January 27, 2007
January 2007
New Site
Well I bit the bullet and updated my blog - I can now be found at warriorwomen.
Not sure if it was such a good idea to change the URL as now all my links and RSS feeds have changed but I'm pleased with the conversion non-the-less.
January 26, 2007
January 2007
Worrying Developments
I am slightly concerned about two new obsessions that seem to be gaining a foothold.
Firstly you may have noticed that a whole load of ultrarunners have suddenly gatecrashed my blogroll and therefore my regular reading list. Yesterday my new book arrived, Ultramarathon Man
Why would this be? A long run for me is 10k.
Can't help feeling such an admiration for this show of endurance and ridiculous stubborness. When Karnazes finished his first 50-miler he described rather too vividly the terrible spasms and projectile vomiting that ruined his lovely new Lexus. It's trials like this that help define who you actually are and I'm sure most of us hanker to know just how much we could actually deal with.
The second development is rather more impulsive. Last night I suddenly decided that I was going defect from MovableType and head over to wordpress.org. This is clearly going to cause an immense weekend long headache if I go ahead with it. I had to restrain myself from giving it a go last night when the urge first grabbed me.
This is my explanation in advance for any prolonged outage of the blog, and any pattern baldness that I may concurrently develop.
January 24, 2007
January 2007
Snow
Did I mention it was cold?
I needn't have worried about developing hypothermia either, true to form I puffed along like an overly stoked steam train and had to roll up my sleeves and remove the hat by mile 2.
I suffered a bit with a stitch early on but it cleared and the run turned out to be quite successful. I knocked 2 minutes off my previous time. Something I attribute to the skinny lady that stormed past me on the final stretch. I was beginning ache and it ocurred to me how much sooner this could all be over if only I put my foot down.
I so wish I could run faster - mental note to introduce fartlek to the routine.
January 23, 2007
January 2007
Bluudy Freezin
Good grief, has anyone noticed how flippin cold it is? I'm supposed to be running home tomorrow but I know I will lose certain extremities if I expose them to the chilling wind for 1hr 20 mins. I can feel the pain already. Last week I was worried about overheating in my long sleeved t-shirt, I think tomorrow I will have to run in my fleece and scarve. I'd run with gloves too if anyone had seen fit to give me any.
I am going to hide under the duvet now and see if I can build up any more gumption.
January 21, 2007
January 2007
Where's Wally?
Why is it, when you run a circular route in a gale, the wind just never seems to be in your favour? I was running on the spot for at least half of my route this morning. The rowers looked to be suffering too, I witnessed a few near collisions as they got buffeted around in the spin cycle.
I included this photo in an attempt to get something out of my system. Everytime I do this route I repeat the same thing at the same point. I see the little red floats and the mantra kicks in "Where's Wally? Where's Wally?". It drives me absolutely nuts - its not even funny. Sometimes I avoid the route just to escape my OCD behaviour. Maybe sharing it with you, will release me.
I'd like to alert all you marathon hopefuls to the best race report I've come across. Junebug recently completed the Chevron Houston marathon and her blog entries on the outcome were both riveting and moving. I've linked to the first entry but be sure to read on to the finish line.
I was happy to manage 20k this week but it wasn't without a certain amount of pain. Two toenails have gone black and my quads are playing up again. Really glad I made it out for a run this morning though, I was invited out for a Lebanese family meal and I've just staggered home about twice the size. If I hadn't gone for a pre-dinner run I think I would have probably exploded. The meal started with hummous and bread, then we moved on to an amazing 3 cheese lasagne with salad. This would have been fine but then out came two roast meats, roast spuds, veg etc and a huge pile of basmati rice cooked with minced lamb and roasted pine nuts. We seemed to get the best sunday dishes from at least 3 cultures and I am suffering for my sins now.
January 17, 2007
January 2007
Running with Everytrail
I'm still intent on running home once a week, so today I repeated the exact same running route as last week. I again finished the 10k distance in 1hr 20mins, and was strangely within 15 seconds of my previous time.
Given that it was direct replay of last weeks route, there isn't much point me repeating the sporttracks image. Instead I've used it as an excuse to introduce my new discovery - everytrail.com. I first came across this on The Trail Runners blog which is certainly worth a read.
Everytrail allows you to upload your running tracks directly from your GPS unit, add waymarks and photos and provides a really simple way to share the route as an iframe on your blog. Non of this is all that new really but I'm particularly happy that I can also directly upload the gpx file. This means I can plot out a route on memory map and upload it without actually having to cover the course with my garmin. I used this feature when I needed to plot my friends planned commute. I was able to stick it on the web for him to peruse at work and determine whether it was a manageable distance.
If you use another mapping package that saves the routes in an alternative format (eg tracklogs), you might want to try out GPSBabel which is a free tool for converting routes into the gpx format.
