Running is therapy

I have moved back to Linux from OS X. More for practical reasons than philosophical ones.

First of all I am switching jobs. I have been with my current employer for the last two years and it has been a pretty wonderful experience on the whole, however I have also been commuting 1:10 to an 1:15 to and from everyday. My idea all along had been that if I liked the job I would relocate closer to the office. Well, after two years it dawned on me that I didn’t really want to sell my house. Initially I resolved to continue commuting into the foreseeable future. And then opportunity came knocking. I have joined a small consulting company and will be going to work there in earnest in February. For right now I am passing along all my sage advice to the other admin and sewing up the projects that I still have hand in.

Because my Mac Book Pro belonged to my employer, I have to leave that behind. I thought long and hard about my usage of OS X and in the end I decided that my money was better spent on a Dell M1530 with Vista formatted with Ubuntu. Let me be the first to say, if you are a fan boy from either Linux or OS X, keep moving, I am not interested in the debate.

I am happy to be back in Linux though. I spent most of my time in OS X trying to make it behave like a Linux box. I am used to Linux, it’s what I know. Having said that I will miss a few things.

I will miss two apps in particular, iTunes and iPhoto. I really liked the way they worked and were integrated. I won’t miss Spaces.app, which is a poor excuse for just about every other virtual desktop environment in Linux. Give it time, it will get there, but it’s not there yet. I will miss 3rd party app support. I will miss uploading data from my Garmin to Motionbased without the need for vmware or some other contrived set up. But mostly, I will miss the turtle neck sweaters.

I have missed virtual desktops. I have missed Firefox not running like crap. I have missed decent terminals (iTerm and Terminal.app are no where near as nice as gnome-terminal).

Honestly, OS X was nice. It’s a beautiful OS, and the hardware is the best I have ever used. Honestly, hands down, I have never seen better built hardware than that Mac Book Pro. This Dell feels plastic and cheap under my fingers in a way that Mac Book Pro never did. I will miss that.

Not much to report. Headed over to LA Fitness in Lancaster with a coworker for some Legs and Shoulders lifting. I feel weak when I lift. I am hoping that as the weeks go on here I will get stronger, and build more lean muscle and it translates into increased fitness, speed and wards off injury. That is my hope anyway.

I have no idea why, but it never even occurred to me to put my chest strap on when I went out to run today. As a result I have no heart rate data. Aw well.

I went for a 3 mile run on the mean streets of Amish Lancaster. I dressed REALLY warm, too warm in fact. I was sweating like it was August when I got back. But sweating is good for us, and there is a dearth of it in the winter in PA.

Good run, I felt strong if hot. I can tell I am missing a step, and I do believe I am going to fast since I averaged 8:47 minutes per mile pace. I plan to go slower the rest of the week. Also this week holds the only scheduled 2 days in a row of running for the next 14 weeks. Now that won’t hold because things come up and I will have to adjust but this one is scheduled so I need to prepare.

Motionbased Link

Some Stats:
Distance: 3.02 Miles
Time: 26:33 (pace: 8:47)
Calories Burned: 437

Training has begun in earnest tonight. I went to the gym to do chest and biceps as well as stretch. While I was there I figured I would ride the bike for 20 minutes as well.

So the first real day is in the bag.

I did come across an interesting snag in my workout plan. The Run For Luck is about 6 weeks before Lehigh Valley, which isn’t too bad, but I will have to switch my mileage around to accommodate it. I really want to run that because the t-shirts last year were rockin’. I suppose I will make a decision closer to the race, but I will probably just forgo the 8 miler on Sunday that weekend and just do some light cross that day.

I added a tab at the top of this page with my Current Schedule on it.

That schedule is my current thinking on what I need to do to be ready for Lehigh Valley. I adapted Hal Higdon’s Novice Plan, and added in the things that I want to accomplish. I think that plan is aggressive. I think I might not get it all accomplished, but I don’t think I will hurt myself doing it.

I also think that if I manage to stick to it more or less, I will be very prepared for Lehigh.

My target time is 1:55. That means an 8:47 pace for 13.1 miles. For once I don’t feel like I am sandbagging the numbers. I tend to go conservative on my pace estimates, but I really think that is an aggressive pace for me. When I ran Hands On House Half Marathon (not 4 months ago) I ran that in 2:02:33 at a 9:21 pace. That was fast for me at the the time for that distance. I had been training at 10/10:30 for my long runs so that was over a minute per mile off my usual pace.

