Friday, August 24, 2007

A Much Needed Run

I got done with a nice 3 mile run not too long ago and I definitely needed it. Today was a pretty crappy day at work so a run was a great way to get my mind off things and put things back in perspective.

I'm also taking tomorrow off from work and I am looking forward to that. Amy and I have tickets to a volleyball tourney in Omaha to watch the Huskers play. There are 4 teams in the tournament and 3 are in the top 25, with Nebraska and UCLA ranked 1 and 5 respectfully. So there should be some real good games.

We are going to stay in Omaha tomorrow night after the first round games and spend Saturday at the zoo before the second round games. It will be a nice break from things before starting a new top priority project at work and classes.

I probably won't post again until Sunday when we get back into town, so I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

I'm Back

I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted and I thank those who have bugged me about not posting. I don't have any excuse really, I've just been lazy about it and did other stuff instead. Mostly played poker online (shhh, don't tell though because the leaders of our great nation have deemed my hobby illegal).

Running has been going great. I went out for a 6 mile run this last Sunday, I made a wrong turn though and only ran 5.7 miles. I may out my runs online and planned to run a loop around a neighborhood. As I go to there I noticed the road was extremely freaking hilly, steep hills too. Hills are not good for keeping my hear rate down. So I look at the road sign and it's named 'Rolling Hills Rd.' DOH! From now on I'll be sure to look at the road names when I'm mapping out the my run.

That run put me over 200 miles for the year (which didn't start until 3/31 for me). I'm pretty proud of that. Counting tonights run my total mileage for the year is 203.1 and it has taken me 31 hours and 55 minutes, or at least that is what I have in my log. Amy also broke a milestone the other day and has logged over 100 miles this year. She started running after I did and had to take some time off because of shin splints.

I have though about my blog a lot and where I want to go with it and I'm not completely sure. I figure that since classes at UNK are starting back up again I'll need another excuse to procrastinate (that's another hobby of mine, and I'm one of the best) so I'm planning on posting regularly again.

I will keep posting about my running but I want to do more than that. I have been listening to books when I run so I'll try and write up some posts about those once in awhile. A lot the thinking I do when I run is about our country and the direction I think we are headed and I'm not a fan of what I see. So I feel I have to share my thoughts and try to someway make things a little better. So once in awhile you'll probably see a post about some of those things. I'll be sure to put something in the first line of the post so you know that's what it will be about right away and can skip it if you don't want to read my rants.

Well that's all for now, I'm glad to be back and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with you again.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy 4th

My run tonight was by far the coolest run I have ever done. I took off at dusk just as most people were starting to light off their fireworks. So for 35 minutes I got to see all kinds of fireworks going off and lots of people out enjoying them. So I just took things easy and enjoyed the shows. There was a big show put on by the Country Club that I got to watch for the last mile of the too.

One of the neighborhoods I run though had lots of people outside with a bunch of chairs setup. There was a light on the sidewalk near them I thought it was the glowing remains of a sparkler or something but it was actually an extension cord. Just as I was running by a guy picked up a box that was attached to it that had a bunch of switches on it. As I ran a little farther I figured out what was going on. There was little clearing that had all kinds of fireworks setup so the box must have controlled them. Sure enough, later in my run there was all kinds of neat stuff lighting up the sky from that area. I wonder what it would cost to get something like that setup and how to do it.

Because tonight run was so awesome I think I'm going to have to make it some sort of tradition to go for a run on the fourth and enjoy everyone lighting off their fireworks. I can just do that instead of buying any of my own and save a bunch of money. Of course I won't be able to go for a run when we can make to the fourth party that we usually attend.

I hope everyone else had a safe a fun fourth and that no one lost more than two fingers.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Week in Review

Since my training for the week is going to be pretty boring for the rest of the year. I think I'll just post a summary of the previous week every Sunday or Monday. So here is my summary of last week's (6/25 - 7/1) workouts. It might be worth mentioning that if for the training program my week starts on Mondays.

Monday - Rest
Tuesday - 1.5 miles in 15:23 (10:16 per mile) with an average heart rate of 139.
Wednesday - 3 miles in 33:04 (10:34 per mile) average HR 141.
Thursday - Watched a bunch of crap on T.V. instead of running
Friday - should have rested but had to run since I didn't on Thursday. 2 miles in 22:10 (11:05 per mile) average HR of 144.
Saturday - 4 miles in 42:00 (10:29 per mile) average HR of 142.
Sunday - played a round of disc golf with Amy.

During my runs I listened to book the first, 'The Bad Beginning', of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'. The book was pretty good, but it will probably be quite awhile, if ever, before I listen to another one of those books. I started listening 'Tuesdays with Morrie' on Saturdays run. So far I like that book a lot and I'll probably read it sometime, listening to it just isn't the same. All of my runs went pretty well, except I had a slight pain in my knee during Friday's run. I iced it after and it didn't bother me at all on Saturday.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

New Training Plan

For the rest of the year I'm going to be training to build my aerobic base. I've posted on that before here. In order for the training to be the most effective I'm not going to be doing any anaerobic workout, with means no speed work and no races. At least that's the plan, if I start to lose motivation or get bored I'll probably have to change that plan.

I'm going to use Hal Higdon's Novice Supreme training plan. It is a 30 week plan that is designed to get someone ready for their first marathon, but I'm just using it to build up my weekly mileage slowly. I actually started on week 4 of the program because of the mileage I've done the past few weeks. If you look at the plan you'll see that there are a lot of 3 miles runs (36 of the 96 total runs). So I'm going to have to find quite a few different 3 mile runs around here to keep things interesting. So if all goes well I'll be running over 30 miles a week toward the end of the year.

For all of these runs my goal will be to keep my heart rate under 150. So far this means that I have to walk up a lot of hills during the second half of my runs. I try to run slow enough to keep my HR down, but if it doesn't work I switch to walking, usually my pace picks up at then though (but my heart rate stays down). My average for the first 8 runs where I kept my HR under 150, an average of 140, I ran a pace of 11:40 per mile. The six runs since then had an average pace of 10:30 per mile and an average HR of 143. So my time seems to be coming down pretty quickly so far. I'm anxious to see what kind of pace I'm running at the same heart rate by the end of the year.

The reason that I'm training like this is because I've decided to run the Lincoln Marathon next May. I figure I'll be 26 then so what better reason to run 26 miles? I'm planning on following an 18 week training plan so this training will take me pretty much right up to the start of that. My base should be built up enough to be able to do the tempo runs and speed work that I'll need to.

One of my coworkers said he is going to plan on running it with me. He has ran a few marathons before so it will be nice to have an experienced runner as a reference. I probably won't run with him much though, he lives in Utah and is just here in Kearney during the week. He is just a consultant too and I'm not sure how much longer he'll be working with us, but the internet makes the world a pretty small place. I like the idea of training with people, even if we don't actually run together, so anyone else want to plan on running it with us?

It's been awhile

Man, it's been over a week since I last posted (so this post is going to be a little long). Let's what kind of excuse can I make up? Well my power cord for my laptop went bad (again) so I couldn't really use it all week. So I'll go with that. (We'll ignore the fact that Amy has a laptop and I brought my work laptop home every night.) The real reason is probably that I watched T.V. all week instead of doing anything productive. But I have a new AC adapter and I'm tired of watching T.V. so everything should be back to normal.

I hate T.V. There are a few shows that I enjoy watching but the other 99% of stuff that's on is crap. I hate planning my life around some show. So instead of doing that I try to avoid watching T.V. at all, then I don't have to worry about it. It's such a waste of time watching T.V., I think it's one of the reasons there are so many things wrong with our country. I'm not going to get into that at all though. So instead of wasting time watching T.V. I read all kinds of useless stuff on the internet, but at least I feel like I'm learning something.

Amy told me that she thinks I sound "irritated" in my posts (ranting about how much T.V. sucks probably won't change that). It bothered me a little when she told me because I consider myself a pretty content guy. I have no idea why I do, because that clearly isn't the case. When I was out running yesterday I think I kind of figured it out though. I'm pretty good at ranting (and really, I enjoy it) so that's what I do. I'm not real good at talking about positive things and I have no idea why. Let's take my job for example. If you ask most people that no me, they will say that I don't like my job. And they have no reason to think otherwise I complain about it more than anything. While I do have plenty to complain about (like co-workers that are a little over sensitive to having the sugar they put in their coffee replaced with salt), I really do like my job. My co-workers are great and I like 90% of the work that I do. I work for a good company that is growing fast. While there are some growing pains, I'd rather be in that situation then the opposite. So I'm going to work on focusing more on the positive than the negative (but don't worry, I'll get my rants in, I have way too many to hold them all back).

I'll start by going back to my race from last week. In my last post I was very disappointed with how it went. But I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I did take five and a half minutes off of my previous 5k time and ran my fastest mile since I started running again. I know every race can't go perfect so I'll just have to take what I can get and 5:30 off my PR is awesome. I wasn't too happy about how I finished either, even though I don't have any exact numbers. But I was measuring that against how I've done in the Lincoln races. There is a big factor that I hadn't considered before. All the races I've done in Lincoln have had two races going on at the same time and for the most part the better runners were in the race that I wasn't doing. This race only had the 5k so everyone did it. So there were a lot of runners that would have been doing the other race that beat me in this one.

