Cold front, new toy, who could ask for anything more?

Another cold front is here!  Right now it is noon and 54F.  Awesome!  Can't wait to go running later.

Yesterday, I made up the 3M that I didn't do on Tuesday, so all is good there.  I was in Gainesville and ran an relatively uninspiring route around a neighborhood, but it fulfilled the purpose.  The weather was ideal; I went near sunset and it was absolutely great.  Probably in the 50s or maybe even the high 40s.  Also, the new toy worked like a charm (once I figured out that it automatically switched from distance in feet to distance in miles...).  The run itself went very well and I had lots of strength at the end to sprint the finish.

The toy said that I hit an 8:10 mile split near the end.

This is my favorite toy EVER.

Day off....but......

Someone got a new toy:

An AWESOME NEW TOY!!!!  This is the only object I have ever owned for which I want to read the entire owner's manual.

I was supposed to run today and didn't because I wasn't feeling great (and it's hot).  Instead, I will do my run tomorrow. It's three miles.  If you can imagine.

12-mile redo

Today was the long run and for the second straight week, it was 12 miles.  This repetition was kind of nice seeing as how last week's 12-mile run was not all that much fun.  In some ways, I am really spoiled running here.  The neighborhood is quiet, I don't have to worry about traffic or people, and I can pretty easily find routes that provide enough distance.  These are not opportunities that I enjoyed last week in San Francisco.  As a result, the run was overall more peaceful and I felt pretty good about it overall.  It's weird: two weeks ago, I felt wiped out from a 10-mile run.  This week, 12 miles felt fine (okay, I'm tired now and somewhat stiff, but not as bad as I felt after the 10 mile).  Next week is 14 miles, which technically I did last week in California if you could the 2-mile walk I had to do to get to the ferry.  So that's a good sign!

I caved and bought the 'hydration belt:'

Yes, it is essentially a glorified fanny pack.  But it is awfully convenient for carrying around a water bottle without having to keep it in my hand (like I did with my other one).  Plus I can put my Mini Clif Bars in that pocket, then easily access them during the run.  So yeah.  Form before fashion in this case.

At first, I thought that I would not be able to get it around my hips.  My hips are rather wide and you needed to length the strap by letting out extra part in a way that was not clear.  I was thinking that 'Too Fat for my Running Fanny Pack' would be a great name for a blog, but was more relieved that this was not, in fact, the case.

The actual run was more of the same: circling around the same basic area in the golf course area.  Weather remains remarkably enjoyable for Florida.  Even running in the sun near the end of the run was not all that killer.  This is a very nice change from a month ago!

Reflecting on myths about running

I haven't been running yet today but it is absolutely wonderful out.  Not too hot, not too cold -- well, maybe a little too hot, but it's 3PM right now.  I plan to wait until around 7PM, then go.  Actually, I really plan to wait until after the Yankees/Red Sox game, so knowing them, that might be closer to 8PM.

As I was going around Boston today, I got thinking about two common runner myths:

1) You get to eat whatever you want;
2) Running costs basically nothing!

#1: Ha!  I wish.  Of course you don't!  Well, I guess you could eat whatever you wanted, but I mean you could do that whether you ran or not.  The end result would be the same: you would get fat.  Running does burn calories, but not enough for you to be able to eat whatever you feel like.  For health reasons, I also try to stay away from foods that will spike my blood sugar levels, such as white flour, white sugar, and (tragedy) dried fruit. 

It makes sense that when you run, you want to be as tiny as possible so as not to strain your joints and so that there is less weight to carry.  As a result, it's better to watch what you eat.  I find that I've been away from 'bad' food long enough that I don't usually crave it anymore.  There are a few exceptions, like pizza, which is essentially my kryptonite.  In general, though, it is better to watch what you eat regardless of how much physical activity you do.

Because I've been traveling a lot this summer, it has been a challenge to eat well.  Sure, you could just eat salads all the time, but those aren't always healthy depending on the dressings.  My ideal solution is to be in a place where I can easily buy food from a supermarket or something similar.  For instance, I was in London (England...in case you are from Southern Ontario...) and was near to a Sainsbury's and a Marks and Spencer.  Both had lots of good options for portable meals that were healthy.  Right now, I'm very close to a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's.  Sure, Whole Foods may be expensive, but it's still cheaper than dining out all of the time, plus you know what's in your food.  I also brought with me a set of utensils (plastic) and a tacky, plastic plate that is very resilient; I purchased both of these when I was in England.  Someday, I hope to craft some kind of container that is amenable to traveling for these items...but truth be told, I am not that crafty, and it's really not that hard to fit a set of plastic utensils and a plate in your suitcase.

