2012 Disney 5K

If you are looking for an inexpensive way to "RunDisney", Ive found the best way to save a buck from running either the Half Marathon or the Marathon.

After running the Half Marathon in January, 2011, we thought about running it again before a planned cruise leaving Port Canaveral, Florida.  Because of the cost of the cruise, $150 for a race hits the budget kind of hard.  The 5K still costs $50, which isn't cheap for a 5K.  In fact, they bill it as a family fun run, but seriously, how many families can afford that?  Come to think of it, there weren't many kids at the starting line for it.

The 5K has the 'wave' format so that it isn't a madhouse at the start.  The three waves are based on the following time splits; Under 7 minutes per mile, 7-9 MPM, and 9:01 MPM and above.

If you looking at a great cheap option to the other longer races, I would highly recommend this one.  You are only allowed to go through Epcot, but the photo stops with the characters, the support from the staff and the recovery food/drinks at the end of the race were Grade A.  The only deficient points for the race is the medal and timing of the race.  You are not timed at this race and no one can look it up on their website when you finish.  Youonly have your race number as proof you even ran this one, and who knows, you couldve slept in as far as that proof goes.  The 'medal' is soft rubber and does look cheap.  But again, it does prove you ran it.

You will need to take a extra day of work off since it is run on a Friday morning.  Also, you have to be on the grounds by 5:30 am, which means a before 5 am wake up call to be there by that time.  But the earliness of the race allows ample time to get back, shower and get to the parks before they open.  So my overall rating was A- for those of you interested in a very fun 5K race.   

Steve Jobs and what works

Finished reading "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and found it a good read into the mind of Apple's creative genius. While Job's batting average was pretty good on knowing what would work, I found an interesting tidbit on how other products just fell into his lap. Jobs didn't see how the iPod Nano would be a great success. But Jobs wasn't an athlete in training like the rest of us. When you're running a 20 miler in training, the ability to take a 1000 digital song player has great application. Same for running a 5K for a PR and wanting to eliminate any excess weight for a Sony Walkman or hand held radio. The runners at Apple had to talk Jobs into pursuing the Nano. And as it turned out, its success geared one of the values of all of Apple future products when you think about it. Smaller, faster, more capacity, and more functions with each year/version of the product. Another benefit that running has added to person-kind. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

New, or should I say, old iPod Nano Update?

I am trying to figure out how Apple is making money on their latest iPod Nano updates. Yes I know they dropped the price on the seventh-generation Nano [that would be the 2011 version – meaning the one that came out last week] to $129 for 8GB of storage or $149 for 16GB, compared to $149 or $179, respectively, last year. But if you own the sixth-generation Nano like I do, there is no reason to go out and buy the new Nano. If you are in the same situation as me, you’ve already got a sixth-generation iPod Nano; I’ve got great news for you. All you need to do is a simple software update, available when syncing your Nano with iTunes, and you now have a 7th generation Nano.

As I reported earlier in the summer, the software version 1.1 was a great improvement with the ability to hold down the on/off switch to make sure that the Nano would be put to sleep, thereby saving your battery from being runned down by an inadvertent Nano not being paused correctly. Here’s a quick rundown on what’s new in version 1.2 of the software.
-The Nano now displays only a single, much larger icon at a time. Before with Nano software versions 1.0 and 1.1, you had 17 different app-like icons: Playlists, Now Playing, Artists, Genius Mixes, Radio, Podcasts, Photos, Settings, Songs, Albums, Genres, Composers, Fitness, Clock, Audiobooks, iTunes U and Voice Memos. With the new Nano software 1.2, you have 11 or fewer: Now Playing, Music, Radio, Fitness, Clock, Photos, Audiobooks, Podcasts, iTunes U, Voice Memos, and Settings. You now access the Genius Mixes, Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, and Composers and Compilations.
(You still have the option of using the smaller icon faces on your Nano; you can access this feature in the settings function.)
-New wallpaper and watch faces if you want to use the Nano as a watch in your non-running mode. There are 18 different clock faces: nine analog, four digital, one analog/digital, two Disney analog (Mickey and Minnie Mouse), and two Muppets analog (Kermit and Animal). Most clock faces also display the current date.
-No need for the shoe sensor and white plug-in for your Nano. With the new software, the Nano can now has a built-in accelerometer for the Nike+iPod sensor so you don’t even need a Nike+iPod sensor in your shoe. In other words, you can now use Nike+iPod with any shoe brand and without having to spend more money for the sensor and dongle. Wonder how they got Nike to sign off on that?
All-in-all, to say that I’m extremely pleased with what Apple did with this software update is an understatement. I know they took a lot of grief about not making a structural design change with the new iPhone 4S, but in the case of the Nano, I can’t criticize them in the fact that they didn’t make a design change to force their customers to buy a Nano for the new features. I feel that this is a big reward for being a customer of an Apple product and I cheer their willingness to give us this freebee.