The Kearney Community Olympics where a great time and I'm looking forward to next year. I want to talk about how I did pretty bad at everything I did, but I won't since I'm being positive and stuff. I'll give a quick summary of how each of the things I did went. Ti Chi was a little different, it wasn't nearly as intense as I expected it to be (but I just pulled that expectation out of thin air). Next we played Pickle-Ball. That was pretty fun, it's kind of like badminton except with oversized ping-pong paddles and a whiffle ball. We won our first game, but then we played a team that had a guy that knew what he was doing and they crushed us 11-0.

We had the 5k Saturday morning (I think I've talked about that enough). I also played some inner-tube water polo. That was a good time, and I'm sure it was plenty entertaining for those watching. I had a little trouble getting onto the inner-tube, but not as much as one of the girls on our team. I think she tried seven or eight times before giving up. It sure was a different group of muscles that I used, and I felt it for a couple days. We got beat pretty bad, 6-0 I think. But it was fun and that's all that matters. Then I shot 25 free throws. That didn't go good at all, I couldn't even make half of them. But that's the first time I've touched a ball since March (and that was the first time in a year) so I didn't expect it to be much different. I used to play on a team with the guy that won, he made 23 out of the 25. So congrats Mucklo. Then we played softball. We won our first game, actually we mercy ruled them. Our second game didn't go quite as well though. The other team pretty much got a base hit every time. Since you pitch to your own team there really wasn't anything we could do about it.

Amy played volleyball Sunday, she had fun but they only got to play one game because they got beat. I played a round of disc golf and that was a lot of fun. I'm going to start playing it more often, I played today in fact. There where a lot of other events that neither of us took part in that sounded like people had lots of fun with. Things like dancing, an Iron Chef cook off and kayaking. There was also tug-o-war and an obstacle course and it looked like everyone had fun with those. After all the events were done there was a BBQ and award ceremony. The top three finishers in each event got little medals which was pretty cool. Our team got 12 out of the 29 teams, but we were third out of the workplace teams. So we got a little plaque for that.

Since this post is so long already I'll post about my running in another post because I have a lot to write about for that too.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Race Report

This morning I ran a 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics. I was hoping to finish in a decent place to get my teams some points, but wasn't really counting on it. Only the top three finishers in each age group get extra points, I'm in the 0-29 age group. But more than caring about my place my goal was to finish the race in under 21 minutes.

I'll sum up my run quickly in just one word, shitty.

Before the race my stomach felt weird, I'm sure it was just nevers though. I guess the thought of trying to finish in the top three got to me, I've never really felt nervous before a race that I can remember.

I started up way to far in the pack apparently because everyone took off, including me. I felt like I was holding back a little but still running at a pretty good pace. As we got close to the first mile I checked my watch and DOH!!. I was on the wrong mode so I start the timer. So I had no idea what kind of pace I'd been running other than how it felt, which was a little fast but not too bad. I went ahead and started it a little after mile 1 so I could figure out my first split later.

That feeling of not too bad quickly changed to am I done yet? The thoughts that were running through my head were why am I so damn tired? I can run 3 miles without much trouble and my heart rate wasn't up too high, around 177 or so. I didn't sleep great last night, I woke up off and on. I did however go to bed early, it was before midnight even (ok early for me). I figured it was just one of those days.

I walked through the water break, which was at about the halfway point, so I could get a little water in me (but mostly because I was dead). I felt a little better after that, but that feeling passed quickly as well. I ran the second mile in 7:21, which was too slow for my goal pace. I was getting passed by all kinds of people too, which is always pretty discouraging. I really wanted to go with people when they passed me but my body said "ain't happening dude."

I can handle getting passed by girls, that doesn't bother me at all. But I got passed by a baby, that's right a baby. The kid couldn't even walk, his dad was pushing him in a stroller. Here I am completely dead and pissed because I'm running bad and a BABY passes me. We where just a few blocks from the finish and I said there is no way I'm going to let a baby beat me. Then I thought, but that's not fair, how do I out kick a baby that can't even walk on it's own? I wouldn't have been able to live with myself, so I eased up and let the baby win. (Really that's what happened, I wasn't 100% drained). My watch said 17:22 at the finish which means I ran 10:01 for the last mile (I ran two miles faster than that Wednesday night while keeping my heart rate low at under 150). Very disappointing to say the least. However the race clock said 23:32. Hoohah, that means I ran the first mile in 6:10. That is 9 seconds faster than my fastest mile time trial, no wonder I was so dead the rest of the race.

Anyway I'm really disappointed how I did and now I'm going to just build my base for the rest of the year and hope to crush that time next year. I have to go partake in the rest of the Olympics now (that means no time to proof read, so sorry about the typos). I'm not real sure what I'm going to be doing though. I'll give a report how those go later, so far it's been a really good time.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Kearney Community Olympics

If you are looking for the 2009 schedule click here.

I finally have all the info on 2007 Kearney Community Olympics. There are a ton of events (ok, I know 18 isn't really a ton), I've listed all of them at the end of this post. Things get going Friday night at 5:30 and there is a barbecue and awards ceremony Sunday evening starting at 5:15. We compete as a team and get points for each event we compete in and then some events give extra points depending on how you place. I'm signed up for six events, Qi Qong, coed doubles Pickleball, the 5k run, free throw contest, softball and disc golf. I have no idea how to play most of the games but we got a packet that explains all the rules for each event (I have some studying to do) and the ones I do know have different rules. Softball for example, you pitch to your own team and the batter only gets two legal pitches. So that will definitely speed up the games.

The 5k is normal though. There wasn't a map included with anything though so I did some investigating on my own. A Google search found that one of the items agenda items for a 2005 city council meeting was to approve blocking off some roads for the Good Sam 5k (which is the race in the Community Olympics). That info lead me to the minutes for a meeting from this year with the same agenda item. The course they laid out doesn't make complete sense though (go west to get to a road that is actually east?). I made some assumptions as to what I thought they meant and came up with the course below (if the map doesn't show up right you can click here). I'm planning on driving along it later this week to get an idea what it's going to be like. It looks like it's a little downhill for the first mile and a little uphill for the last one but a very gradual incline.

I'm not sure how much of this Amy is going to be able to do though, she has shin splints pretty bad. It would be a shame if she wasn't able to play pickleball with me, then I'd have to go to the Deaf Peds concert instead. I'm just kidding I'd rather her be healthy then go to a show, I'm a nice guy like that. I think this community Olympics idea is a really good one and should be a lot of fun. I'll let you know next week how everything went.





Here are the events:






Qi QongTennisPickleball
Tug-of-WarObstacle Course5k Run/Walk
Inner-tube Water PoloHorseshoesBowling
SoftballVolleyballFree-Throw Shooting
Mountain BikingDisc GolfIron Chef
Soccer Shoot-OutDancing Like a StarKayaking

Monday, June 18, 2007

Nike C8 Revisited

When I first reviewed my heart rate monitor I didn't have any big complaints. Last nights run changed that a little bit, as I mentioned in my last post I lost the data for my last run. The memory bank can only store ten runs and mine was full. So I started the stopwatch when I started my run last night and hit the split at the halfway point then stopped it once I was done. I had the final time I ran but to look at my splits and average heart rate and whatnot I had to switch to Data mode. Before I do that I always save my run, but since my watch was full I couldn't. Some sort of warning that it was full would be nice (there could be one that I missed, I haven't played with it to see).

The button I usually hit to save the data actually said it was going to clear it. As a computer programmer I look at user interfaces slightly different than most people, and I feel that's a bad design. If it were me I wouldn't have that button clear the run, just display an error message that the run couldn't be saved. That would save lots of runners the frustration of clearing a run as soon as they finish instead of saving it like they meant to.

Since I couldn't save the run I switched over to delete a run so I could save that one. If you continue to hold the clear button down after clearing one run it will clear all the runs saved (a very nice feature in my opinion). So I went ahead and did that. Then I went back to my run and IT WAS GONE!! That meant I lost my splits and my average heart rate and my time in the zone and all those fun little stats that I get. I haven't played around to see if it was clearing all the runs that clear it or just leaving that mode. Either way it's pretty annoying.

I'm not trying to pass the buck or anything like that, it was my fault for not ensuring that I had an empty data slot before going for a run (something I'll make damn sure of in the future). I just think the watch could have been designed better to not lose the current run data when that situation comes up.

Building a Base

I only have two more workouts and a 5k before I start focusing on building up my aerobic base. I've done some reading on low heart rate training and I've decided that's how I'm going to try and build my base up. I'll link to a couple of articles at the end of this post that have really given me a lot of very good information and convinced me that this is the right way to do things (if you're short on time you'd be better off skipping to the end and following them). They recommend during a couple base building sessions a year of 8-12 weeks. But since I'm so out of shape that's all I'm going to do for the rest of the year before I start training hard next year.

