New addition to the family…

No not another dog, or bike, or dear god a child…a treadmill.

Becca and I decided to get a treadmill. Like a bike trainer it’s a great tool to have in your toolkit, I did a bit of research and decided that we really didn’t need to have all the bells and whistles, but have decline (the opposite of incline) would be useful and I posted as much on my status on Facebook looking for suggestions/ recommendations. Later that day a friend posted that she had one to sell! That weekend we went to see it, paid for it and set it up…job done! 

So I present our new (to us), Nordictrack Commercial 2150 I am sure we will be spending many miles together!
All set with new treadmill in place in front of the Roude Léiw...and now all the better to do Chrysalis...oh and Cali seems to like it too!

Pocket motivation!

Seeing as most, some, lots (that’s the median of most and some) of us have a smartphone these days, we’re no longer confined to watching re-runs of Judge Judy on the overhead TV or grainy images on the built in TV while on the treadmill. There’s a plethora of stuff available on You Tube to watch, here’s a couple of my favorited subscriptions:

Ironman Ali’I Drive, a miniseries from the Official IM Channel

They also post some pretty good coverage of the IM races; 2012 70.3 Worlds

CycleFilm, from the folks who brought you Eyes Ride Shut, previews of their training videos and a mini series that follow the NetApp Pro Team

Park Tools how to…got a question about your bike, these guys have the answer! Here's how to remove a cassette!

Fog & Smog…white men can’t jump but they can rap!You can thank TriBeccaTo for this!

But for those of you who miss Judy…

Now set it to 1% and go!

Shhh don’t tell…

Robin, Doug, Audrey or Zanne or the several others who are suffering from early season injuries, but I’ve been running.

I didn’t make it out Tuesday night but got runs in on both Wednesday and this morning, nothing fantastic in either distance or pace but they were all pain free and once the cobwebs were blown away things were bedding in quite nicely. All three runs were on the treadmill so it’s not really a fair representation of what’s going to happen once I get outside let alone on the trails but it’s nice to get the legs turning over. I am of course I am over listening but things seem to be pretty good. My glutes and TFLs are a little tight but some stretching and rolling should work that out. Here are the highlights, interesting to note that my running cadence is pretty close to my cycling one, coincidence...maybe?

Tomorrow I am on the bike and then Saturday I have the Great Race half marathon and the family run with my eldest, I think it's a quarter mile so I should beat him (j/k). It's his first fun run, he was sick for the last one and he's super excited, he has his running outfit and shoes and everything is "all special". I actually thought it was the next day and had I not got a reminder email it would have been a very lonely Sunday morning! I picked up my race packet today and got a nice bag thing and the usual shirt although this was a technical one, but wait a minute, black c'mon this is southern California, black shirt, are you kidding me, have you never heard of reflection! Anyway I was able to replace last years shirt (in white!) which got a lovely tear in it from a thorn bush sometime during the last 12 months.

Distance wise it’ll be a bit of a jump from two weeks of nothing to a bit of running this week, oh well, in for a penny as they say.

Everybody's doing it so why can't I?

It seems that everywhere you turn in the blogosphere there are pictures of blossom, well not one to miss the band wagon and now that we have had the first day of spring, here are a couple of snaps from our back yard. The first is on the bank behind us, it's open land that leads up to a State Park, not possessing green fingers in fact I have to admit they are downright brown, I have no idea what the plant is but it is over every hillside at the moment giving everything a gold hue.

The second photo is off one of the many varmints to be found in our yard, he's actually standing on a regular sized brick so he's not quite as man eating as he seems, along with the gecko populous we have million or so rabbits, there are days when it's like living on the film set of Watership Down, and squirrels, but it's not too bad between the owls, coyotes and rattlesnakes, all of which have been in the yard at one time or another, the animal population is self regulating...such is the nature of things.

On a running note, I hopped on the treadmill for a 20 minutes session this morning, I was certainly not setting the world alight but it's a start, my knees took a mile of so to remember running but seemed ok after that, I hope to repeat it again tonight for another 3 miles or so.

More stuff...this time a treadmill!

So having written last week about the Garmin Footpod, I thought I should give you a round up about the machine that it is used on; a Bodyguard T240.

Before I write about the T240 I want to give you some back story on how we arrived at the decision it was the model we wanted. We had several main criteria: reputation, budget, warranty, size and noise

The treadmill was going to be located in our lounge, at the back end where there is a dining area, the room is about 35' long in total, my wife wanted the deck outside and I wanted the garage so we compromised; neither of our original choices were ideal; the deck would leave an expensive and sensitive piece of equipment exposed to the elements and the garage was not so great due the huge variable in temperature and the general dust and dirt that you find in a garage. The reputation within the industry had to be solid in terms of reliability, value for money and technical support. The warranty needed to be solid with parts and labor support for as long as possible. And finally we had a budget and wanted to have a solid treadmill with some features rather then one that had various unwanted or unused bells and whistles and was not robust enough.

As mentioned we decided in the end for a Bodyguard T240. This is the entry level home gym option from Bodyguard, a Canadian company, and has won several awards as a company and for that title and for the price range; it falls within $1500-2000. The warranty seems rock solid; lifetime on the frame and motor, ten years on parts and wear-and-tear and three years on labor. Another feature for us that the distributor we purchased from; F.B.I. is also an authorized service provider and they are located only 16 miles away.

I’ll not bore you with a lengthy description of all the features, you can find them on Bodyguard's website, but suffice to say it has a top speed of 10MPH and a max incline of 15%, there are nine preset programs and it is Polar HRM compatible.

Now for the nitty-gritty, the running board has a proprietary shock absorb system and works great so far; I am 170lbs or so and there is little or no feedback from it. I was a little worried by its width (20") as it is narrower than a gym machine but having run on it now several times the width and length (57") are more adequate for my stride etc; I am 6’1”. The band once bedded in is fairly quiet although it squeaks a little bit if you run at the back end. The motor is also quiet and is continuously on, as per most gym machines, it also comes with a built in surge protector is case of power outages or surges. The rails at the front are unobtrusive and are a solid loop so there are no sharp edges, they are nice and short so there is no risk of hitting them with your hands as you run and they are the right height; technically speaking not too high and not too low. There are two all important bottle holders. The dashboard at first appearance is simple and the “JustGo” feature allows you to do just that, the downside is that to get to some of the programs and other features you do need to spend some time looking at the manual as they are somewhat buried, although my expectation is that the “Manual” setting will be the most popular!

While it is early days both my wife and I are pleased with it, watch this space for an updated write up after 3 months or so. Finally thanks to everyone who I asked for providing their opinions, thoughts etc.