Month: August 2006

Betchya I’m Faster!

Monday, Lunchtime:

I set out with Jon to go run Burma. The breeze blew, the birds sang, and the sun beat down on our ears. It was an unusually cool day for August, a gift from our neighbors to the North – clear, with a fresh breeze blowing in off of the Atlantic. Absolute perfect weather to beat the snot out of each other.

One of the “real” runners in the office, Frank, was joining us on Monday, as his usual running buddy was off. But, Frank left his ID in the locker, and had to go grab it right after we started. We went ahead and continued on.

Man, what a day! There’s good ones around here much more often than people let on (Southern New England? Think “Gulf Stream” in the winter, “North Atlantic” in the summer), but this one was Primo, after a week or so of borderline “Hot” weather. Plus, we actually made it out of the office on a Monday, so it felt doubly like playing hooky.

A little after the first mile, Frank caught back up to us.

And something snapped – The juice kicked in (not like doping juice, just “the juice”, y’know?), and I thought to myself, “Self? Sure, you completely blew up last Thursday and Jon spanked you like a whiny child. But today’s a new day. Why not take a flyer off the front, blow out the carbon, go for broke? When you blow up, Frank and Jon’ll continue on and have a pleasant run, and you can run in peace.”

I couldn’t think of any reason why not, so I gradually upped the pace until conversation ceased and I noticed Frank and Jon a pace or two behind. “Great,” I thought, “Now just wait until I croak.”

We continued out until the iPod said “20 minutes”, then turned around. I started to pop almost immediately, but I think that Frank and Jon were, too.

About a mile into the “Back”, Frank finally catches back up and starts talking. Jon’s hanging in pretty well, but about 20 yards back. Frank and I run for a while, putting a little distance into Jon (We did call back after the turn; he told us to go on ahead if we had legs). After about a mile, Frank goes off the front on a gentle rise, and i watch him go, saving some energy for the hill at the end.

Frank slows up for me, and says “We were setting a pretty good pace on the way out. What happened?” I say “I just wanted to see how hard I could go. Dunno why, but I love to press on the out and suffer on the way back.”

We finish up, then walk back to Jon as we’re cooling down. 4.8 miles, 41.5 minutes. Freakin’ Awesome.

Round

Lake Manicouagan as seen from Earth orbit. Image courtesy NASA.

So, I’m looking for something on Google Earth, and what catches my eye but this ring way up in the Great White North (Which is inhabited, entirely, by guys wearing “tooks” and trying to get free beer by growing mice in beer bottles. Or, so says this educational film that we watched in High School.

Manicouagan Reservoir is an annular lake in northern Quebec, Canada, the remnant of an impact crater made approximately 212 million years ago, towards the end of the Triassic period. … The island in the center of the lake is known as René-Levasseur Island.The crater was created by the impact of a 5 km diameter asteroid which excavated a crater originally about 100 km wide although sediments and erosion have since reduced its diameter to about 72 km.

(More at Wikipedia)(Which is probably the understatement of the year)

Anyway, it looks like an absolutely cool place to take the kayak – something like 40 miles side to side.

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Round and Round

So, I’m working with an MIT grad student today who’s well on her way to being smarter and better credentialed than I can ever hope to be. We’re discussing her PhD thesis, and as I fly off onto another tangent, she leans back, looks at me, and says “ADD?” “You betchya!” I say, and plow on.

It’s not an ailment, it’s a blessing. Trying to keep up with my mind is a full time job.

MAN.

MAN.

Today was one of the days that was sooooo perfect, it ought to be illegal. Sunny, breezy (but not windy), 75 degrees. There outta be a law that work is prohibited on days like today. Days that reach a certain standard of perfection need not be squandered.

Jon and I ran at lunch again today. We started to do the out/back to the Gazebo on the Navy base, but A) ran into a bunch of sailors in cammies carrying guns who pointed us on down the road, and B) Ran through the end of the graduation of the Naval Academy Prep School and past the new pre-Plebes. Rather than interrupt anyone’s day again, we did the rest of the perimeter of the base instead of the usual out’n’back. (Mmmmm, In-N-Out, which gives me reason to think that Jeff has way, way more wilpower than me – no way could i be within 20 miles of one of those burger joints and weigh less than 250 lbs)

As we were heading up to the back gate, Jon decides to put the screws to me again as soon as we’re at the bottom of a decently steep hill. F***, I think, but gut it out and made it to the top of the first part of the hill about a half step behind him.