Basically what it entails is running all of your miles at a pace that keeps your heart rate low. The formula is 180-age, but there is some tweaking depending on your level of fitness. I won't be doing any tweaking so the max for my heart rate will be 155. I'm going to set my the top of my zone at 150 though so I can slow down before I get over my limit. Right now my average pace is 11:40 at a heart rate of 140. I know that's under my target but if I try much harder than that my heart rate seems to jump up into the high 150s. My run this last Sunday went really well though, I'm guessing my average heart rate was 145-147 but I ran a pace of 10:36 for three miles. I can only guess what my heart rate was though because of a little issue I had with my watch (more on that shortly). So hopefully that wasn't a fluke and I am starting to be able to run faster at a similar heart rate.

Follow the links below because they really do give a lot of very good information and what I type here won't even come close to doing them justice, but I'll try anyway. What's going on is that by keeping your heart rate low you are building your aerobic base. They say that the 5k is 95% aerobic and the marathon 99%. When you have a big aerobic base you are able to maintain your pace for a longer period of time. If you want to know if you have an issue with your aerobic base you can use a running calculator like, McMillan's, to see if your race times have a relationship similar to what they predict. If not then it's likely that you need to work on building your base.

Something that I have experienced so far in doing this is that at first it really sucks (great selling point huh?). It is really hard to run as slow as they say I should. During the second half of my runs I have to walk up hills to keep my heart rate where it should be, and walking hurts the pride a little bit. I've comments from quite a few people who have experienced the same thing but they insist that it does get better. So I'm going to spend the next 5 months or so running extremely slowly in hopes that I will have a very big base built up before I start doing speed work again. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how it goes.

Here are the links
Want Speed? Slow Down! by Dr. Philip Maffetone - This is the article that convinced me to give this type of training a shot. If you are going to follow any of these links follow this one. If it doesn't peak your interest then this probably isn't the training for you.
Low Heart Rate training FAQ by formationflier - He has put together a very good FAQ that has answered a lot of questions that I've had since I first read about this.
Low HR Training group on RunningAHEAD - This is a group of runnings that are currently doing low heart rate training, some of them have been doing it for years. They seem more than willing to help people out by answering questions and giving advice. I'll be joining the group late this week, so far I've just been lurking around there.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Looking Back

Since I started running again I've been showing pretty rapid
improvement. Which I suppose is to be expected going from doing
nothing other than sitting on the couch to running 4 days a week. It
has me looking back on my running during high school. I was decent
but, but far from good. During my best cross country season I think I
was running 17-18 minute 5ks, which was good enough for me to be a
backup at state. During track I ran 52 second 400s and 2:03 800s. That
was good enough to put me on the 4x800 team that finished 7th at
state. I've been wondering, what could I have done if I cared enough
about being a good runner back then to do something about it. All I
did was ran at practice and that was because I ran with a great group
of friends, but my focus was on basketball. Even if I could I wouldn't
change anything though. There is no way I would give up the hours I
spent on my driveway or in the gym playing ball and there is
absolutely no way I would give up our state championship and all the
great memories that came along with it.

I know there is no way to find if I could have broke 2 minutes in the
800 if I just would have trained harder, I'm sure I could have but
that doesn't count for anything. What I do though is see where my
limits are today and that is something I've been thinking a ton about
lately. Can I ran a mile in under 5 minutes? What about a marathon,
can my body take the punishment of training to be able to race for 26
miles? Can I get back down to my high school 5k times, or better? Will
I ever realize there are actually races between the 5k and the
marathon? Basically, I want to find out what my limits are and then
break on through to see what they truly are.

The hardest part about that these questions is that there is no easy
answer. I can't just use Google to see if I can ran fast enough to
qualify for Boston. The only way to answer them is to train and train
some more. So that is what I'm going to do, I'm going to run and I'm
going to find out what I am capable of.

Nice Easy Run

I went for a nice and easy 2.5 mile run tonight. I ran the loop for the first time in quite a while. In fact, it's the first time that I've ran it in the dark since I got the light that clips on the bill of my hat and it worked great. I finished in a time of 29:40 with an average heart rate of 142. My plan was to keep my HR under 150 and I was above it for just under 7 minutes, but I was only a couple beats above each time. I did walk up a hill toward the end to keep my heart rate down. It still amazes me how much my HR jumps up when going up a hill, even though it doesn't feel like I'm working any harder. I'm happy to report that I didn't have any pain in my knees at all, or anywhere else for that matter.

We're heading back to Lincoln again tomorrow, this time for a wedding. It should be a pretty good time, I just hope I can stay "hydrated" for a low price (i.e. free). It will be a very short trip because Amy and I both have to work Monday morning.

I have one week until my 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics (I'll post about them in the next couple days). So I'm going to take things easy this week. I'm only supposed to do a 3 mile run and a 1.5 mile run before the race. I don't think I can just sit around for that long do I'll through in an extra run early in the week, probably the loop. Since I run my easy runs extremely easy I'm sure it won't hurt anything.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Knee Pains

First things first. GO SPURS!!! WOOHOO!!!! They put on an impressive show sweeping the Cavs to win their fourth championship since '99. Ok so it wasn't the most impressive offensive series, or anything remotely close. But the way that the Spurs play as a team and always find someone to step and their ability to shut down the other teams is very impressive. I'm going on the record now, if the Spurs make it to the finals again next year to repeat I will do everything I can to get tickets to a game, in San Antonio. And not nose bleed tickets either, I'm talking first 20 rows so I can actually see the game.

Now, back to running. Since I started running again a big concern that I've had is how my knees will hold up. I have a history of knee issues. Back in high school I battled with pain in both knees my junior and senior years. When I was going to community college a few years ago I was playing basketball a few nights a week and my knee got so bad that I couldn't put any weight on it for a few weeks. I'm a real man idiot and didn't let that stop me from playing though, it always seemed to loosen up after playing for a couple minutes. Basketball is a lot different from running in that regard though. With ball it's all kinds of different stuff that your knee goes through, so what ever is causing the pain gets a break once in awhile. When you run you just keep pounding away at it, step after step after ever more painful step.

In an effort to avoid hurting my knees again I've been doing a decent job of stretching to try and loosen up my legs a little. I'm still stiff as a board though. Up until this week everything has been going great, no pain at all. My right knee has hurt a little during my last couple runs though, at the top of the kneecap. That's the same place it hurt in high school. It only hurt for short periods of time though, maybe a minute or two during the middle of the run and that's it.

Tonight I ran some hills to see if I could get closer to my max heart rate than last time. I couldn't even get up to my average heart rate of 182 from the 3k. The hills were about 150 meters and I ran 5 of them all out. Just jogging back down for rest. I also warmed up for ten minutes first and cooled down for another ten minutes after. My knee didn't bother me at all during my workout. I got home and drank some water, took of my shoes and walked around in the apartment a bit and I had a sharp pain in the back of my right knee toward the inside. I have never felt a pain like that before so I'm a little concerned. It didn't last very long and I iced it right away. I'm hoping its just a fluke thing but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Since my knee started hurting I've been running in the grass instead of on the bike trail or road as much as possible. I've also been trying to read as much as I can on injury prevention. If anyone has any suggestions on what to do or can recommend any websites or books I would love to read about it in the comments.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Sleep Issues

I don't sleep normal (that may be a bit of an understatement). I'll run through a typical day for me quick. I get up about 7:30 A.M. (after hitting snooze for about 20 minutes) hop in the shower and get to work a little after 8. I come home for lunch and take a little nap for about 20 minutes and head back to work. Then after work I usually end up taking another "nap" for a 2-3 hours. Then I'm usually up until 3 or 4 before I go to sleep for 3-4 more hours and start the cycle all over again.

When people hear that the first thing they say is well don't take a nap then you won't be up until 3 or 4. That sounds great in theory but it always seems that no matter how much sleep I get the night before I get tired in the afternoon. So I force myself to stay awake and am pretty much just a zombie the whole evening. Then 10 or 11 rolls around and I catch a second wind or something and I wake up. I try to go to bed but I just toss and turn and after an hour or so of that I get up until 3 or 4 again. So then I missed out on a few hours of sleep after work but I still didn't get anything done because I was too tired to focus. This is how I've been since at least my sophomore year of high school.

If I weren't married I don't think I'd have a problem with my sleep pattern at all. Really I kind of like it, it's like I have twice as many days as everyone else. The problem is that the only time Amy and I are both awake is when we are at work. Since we don't work together we don't spend too much quality time together. I doubt that sleeping this way is the best plan for productivity at work or recovering after runs either. So I'm on a quest to fix it.

Here is an article on LifeHack.org that pretty much describes how I sleep exactly and has a solution on how to fix it. Sit in front of a light for 30 minutes every morning. Even though that sounds like loads of fun I'm not sure I want to drop $300 to do so. I'll explore some other options first. In fact that's part of the reason I haven't been posting much the last few days. I've been going to sleep early, around 1 in the morning (well, early for me) and haven't had naps in the evening. So far it seems to be going pretty good.

If anyone else has/had similar sleep issues how do you deal with it or how did you over come it?