Do You Know How Much To Drink?

WebMD had an interesting 15 question poll on how much water to drink. A lot of the questions were on using water while exercising. Even after all the articles that I've picked up, I still just scored 11 out of 15 in the poll for 73%.

Give it a whirl and let me know how you do. http://bit.ly/qEAgRD

So close… and yet so far (about 10 miles) away.

Finally getting to my recap of my experience at Grandma's Marathon. I have no excuses. I thought my training was there. The weather was perfect - - okay, some don't like to run in 49 degree weather but I have run Grandma's in 70 plus temps and 90% Humidity, I'll take the 49 degrees, overcast and a 9 MPH tailwind.

As I shared earlier, I had run the Stillwater Marathon 20 days before. Now looking back, that was probably not a great idea. But finding the right mix of miles, speed, and rest for the marathon is not like any other distance. You can make a mistake on shorter distances when you have the wrong combination of the three, but in the marathon, you are going to pay, in time, distance, or by just dropping out. After all that training, I wasn't about to drop out.

My plan was to run a 10:30 MPM using the Galloway method for the entire distance of the marathon. Run 1 mile at a 10:08 pace, walk a minute, run to the next mile marker and do it again. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Galloway, he argues for walking breaks each mile so that the body can recover from the pounding that it takes while attempting the marathon. In my long run training, I had used his formula of running 5 minutes, walk 30 seconds, and keep alternating. This helps the body recover faster from the long runs and gets you ready for the marathon attempt. His method also has you do a 26-29 mile long run, 3 weeks before the marathon using this same 5 min/30 second run/walk system. Again, because it has the walking breaks built in, the rationale is that you should recover in time for taking on the marathon at a faster pace. Hence, the reason for my running the Stillwater Marathon 3 weeks before.

Anyway, back to attempt at Grandma's. I picked a 10:30 MPM pace because I wanted to go conservative to see if this method worked. That's right, conservative. My speed workouts (800s) were done at a 4:07 – 4:14 pace. This translates to a 4:07 – 4:14 marathon total time. My Stillwater Marathon was 5 hours, about an 11:30 MPM pace. Galloway says that you should run the long runs at a pace two minutes slower than you plan to run at the marathon. This I did (a 4:10 marathon total time equates to a 9:30 MPM pace – two minutes faster than the Stillwater pace). So instead of going for a 9:30 MPM pace, I went for a 10:30 MPM pace – this should be easy following the formula.

Well, it wasn't. I have to admit, for the first half of the marathon, I was right on pace 10:30s all the way. But at the 14 mile mark, there was tiredness in my legs that I just couldn't shake. My heart rate was a mirror image of the Stillwater Marathon, nothing change there, but I couldn't get into the heart rate range to make up for the drop in pace, no matter how hard I tried. I wasn't out of breath or anything like that, I just couldn't shake that my legs had to be 're-started' after each one minute walk. At 16 I knew I was in trouble, by 18, I knew I wasn't going to keep the 10:30 pace. But I switched to the mind games that we all use in marathons - - telling the body to do something it doesn't want to. The last 10K was all mental. I would make a deal with my legs "Just start running and keep running until the heart rate gets up to what we did in training for the long runs. You can stop after you hold that heart rate for two minutes." Believe it or not, this would get me to within view of the next mile marker, and then I could say "Okay, just keep running until you get to that mile marker and then you can take the one minute walking break." This worked to get the marathon done. But I ended up with the same total time I ran at Stillwater.

So live and learn. I am now convinced of two things. The first is that you can't run a marathon competitively, within 3 weeks of another marathon. The second is that you can run marathons every week, as long as you don't run them competitively. I believe I could probably run another marathon this weekend… but my overall total time wouldn't be that good or any better than the marathon the week before, give or take a few percent.

