Earlier this year I came across an advertisement at Fit Frosting for the Cruiser Skirt.

They were announcing a last minute sale before they stopped selling them and of course the last day was at the end of the month so I didn’t snag one, but what a genius idea! Fast forward to August when I tripped and fell while running. I had to make a split-second decision to either save my phone and risk badly damaging my knee, or let the phone go to brace my fall. I decided to let the phone go, after all it had made it through countless falls before. Not this time though, it fell just right, on the corner and cracked the glass. I immediately went home and hastily added phone pockets to my running pants.

There are a lot of things to consider when doing this I discovered.

Running pant #1 – my oldest pair, had already been hemmed up quite a bit to land just at the knee. I started with this pair first thinking that if I totally screwed it up, oh well, they were so old I could have used a new pair anyway. This is mostly cotton fabric with a bit of elasticity incorporated into the fibers. I cut off the legs where I had previously hemmed it. Using my phone as a guide I roughly estimated the size of pocket I would need. I then cut a slit into the pant about where I thought the cruiser skirt had their pocket and used a zig-zag stitch to secure the pocket. Turns out the pocket is a bit lower than I would like and my phone sticks out about 1/2″ which makes me nervous but it has worked so far.

Running Pant #2 – considering the first pant was a success I tackled my only other running pant. I wanted to hem these up anyway, so I trimmed off the excess to use for the pocket. This material though is pretty much Lycra through and through. I learned my lesson with the too short pocket so I paid extra attention to making this pocket long enough to completely cover my phone. The flaw here is in the fabric. While the pocket completely covers my phone, the material is so stretchy that it tends to bounce while I’m running. I plan to modify it by tacking down all sides of the pocket to see if that will help.

Why was I running with my phone in my hand in the first place you may ask? While I would love to have one of those fancy watch-type GPS systems to track my running, I don’t, I use a free app, Cardio Trainer, on my phone, plus I was also listening to FM radio while running too. I had been having problems with the built in GPS locating me when I kept my phone in my bra, so I got in the habit of carrying it instead. The hubs has convinced me to spend a few extra bucks getting a protective cover for my replacement.