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Race Results: Havelock Charity Run

This morning was the Havelock Charity Run in Lincoln. We ran the 3k version. This event had the extra feature of running as part of a team to earn money for a charity. The way that the charity piece works is that Pinnacle Bank donates $50 to your selected charity. Then if your team beats their team (who is always pretty slow) then they will donate an additional $25, for a grand total of $75. The Charity we chose to run for is the Matt Talbot Kitchen. Their mission is "to serve the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of Lincoln's working poor, and homeless through outreach, advocacy, education and the provision of food and shelter.

Amy's brother puts our team together and had enough people this year for two teams. One of the guys that ran with us was our former high school track and cross country coach. It was nice I'm happy to say that both teams beat the Pinnacle Bank team. The team I was on got second and the other team got 5th. We had all men though and they had two girls, they were the second coed team.

This course is pretty much flat, there was one hill but it wasn't very steep at all. My goal for this race was 13 minutes. I really wanted to make my goal 12, but I didn't think I could pull that off and wanted to keep things realistic. My watch time was 12:03 and I'm pretty sure my chip time will be about the same. So I made my goal of 13 but I'm upset that I didn't run just a little faster and break that 12 minute mark. I'm pretty sure I could have but I didn't know the course and I thought there was another turn before the finish line so I held back a little bit until I realized that I was wrong. I'll need to make sure I get a map of the course sooner and study it better next time.

Amy had a good race too, she ran a 16:37 which is quite an improvement over her two mile time of 19:55 from April 21st.

Next up is a 5k for the Kearney Community Olympics on the 23rd. According to the McMillian Running Calculator my 12:03 translates to a 21:01. So I'm making my goal 21 minutes, but I have a secret goal of breaking 20 minutes.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Random Updates

My leg stopped twitching after lunch. I'm guessing that MVTruman was right when he said it was either Fatigue or an Electrolyte Imbalance that caused it. It would be hard to eliminate either one of those things because my sleep schedule and diet are so messed up.

We had another softball game tonight. We played a lot better and actually got to finish the game instead of losing to the mercy rule after three innings. I actually got a couple hits tonight for the first time this season. My rib cage is a little sore now though. I don't really believe in stopping when I'm running the bases, once I get going it's like 5 steps between the bags. So I was on my way to home and I thought I had plenty of time but I was running pretty much all out anyway. Someone yelled at me to stop and go back to third (like that would happen) and then the pitcher was in the baseline getting ready to catch the ball. I knew I wasn't stopping in time to avoid him so I braced for impact. Yep that's right I didn't let the fact that he was 6'4" and about 275 slow me down. He didn't move at all even though I was running at close to full speed, but I bounced off him pretty good. He didn't catch the ball (I know it's cuz he was scared) and I scored.

After the game I kind of watched the Spurs beat the Cavs in game one of the NBA finals and kind of took a nap. The Spurs sure are looking good, I have no doubt the Spurs will win their 4th championship.

After the game I went for a nice and easy 1.5 mile run. My time was 17:40 (11:47 mins/mile) with an average heart rate of just 135. My legs are a little tired still from Tuesday's hard mile and I want to be pretty fresh for Saturday's 3k so I made sure I ran really easy.

I found out tonight that the 5k Amy signed me up for is on the 23rd at 7:00 in the morning. I don't understand why they always have these races so damn early. Can't they do some at midnight when normal people are awake (I reject your reality and substitute my own (stolen from Mythbusters))? I haven't set a goal for that race yet, I'd love to break 20 but I don't think that's realistic at all. I'll see how this race goes and then figure what I'll shoot for in the 5k but it will probably be in the 22-23 minute range. I'm also planning on going to a concert the night before it. The Deaf Pedestrians are playing here in Kearney for just $10. But you have to get tickets at the door, last time they played in G.I. 200 people were turned away. Hmm, that's interesting. According to the tour schedule on their site they are playing in G.I. again. Oh well, we'll see what happens. I don't have my hopes up much on going to that show. But their CD is headed my way and will hopefully be here next week.

Well I better try and get a little sleep so my leg doesn't start twitching again.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

What's wrong with my leg?

Since I got home tonight (about 8 hours ago) the muscle on the inside of my left leg just above the knee about an inch has been twitching. Every few seconds it just tenses up. It doesn't hurt but it is really freaking annoying. Doesn't matter if my leg is straight or bent or even if I'm standing. I took a nap for awhile but as soon as I woke up it started happening again (not sure about during the nap because, umm, well I was sleeping). There have been stretches of a few minutes when it wouldn't do it but it has always started up again. I punched it once to make it stop, yeah that wasn't a good plan. Then it hurt and twitched (note to self punching your self is bad umm kay). I have no idea what caused it to happen, why it is or how to make it stop. If anyone has any ideas or wants to make up something I'd love to hear read them. I'm willing to try pretty much anything (I punched myself) to make it stop before it drives me completely insane. I'm going to go do some yoga to see if that will help at all.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Review: Nike C8 Heart Rate Monitor

I've had my Nike C8 heart rate monitor for a couple of week nows and I've used pretty much all of the features and I'm ready to give you my thoughts on it. To summarize, I really like the watch and would recommend it to others. It has lots of features for the price and is very easy to use.

As a watch it has all your standard features, time, date, two alarms, backlight (that actually stays on long enough to read the display) and two time zones. It's pretty easy to set the time and alarms. I never thought I'd use the two time zones but it was pretty nice when we were in the mountain time zone. It also has an auto off feature to save battery life, it can be set to shut off after a certain number of hours of inactivity, up to 24. The watch is designed for a man and has a huge face, which makes it very easy to read while running.

The heart rate monitor is pretty comfortable and I hardly notice when I run. I haven't had any problems with it staying in place. However Amy has used it a couple times and said it slipped down a little bit, but not enough to stop and fix while running (I bet she just doesn't have it tight enough). The readings have seemed pretty accurate most of the time. In order to get actuate readings you have to get the sensors wet, I get my chest wet too. I haven't had any problems getting accurate readings when I have done that (but without doing that my heart rate jumped up to 230 in a few minutes of really easy jogging). Unlike a lot of other HRMs, you can change the batteries on your own, saving you time and money from having to send it in. The manual says the watch battery will last 1.5 years depending on usage and the monitor battery will last 1 year with one hour of use a day (I busted out my trusty TI-85 and that's 365 hours). The strap comes off the monitor easily and you can toss it in the washer with your other running stuff. I've never been around anyone else with a HRM so I have no idea about interference.

Other than time the watch has three modes: Run, INTR (Interval), and Data.

Run Mode
This is the stopwatch. It has 50-lap memory and all kinds of other neat stuff. You can setup one heart rate zone, the max value is 240 bpm and the low end is 30 bpm. If you have the zone setup you can turn the alarm on or off so it will beep at you if you get out of the zone, it beeps at you even if you haven't started the time yet (I haven't decided if that's a nice feature or not yet, I'm leaning toward not so much). You can set which is displayed larger, lap time or total time. You can also setup 'My View', with that you can choose what is on the big display and what is on the little one from the following categories: LAP, HR, Time, or Total. You can't have the same category on both, which is kind of annoying if you are switching the two. There is a button that allows you to switch between views quickly. I think it is pretty hard to press, but it has gotten a little easier since I first got the watch. You can switch between Lap/Total, HR/Total, and 'My View'.

Interval Mode
This is a more advanced version of a countdown timer than I had seen before. Actually it's just two countdown timers (called segments), one goes off as soon as the other is done. I've used this for a fartlek and it worked pretty well for that. It will be really nice to use once I start doing interval training. It only has a countdown mode. I've used Ironman watches before and they have a couple other modes, like it counts up after counting down to zero and some other one. The thing I don't like about the interval timer is that if you want to store your run (see below) you have to switch to Run mode and start the timer. But you can change the view to display your heart rate along with the time remaining on the current segment. It would also be nice to be able to setup a different heart rate zone for each segment.

Data Mode
You can save up to 10 of your runs in memory. Then you can use the data mode to review those runs. Here is the data that you can review: total run time, average split time, average HR, best split and average HR for it, time in, below and above your heart rate zone, each split and the total time at that point and average heart rate for it.

Complaints
I really don't have any major complaints about this watch. If I was going to get another one (in this price range) I wouldn't hesitate to get this same one. Really the only things I would change is to have more statistical data (but I'm pretty nerdy like that) and have a separate zone for each interval segment. It would be really nice to be able to see what the max heart rate for each split and run (and that falls under the more stats complaint).

This watch retails for $120, but I found it at WatchNThings for $82.95. I was really happy with their service, I ordered the watch on a Friday morning and got it the following Monday and I only paid $5.99 for the slowest shipping. They also sent along two extra batteries. I very highly recommend them.

Hopefully I covered everything you want to know about the watch, but if not leave me a comment with what you want to know and I'll find the answer for you. (I reserve the right to just make something up if I can't find a real answer.)

