A2K Running Club

Are any of you interested in competing through technology?

I find running a bit too boring, unless I have something to beat (even if it's myself in timed runs etc). There are apps for run tracking that use smartphones with gps that we could use (I have Nike's one for e.g.) and try to challenge each other.

I am not sure if I can get into that right away (still trying to get some other sports into my schedule that I find more enjoyable than running) but later in the year I might be ready to take up running in earnest if I can get some friendly competition going as motivation.

Joe Nation and I are on RunningAhead, which allows you to track your
runs and measure your courses using a Google-maps app.

If we decided on a challenge based on time, distance or pace, we could
monitor each other's progress there.

At the moment, however, my training log could be titled Diary of a Wimpy Geezer.

Much walking on my end. Not running, but a lotta endurance walking. At least for me, which is showing up as 4+ miles/day for a good 3 or 4 days/week.

I am tired.

You are miles ahead of me man, trust me. I need to get my lungs back into shape, my residual self-image of athleticism is so far removed from reality that it's become depressing. I want my lungs back and am willing to do whatever it takes.

Except boring running of course. I'll check out RunningAhead, and see if I can get into enough shape to tag along behind y'all later in the year.

How about cycling?

Since somebody asked and I AM a part of this forum.

Sunday's Run(s)
Average Low Winter Temperature - Central Park - 28°F
Temperature at 11AM, Sunday, March 27, 2011 -28°F
brrrrrrr.
This event is the Colon Cancer Challenge 15K and, because I skipped the mid-February Manhattan Half-Marathon (Temps that day were 14-16° with 15mph winds from the North.) it was going to be my first long race of the year. (Hell, it's almost March!!)

Anyway, put on two long sleeved shirts, pinned my number to the front left of my shorts, pulled on a fat sweatshirt and headed for the subway to 59th Street. The Start was at 68th Street, but first I has to run up to 72nd and cut across to the baggage area.

(Because I read an article by Jespah about keeping track on all your running and exercising, I started my watch as soon as I left the subway exit. Running from there to the start was just over a mile. yea. Put it in the book.)

I pulled off the fat sweatshirt at the baggage area and stuffed it in my bag. I hate having to stop mid-race to take clothes off. Actually, I haven't had to do that in years, I learned my lesson several winters ago --- if I am about to freeze at the Start line, I'll be just toasty by about three and half miles in. Thus it was on Sunday that I entered the corral amongst two thousand or so other shivering runners.

This was going to be a trot. I was not going to try for a PR or let all the brakes off on the downhills----just a trot. Shoot for 10:30s and see if you can finish near to an hour and half. (Yeah, I know, speedy runners, that is so slow. BUT in my defense, I am fat again, no, not that fat, but fatter. I am ten pounds over what I was when I ran the Marathon last fall and I was ten pounds fatter then than I was the previous Marathon. You can see how much trouble I am in.

Anyway, I trotted, I shuffled, I moseyed. I averaged 10:30 per mile. 1:38:22 I never got in trouble, no knee signal, no odd foot complaints, no emergency stops needed because of the tortellini I had the previous night before the opera. (That's another story)

I finished strong, (I got into one of those "Oh, no you are not going to pass me" things in the last 500 yards. I love when that happens. They have no idea how much I have left when I trot a race. He was a very sad fatter-then-me forty year old. I beat him by the length of my big nose.)

Got my stuff, changed out of the wet shirts and ran (start your watch!) over to 66th Street to catch the Number 1 train up to 86th Street to meet Thomas at French Roast. I was hoping that my friend A would meet us for breakfast but she is 24 years old and sleeps in on Sundays until 2PM

A very good race. So boring, but it made me feel very good. I know I could have run faster, (a lot faster? no. A little bit faster, yes.) And the morning after effect was........ nothing. It was as if I hadn't run any farther than up the stairs to get some wine. Which I did after taking a nap.

The stairs in my neighborhood are the reason no one there needs a gym.
I faithfully recorded that run in my book. I have a picture somewhere.
Thanks, Jespah. I got the 9.3 for the 15K and about 3 + for the other three runs.

Joe(I'm going to hit a 100 miles in March in a day or so)Nation

Not a big fan to be honest. I am most into competitive sports, so right now I play tennis a couple times a week (learning), would like to start playing basketball again (was good forever ago), and after that the top two things on my list are soccer and running.

The only reason I'm willing to consider running is that it is the easiest to fit into the schedule (step outside and start) but cycling here is a bit of a pain (bad, narrow roads) and I have never really been into it.

Definitly easier -- and a lot less hullaballoo to do, versus finding a field or locating wherever you've put the pump for the basketball, etc. Plus of course (Captain Obvious here) you'll need running for soccer and basketball anyway.

And yay Joe! It all counts, baby!