#2: I mean, I guess running could cost almost nothing, apart from the fact that you pretty much need to buy shoes every 6 months or so (and you don't want to skimp too much because you can get injured).  But I'm curious to know who can resist all of the running-related things out there.  I put them into two categories: gear and toys.  Gear is anything that you wear in the hopes of improving your running.  Toys are anything gadget-like that you hope will improve your running.  In general, I am quite good about staying away from both gear and toys; the only real toy I have is my phone and the holder that I use when I take it with me so that I can track mileage.  Before I started doing that, I guess I had an Ironman watch that could, theoretically, qualify as a toy.  That was it. 

With gear, I am also pretty good, but it gets harder to resist.  One item I definitely wanted while in Boston was a visor that wicks sweat (NB: almost anything associated with gear for runners involves wicking).  Being a running town, Boston is also a running-stuff town, and there are several places where one can stock up easily.  Today I went to City Sports.  The nearest City Sports to me in Florida is a whole state away in Atlanta, GA and I think that this is a good thing.  It's got so much gear that I think it would be hard not to indulge on a regular basis if there were one closer (there are running-specific stores in Tampa, just not ones that are all that convenient to me).  Today I went to the one with the outlet as well, where I got two pairs of honest-to-goodness geary shorts that, naturally, wick sweat -- a big upgrade from my current shorts, which all came from Target.  At one point, I was close to getting three other pairs, but none of them was very flattering so I changed my mind.  Somehow, I stayed away from the gear Red Sox shorts.  And I did wind up getting my visor too.

There are many, many more items of gear/toys that I want, but it is true that you don't need gear/toys to run, I suppose...

(Another toy I want is one of those foam roller things that you can use to help stretch.  And some gear shirts.  And more shorts.  And new running shoes.  I think that's all.  Okay, maybe a pouch thing for carrying gels/water).

An almost pleasant run. Which is weird. For several reasons.

This morning I was back on the road (with no noticeable dental issues) and did a 3 mile run. I decided to go over to the core of Temple Terrace, which is the section built around the golf course. If you do have to run in Florida, then there are certainly far worse places to be than Temple Terrace. The houses are interesting: some were built in the 1920s, while the bulk were from the 1960s. None of them looks like a McMansion. And there are plenty of trees that offer wonderful, comforting shade. It was -- dare I say -- almost pleasant at points.

I was a bit concerned because I didn't quite handle this morning in the best possible way. First, I stayed up far too late last night watching Cheers reruns. I love Cheers. Basically, I love almost anything set in Boston, plus if I had to pick the TV character I most resemble, I think that I would go with Diane Chambers. To top things off, it was the story arc where Sam was dating Captain Janeway (okay, it was really Kate Mulgrew and her character's name was Janet Eldridge) and Diane quit working at the bar. Then Sam proposed to Diane and she had to dig his picture out of the garbage. I still remember this episode from when it originally aired, a sign that I am getting old. At any rate, despite the fact that I know sleep is important, particularly when you are training to run a major event, I couldn't resist watching and got to bed at an unreasonable hour.

Not surprisingly, it was tricky to get out of bed this morning and I thought that the late start would be deleterious. To my surprise, it really wasn't. In fact, parts when I was running in the shade were downright nice. Don't get me wrong: it was still tough and I was all red and sweaty by the end. But it felt less like death that previous runs this week. Also, I cut my mile split by over a minute from Wednesday. I'm not quite sure exactly how much I cut it by because I accidentally hit 'Power Up' instead of 'Stop Run' on my phone app. When you hit 'Power Up,' the app plays Seal's 1991 hit song 'Crazy.' That was unexpected.

When I got home, I thought I would double-check to make sure that Florida is not experiencing some kind of 'cold front' -- HA! But as it turns out, it is even more hot than normal. Icky hot. Heat warning hot. Heat index already in the 100F range hot at 10am. But the run didn't feel so bad.

I saw Inception earlier this week and I'm wondering if this wasn't all a Cheers-induced dream. We'll know if Captain Janeway suddenly shows up.

PS - Apparently, those of us who 'like' the Kiawah Island Marathon on Facebook get a chance to sign up early tonight. So tonight's the night!

The phone makes me laugh

I love when I pull this blog up on my phone. The header shows up like this:

I'm
running a
freaking
marathon
!

Which is actually a pretty fair depiction of how I think about it myself!

Day 1 is done!

Okay, one run down, countless runs to go. I actually was thinking along these lines a few times during my run this morning, then realized that this is stupid. If all you think about is how much there is to go, it will just be depressing. Same philosophy will apply at the start line: if you stand there thinking that you have to run 26.2 miles, you might just want to lie down and cry. Well, at least I would. Better to take it one step at a time because that way you can think about how each step is progress toward the goal.