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

An Almost Consistent Mile

If you recall my post last week I had a little (ok tons of) trouble running consistent quarter mile splits for the mile I ran. I found the article I was looking for on how to train yourself to run consistent laps for a mile. On the schedule for tonight was another mile "fast" (it's only fast compared to my other runs). So I figured it would be a good time to try some of the things that Jeff Galloway suggested in that article. As opposed to just going off memory like last time I figured out what I wanted to run my mile in and how that broke down to 400 and 200 splits. I decided to go for a 6:25, about 10 seconds faster than last week, so that meant 400 splits in 1:36 and 200s in 48 seconds.

We jogged the half mile to the track as a warm up, I jogged another lap, did some stretching, ran some strides, then it was off to the races. I didn't go out like a race horse tonight, but I did go out a little fast. I was pretty consistent the next few 200s then picked it up a little last one. Here are my splits, total time and average heart rate for each 200.



So my average time for each 200 was 47.41, each 400 was 1:34.81 and average HR was 173. I was a lot more consistent than last week, but I still have a ways to go until all my splits are within a second or two of each other. My time was 16 seconds faster than last week but I'm pretty sure that was because I ran at a more consistent pace not because I've improved that much in less than a week. Still tonight's run makes me pretty confident I'll reach my goal of 13 minutes for the 3k Saturday.

I struggled through the run a lot more than I was expecting to though (ok, expecting isn't the right word, more like hoping). I'm going out on a limb and saying the reason I struggled was because I didn't go to sleep until about 4:30 this morning and went into work at 8. I skipped breakfast like usual, and had a few cups of coffee once I got to work. Then I didn't eat anything for lunch (again, like usual) had a few handfuls of pretzels at work and a little 6oz. thing of yogurt when I got home. Then I went and ran a mile fast and didn't expect to struggle with it?

Easy Runs At My Pace

After getting my HRM I wanted to do what the books and websites said, that is keep my heart rate under a certain level when running. I ran 4 easy/long runs with my average heart rate right around 140, my average pace for those runs was pretty close to 11:30 per mile. I felt like I could run forever at that pace and hardly felt like I had done anything once I finished. In fact it was really hard to run that slow, I had to walk occasionally to keep my heart rate as low as it should be. I tried doing that for awhile but it have a couple races coming up that I want to do decent in and I don't feel running that slow will help me with that.

I've ran one long run and one easy run since then by what I felt was an easy pace. I used the conversation test. Basically that is if I can carry on a conversation without having to pause frequently to catch my breath then I'm going about the right pace. (I get strange looks when I test that out since I run by myself.) My pace for both those was right around 10:20 a mile. My average heart rate for the easy 2 mile run was 151 and 161 for the 4 mile long run. Those runs felt so much better, I felt like I actually worked out a little bit (got a tiny bit of that runner's high). I still felt like I could run for a very long time too.

My long run cemented the fact that my aerobic base sucks (sitting on your ass for 7 years will do that). I averaged a heart rate of 150 for the first half of it, but the second half was a different story. The average for it half was 169, with 173 being the highest that I saw. I kept a pretty even pace the whole time so naturally my heart rate would be higher for the second half, but I didn't expect it to be that much higher. So after these upcoming races I'm going to work on building my aerobic base up for the rest of the year (it could be a long six months). I'll layout my whole training plan in a later post. That will give me an excellent base to build some speed on in 2008 (at least that's my hope anyway).

Transendence

You might have noticed that I've been slacking off on my postings for a little while now (I've still been running though). The reason for the lack of posts is that I've been playing a game called Transcendence whenever I have free time. It's strangely addictive, you pilot a space ship and blow stuff up, then loot the leftovers. Then you can sell what you take and buy upgrades for your ship so you can blow up bigger stuff and get even better loot. You can check out the game here. It's free and you don't have to install anything, you just unzip it and play, so you have nothing to lose (except your free time).

I get burnt out on games pretty quick though, so I'll be tired of it in a few days and things will be back to normal. But since I'm so far behind on my posts I'm not going to play tonight (yeah right), I'm just going to get caught up.

Friday, June 1, 2007

I have work to do

My run for last night was one mile fast. We jogged about a half mile down to the track and I did some strides to get warmed up. I was thinking my last mile was a 6:48, so I was hoping to run a 6:40, which would be 1:40 for each lap. I have a little (and by little I mean a tons of) trouble with running consistent laps though. My first 200 only took about 35 seconds, oops. I slowed down a little and hit my first lap at 1:21. Since I went out so fast on the first one I slowed down for the next two too much and ran the second in 1:48, followed by 1:54 for the third. Then I let myself go on the last one and ran a 1:30. Final time - 6:35. So even though I beat the time I was shooting for I wasn't happy with my run, I have to get more consistent. I read a pretty good article on how to train yourself to do that but I can't find it now, oh well I'll have to look for it later.

I checked my log after I got back and it turns out I ran a 6:34 mile on 5/1, the 6:48 was a couple weeks before that. So perhaps I'll check out my log BEFORE I run next time.

My goal for my 3k next weekend is 13 minutes and I still have a little work to do to get there. According to The McMillan Running Calculator my 6:35 translates to a 13:04 3k (but that's for people that are in shape and I have a ways to go before I am). If I don't start out so damn fast and let the competitive juices flow I should be pretty close to getting there. If you've never played with that calculator give it a try, it's pretty fun to do.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Giving up on Low HR Training (for now)

I ran two miles tonight with my HRM and a goal to keep my heart rate under 149 again. I was getting pretty high readings right away again, but I made sure the sensors where wet and then everything seemed to be fine. I really struggled to keep my heart rate down though. It's so hard for me to run 11.30 miles. A couple of times I had to walk to get my heart rate down to where it should be. The thing is I'm pretty sure I actually sped up once I started walking. So I'm going to stop worrying about my heart rate until after my next two races (3k on 6/9 and a 5k on 6/24). I'll be sure to do my easy runs easy but I'll at least feel like I ran once I'm done.

I'm not giving up on low heart rate training all together though, just until I'm done with my races. I really like everything that I've read about it and feel like it is the right way to do things. So after the races I'll watch my heart rate again as I work on building my aerobic base (more on that very soon).

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Catching Up

I had a very nice weekend out at Amy's grandparents. We just helped them out around the farm and relaxed. I haven't posted about my runs lately so to get caught up here is a summary of my last few runs.

Thursday - May 24th
I ran my second run with my HRM. I went 1.5 miles with the goal of keeping my heart rate under 149 (70% of my max according to the 220-age formula). My watch started beeping at me after just a few steps, I checked it and it said I was at 183. I knew there was know way that was right so I kept going, but it kept beeping. I stopped and walked and it went down to about 115 right away. But as soon as I started jogging again it jumped up to over 200, I just keep going and it kept going up. I think the highest it got to was 232. I walked for awhile again and it dropped pretty much right away. When I started jogging again it stayed about where I expected it to. The whole way back it was fine. The only thing I can think that it might have been is that my HRM didn't have a good connection, but once I started sweating a little the connection was better. Anyway, it was a lot easier for me to keep my heart rate under my target on the road than it was on the treadmill, well once it quit acting up anyway.

Friday - May 25th
No run, I just rode in the car for about 6 hours.

Saturday - May 26th
I ran a 2 mile fartlek on the country roads. I used the nifty interval feature on my watch. I ran easy for 3 minutes then hard for one. I'd say I went ran at about 90% for the hard parts. I couldn't quite to it for the whole minute for the last one though. The whole run took 18.22 and my heart rate averaged 163.

Sunday - May 26th
Repeat of Friday.

Yesterday - May 27th
We went out to Yanney park and did a 3.5 mile long run. I look forward to my long runs because it is really nice to run out there. It was an out and back run again. My target heart rate for the run was 149 again, I'm going to keep using that for the next few weeks for all my easy or long runs. On the way out I tried to keep my heart rate under 140 so I had a little room to work with on the way back. I did a pretty good job of that. I turned around in 19.17. My heart rate crept up on the way back but I only went over 149 twice for a total of 30 seconds. My final time was 40.09, or 11.29 per mile. It's hard for me to run that slow but as my aerobic base gets built (more on that later) my times will come down, or at least that's what I've read.

Today
I took the day off from work and I was pretty much just a bum all day but I plan on doing some yoga later tonight. My MP3 player came today and I went out picked up a new pair of headphones, a couple technical shirts and a pair of shorts (adding another $60 that I've wasted on stuff for running). I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out my plans after the races I have coming up in June. I think I got it all figured out today, but I'm going to leave you in suspense...

Friday, May 25, 2007

Memorial Day Weekend

We are heading out of town to go visit Amy's grandparents near Hemingford, NE. They don't have internet out there so I won't be posting for a few days. I have two runs planned when we're out there, a 2 mile fartlek and a 3.5 mile run. I'll also be sure to wear sunscreen when I'm working out there this weekend.

I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe memorial day.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Yoga

A few months back Amy and I used to do yoga on a somewhat regular basis. I don't know anything about yoga other than what is on the DVDs that we have so I'm sure I'm did all kinds of things wrong, but I enjoyed doing it. I never did improve my flexability much, but my posture did improve (and there is tons of room for improvement) and I felt better about myself. Those effects wore off since I stopped doing the yoga though. Since I'm trying to improve my general well-being I've been wanting to start doing it again. Since I didn't feel like just sitting around tonight I figured tonight would be a good night to start.

