Ran a 5K today

Jonman wrote:

I've started to identify particular albums that work well, have a comparable bpm to my natural cadence.

Fun fact - Iron Maiden is bloody superb to run to. Run To The Hills indeed!

I will say, the past few runs, I've discovered that the song "Master of Puppets" from Metallica's S&M album does seem to re-energize me a little at about the midway point. Maybe I'll experiment with more of that sort of thing on the back half.

Montelban reminds me--when I do any sort of repetitive exercise like lifting, it is definitely better for me to listen to music. Not for motivational purposes, but because if I'm listening to someone talk, I tend to lose count!

Oh, and also so I can work on my, uh, form. Yes, the beautiful form on display during my sporadic, frenzied workouts.

I'm going to come out rather against any kind of music or audio during running, purely on reasons of safety, especially if the run is in an urban area, or through an urban areas with isolated spots. You could get run over by a car, a bike, a motorcycle, or some such, and shutting down your auditory senses will allow an attacker or assassin to quite plainly run up to you from behind and stab you with an ice pick before you even know what's going on.

I dunno - plugging my ears with sound just always seems to put the hairs on the back of my neck on end if I'm not surrounded by the comfort and security of a well-guarded and gated compound. Of course, YMMV.

LarryC wrote:

I'm going to come out rather against any kind of music or audio during running, purely on reasons of safety, especially if the run is in an urban area, or through an urban areas with isolated spots. You could get run over by a car, a bike, a motorcycle, or some such, and shutting down your auditory senses will allow an attacker or assassin to quite plainly run up to you from behind and stab you with an ice pick before you even know what's going on.

I dunno - plugging my ears with sound just always seems to put the hairs on the back of my neck on end if I'm not surrounded by the comfort and security of a well-guarded and gated compound. Of course, YMMV.

It's a fair point.

Well, the traffic anyway, not so much the assassins. But maybe there's more of an assassin problem in Singapore than there is in Seattle.

I'm always extra careful about crossing streets, to the point of removing one headphone. But most of my running is on vehicle-free trails. I tend to keep the volume low enough that I can hear the outside world too.

That's a good practice, I think, Jonman. FWIW, I don't live in Singapore. I live in the Philippines. Generally speaking, assassins aren't a problem unless you piss someone powerful off, at which point, you shouldn't be jogging outside anyway. The real danger is when you piss someone powerful off unwittingly, and they happen to be peevish enough not to have the courtesy to have you beaten for the first offense.

LarryC wrote:

That's a good practice, I think, Jonman. FWIW, I don't live in Singapore. I live in the Philippines. Generally speaking, assassins aren't a problem unless you piss someone powerful off, at which point, you shouldn't be jogging outside anyway. The real danger is when you piss someone powerful off unwittingly, and they happen to be peevish enough not to have the courtesy to have you beaten for the first offense.

Oops - sorry. At least I was in the right hemisphere

LarryC wrote:

The real danger is when you piss someone powerful off unwittingly, and they happen to be peevish enough not to have the courtesy to have you beaten for the first offense.

You mentioned in the financial catastrophe thread that you live right next door to a local warlord. Maybe go out on runs with them, so you're protected? Or maybe that would actually be worse. And I agree, definitely keep the volume down or off in urban areas with lots of cars.

That does occur to me sometimes, Larry, but I hit it with a two-pronged justification attack:

1. I run facing traffic (which is the proper way--I looked it up), and keep my head up watching for cars at all times.

2. I keep the volume low--really low. I always hear the cars long before they get to me, even from behind. The buds I use suck at keeping outside noise out, and besides...as mentioned, I usually listen to spoken-word audio, so it's not like there is a constant barrage of music there to drown out all sound.

Not many assassinations around here...the only thing I worry about along those lines is, believe it or not, wild hogs (but only at night). Not something I would have ever thought to worry about meeting in the dark, but then I saw one in person, and, um...

IMAGE(http://www.lampgolfclassic.org/images/hog.jpg)

Those suckers are aggressive, too.

Mytch:

Oh I can comprehend the danger exactly. I've seen a wild hog pretty close up and those guys WILL kill me if they wanted to and I don't have a tree nearby to climb, regardless of my physical fitness. Those tusks don't look sharp, but they'll stab you like a dagger just the same, and probably be twice as painful for not being razor sharp.

