Archive for January, 2009
January 31, 2009 at 4:14 pm · Filed under Fitness and Exercise, Personal Goals
Was up and out early (for me) this morning, with shoes to the pavement just after 9am. My goal today was a long, slow run of at least 8 miles, possibly 10 if I felt like it -but with my recent spate of injuries, I knew that 10 would be pushing it.
I also changed my run/walk from a 4/1 to a 5/1 - hoping to eventually get back to the 1 minute walk per mile I had before the extensor tendinitis. But, again, I’m not pushing it.
Had a good run - it was a beautiful day in Denver, warmed up nicely from the 40 in the morning to about 60 by the end of the run. I just went where the moment took me, and at about 8.5 miles, I was pretty worn down, but I was also another 2.5 miles from home. So, I stopped for lunch and stretching, and then walked the rest of the way home.
I also decided to play around with MapMyRun.com and charted my run here:
1.31.09 Long Run
It’s not perfect by any means, as I did it quickly, so if you use the satellite view, you might think I’m either Jesus or a ghost as it shows me running across water and through buildings. If you’d like to start a new religion centered around me, though, I would be totally ok with it (so long as I get a cut of the profits).
A year ago, when I was first getting on the “in-shape” bandwagon, I could hardly jog for a few minutes without wanting to stop. I am amazed at where I am now, and amazed even more that my goal is to be able to finish 26.2 miles in a matter of months. It’s going to be an interesting journey.
I am also realizing how badly I suck at writing non-snarky, honest posts (unlike my previous blog), so I will wrap this one up here!
January 24, 2009 at 1:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Got up early today - fine, 10am - and went for a long run as part of getting back to my marathon training plan.
It was a beautiful morning in Denver: sunny, with nary a cloud, and a brisk 30 degrees. I put on my running tights, socks, Brooks, a long-sleeve running top, and a t-shirt, then sucked in my gut a bit because the lack of running in the last month is really catching up to me.
And off I went.
I never really cared much for running outside; I have no idea why. I suppose for the same reason that as a child I already knew that vegetables I’d never tasted were going to be yucky. I tried it a couple times when I first started running, and I think I also perhaps associated beginner’s aches and pain with running on pavement and roads. The treadmill seemed safer, there was eye candy, and nature doesn’t provide 10 televisions like the gym either.
But today, I just headed out with no real plan of where to go, following roads and open space trails, seeing areas of my part of town I didn’t even know existed (and I’ve lived in this house for 8 years). I got barked at by a multitude of territorial dogs. Met another runner or two along the way. Got odd looks from non-runners what with the way running tights fit, uh, certain parts.
And without the distraction of television or even my iPod, I spent most of the run lost in thought, mainly about the kinds of things I plan to write about on this blog. Fitness. Simplicity. Happiness. Health. Which isn’t to say I didn’t also think about things like beer and women and music, just not as much as one might expect from me. It was, if I may summarize the experience in the most trite way imaginable, very nice.
So, 6.5 miles later, I arrived back at my house. I think I could easily have put another three or four miles behind me, but didn’t want to risk too much too soon, coming back from an injury. I took Jeff Galloway’s advice and set my Forerunner 50 to an interval of four minutes running, one minute walking, for the entirety of the course (with the exception of getting stuck at one or two street crossings).
The training data generated by the Garmin software is over there to the left, cropped from the full display. It’d be nice if the mapping software was up to date, as the area I ran doesn’t seem to exist. I am pretty sure my house is not a figment of my imagination, but I’ve been wrong before. It would also be good if they would interface with something like MapMyRun.com and let you overlay your performance data over the quality maps they provide. Are you listenin’, Garmin?
Speaking of the Forerunner 50, Costco has them on sale still, now good through February 8. Well worth the $80 I paid for the HR monitor, foot pod, watch, and wireless USB dongle to tie it all together.
The formerly-injured foot seems to be doing ok after the run; we’ll see what the morning brings, but tonight I will preempt inflammation with Ibuprofen, ice, and New Belgium 2° Below Ale.
January 17, 2009 at 2:15 pm · Filed under Diet and Nutrition, Fitness and Exercise
The local high school running track, that is.
Despite some minor lateral ankle pain, I decided to give this running lark another go this morning. All in all, the run went well - covered four miles - but did walk now and again, and had some minor pains in toes of my right foot.