I have thought about doing an Ultra Marathon in my future, and I will probably use the Galloway method to complete that. As I expressed in an earlier post, I am also looking at running a marathon in all 50 states. But as for running marathons competitively, I am tossing this training method out. It's great for finishing a marathon, not so much for achieving a personal best.

Chomping At the Bit

Down to the last 48 hours before running Grandma's Marathon up in Duluth, and keeping the water bottle close. The past two days, it has difficult keeping my pace and heart rate below the easy pace/rate zones. The legs want to take off.

I'm taking this as a good sign because it shows that I am ready. The speed workout that I did on Tuesday satisfied the need to test myself, but I controlled it too such a short distance, it didn't really satisfy me for the rest of the week. Yesterday and this morning, I kept drifting off in thoughts of what I needed to get ready before the trip and found myself cruising.

I am glad to see my old body responding this way. When I ran the Stillwater Marathon on Memorial Weekend, I worried that I may have done too much. I ran it smart as I could, but sometimes your body tells you something that your mind didn't want you to know. But every distance and speed workout since then have told me that I am prime to have a great race. 'Race'. Can't believe I'm talking about a marathon using that term. I must be ready…

Marathon Week

Finally into the last week before the Marathon. There are many different schools of thought of how to handle that last week but here is what I've found from my experience with the marathon:

• To run or not to run? You really can't gain anything of value – aerobically that is, in the last week. You can screw up a great marathon (I have) by doing too much running though. Mileage should be about 1/3 to ¼ of what you have averaged in your high mileage weeks OR LESS. For example, my highest mileage week was 57 miles. Now that was the most, if I used the average that I had the last two months, we're talking in the 35-45 range. So that comes to 14-15 miles before the marathon this week. So starting Sunday (for a Saturday marathon), I try to do my best to keep my total mileage down to 15 miles. I will do no more than a 3.5 mile run if I do a bunch of 2 milers or 5 mile run if I'm skipping a bunch of days. I plan to do a 2, 2, 3, 3.5, 2, and 2 (Sunday to Friday).
  
• Speed. Again, you won't get anything out of running fast except to tire yourself if you overdo it. But I also don't want to lose any speed that I've already acquired. Since I have had at least one speed workout each week (800s on Wednesdays), I will do 3 x 800 at my predicted marathon time on Tuesday. Since this is a total of 1.5 miles of speed, I've found that it's safe and I keep my edge. I also can do this easily by not going over 3 miles in total. 1 mile warm up, 800/400 rest/800/400 rest/800/400 walk~cooldown. Again, it's not necessary to do, only if you feel like you need to 'stretch the legs'.
  
• Diet. I'm not a carbo loading nut. But I will make sure I'm having carbos for dinner every night. Stay away from high fat meals during this week. They won't necessarily blow your marathon, but they won't help it. Remember, you have enough body fat to run 10 marathons stored in your body even if you have a 5% body fat composition (the lowest I've ever seen on another runner).
  
• Lots of water. You can't have too much this week. Okay, you could, but few of us really make an effort to make sure we do drink enough. I carry a water bottle with me all week – in the car, watching TV, to meetings. They say 64 ounces a day is the goal, but it won't hurt to get a couple extra bottles in each day during this week. I want to make sure my body is completely hydrated before I go to the line. I'll make sure I don't overdo it on marathon morning but during the week, your urine should be clear every day.
  
• Cross Training activities. I'd suggest not doing them. But if you feel they've helped you in your training and you just have to do them, cut back on the reps, sets, distance or time (in half) if you do cross train. Sore muscles will all come out during an endurance test of 26.2 miles.
  
• Lastly, get as much sleep as you can. Don't panic if the night before you are too wound up to get the 8 hours. I've slept with less in many marathons. But make sure you are perpendicular for 8 hours. Even if you are just lying on the bed with your eyes closed, your body is still getting the rest, even if your mind isn't. If you need a dream to help you sleep, use mine. You are standing at the Boston Marathon start line with the world's elite. The gun goes off, and you start to visualize each of the 35,000 steps that you need to take to finish the marathon.. One, two, three,….. z-z-z-z-