It was by no means the most pleasant run I've ever done. Before I left, the RealFeel temperature was already in the 90s (this was around 8:40am). At least the humidity was 'low,' by which I mean in the 80% range. However, I did like the ample shade provided by the lovely trees in my neighborhood. It really does make a big difference.

I used my fancy new phone rig, which worked relatively well, except that it insists on telling me my time (that and it was preset in kilometers...good thing today was only three miles, which is a little less than 5k). I don't want to know my time. In fact, I rarely keep time except during races (and then sometimes I force myself to forget quickly). As a relatively competitive person, I realized a long time ago that keeping time on every one of my runs was more harmful than good. You don't necessarily make steady progress when you run, at least not every time you go out. Some days, for whatever reason, you will be faster and some days you will be slower. This is just how it is. For me, I found that tracking each run made me frustrated when I couldn't figure out why I was slower on a given day. Instead, I decided to just go run with the belief that gradual progress would be made. I keep thinking that someday I will reconcile with keeping time and get better with it, but I don't feel that marathon training is the time to do this. I'm not running this race for a time, I'm running to finish. That's it.

It would be super cool, though, if you did shave off time every run you did. Imagine if you ran 5 days a week, 40 weeks of the year, and every time you took off 3 seconds from your mile. You'd take a minute off your mile a year. In 5 years, I would practically be ready for the Olympics.

The Challenge of Florida

Today I got a new toy, one of those armbands that lets you run with your phone. This is not because I actually want to run with the phone (I am pretty much a running purist and don't even take music...more on that probably later), but because my phone is also a GPS unit. Voila, instant distance tracker. This toy will be especially fun since I live in a part of Tampa with lots of old trees -- which provide lots of nice shade -- and twisty streets to explore. Much nicer than Upper Middle Suburbia, where I moved from: the running mostly consisted of the same loop, some of which was directly in the sun no matter what the time of day.

Official running starts tomorrow with a little 3 mile jaunt. However, even this short run is going to be a challenge. The Challenge of Florida, to be exact. The Challenge of Florida is something I have been battling since I moved here in 2007 and I haven't yet found a way of beating it.

What is the Challenge of Florida? Simply that I find it far too wretched for running. When I first moved here, I was aware that it was hot, but unaware of how pernicious Florida heat could be. In fact, it's not really the heat per se (although it is hot, don't get me wrong), but the humidity and dew point combined. Also, the sun is very strong, which is tough on us Northerners.

Here is the basic problem: during the day, the strong sun heats up the air. That makes it too hot to run, starting around 10am. So you'd think that the easy answer would be to run either after the sun has set or before the sun rises. Ha! Nice try. The one benefit that the strong sun provides is burning off the humidity. The humidity then builds overnight until the air is pretty much saturated (levels in the upper 90s). This cycle repeats from May-ish to late October-ish -- or early November-ish if you are really lucky. In other words, this is half your year.

High dew point tells you just how close the actual air is to becoming dew. If the dew point and temperature match, then there are ungodly amounts of water in the air. I often like to check in with Wikipedia to see how we're doing, dew-point-wise. For the run I did on Saturday, the dew point was 78F. According to Wikipedia, that is, "Extremely uncomfortable, fairly oppressive." Still better than 80F or above, which is, "Severely high. Even deadly for asthma-related illnesses" -- but only 2 degrees better. The real problem, if you are running, is that the high humidity and dew point mean that you sweat, but it doesn't evaporate. So you don't actually cool off, even if the temperatures are somewhat manageable (by which I mean in the upper 70s/low 80s. When I lived in Massachusetts, I used to complain when temperatures got into the upper 70s and I went out to run. Memories).

In my first attempts at running outside in 2007, I thought that I would adapt to the climate. And I did to a point: when I began, I couldn't even make it 2 miles without having to stop (and thinking I might die). I took the sunset approach, which was unwise because the heat and everything did not dissipate just because the strong sun wasn't there any more. Also, you risked potential thunderstorms that can happen daily. But I still didn't fully adapt. Actually, I often wonder if anyone does, the conditions are just horrid. For much of the summer, I have been aquajogging instead, which is where you have a buoyant water belt and jog in the pool -- I highly recommend, even though it instantly makes you look like you are retired. But it's a nice activity with the added bonus that you can dip your head in any time you get hot.

The current temperature (4:46pm) is 95F, the RealFeel temperature is 109F. Humidity is 77% and the dew point is 77F. I need to find a way to meet this challenge, but I can't say that I am looking forward to it.