Rather than get stomped again on the last half of the hill, I take off as soon as we got to the base of the climb. My thighs and lungs wanted no part of the uphill sprint, but somehow I managed to open up a couple of feet. I slow down where the climb ends, and let Jon catchup. I swear – there’s something that clicks when we’re running- the whole “I’ll race you to the stopsign” thing that we lost somewhere in middle school. It’s great having a running partner on a similar skill level. Good to run with the big dogs, but sometimes nice to be able to push yourself.

5.4 miles in like 43 minutes. Haven’t hooked up the iPod yet. I love that it works without headphones.

On the way home, I stopped to see if it was time to get back on the bike after 3 weeks. Turns out I was right. “The boys” (not kids) did just fine.

And, Man, I still love the bike.

Rode the single speed road bike from Fort Wetherill out to Beavertail and back. 10 miles or so, 40 minutes – 15 MPH on a singlespeed over a couple of hills that I’ve been known to do in my granny gear on a geared bike.

Single Speed is bliss after a while off of the bike. Nothing to worry about except for pedal and steer.

OH, and i must apologize to the guy in the minivan at Beavertail – I wasn’t trying to be a jerk when you were trying to parallel park. I didn’t realize that was your intent, otherwise I would have gone around the other side of the van. However, it is somewhat your responsibility to turn on the blinker. Especially on a street with tourists and cyclists.

I do not apologize to the folks in the Lexus SUV who were stopped in the middle of the park road taking pictures. GET OUT AND WALK! There’s tons of free parking, the day was exceptional, and if you’re out of the cage, there aren’t A and B pillars in all of your vacation pictures.

The Lexus SUV, though, was one of the best bits of riding I’ve done in a long while – bunny hopped off the road, went around them on the grass, jumped over a little ledge, and bunny hop back onto the road. Man, I love the bike.

The singlespeed is so neat to ride after so long with gears. There’s the energy budget and strategy to actually get up hills. Limited top speed due to spinning out. AND, minus all the shifting gear, etc, the bike handles like a freakin’ dream! Light, responsive, nimble… all the things i’m not.

Finished with 5 minutes or so of snorkeling. Absolutely cool. Saw my first fish of any real size – a foot long panfish looking thing that went and hid in the grass. Oh, and to the scuba woman – I honestly didn’t see you when you started coming out of the water – turning around and seeing your legs and torso really did scare the crap out of me.

So, that’s that – what a day! This weekend is house painting, but I’m psyched about my long run on Sunday.

Free Stuff – FreeMind

Now, I know that we all need another bit of software like we need a hole in the head (actually,is that a good expression? By my count, we need at least five holes in the head – two eyes for binocular hearing, two ears for stereo, and an I/O Oriface for sustinance and oxygen). But I’m intrigued by Freemind.

So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don’t you use FreeMind? You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila. Do you want to refactor your essays in a similar way you would refactor software? Or do you want to keep personal knowledge base, which is easy to manage? Why don’t you try FreeMind? Do you want to prioritize, know where you are, where you’ve been and where you are heading, as Stephen Covey would advise you? Have you tried FreeMind to keep track of all the things that are needed for that?

What’s really cool is that it’s a Java program, so it’s completely portable – Windows, Mac, Linux (‘cept for us poor sods who try to do Linux on a Power PC Macintosh – no Flash, no Java unless you’ve got exceptionally strong Geek Fu…) It’s on my thumb drive – I plan on using it for EVERYTHING for a week or so.

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Paula Sums it up

So, I’ve been fuming for going on two weeks now, ever since Floyd popped positive. Which is why I was thrilled to read the following:

What we really need is a Doping Control system in which the world can believe and trust. … (Doping) not only cheats other athletes, but also promotors, sponsors and the general public. Being caught in possession of performance enhancing drugs should carry a penalty.

