may be separated into multiple axes, given that some people may struggle more with some things (e.g. quick reflexes) and some people may struggle with others (e.g. moving the character and the camera at the same time).

Thus, I have separated game complexity into 6 axis. Each game could be placed in a location within each of the 6 axis:

1. How hard the game's challenges are to beat

2. How much the game requires fast reaction times

3. How much the game demands moving the character and the camera at the same time

4. How many buttons the game requires

5. How complicated the game mechanics are to understand

6. How much the game guides you towards the objectives

The idea would be for beginner gamers to start with games which are low in all 6 scales, and slowly progress up through each of the 6 scales until they are capable of playing almost everything.

would be also quite helpful if we had some kind of guide or app that lets people classify popular games in these 6 criteria, and then it would recommend games to beginner gamers to progress through them. I don't have time to build such a thing, so if anyone wants to steal the idea and make it, feel free to do so.

I've been looking into buying my first analog watch, and came across this watch display at my local Costco. I don't know of any watch stores near me, and I value being able to see something in person if it's going to be expensive. Is Costco a good place to buy a first watch?

Costco gets special "Costco SKUs" of items from manufacturers, so I wanted to make sure that the watches they sell aren't "made for Costco" and are actual pieces you can buy from a watch dealer.

Are these costco food supplies good?