January 14, 2007
January 2007
Muddy Shoes
What a lovely morning, it felt like a real treat to be out running and it seems like the rest of running London felt the same way and chose to join me in Richmond Park.
I chose a new track in the park but as there must be about a thousand to choose from there's really no excuse for avoiding variety. Turned out to be just about 5k. I was only supposed to run for 30 mins as I was meeting a friend at the gate but I got a bit waylaid by a herd of deer. Must have been at least 100 sitting in my path and they are quite intimidating in numbers. Ended up zigzagging my way around the woods. My once new shoes are flippin filthy - note that I am building up ammunition for yet another purchase - all this trail running is surely going to require made for the job trail running shoes, isn't it?
After all the faffing around with my colour coded and bpm matched playlists yesterday, I actually ended up running to some Radio 4 podcasts. I was giggling away to the highlights of Wake up with Wogan and barely noticed the agony of hill climbing.
January 13, 2007
January 2007
More Playlist Mayhem
As I mentioned earlier, my Saturday has been pretty much ruined due to a wasted day waiting for a delivery from M&S. The delivery was to be expected anytime between 7.30 am and 6 pm. Its gone 8 now and I'm still sitting here, pee'd off, no parcel and no run. I've given up now and turned to the bottle, or at least a couple of cans of stella.
So I've been researching bpm determining software. There are a number that require you to tap the beat out on your mouse or trackpad (absolutely useless for rhythmless me) and others that work it out automatically. Its not foolproof though, apparently it is common for the automatic system to either dbl or halve the true bpm, which might explain why my Norah Jones collection appears to the most upbeat music in my library.
I'm trialling beaTunes which is a standalone program that integrates well with iTunes. It populates my library with the bpm info that I'm after but also categorises my music in other ways too. It asigns a colour to each track which looks fairly pretty and again is designed to make intelligent playlist choices that reduce the opportunity for inappropriate or clashing tunes. I like the idea but I haven't had a chance to try this out as its taking about 20 hrs to analyse my library. The program itself is shareware - I get it free for 8 days, not ideal I suppose but at least I get to update my entire library before the free period runs out.
January 2007
New Gadget Anybody?
I want to go out for a run but I'm stuck in the flat all day waiting for a delivery - I had to pay extra for the privilige of having my saturday ruined, what was I thinking? I'm using the down time to surf the net and discover new gadgets that I can't possibly live without.
I was reading Joggerbloggers post this morning about the joys of finding unexpected songs on his shuffle, including tunes from his mother in laws lifelong collection. This would absolutely horrify me. I can't bear even my own old songs appearing unexpectedly during my run and since I've been trying out The Filter to manage my playlists this tends to happen quite a bit.
None of this should be too much of a problem of course I could always skip the inappropriate song and move on. When I'm running though, and the nano is attached to my arm or worse still, secreted in a highly inaccessible zipped pocket of my backpack, skipping songs requires you to be double jointed or stationary.
That is where the little remote comes in handy, I can clip it to my shirt and lose the nervous anticipation of the next song. The radio is just a bonus feature.
**UPDATE 19/01/07**
Well, I went for it. My little gadget arrived on Wednesday. It's true that the radio reception isn't superb but I managed to put up with up during my bus commute and it was so enjoyable I managed to zip straight past the hospital and had to back track.
As I said though, I was buying it for the remote feature and not the radio. I tested it on this weeks commute and immediately came across a problem as it no longer fits in my Nike armband because of the large adaptor at the base. I managed to fit it through the little hole in my backpack though so it looks like me and the backpack are going to have to remain bonded. Its good to be able to control the music during my run though.
January 11, 2007
January 2007
Bus vs Bike vs WoMan
Today was d-day - the running commute was upon me. Much forwarding planning had been involved as well as expenses incurred and I couldn't really think of a suitable excuse to get out of it.
Since I started working at the hospital back in September I have cycled in every single day. Most people ooh and gasp when they hear this, it is clearly a major commitment in their eyes. Of course it involves precious little commitment on my part. It actually just provides further evidence of quite how lazy I am.
On a typical day, my third alarm buzzes at 7.30 and I drag myself out of bed, potter around on the web before heading out to retrieve my bike at about 8.15. Today, because I needed to leave my bike at home, thereby freeing me to run home this evening, I had to endure the horrors of early morning public transport. This meant I had to set my alarm 50 mins early, miss the pottering around and shoot out into the dark and miserable morning streets at 7am in search of a suitable bus stop. I only needed two buses, which isn't too bad but the length of the journey was unbearable. I didn't arrive at work until 8.57. Taking the bus to work took 1hr 15mins longer than on my bike - and that includes the faffing time, where I have to lock my bike and get changed at the other end. Thats 1hr 15 mins longer in bed - every morning if I cycle. Surely if people realised this they would hand in their bus passes and head off to the bike shop, at the very least they wouldn't find it so odd that I choose to cycle everyday.