Paula Radcliffe gets it.

*** Edit: Or at least claims to. Man, that’s the whole, crappy thing about doping – How do I really know that she’s not on the sauce, and just has a really, really good doctor? Stupid cynicism. I choose to believe. I choose to believe…

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Schweet

There’s a song (off this album) that the boys and I love, from a group that was all “cool” and “indie” way back when I was in High School, and into things that were “cool” and “indie”. The band’s doing lots of kids music now. But that’s cool, right? And I’m still cool ’cause I still listen to them, right?

Anyway, the band’s Trout Fishing In America, and the song is “The Window”. It’s a Polka (a plus, right?), and it’s got an acapella section (another plus, right?). The general gist is that the guys in the band kind of hack up nursery rhymes, kind of like this:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men
HE THREW THEM OUT THE WINDOW
The window, the window,
He threw them out the window
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
He threw them out the window!

It’s good – Old Mother Hubbard – She threw them out the window! Peter Peter Pumpkin eater – He threw her out the window! Etc, so on, and so forth. Given enough demand, I’ll record a snippet of me and the boys and post it…

OK, so, I suppose that’s enough digression. The half-marathon schedule that I’ve not been using to prepare for New Haven called for 6 miles today. It had also called for rest days both Monday and Tuesday, and we all know how well I followed those.

But, after whining on Monday about being concerned about making 20K on Labor Day (love the rhymes…) I didn’t have much choice but to strap on the sneakers on the way home today. Selected 10K on the Nano, put on the shades, and started beating feet.

Running felt great again. Not having anyone to chase, I kept the pace reasonable. The first 4K were great – loved the voice in my ear each time I clicked off another klick. K#5 was kind of rough, but I pushed up the hill on the southern half of the island.

I went ahead and extended to about 5.5 K on the “out”, as I’ve figured out a way to slightly minimize the hills on the “back”. My calves were a bit tight, so I decided to tip my hat to Galloway, and accept that I was already past my  total mileage for last week.

The walk did the trick – when I started running again, the “tight” was gone, and the road slipped beneath my feet. Awesome.

6.4 miles, 54 minutes.

Oh, and Jon? After I was done, and the automated voice (which sounds completely non-automated) finished telling me the stats of the run, some strange voice with an English accent comes on and says “Hello, I’m Paula Radcliffe, and I wanted to congratulate you on your longest run to date.” What’s not to love about Nike+iPod? There’s even strange women whispering in your ear while you’re hot, sweaty, and out of breath!

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Breathing

So, Jon and I headed out to run on Tuesday. Just a friendly jaunt, mind you, neither of us really eager to beat the snot out of each other. 20 minutes out, 20 minutes back. Enjoy the fresh air, enjoy the scenery…

Riiiight.

So, we head on out of the lab, chatting, enjoying the sunlight and the break from the office. And my legs are feeling great! which is a complete relief after the 6 miles on Monday that almost killed me.

Jon’s a great guy – ran XC in high school (Man, I wish I’d been able to do that), has worked in industry for many, many years prior to coming to the lab, and has, like me, been getting back into running over the last couple of years. Though he hasn’t bitten off the marathon monster. (Mark – drop me a line about this once life settles down for you). But, for whatever reason (probably that I have the 26.2 box checked off), he thinks I can outrun him.

The run out on Burma Road is GREAT! The sun shines, the breeze blows, the birds beat down on our ears (wait…). There’s sails on Narragansett bay, and a wind in our face. Nothing better in all the world.

Jon’s a “Big” breather. I’ve found there’s four types of breathers among runners.