So I got out our MTV Yoga DVD and went through about half of it. It's kind of weird how it wears you out just stretching and doing different poses. When we first started before I couldn't get through the whole thing either, but after a short while I could. So I figure I'll be able to get through the whole thing if I do it once a week in a month or two.

Here are a few articles I've read on yoga and running.
Yoga for Runners on Run The Planet
Yoga for Runners on Yoga Journal
Flex Time on Runner's World

If you have any recommendations on websites, DVDs, books or anything else on yoga and running share them in the comments.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

1st Easy Run with my HRM

On schedule for tonight was a 1.5 mile easy run. After getting my heart rate monitor and trying to find my max heart rate yesterday I was anxious to see how an easy run would go. For easy runs I'm supposed to keep my heart rate under 70% of my working hear rate which comes out to 144 beats per minute. It was raining out tonight and the Spurs game was on so I ran in the clubhouse on the treadmill.

In the past I've been doing my easy runs at about a 9 min/mile pace, 6.6 mph, and that has felt really easy to me. So that's what I started out with tonight. After running for a couple minutes my watch was beeping at me for going too hard. So I slowed the pace down to 6 mph and rate at that speed for a few more minutes before my watch started beeping at me again. So I slowed down even more. After running about a mile I finally just stopped to let my heart rate go down for awhile because I had dropped the pace down to about 4.5 mph, and I can walk that fast if I try a tiny bit. After the rest I ran the last half mile at about 4.8 mph, but I still pushing 70%. I don't even feel like I ran at all tonight, but I suppose that might be the point.

Tonight's run makes me feel even more certain I didn't get up to my max heart rate last night. If I would have used the highest number from the formulas I only would have had an extra 7 beats per minute to work with. I'm thinking about running an extra 1.5 this week at that pace just to see how it feels. I don't think it will hurt anything to stray from my program by adding an extra easy run. What do you think? Will it hurt anything if I add in an extra 1.5 miles this week? Should I go with the max heart rate from one of the formulas or the use the max I calculated?

Heart Rate Monitor

My heart rate monitor came today. So instead of doing the 1.5 mile fast run that was scheduled I tried to find my max heart rate(MHR). I found a couple of sites with different methods on how to find it. There are a lot of different ways to just calculate it based on your age. Here are a few that I came across.
220-age=MHR
205-(.5*age)=MHR
210-(.7*age)=MHR

I'm 25 so these calculations come out to 195, 192, 192 respectfully. Obviously these calculations are very general. I did some research and come up with a couple different methods to determine your MHR by doing stress tests on a treadmill. I found a couple other methods that don't involve a treadmill that I'll probably try out later too. But I think it would be easier to use a treadmill, so that's what I did.

One method is after a good warm-up to run as fast as you can for three minutes, rest for two or three minutes, then run for another three minutes at your max pace. During the second three minute run you should hit your MHR. As I found out it's hard to pick the perfect pace for this. As I tend to do I made my pace too fast, which meant I didn't get to my max heart rate because my legs where too tired and I completely died. Amy watched my watch for me and came up with a MHR of 180. I think it would be pretty easy to pick too slow of a pace also.

I was pretty tired so I just sat down and watched the Cavs/Pistons game for awhile. After a quite few minutes I felt pretty good so I decided to give it another go. This time I used method number two. I modified it though, because I didn't remember how it was supposed to go exactly. I started walking at 3 mph with the incline on the treadmill at 1. Every minute I increased the incline by one and every other minute I increased the mph by one. I kept that up for about 10 minutes before I couldn't go any longer. That got my heart rate up to 184. After reading how I was actually supposed to do it I bet I can get it higher than that. So that will probably be my next hard workout.

Overall I wound up running about three miles tonight trying to figure this out, instead of the 1.5 I was supposed to run. But a little over a mile was a warm-up and then there were the easy parts of the first method and the first half of the second method was pretty easy. So I'm say I ran less than 1.5 miles hard but I feel like I got in a pretty good workout.

I calculated my resting heart rate (RHR) as well. This one was a little easier, I just put the HRM on after I got home from work (not the ideal time to find your RHR but you have to play with a new toy once you get it right?) and the lowest heart I hit was 54. Like my max I'll use that until I can prove that it is something else. I'll try and get into the habit of taking my heart rate every morning to see what I come up with.

Why do I care about my max and resting heart rates you might ask? Well when I run I either want to run hard or I want to run easy. There isn't much benefit to running in the middle. When I run easy I want to ensure that my heart rate stays below 70% of my working heart rate. For hard runs I want it around 85%. The following equation is how you can determine your working heart rate.
((MHR-RHR)*intesity%)+RHR=Target Heart Rate

Well I think that's enough info for tonight. After I get a chance to play with all the features on my new watch I'll give a full review on it. I'll continue to write posts about training with a heart rate monitor as I learn more about that too. If you know of any good sources for more information (books, web sites, old guy down the street, etc.) I'd love to read about them in the comments.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

3 Mile Milestone

I ran 3 miles tonight for the first time since I ran the 5k that got me back into this whole running thing about 6 weeks ago and it'd been a long time before that (probably not since high school and I graduated in 2000). It's not really that big of a milestone but it something I've been working slowly towards for the last month. I hope that each milestone I reach is as easy to get to as this one was.

We went out to Yanni park and ran an out and back route along the trail there. It was a really nice run. The trail runs along the creek that is out there and it really flat. I'll probably end up doing quite a few of my long runs out there. I took it easy and ran a time of 28.34. I turned around right at 15 minutes so I pushed a little bit harder on the way back, but still keep it pretty slow.

Today's run was the first one of week 5 of my training program. That means that I'm halfway done with it. So far I've only missed one run, and that was during the first week. So I'm pretty happy with myself for sticking with the plan. I'm starting to almost feel like a runner.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Spending Money

Sorry I haven't been posting the last few days. I've been installing and setting up Ubuntu Linux on my laptop. I think I got most everything setup how I want it with the exception of a few little bugs.

To follow-up my post about how running is the most cost effective activity I'm going to tell you about all the money that I spent this week. As you know from a previous post I bought two pair of socks Monday for about $16.00. That was just the start of things.

On Tuesday I bought a light so I can see when I run in the middle of the night for $10.00 from Wally World. It's not one of those miner's headlamps (sorry Annie), it clips on the bill of a hat (so it still looks a little goofy). I think it will work pretty good for what I need it for. I have a few different hats, but none that I would want to run in for too long. So on my way home from work on Wednesday I stopped by a couple sporting good stores at the mall, but no one had a technical hat. (Here is a good little article from Runner's World that defines what technical clothing is.) I stopped in Target looking for a couple other things and was surprised to see that they have quite a bit of technical clothing, including hats. So I picked one up for about $13.

As I indicated in a previous post I've been looking for a heart rate monitor. I did a little bit of research and I've chosen the Nike C8. I ordered it today and I should get it Tuesday or Wednesday, there went another $90. I'll definitely be writing more about this later.

But wait there's more!! I complained in the past that I've been borrowing Amy's iPod Shuffle when I want to listen to music on my runs. Well, I won't have to do that too much longer. I ordered a Zen Stone and an arm band to go with it today as well. It will be 6 to 10 business days until I get those. Adding that $60 brings my grand total for the week to right around $190. I'll put up a review of this sometime as well.

Oh yeah, Amy and I paid our entry fees for our next race, the Havelock Charity Run, too, another $28.

So it ended up being a pretty expensive week. But I'm confident in the quality of pretty much everything I bought (except maybe the light from Wal-Mart) and they should last me quite a while. I still have a number of things on my list that I "need" to get, but those will have to wait until I win some more at the poker tables.

As for the running side of things everything has been going good. I'm just doing easy runs this week and my weekly total will be 7 miles after I run 2 miles later tonight.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Best Burn for the Buck

I just got the June 2007 issue of Money magazine and it has a short article on how many calories different activities burn per dollar. Running comes out way ahead of the other activities by burning 1100 calories per dollar. Second place is In-Line Skating which burns 625. They assume that the only money spent on running is $80 for shoes. You can check out the article on page 23.

Monday, May 14, 2007

The Sun Is Not Your Friend

Well I had a very nice weekend. I got to spend lots of quality time with family. It turned out that having the concert canceled wasn't all that bad.

I spent all day Saturday at my Grandma's farm helping plant rocks and flowers, chase chickens around and various other little things. I'd planned on getting my run (2 mile fartlek) in out there on the dirt roads. We got out there around 11 so I wanted to wait a while until it cooled off instead of running during the hottest part of the day.

We were pretty much finished with the work we needed to have done by around 6:30. So by the time I figured out where to turnaround for a two mile out and back and got my shoes changed it was about 7. It was by far the worse run that I've had. I probably started out a little too fast because that's what I do. I could hardly run anymore once it was time to turn around, I was completely dead. So from there on I had to throw in walks with the fast (which weren't really fast any more) and slow runs. I ended up with a time of 17.13. Which is a lot better time than it felt like it should have been. Maybe I turned around too soon and didn't actually run the too miles or maybe I started out a ton faster than I thought I did.