When persuading myself to do this running commute, I appeased my inner slob by allowing a get out clause - I could take my oyster card and hop on a bus for part of the journey if it all felt too hellish. After the trip in this morning though I had a challenge ahead of me. Surely, even at my pace, I could beat the bus home. The race was on!
I didn't start off particularly race-like. I approached the starting line, and then switched on the garmin and waited to lock on to the satellites. I waited and waited a bit more. All this while stood outside a psychiatric hospital in the pitch dark while it was raining, dressed in a luminous yellow t-shirt, trying desperately to look as though I wasn't pretending to be a runner. Why does it always take so flippin long to get a signal????
It proved to be quite an acceptable run. In the end I didn't go directly home but chose to spoil a friend with my sweaty company, which proved a good choice as I managed to run directly into a hot a foamy bath that she had prepared for me. How nice.
The garmin beeped right outside her gate to say I had completed 10k, how satisfying is that? Another perfect 10k route. It took me 1hr 20mins which isn't a record pace but it did include numerous stops at traffic lights and more importantly beat the bus! So gold goes to cycling, silver to running and a pitiful runners up boobly prize to the bus.
January 9, 2007
January 2007
Psychic Bloglines
What's happened to Technorati lately?
I use it to keep track of recent posts in all my favourite blogs but it is just not playing fair anymore. It's telling me that a lot of my fellow bloggers haven't been active in over 100 days when I know for a fact that they've been at their most prolific over the New Year.
My frustration forced me to skip on over to Bloglines, and so far so good. I don't think I'm going to miss another post again. In fact last night it informed me that Junebug had just posted an entry entitled "Who wants pasta?", and as I did I headed over there to check it out. There was nothing! No post, no pasta, just old entries. This morning, I get up and check it out again, lo and behold the pasta post is up. Three cheers for the psychic bloglines, big improvement over Technorati.
January 7, 2007
January 2007
Walking on Water
My plan yesterday, was to get up early and head out for a long run. As I intend to run home from work next week, I need to confirm that I can still cope with the longer distances. Also I wanted to try out running with a rucksac, so I can get the necessities home, and try wearing a waterproof. I'm concerned that I will overheat like crazy if I wear anymore than a flimsy t-shirt but if it chucks it down while I'm on my way home I don't want to risk freezing to death either - military planning required!
Anyway, I logged on to the computer first thing and started to have a little play around with the structure of my blog. This is always a fatal move. I end up making everything 10 times worse and then spend the rest of the day desperately trying to back track and get back to where I started. All in all, I must have spent about 15 hours messing around with it yesterday. Hopefully I'm in a better position now but I know that movabletype needs upgrading again and this is hanging over me like a dark cloud.
I managed to take a break at 4pm and I kitted myself out with my new luminous Gore running shirt, sprayway windproof and Asics Barrios backpack. It had been raining all day but had finally stopped by the time I went out. My planned route along the river was scuppered immediately though as the entire riverside path was submerged under a raging Thames. Pity I forgot to pack my phone or I could have illustrated my futile attempts to walk on water.
I ran along the road for a while and then tried to reach the river route again at this side of Chiswick bridge, a dog walker cut me off this time with tails of flooding mayhem. I finally managed to get down on to the river at the far side of Chiswick bridge and had a fairly clear route to Kew. I'd left it so late that it was getting pretty dark and I can't say I enjoy running alone along trails at night. Came across a load of runners though - far more than I usually meet on my morning runs.
Obviously I chose to run back along the roads for safety and this meant I covered a fair portion of my planned commute home. All in all it wasn't a bad run at all. The gore shirt is very lightweight and ultra breathable even with the windproof on top I felt ok. I was wearing a cap as well and I think this caused me to get a bit hot under the collar by the time I finished but I feel well prepared for next week now.
January 2007
Asics Barrios Backpack
I was looking for a smallish pack that I could use for my running commute. I was initially looking at the hydration packs but the small ones seem to have very little room for clobber. I don't need to hold that much - maybe a purse, diary and a waterproof.
In the end I plumped for this small running pack from asics. i'm impressed with everything else I use from asics and felt sure that they would have a better idea of my requirements as a runner than even I would myself. I think it has proven to be true, its an excellent pack and very comfortable.
The pack itself sits quite high on the back, which took a bit of getting used to as it means the waist strap is quite high too. When I started running though, i felt it to be very stable and it didn't disturb me at all. There is some padding at the back which acts to hold the pack away from the body so I didn't even notice my back getting hot - and I'm very sensitive to overheating.