Of course, it could be equally likely that meeting a pissed wild boar might just inspire you to do the fastest 10k of your life.

Ran a 5K race this morning at the conference I'm attending. First competitive run in years. Fun run, though I rabbited the start really hard. Still managed to knock nearly a minute from my best workout 5K time, finished in 23:25. Adrenaline is great stuff!

Teneman wrote:

Ran a 5K race this morning at the conference I'm attending. First competitive run in years. Fun run, though I rabbited the start really hard. Still managed to knock nearly a minute from my best workout 5K time, finished in 23:25. Adrenaline is great stuff!

My hat is doffed to you sir.

Thanks, Oso!

In other news, I ran a few miles on a treadmill today. Figured the hotel has the equipment, might as well try it out. Took a bit to get used to, but I think I prefer it to the elliptical. One concern I have is I feel it more in my knees than after a regular run. Not sure if that's a product of the treadmill or of running a race yesterday then two more miles today - I usually skip a day between runs.

Teneman wrote:

One concern I have is I feel it more in my knees than after a regular run. Not sure if that's a product of the treadmill or of running a race yesterday then two more miles today - I usually skip a day between runs.

Must be the back to back running as a treadmill should be softer than asphalt.

This weekend I competed in the Hood to Coast relay. Holy-freaking-crow, it was an insane, transcendent, marvelous experience.

Each team has 12 runners, split into two vans. The route runs from the ski lodge on Mt. Hood down to the pacific Ocean, covering 200 some-odd miles. Here's a good map of the legs. We each ran three legs and it took us something like 30 hours to finish..

We were a really laid back team. I had a long-ish set, 7 miles, five miles, and 7.75 miles. I ended up averaging a little over nine minute miles, which on paper was disappointing, but I'm enormously pleased with the effort and the experience.

Still hard to describe how different it was from a normal race. The enormous logistics of getting 15,000 runners across the state of Oregon, the camraderie of being in the van, the physical stress of running 19+ miles in 30 hours without sleep or room to stretch out between legs. It could have been awful, but ended up being a peak experience. My first leg was 7 miles in 90+ heat on a flat bike path. I got passed by a million and one other runners, including a young guy in superman underoos, but I was happy with my time. 2nd leg was around 2 in the AM on a gravel road in the middle of the mountains. Very surreal. I was running in a cloud of dust from vans that kept passing. My headlamp just illuminated a nimbus of dust around me and it was hard to stay in the wheel tracks of packed gravel versus the soft and loose gravel to the sides. I had a hard time loosening up during the run and ended up pretty slow. The final leg intimidated the hell out of me. 7.75 on no sleep and already stiff and exhaused. It ended up being an AMAZING experience. I ran steady/conservative for almost 5 miles and then just let it it fly for the final 5k. Ended up sprint uphill on a huge rush of energy to the finish line. I promptly collapsed, spent.

If you are interested, there is a documentary of the race out now, it is worth seeing, but beware, you might catch the fever.

Oso wrote:

This weekend I competed in the Hood to Coast relay. Holy-freaking-crow, it was an insane, transcendent, marvelous experience.

Each team has 12 runners, split into two vans. The route runs from the ski lodge on Mt. Hood down to the pacific Ocean, covering 200 some-odd miles. Here's a good map of the legs. We each ran three legs and it took us something like 30 hours to finish..

We were a really laid back team. I had a long-ish set, 7 miles, five miles, and 7.75 miles. I ended up averaging a little over nine minute miles, which on paper was disappointing, but I'm enormously pleased with the effort and the experience.