I'm pretty sure a couple of things contributed to the bad run. The first one is that I was in the sun all day and got a little burnt. The second one being that I ate breakfast at about 10 and didn't eat anything else until about 10 that night, I stayed pretty hydrated though.

I'm hardly ever in the sun. We don't have any windows at work so I don't get any sunlight that way. Because of my messed up sleep pattern (I'm planning a post about that sometime) I usually end up taking a little nap for a few hours after work and by then the sun is down. Even when I'm up after work I'm not outside because we don't have a yard or anything like that. So Saturday was pretty much the first time I've been in the sun for more than a few minutes since last summer.

Even with my lack of exposer to the sun I didn't think I needed to use sunscreen. I did leave my t-shirt on so I didn't fry my back though, although had I taken it off I would have used sunscreen. After awhile I could tell my neck was starting to burn so I put some on it, but it was too late. My right arm was also getting pretty red. I have no idea why just the right one got burnt, I wasn't in the same place all day or anything like that. Once I started running I could tell that the back of my legs were burnt. But it was okay because it only hurt every time shorts rubbed against them, and that only happened when I took a stride. Even if I wouldn't have been stupid and used sunscreen I never would have thought to put any on the backs of my legs.

As for the not eating all day thing, I do that a lot so I don't think that had nearly as much to do with the bad run at the sun did. My diet is horrible. The fact that I actually ate breakfast that morning is pretty surprising, I do that about three times a year. Since my sleeping is so messed up I usually take a nap at lunch instead of eating too. Then after work I'll snack on some chips or something until I fall asleep for my evening nap. By the time I get up Amy usually already ate something so I'll have a bowl of cereal of a salad and then snack on stuff off and on for the rest of the night until I go to bed (well, fall asleep for the night anyway).

So the moral of the story is wear sunscreen on all parts of your body that are not covered up and eat once in awhile.

We stopped by Lincoln Running Company on our way out of town today. They only had Nike heart rate monitors so I tried one of those one. I really liked how it fit so now I have to add that one to my list of ones to chose from. I picked up a couple pair of socks while I was there too (why does writing about socks make me feel like such a loser?). Ann highly recommend Features! Light, they are a thin sock that's wicks moisture. The most important feature is that they come in my size. So I went with those and they do feel better to run in than my normal ones.

This week is a real easy week to recover a little bit, just 7 miles spread out over 4 runs. I moved Sunday's 1.5 mile run to tonight and ran it on the treadmill so I could watch some of the Spurs game. It's amazing how easy it is to run at the right pace on a treadmill, I hit my 9 minute mile mark perfectly for a final time of 13.30. Since it's just an easy week I probably won't post about my runs much which will give me time to get some other posts I've been planning done.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Mother's Day

Don't forget that Mother's Day is tomorrow.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

If you don't have anything for your mom yet you could always take a picture with your siblings to give to your mom. Here is a YouTube video of a couple brother's doing just that. (Please note, I have nothing to do with the video I just enjoyed it and thought you would too.)

Why I Run

There are a lot of different reasons that I run. Every once in awhile I'll post about one of them.

I'm a very laid back person, I just go with the flow. If you graph my emotions throughout a day it would pretty much be a flat line. It's not so much that I hide my emotions as it is that I don't have any to show. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a robot. From time to time I do have emotions and I'm not afraid to show them. When my Grandpa died I cried, when I gave a speech at my wedding I got choked up (some might say I cried). When I found out about that I could go to Ireland with Amy and get school credit for it I was ecstatic. When the trip was postponed a year I was disappointed (I'm not real confident it is ever going to happen, but I am very hopeful). Both times I found out my favorite band, The Doors, were going to play close by I was excited, when both shows were canceled I was disappointed and upset. I rant about things with some regularity but they don't really bother me enough for me to do anything about them. To Amy's dismay it's just that I enjoy ranting.

When I run I feel a lot of different things though. Sometimes I'm excited about an upcoming run, sometimes I dread it. When a race is coming up I get excited and full of anticipation. As I'm running I'll feel pain and have to fight through it. If I do fight through it I feel a certain amount of joy and pride. If I let it get the best of me I get frustrated and/or upset. Of course I have to mention the runner's high that one gets after a race knowing they left it all on the course.

I run so I can feel.

I'm not trying to say the pride of breaking through the wall compares one iota to the joy of finding that special someone and marrying them. Or that the disappointment of giving in when it hurts and walking up that hill or skipping a run is even a fraction of a percent of the pain that comes with losing someone you love. But when I run I do feel something, and that keeps me running.

Why do you run?

Friday, May 11, 2007

Softball and 2.5 miles

Sorry I didn't post last night my internet connection was down. Last night I had a softball game with a team from Amy's work. I'm not really a big fan of softball, mostly because I'm not any good at a couple minor aspects of the game (catching, throwing and batting). It's fun to just hang out with people though. Our game wasn't scheduled to start until 9:30 but the games before it ran long so we didn't get going until after 10. They had a couple of innings where they scored quite a few runs and the mercy rule came into effect so we didn't play the seven full innings that were scheduled.

We got home a little before 11 and I still needed to run, but I didn't really feel like it. I have a rule for myself that I can't take two days off in a row, so I made myself go out for 2.5 miles at my easy pace of 9 minute miles. It was a beautiful night out, not a cloud in the sky and the stars were bright (I think the moon took the night off though because I couldn't find it and it usually tends to stand out). I decided to mix things up and ran the loop backward. It's a good thing I've ran that route so many times because it was really dark out. I'm going to have to get a headlamp or something so I don't hurt myself. Another thing about running when it's so dark out is that headlights on cars are really bright. There were a couple times when I had to slow down because a car drove by and blinded me a bit. If anyone has any suggestions on how to avoid that from happening I would love to hear them.

I took my splits kind of weird. Since I usually run the course the other way I know where the mile markers are, but I'm not so sure about backward. So I took my splits at the .5, 1.5 and 2.5 mile marks. My splits were 4.29, 9.06 and 8.45 for a grand total of 22.22. So I was right on pace for a change. Despite the fact that it was an easy run it was a tough one to get through. My messed up sleeping schedule had been extremely bad all week so I'm sure that was part of it.

I'm headed to Lincoln this weekend so I'll have to find a couple routes there to run. I have a 2 mile fartlek tomorrow and an easy 1.5 miles on Sunday. I still owe you guys my analysis of the log sites and I promise to get that done sometime.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

MyHealthIQ

They are implementing a wellness program at work. So we had to answer some questions about our lifestyles, have some measurements taken and some blood work done. Based on the measurements and blood work we get a score. If we score better than 71 we get something, they have to figure that part out still.

The measurements they took were all pretty basic, height, weight, neck size, waist size (measured at the belly button) and blood pressure. My measurements were as follows:
Height: 6'5.75"
Weight: 179 (I don't see how that could be right. I weigh myself every morning and my average is right around 170)
Neck: 14.5"
Waist: 33" (would have been really easy to manipulate that one)
Blood Pressure: 116/58

To determine our score they calculate stuff like BMI and body fat percent and do tons of different tests on our blood. For each category they have different ranges and points for each range. Apparently I'm a pretty healthy guy. I was in the minimal risk range for every category except for one, so I got the full points for all of those. The only category I am a moderate risk for is body fat percentage. I lost four points for that so I ended up with a score of 96 out of 100.

My scale tests body fat also, it varies from day to day but it averages about 8%. However according to their tests my body fat is 13%. To fall in the minimal risk category I have to have less than 13%. I was curious to see how they came up with that percentage. In the results they said they use a modified version of the U.S. Navy's circumference-based formula to calculate body fat percentage. I found this online calculator that also Navy's method. I entered my measurements and it only came up with 9%. A couple of my coworkers tired it and it came up with the same percent that they had on their reports. I'm not unhappy with my score or anything like that, I just find it strange that those numbers don't match for me. If I would have guessed where I would lose points body fat would have been very close to the bottom of the list.

I had never had my cholesterol tested or anything like that so it was interesting to see those results. I won't bore you with the details (if you really want to know leave me a note and I'll post them). For the most part I was well below the cutoff for the minimal risk range in every category.

Instead of writing up my analysis of the log sites I spent most the evening trying to figure out which HRM to get. I have it narrowed down to a couple but I think I'll try and find them in a store to get a real feel for what they are like. I did get my data entered on all the sites though. So hopefully I can get that post done tomorrow.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Shopping

I've been running for a few weeks now and there are a few things I want to buy. So I've been doing some shopping online to try and find what I need.