I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I suspect because of previous injury I am unconsciously changing my gait slightly and then consciously trying to correct for what I perceive to be poor form, which is just creating a mess. I hope that as I get more comfortable and confident again in my running, it will go away and feel more natural.
There were times in the last couple miles where everything seemed right: running was easy, no pain at all. Of course, once I became aware of it, the moment was gone and I was right back to over-thinking my form.
That said, ’twas a good run overall and I feel better for having done it. I just wish I had eaten something beforehand so I would not have been tempted to stop at the McDonald’s near my house and undo my 40 minutes of running with 10 minutes of eating. Gah!
Ah well, can’t undo what’s done been done. So, movin’ right along.
January 13, 2009 at 4:49 pm · Filed under Living Green
OK, so perhaps there isn’t really such a thing, as all computers take power to run, and when we dispose of them, even for recycling, it’s often some destitute stranger in a strange land who is disassembling them with little in the way of protection from the nasty inside.
However, that’s way, way beyond the scope of this post.
You can make your computing a little friendlier to the planet, though, with a program like Edison from Verdiem.
Edison is essentially a simplified power management application for your computer. You tell it what hours are your “work” hours and your “non-work” hours, and how it should manage the PC during that time (e.g. turning off the monitor, stopping the hard drive, or putting the computer into standby). In return, it calculates your estimated energy savings and reduced carbon emissions.
Mine is set pretty moderately, only going into full standby during the wee small hours of the morning.
Estimated annual savings? 631 pounds of CO2 and $50 off the power bill.
Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s an extra pint of beer each month.
Mmm, saving the planet and drinking more beer. Sounds like a winner to me.
January 12, 2009 at 5:11 pm · Filed under Live More Simply
As part of an ongoing effort to de-clutter and simplify our house, I began to review the many books in my library to see which ones I would be willing to send on to someone or somewhere else (typically Goodwill, or perhaps a friend who I thought might enjoy it). I don’t have an exorbitant number of books on the shelves, but certainly more than I will ever read again, or that I have found influential or inspirational enough to keep around for any reason other than “books are good things.”
As part of the process, I also wanted to find some new way to pass them along. Goodwill is fine, but feels like I am giving them my problem to solve. Once upon a time, we peddled them here and there on Amazon, but the few bucks we made hardly made it worth our time, and keeping boxes of books we no longer wanted sitting around the house for months at a time seemed to defeat the purpose of getting rid of clutter.
That’s when I found BookMooch.
BookMooch is a community for exchanging used books.
BookMooch lets you give away books you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.
That about sums it up.
You post the books you’re willing to send to others. You browse the books you’d like to receive. And then everyone takes advantage of cheap media mail to send books to new owners all over the world (or just in your own country if you’re being rather cheap like I am).
If they want to read it, great. If they want to try to sell it, fine; let it clutter up their place and not mine. In exchange, I get points to mooch the books I would like to read… then lather, rinse, repeat.
Sure, it costs a few bucks to send the books to others, but then I pay nothing for others to send to me - end result: I get books I want for $2-3 each without spending hours and hours at a used book store.
Check it out.
Update: Being the father of three kids all under the age of six, I find myself tripping over a toy every other step in this house. Thus, consider me pleased to stumble upon Zwaggle… sort of a Book Mooch for kids’ toys. Of course, the only problem is that I don’t want more useless toys replacing the already useless toys, but with some selective zwaggling (if that’s a word), it could be good.
January 10, 2009 at 2:42 pm · Filed under Fitness and Exercise, Personal Goals
It’s been a long two weeks of resting the right foot, icing it a few times a day, and dropping Ibuprofen like some sort of junkie (although in the last week, I upgraded with a prescription from the doc for a better NSAID with a side-effects and hazards list three pages long - rock on).
However, I think I am just about ready to get out on the road to run again. I’m walking without pain now, with only minor stiffness in the morning (ba-dum-dum).
As a reward for not doing anything too stupid while injured (yet), I ordered the Garmin Forerunner 50 Bundle from Costco, as they currently have a $50 instant rebate. For $80 and change, you get the Forerunner 50 watch, heart rate monitor, and inertial foot pod for measuring distance/pace/cadence/etc. Seemed like a good deal to me, and until their GPS versions shrink and improve (not just one or the other), it’s about all I was willing to spend.
So, with any luck, on Tuesday I will begin training anew for the marathon, with my eye still on the Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon, although I checked out the cost of hotel rooms in Anchorage and nearly died from sticker shock. Ah well, plenty of time to start saving up!