Still hard to describe how different it was from a normal race. The enormous logistics of getting 15,000 runners across the state of Oregon, the camraderie of being in the van, the physical stress of running 19+ miles in 30 hours without sleep or room to stretch out between legs. It could have been awful, but ended up being a peak experience. My first leg was 7 miles in 90+ heat on a flat bike path. I got passed by a million and one other runners, including a young guy in superman underoos, but I was happy with my time. 2nd leg was around 2 in the AM on a gravel road in the middle of the mountains. Very surreal. I was running in a cloud of dust from vans that kept passing. My headlamp just illuminated a nimbus of dust around me and it was hard to stay in the wheel tracks of packed gravel versus the soft and loose gravel to the sides. I had a hard time loosening up during the run and ended up pretty slow. The final leg intimidated the hell out of me. 7.75 on no sleep and already stiff and exhaused. It ended up being an AMAZING experience. I ran steady/conservative for almost 5 miles and then just let it it fly for the final 5k. Ended up sprint uphill on a huge rush of energy to the finish line. I promptly collapsed, spent.

If you are interested, there is a documentary of the race out now, it is worth seeing, but beware, you might catch the fever.

That's totally excellent. Congratulations, sounds like an excellent time and something it would be amazing to be a part of.

There's one of those around here, and one of the guys I work with ran in it. He had equally excellent things to say. When I first heard about it in June, I'd just started running, and thought that it was totally nuts. Now that I've been running for a while and can knock out 8 miles at a stretch without being dead at the end, I'm thinking about maybe looking into trying it next year.

Of course, next year is also the year I do all three lengths of Spartan Race and Tough Mudder, so it'd have to work into that schedule.

Awesome Oso! Sounds like a cool event to take part in.

Okay...have any of you who use RunKeeper been having problems? For the second time in about as many days, I've gone outside like I've always done, turned on the app, and I don't get a signal. Conditions are the same as they've always been--better, in fact--but where I never had a problem connecting before, I sure can't now.

I'm using an iPhone 3G.

I haven't seen that, but I haven't been on a run since Wed (due to being out of town, not laziness). I'll let you know if I have any trouble after my run tomorrow.

Mytch wrote:

Okay...have any of you who use RunKeeper been having problems? For the second time in about as many days, I've gone outside like I've always done, turned on the app, and I don't get a signal. Conditions are the same as they've always been--better, in fact--but where I never had a problem connecting before, I sure can't now.

I'm using an iPhone 3G.

Try Settings=>General=>Location Services

Toggle location services off and then back on.

This has worked for some folks.

On Android, I have had success using another app (GPS Status) to clear my Assisted GPS settings. That fixed my problems. I do get innaccuracies in heavy rain (I put my phone inside a ziploc bag) but other than that Runkeeper is reliable.

Went on my run this morning in the rain with the phone in a ziplock. No problems getting a signal, and no inaccuracies.

Haven't run in 4 days myself, but I haven't had any GPS problems prior to that.

Meant to run this morning, but it's soooo damned dark! I really need to look into that treadmill, as the darkness at 5:30 AM isn't going to be getting any better for awhile...

Oso wrote:
Mytch wrote:

Okay...have any of you who use RunKeeper been having problems? For the second time in about as many days, I've gone outside like I've always done, turned on the app, and I don't get a signal. Conditions are the same as they've always been--better, in fact--but where I never had a problem connecting before, I sure can't now.

I'm using an iPhone 3G.

Try Settings=>General=>Location Services

Toggle location services off and then back on.

This has worked for some folks.

On Android, I have had success using another app (GPS Status) to clear my Assisted GPS settings. That fixed my problems. I do get innaccuracies in heavy rain (I put my phone inside a ziploc bag) but other than that Runkeeper is reliable.

Tried toggling location services on and off, still getting "poor" GPS connection, though every once in awhile it will go up to "fair."

Any other suggestions out there?

Am I correct in thinking the 3G does not have an actual GPS, but instead marks its location from triangulating off of the cell towers? Even if that's the case, like I say, it had been working like a champ up until now, even when I start from my house, where cell reception is spotty.

Edit: sorry for the poor grammar throughout...posting this from work, and I've already spent too much time on this personal matter.

Mytch wrote:

Am I correct in thinking the 3G does not have an actual GPS, but instead marks its location from triangulating off of the cell towers? Even if that's the case, like I say, it had been working like a champ up until now, even when I start from my house, where cell reception is spotty.

The iPhone 3G does have a GPS receiver. It uses A-GPS (assisted GPS) which includes data from cell towers and wifi routers to speed up signal acquisition. Occasionally this data gets corrupted. On Android, I use a utility called GPS Status to clear my AGPS data and that solved the issue.