The first thing I want is an mp3 player. I really enjoy music and I use Amy's iPod shuffle once in awhile but it's hers so I don't have control over it. This is the easy item. I've been doing the research on it for a couple years so I have a pretty good idea what is out there. I'm not a big fan of the iPod. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that it was introduced and revolutionized the music industry. I just think there are other mp3 players out there that are priced about the same but have many more features and less vendor lock in. I'll skip all the boring reasons why and just jump to the good stuff (if you want the boring stuff let me know and I can post about it). I've decided on the iRiver Clix2. The original Clix was pretty successful and the second version has a few improvements that separate it from the pack a bit more. Currently the 4 gig version is the only one that is out but an 8 gig model is supposed to be released in June. I was content with waiting until June for the 8 gig model but due to recent events that I don't care to discuss, the material I have available to put on the Clix has been greatly reduced. So I might have to reconsider just going with the 4 gig version, that would save me $50 too. Another option that I just found about about is a small 1 gig flash player, the Creative Zen Stone. It's price tag is right at only $40. If I decide to wait for the 8 gig Clix I'll probably get one of those. Heck I might even get one anyway.

I haven't worn a watch for quite a few years. But now that I'm running it's pretty much a must have. I've had a Timex Ironman something or other in my car for at least three years so I replaced the battery and have been using it. It isn't quite perfect though. I hit the wrong button a lot when I'm trying to do splits. It doesn't actually make any noise when an alarm goes off, count down timer reaches zero or the stopwatch starts which really defeats the purpose of a couple of those features. The Indiglo light only stays on for a second, and since I ran at night that is a pretty important feature for me. I can get the light to stay on for three seconds every once in a while but it resets to just one usually about the same time I start my runs. I tried taping the light down so I could see it whenever I need to but then none of the other buttons work. I could go on (and on and on) but I to keep things short what I'm trying to say is I hate everything about my watch. So the next thing I'll be shopping for is a new watch. This will be a little harder for me since I'm not quite as familiar with the technology for them as I am with mp3 players. I've been reading a lot about heart rate monitors (HRM) and how they can be used to ensure coefficient training and I've convinced myself I need one of those. Since The Riders on The Storm concert got canceled I'll get my $80 back I paid for those tickets (minus a $4.80 processing fee that Ticketmaster feels it can't refund but I'm not bitter (for future reference, if I ever say I'm not bitter then I really am)), so I'll probably use it for a HRM. I've been trying to find some reviews but I haven't tried too hard and haven't had much luck. From what I have seen though, I'm leaning toward getting a Polar. The basic features I have to have are a back light, stopwatch with splits (probably at least 25), ability to set target zones (either by percent of max or beats per minute), ability to store percent of time in the target zone and max rate. It would be nice if it had a countdown timer, well that is as long as the speaker works. If anyone has any recommendations as to which one to go with I would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment.

I never thought this next item was something I would care much about, let alone actually research on the internet and then write about it. But I'm looking for some socks. All I've ever done when I needed socks in the past was buy the cheapest pack I could find in my size (not always an easy task). I found this sock review on Runner's World (seriously who reviews socks??). Of the ones listed there number 3. The Best Road sock seems like the pair for me, but they want $12 for one pair of socks! That seems insane to me, I usually spend that on 6 pair. I know, I know these ones will keep my feet cool and last for a lot longer, but still. Now my next challenge will be to see if I can find a pair that will fit my size 15 feet. I'll probably head to the Lincoln Running Company when I'm in town next weekend and see if I can find a few pair there that will work. I'd also like to get a couple of technical shirts to keep me cool and dry when I'm running this summer but I can't justify spending the kind of money they want on them right now.

One of the things that got me back into running and something that I've heard many times before is that running is cheap, you just need a good pair of shoes. But if you look at just the few items I "need" above I'm going to end up dropping about $400. Amy is a very frugal person, which is great because that's not so much the case with me. So to avoid fighting over money we each get an allowance that we can do what ever we want with. I also get to spend money I make playing poker however I want. I've been playing pretty good lately so I'll be using that money for this stuff. But if I keep finding more stuff that I "need" to have I'm going to have to play a lot more cards and win a little more often. So if you know of a game let me know.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Repeat 200s

According to my training plan I was supposed to run one mile fast tonight. I'm kind of bored of doing that so I decided to do some repeat 200s instead. For no real reason I decided to run six of them. I ran a 200 hard, then jogged the next two. I hit stop after the first one instead of the split so I don't have that one time for sure, it was something like 34.6. The rest went 39, 38.8, 37.7, 38.1 and 35.6. So they were pretty consistent, except for the fist one, but I just expect that now. It took me about 80 seconds for each 200 that I jogged.

It felt good to run fast, or at least a lot faster than when I run my miles. I almost said that I miss the 200 repeats that I did in high school. How can I think that!? Every year me, Amy and one of the other guys on the team would get craps in our calves, usually on the same 200 even. I have experienced very few things in my life that have hurt more than those and there is absolutely nothing that could be done about them at the time. When both calves cramp up the only thing you can do is try to get to the grass, fall over and cry. My calves would be sore for days after those workouts. What in the hell possessed me to do 200 repeats tonight?

Tomorrow is a rest day so I think I'll use the elliptical machine for awhile. I've gone through one of the sites and set up all my runs so far. I'll do the same thing at one of the other ones tonight (maybe both) and post about my initial thoughts tomorrow.

Log Site Experiment

The past few weeks I've been using Gmaps Pedometer to plan my courses. And I've been using a spreadsheet to log all my runs. While reading some other blogs and forums, I came across the following three sites that people said they use:
MapMyRun
RunningAHEAD
Favorite Run

The Gmaps site has worked ok so far, but I've been far from impressed with the interface. So I've decided to setup accounts at all three of the sites about and enter my past runs starting with the Novartis Run (if I can) and keep track of all my future workouts. I'll try do this through my next race so I can make sure I take advantage of all of the features each site has. I'll post about my experiences and what I think of the sites as I go along. At some point I'm hoping that one site separates itself from the pack. At that point I'll probably start using it exclusively. Who knows, if none of the sites impress me maybe I'll just have to write my own that works how I think it should.

If anyone has any other sites they use leave a comment and I'll add those ones to the list.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Lincoln Marathon

Congratulations to everyone that participated in the Lincoln Marathon this morning!! Here are the results. It's always nice to see former teammates do well and a couple of my high school classmates finished pretty high in the half and the winner of the men's was a just couple years ahead of me. One of my coworkers from the Lincoln office had a pretty nice run as well. Whether they know it or not they inspire me to keep running in the hopes that one day I can put up a decent time as well.

It blows my mind to see the kind of times these people can run. Mike Morgan won the half at a pace of 5.11 per mile. I can't even do one mile in 6 minutes let alone 13.1 of them in a row at any pace. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to try and run the half next year or not. I still have quite awhile before I have to make up my mind though.

My First Fartlek

Sorry I didn't post yesterday like I said I would, I'm lazy. I did run my first fartlek ever though. Here is a what About.com has to say about fartleks.

"Q. What is a fartlek? A. Fartlek (which means “speedplay” in Swedish) is a speed training method, in which the speed and intensity varies throughout the run at unplanned intervals. For this program, a 2 mi fartlek would be run by starting out at your normal pace and then speeding up and slowing down at random times throughout the 2 miles. For instance, run to the 1st stop sign and then sprint to the 3rd lamp pole, etc."

My run didn't go too good for me though. I think I ran the hard parts too hard because during the second half the slow parts were way too slow (I might have walked a bit). But I feel I learned a little so maybe it will go better next time. My final time was 16.23 for the two miles.

I ran a nice and easy 1.5 miles tonight, just out to the corner and back. I even managed to hold myself back to about the pace I was supposed to. I ran to the corner in 6.48 and then back in 6.35 for a final time of 13.24. Since my easy runs are supposed to be at 9 minute mile pace I was pretty much right on.

In case you were wondering I still don't feel any better about the concert being canceled. I read in the forums that is was canceled for one of two reasons. 1. Not enough ticket sales or 2. Problems getting a permit. I find the second reason very unlikely since it was being put on by a big radio station down there and it was supposed to be their 150th Anniversary concert. Also the concert was supposed to be at the City Market, which is owned by the city. The city gives out the permits, so that would mean they wouldn't give themselves a permit. Anyway I don't really care why it was canceled, I'm just disappointed that it was.

Saturday, May 5, 2007

I'm not a happy person right now

I'm a huge fan of The Doors, I have been since junior high. I saw Robbie Krieger, their guitar player, play at Knickerbockers in Lincoln a few years ago and it was by far the best show I've ever been to. Two of the former members, Ray and Robbie, got back together a few years ago and started touring. They were scheduled to play in Omaha a couple years back but that show got canceled so I was pretty disappointed. Recently they got a new lead singer and started touring again. I check their website pretty frequently to see if they are going to have in shows in the area. A couple months ago they put announced their tour schedule for for the US this year. I was delighted to see a few of shows scheduled in the midwest, Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago.

With the KC show being on a Saturday and the closest one we decided to go to it. As soon as tickets went on sale I ordered a pair for me and Amy. I've been putting off getting a hotel room because of school and stuff but one of my goals for today was to get one. I went to Ray's website again to check out the forums and I found out that the KC show has been CANCELED!! It's too late to get tickets and rearrange our schedules to make it to the St. Louis or Chicago show. So I'm going to miss out on seeing them again. So I'm pretty bummed right now. Maybe I'll feel better after I run today.