It has stacks of features. There is a pouch at the top for your iPod or other mp3 player and the headphones feed through an orifice leaving them perfectly positioned for your ears. This is actually the first time I've managed to run without getting tangle or strangle with the headphone cable. There is a stowable net for cycle helmet or other gear and a seperate section for a hydration system. Theres also a peculiar attachment that zips away at the bottom and is apparently for holding a bottle but I can't quite see how.
Very good purchase - £30 from wiggle.
January 2007
Gore Running Spy II Shirt
I'm afraid it looks a bit creased in this photo (basically because I just pulled it from a pile in the floor).
This is an ideal shirt for me as I overheat very easily. It's incredibly lightweight and breathable, in fact the material is almost non-existant beneath the arm pits, so no chance of getting too clammy.
It both looks and feels to be quite a high quality garment but then it did cost about £30.
January 1, 2007
January 2007
Running - The Purists Sport?
Running is normally considered the minimalist sport, much favoured by purists who just like to pop on a pair of shoes and head out of the door to freedom. I somehow manage to thwart this image and see a necessity in spending the best part of a months salary on "essential" running clobber.
This snap shows a representative sample of the gear I require to push one foot in front of the other. Its amazing I can even move under the weight of all this gear.
Dr Nick asked me, a few entries back, whether the GPS actually improved my running performance or whether it was just the gadget factor. Thats quite a toughy really. It has undoubtedly improved my running but only really by providing me with the incentive to get out there and run.
I suppose the actual question he wanted answering was "will it improve my running?". This again is a tough question. I tend to think if it was going to work for you, you'd have one by now.
I enjoy the post run analysis more than the actual running. If I forgot the garmin - I just wouldn't bother running, it has become the most important feature to me. I run to feed its little data banks. If you were just such a data fiend I reckon you wouldn't have any difficulty rationalising the expense.
Here's my list of "essential" running gadgets and utilities from 2006:
- Garmin Forerunner 305 - see above for my sad addicts confession. Here for a review and comparison with other speed and distance monitors. Plenty of other bloggers have seen the light as well and adorn their sites with the maps and stats acquired en-route: Steve's Running, Trail Runner, Celeste and Getting Buff
- SportTracks - Training log software. I'm tempted to put this in at number 1 as it is the reason that the garmin forerunner is such a dream gadget. Without SportTracks the gps system would be seriously emasculated. SportTracks is available for free download and I can't recommend it strongly enough for anyone with a gps unit. It is by and far the best sports diary I have come across. Whats more it continues to be a work in progress, with the developer working closely with the users to make it increasingly brilliant. Most of the stats I dsplay in this blog are cut directly out of SportTracks.
- Runners World Marathon schedules - I'm not up for the marathon yet but these have been made available as downloadable schedules for the garmin forerunner. You can select the schedule based on standard predicted finish times or alter each for your specific target. I've been playing around with these schedules as part of the testing phase and have found them to be excellent. Even without completing the full program I now have a load of training routines to add variety to my runs.
- iPod Nano - I don't run with this all the time, sometimes its a joy to hear the birds and the rowers. The good thing about running with music though is that it adds an element of bouncing fun and it stops me hearing my gasping breath. It also stops me from hearing the fattist abuse hurled from white vans. I haven't been tempted by the Nike+ phenomonen, mainly because I have the forerunner, but you can see some interesting Nike+ paraphenalia at Booyaa.
- The Filter. One of the reasons I don't use the iPod too much while running is that I struggle to develop suitably stirring playlists. I just can't be arsed to dedicate that much time to iTunes. My latest discovery is another free download and seems to be working wonders for my playlist doldrums. I can highlight a few songs that typify the mood I'm after and then press a magic button on The filter console and watch it search through my library to propose a whole new playlist. Apparently it learns from its mistakes and takes into account both my preferences and those of the online community. It seems pretty good so far.
January 2007
New Resolve
I woke to a new year and discovered a brand new grey hair slap in the middle of my forehead. Tis a feisty little critter, taking evasive action as I attempted a pincer attack with my thumb and forefinger. Looks like it will get to live out another day.
Illness, injury, dark nights and life in general seems to have got in the way of my running schedule recently. This summary chart from SportTracks illustrates the lack lustre end to the year as there were two weeks of zero running in both November and December.
I've made the most of the festive break to get back into a routine and had a great time in Richmond Park this morning, sliding around in the mud and leaf mould. I've taken heart from the marathon trainers who are showing great commitment by building up their mileage despite the inclement weather and grotty dark days.
Although I'm not planning a marathon event this year, I do want to take part in a few more races and as I'm half-heartedly considering the Great North Run, I need to build up my running stamina. I've decided to leave my bike at home once a week and run home from work. That way I get a decent 12k run in the middle of the week without having to get up early or dragging myself back out into the cold after I've made it home in the evening.