Some folks say that turning off 3G increases GPS accuracy, since it forces the phone to rely solely on GPS satellites for location information. Others say to turn of 3G, get a location, then turn 3G back on. YMMV.

Oso wrote:
Mytch wrote:

Am I correct in thinking the 3G does not have an actual GPS, but instead marks its location from triangulating off of the cell towers? Even if that's the case, like I say, it had been working like a champ up until now, even when I start from my house, where cell reception is spotty.

The iPhone 3G does have a GPS receiver. It uses A-GPS (assisted GPS) which includes data from cell towers and wifi routers to speed up signal acquisition. Occasionally this data gets corrupted. On Android, I use a utility called GPS Status to clear my AGPS data and that solved the issue.

Some folks say that turning off 3G increases GPS accuracy, since it forces the phone to rely solely on GPS satellites for location information. Others say to turn of 3G, get a location, then turn 3G back on. YMMV.

Hmm...okay, good to know, thanks!

Man, have I missed running the last couple of weeks. I was too busy prepping for Burning Man to have time to run, and while I took my running shoes out to the playa with good intentions of going out for a pre-dawn run with my girlfriend, that never quite materialised.

So it's with huge amounts of glee that I've jumped right back in now I've returned to the default world. 6 miles on Wednesday and 8 miles yesterday have left me with an awesome-feeling glow in my legs.

I've got a sprint triathlon on Sunday, which should be fun - it's a short enough distance that I should be able to really push my pace in all 3 disciplines and feel like I'm actually racing rather than just trying to get around the course.

Then it's hard back into marathon training. Looking forward to extending those long runs out to ludicrous distances.

Cross posting. Found a import to runkeeper from Garmin watch optimization. Here

Ran a half marathon yesterday. My training has tailed off significantly after a strong spring and early summer. I "tapered" into Hood to Coast and then I ran four times in the 3 weeks between Hood to Coast and my half. It all ended up going very well. I wanted to break two hours and just missed (2:02:36). Today, I'm sore as hell. While aerobic fitness can last during short breaks, I think going that long w/o long runs (I haven't gone over 10 since August 6th) made me vulnerable to all the pounding from running 2 hours. Letting my weight creep back up to 250 probably didn't help either. My feet are hamburger from blisters and I have sharp pains on the outside of both feet. I think it is my peroneal brevis tendons.

Anyway, I'm super happy and pleased with the effort, but I'd like to be able to walk without pain.

Grats Oso.

Oso wrote:

Ran a half marathon yesterday. My training has tailed off significantly after a strong spring and early summer. I "tapered" into Hood to Coast and then I ran four times in the 3 weeks between Hood to Coast and my half. It all ended up going very well. I wanted to break two hours and just missed (2:02:36). Today, I'm sore as hell. While aerobic fitness can last during short breaks, I think going that long w/o long runs (I haven't gone over 10 since August 6th) made me vulnerable to all the pounding from running 2 hours. Letting my weight creep back up to 250 probably didn't help either. My feet are hamburger from blisters and I have sharp pains on the outside of both feet. I think it is my peroneal brevis tendons.

Anyway, I'm super happy and pleased with the effort, but I'd like to be able to walk without pain.

Nice!

I broke my personal distance record yesterday. 14.6 miles in 2:25. I'm sore today, but in that way that feels good.

Learned a valuable lesson about nutrition on long runs. 2 energy gels wasn't enough calories to keep me going, and I started to bonk pretty hard in the last mile. Pins'n'needles in my fingers, blurred vision, excessive thirst, and slowing to a walk every few hundred yards.

Once I got back to my car, I wolfed down a protein bar and necked a bottle of water, and felt much better.

Jonman wrote:

Learned a valuable lesson about nutrition on long runs. 2 energy gels wasn't enough calories to keep me going, and I started to bonk pretty hard in the last mile. Pins'n'needles in my fingers, blurred vision, excessive thirst, and slowing to a walk every few hundred yards.

Once I got back to my car, I wolfed down a protein bar and necked a bottle of water, and felt much better.

That primal feeling of having a desperate need satisfied gives an interesting perspective of what I used to think of as being hungry.