I have 14 weeks to pull this all together, I am not sure what my training future holds for me, but I know that I need running in my life, and this schedule and race are pretty important to me. I am ready to meet it all head on.

Was looking for the Ruby way to return a random array element.

  
  array = [foo, bar, baz]
  puts array[rand(a.size)]


Here we go again. I am jumping back in the saddle. The Hal Higdon Novice Half Marathon Plan is 12 weeks long. The first week of the plan only has 10 miles total running.

I happen to be running about 10 miles a week, and it’s 14 weeks till the Lehigh Valley Half Marathon.

Bill asked me today if I was going to run Lehigh, and in my head I was, but it dawned on me, I hadn’t even begun to think about training for it. Here we go.

To the naysayers who will (rightfully) point out that this is my second year of running and I already have run a Half marathon and shouldn’t be following a novice plan…to them I say….whatever man, I was just injured, I will start with this plan and see if I can rebuild what I had. If I feel strong, I’ll do more.

Here we go again.

Since I haven’t really mentioned on my blog how my hip and feet are doing, I figured I would whip out a quick post to update those who may care.

The orthotics have worked a minor miracle. I really can’t believe it actually. My hip doesn’t hurt at all. If you had hip pain and someone just walked up and said “Here put this in your shoe” you would think they were crazy.

I have to give mad props to Sean (I think that was his name) in the PT department at Orthopedic Associates of Lancaster. He didn’t hesitate when he saw me stand. There was not doubt to him that I needed orthotics. He saved my running. I am all better (at least I think so :))

As for the chaffing in my arches, I wore synthetic socks and put body glide on my arches. That worked fine. No problems at all.

Woke up at 7:20 this morning. I got the best nights sleep I’ve had in ages. I downed half a banana, my B12 pill and cup of coffee.

I hydrated well last night, so I was primed and ready to hit the streets running.

I drove over to the YMCA and found parking pretty easily for downtown. Walked the block and half to the Y and went inside to register. It was a low key affair, some runners were milling around making small talk while a lot of us tried to find pens to fill out the registration forms.

I saw Bill talking to some other runners off in the corner. After registering, we headed out the door for a warm up jog and to drop off cell phones, money and glasses to his car.

I was pretty warmed up, except for my hands when we finally idled up to the starting line. The start was a fast one, they gave us the go, and we were off.

My goal was 8:15 miles, but of course I am always open to going faster. I was warmed up so I found my groove around 7:45 and rode that for the first mile. By mile two that pace was wearing on me. I am still on the comeback so I didn’t want to overdo it. I backed way off and still managed an 8:06. Then pulled in the last mile at 8:05. And the final .08 (the Garmin has the course a bit short) in :33 for an overall official time of 24:27 (24:29 Garmin).

I am happy with that time. I just took a month off and have been coming back very slowly. I’m not making excuses, the time I had today was a minute slower than my 5K PR, but I am still pleased.

After running it was too cold to stand and watch the others come in. My fingers felt like they were made of glass and might break off if struck the wrong way. Bill and I hoofed it back to the Y to get warm. Once inside the heat hit my thumbs and for about 15 minutes they felt like they were on fire. It was bad.

Then leader board came through the door. I walked over and saw that I managed to get 12th overall, and (since the overall winner isn’t counted in the age groups) 2nd in my age group! Bill of course, being the same age as me, took first with a time 19:57.

I got my first ever prize for a race. Bill went up first and was given a nice pair of gloves, and I was given a blanket. He gave me the gloves though since I had been complaining about how cold my hands were, and I gave him the blanket.

So if you see me out on the roads, don’t forget to pay respect to my ’second place’ gloves. If you were as fast as me your hands wouldn’t be so cold.

Motionbased Link

Some Stats (Garmin, not official):
Distance: 3.08
Time: 24:29 (pace: 7:56)
Average Heart Rate: 174 bpm
Calories Burned: 451

I am going to race tomorrow for the first time since November 22 2007. Tomorrow is the HARRC Winter Racing Series 5K. It starts at the Harrisburg YMCA. Registration is at 8:30, which is when I intend to be there, and the race starts at 9. I plan to shoot for an 8:15 pace for a total time of 25:37. That should be fast enough to get me winded but not so fast that I re-injure my hip.

I also plan to try the synthetic socks I have and put body glide on my arches to see if I can run fast in my orthotics without getting the chaffing.

I hit up the gym over lunch and did 30 minutes on the bike and abs and stretching. I feel good. I am ready to go.