At the last company I worked, I organized a soccer game a local park
on Thursdays. It was a pick-up game with what I called "street soccer"
rules. It was great fun. There's a totally different mix of folks here at
the Widget Factory, so I couldn't get a game going here.

High five!

When I started running, just after the Permian age, all you needed was a pair of shoes, a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt.

When I started biking all you needed was a bike, a pair of shorts and a tee shirt.
Then biking changed.
I did my first 500 mile Oklahoma Freewheel wearing a bathing suit, sunscreen, sneaks and a yellow baseball cap. The bike didn't even have toe clips.
I did my last FreeWheel wearing a helmet, goggles, mirror, specially designed biking shirt with rear pockets, custom made biking shorts,
and Italian biking shoes which clipped onto the specially designed cranks of my Carabella machine. Triple geared, super-lite frame and tires that had the rolling Resistance of Teflon.
Sigh.
I think I am letting running become like that. I have a GPS watch which records any number of things including elevation, lap speed, average lap speed, average speed over the whole distance run thus far AND I like to carry an mp3 player so I can listen either to books or music as I trot along. (Oh yeah, I have a heart monitor too.)

Many days now I find myself standing at the door, going through a checklist that an airline pilot would be familiar with. Hat, water, sunscreen, check check check, gels, powerbar, check check.

There are other days when I just put on some sneaks, a pair of shorts, a tee-shirt and go.

Joe(such a pleasure)Nation

Cool socks, too.

I decided to run a "tempo run" today.

I limbered up a bit more than usual and started off, trying to find a pace
that would be just outside my comfort zone. My body immediately
began to explain to me that this was neither necessary nor desirable.
I ignored it.

The day was sunny and bright but windy, about 40 degrees. I checked
my watch at the mile mark. 9:22. At two miles, the pace was still about
the same. I don't have a three-mile mark, but I finished 4.1 miles in a
time of 39:07. That's an average pace of 9:36. So now I have a baseline.
And the good feeling you get when you know you put out a good effort.

It sounds interesting, but my kind of training doesn't readily lend itself to this kind of thing. Although my races are all runs, most of my training isn't because of my weight. A typical gym session these days is an hour on the arm bicycle, followed by an hour on the elliptical trainer. It's good cardio training but doesn't pound on my legs.

That was you???

Yeah, I'm probably more apples and oranges in this area, too.

Okay. Regarding running really hard in the last hundred yards.

Truth telling time.

I really hate finishing races strong.
I don't want to look good when I am done;
I want to look done when I am done.
I want to stagger, careen, career across the finish-line with my reddened face contorted by the effort.
I want to say to myself, "There, you magnificent bastard, you did it."
==
Here's what I really like to do:
I like to run the first half of a distance hard and then run the second half harder. I like to look at my mile reports in a ten mile run and see that I ran each of the last five miles faster than the previous mile.

===
I want to say to myself, "That was the best you had today."
And if someone is able to pass me in the last hundred yards, so be it, they've only got stuff left because they didn't go all out.

For them, it could something close to a waste of time.

Joe(suchananimal)Nation

even if a PB is within reach with a mad dash?

If I've done it right that day, there is no chance of a mad dash.

I'm already going as fast as I can go. There ain't no more.

==
Old Story:
A dog's age ago, I was running against a dozen other Air Force dudes in a five mile race. I sat back in the pack while three others took off early. They stayed about 1/4 mile ahead of us. (We were running on an old flight-line which had a one mile loop, half mile out, half mile back.)
About the 3.5 mark, I took off, more out of boredom then anything else. By the four and half turn, I was breathing down their necks (Okay, I was 100 yards behind.) I really pushed hard that last half mile .......
and came in third.)
I was still pretty fresh. They, the guy that won and the guy who was second, "Were pretty glad it hadn't been a SIX mile race.", I laughed.
I stopped laughing when our coach jumped all over me for being a lazy ****, for hanging back, for starting to actually run at 3.5 (too late to win!) and in general, for being a smartass.
--
Ah...somewhere at the bottom of some landfill, there is a notebook I kept of miles and races for the next year or so. I won some, and I placed second in some, but I was never third again. I made me run and I made them, those bastards, run all out the whole way.
~~~~
What you do in practice is trot along and then run up-pace (faster than your average by 10-15 seconds a mile) do that for about as long as you can, then slow to slightly below your average until you've got your heart-rate and pacing back to about normal.
Then do it again.
And again.
Pretty soon you know just about how much above your average you can run and how far.
Then you do that in the next race.
The amazing thing is we did all that stuff without the help of any running watches or heart-rate monitors.
Joe(we felt our way)Nation

Rhys and I walked around Lake Quannapowitt this afternoon. 3.1 miles (5
kilometers) in 54 minutes. That's now our baseline. I'll work in invervals of
jogging over time. Then in October we'll do the Samaritans 5K. The goal is
for him to complete it without slowing to a walk.