  1. Transparent: These’re folks like me, whose breathing can really be used to gauge their level of suffering. On a good run, the breathing is quiet, and usually accompanied by too much talking. As the level of effort goes up, the level of gab goes down. When the pain sets in, the breathing noise goes up – sucking sounds on the in, blowing sounds on the out, ’cause at that point running both sucks and blows. There’ll be grunting, too.
  2. Big: Big breathers always make noise – suck it in, blow it out. If they’re exercising, they’re breathing – think LaMaz (or however you spell that crock – My wife almost strangled me while delivering our first when I tried to coach her with a “Sniff-Ha”!). Not particularly excessive, not much grunting, just a steady “sniff!”-“Psssshew”.
  3. Loud: Loud breathers are big breathers who sound like they’re constantly in pain. These are the grunters, the vocalizers, the ones who you want to call an ambulence on.
  4. Silent: Silent runners are the ones who we all want to be. Picture a Kenyan crossing the line at 2:15, and these are who I’m talking about – all the effort is into taking air in and blowing it out, and the noise just distracts from that.

Anyway, like I said, Jon’s a “Big” breather. And, not being a competitive guy and all, and feeling GREAT on the way out, I kind of turn it up a little bit, as my radar’s telling me that Jon’s on the edge. So the splits go something like 8:45 for the first mile, and 8:35 for the second mile.

As we’re reaching the turn, I start letting Jon know how many more minutes it is. We end up going about a quarter mile more than I’d estimated for a 40 minute run.

On the way back, Jon runs like a man possessed. There’s no change in his breathing – still a steady suck it in, blow it out, but the pace is a KILLER. 7:45 for mile 3.

Which is where he tells me “Hey, Bill, if you want to go ahead, go ahead. I’m pretty much tapped out.”

And I tell him “Jon, you’ve been killing me since the turn, you go on ahead.”

So, I make a concious effort to slow down enough to survive back to the building, and Jon quickly opens up another 75 yards on me.

Mile 4 is another 8:40 mile, which isn’t too shabby.

I catch up to Jon just as we get to the gate. We walk for a few yards, then I go and sprint up the hill, just ’cause it’s there. Both of us are spent – what a great feeling.

4.6 miles, 40 minutes.

New Haven is going to hurt

So, I did 10K after work today. 6 whole miles, and it hurt. Not quite sure why – well, other than not having done any real distance since the 7 with David a while ago.

It wasn’t a bad hurt, by any means. Just not comfortable like a 6 miler should be 4 weeks before a 12 mile race.

Can I confess something? Earlier I ragged on Nike+iPod for having a “too simple” interface, and a stat screen like a video game.

Well, I think I like that now.

Dunno why, but the “My Records” trophy case is especially appealing. I haven’t put anything meaningful up there yet, but still it’s kind of cool. Especially since there’s no real documentation about what it takes to put something up there. Kind of like figuring out a game without having to open the manual.

Anyway, 6.2 miles today on Jamestown. 10 minutes floating on my back looking up at the clouds and feeling the rollers coming in all the way from Africa. I got funny, funny looks from the folks taking a dive class, all suited up in full body wetsuits when I jumped in in my running shorts.

Good day counting calories today. I think I can drop 5 lbs by New Haven if I keep on top of things.

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Leapin’ Lepoards! (fellow macheads only)

Apple’s OS X Lepoard Preview is out today. Things that look most promising to me? Mail and Spaces – Virtual Desktops actually built into the system.

I’ve been using Desktop Manager without complaint. But this is SLICK.
Looks like my Linux Experiment is for sure going to end on 1 September. Ye cats. I’ve got no real complaints about Ubuntu to date (Other than the whole FLASH thing, but apparently that works on X86 architecture). It’s perfectly useable as a day-to-day computer. But, why drive a (insert cheap car) when you can drive a (insert completely SHWEET car) ride a Huffy when you’ve got a Felt/Cervelo/Orbea in the garage? ‘Specially when the price difference isn’t a couple of orders of magnitude…
Anyone want to send me a MacBook? No?

OK, guess it’s back to saving pennies. ETD is Nov/Dec pending other tragedies like the recent demise of my iPod…

Step inside this housing

The Whiteboard is reverse-engineering a Nike+iPod kit. Pretty stinking cool, if you ask me.

There’s a transceiver (meaning both a transmitter and a receiver in the same radio chassis) in the bit that plugs into your iPod, meaning – well, actually, I don’t know what that means. It’s potentially a pretty cool implementation – the bit that plugs into your iPod could, I guess, talk to stuff that’s not the chip in your shoe.

Regardless, I’m riveted.