Here we go again!

Back in May I wrote about being committed to and parting with the entry fee for the Bulldog 50k, well regular readers know, destiny sent no heralds and I was sidelined through injury. After the OK from my PT on my training/race schedule and my pain free 17 miler on Sunday and 11 miler on Monday, last night I stumped up the $45 for entry into the first race of the Winter XTerra Trail Run SoCal series. The race is located in La Jolla Canyon in Point Mugu State Park overlooking the Pacific Ocean and is on the border between Oxnard and Malibu, so if nothing else the scenery should be very pretty, it is a 18k loop around Mugo peak (1266’) and starts and finishes at sea level with the elevation topping out at around 1100’. Wish me luck!

The road to recovery...Pt 10 (Plans, schedules & A-OKs)

Well there’s a bit to write about my recovery. I saw my PT last Friday and she has now cut down my sessions to only one a week. I do a lot of the therapy at home now as fortunately it only involves a swissball, some ankle weights and a few other things that are commonly found about the house; steps, walls etc. My IT Band is no longer the taught guitar string that it was 2 months ago and I can happy roll on the black Ninja Foam Roller of Death pain free! Previously I left with my PT my proposed training schedule which would allow me to back into the Leona Divide 50 miler which is tentatively scheduled for April 19. The training schedule is a 24 week plus two week taper and has been developed by Hal Higdon, my friend and fellow aspiring ultra runner (she actually has a 50k notch on her belt already) Monk_ Monkey pointed it out to me and she has been using it to good effect leading up to her 50 miler, the Autumn Leaves in November. I also left a list of races that I will incorporate into the schedule which also got the green light, so now I have a Winter racing schedule as well.

This weekends activities got of to a bad start mostly due to a very broken nights sleep care of my son who is having a few sleep issues (read; does not want to) at the moment, my left thigh was sore, it had been pouring with rain all night (the first rain since March!) and there was quite a lot of flooding where I lived. We were also having some friends round on Saturday for a BBQ and I needed to prep everything; so a management decision was made to delay Saturday’s run to Sunday.

Sunday the alarm went off nice and early:4:10am and I started my stretching routine as per usual, I headed out the door a little after 5:00am, yes I stretch that much now, and was off. Legs felt good, right thigh was quiet, knees were solid, orthitics were comfortable, new Asics Kayano’s as comfortable as my slippers, (hell I’m 40 I can wear slippers!), Forerunner was on, iPod/Nike+ was on; tracklist teed up, and I was off.

Watching the sun rise as you run is a great feeling, the rain had washed all the, well, quite frankly; crap from the air, everything was fresh, clean and sparkly. The first hour flew by and I reached my first turn around, had a gel and a squirt of Accelerade and took a quick system check on knees etc, everything A-OK, so I set off again. The next hour saw me winding my way back through the residential streets of West Hills, traffic was minimal and I was starting to see a few more die-hard early bird runners and cyclists who nearly always acknowledge a kindred spirit. Two hours in and I had another gel and ran another system check; again everything A-OK. At this point I had covered just under 15 miles, nothing spectacular pace-wise but from a distance standpoint this was the furthest I had been since the end of June on my new and improved knees. I had been given the OK by my PT to push out as far as 16.5 miles this weekend and I now found myself about 2 miles from home. As discretion is always the better part of valor I about faced and headed back home. I walked up the hill, two thirds of a mile, to my front door and pressed stop on the Forerunner; 2:46:11 17.35 miles, and all, apart from the typical niggles here and there, pain free.

Lot’s of stretching and refueling and as I write this a little over 24 hours later my legs, knees etc all feel perfect. I have four more weeks of PT to go at which point I start my training schedule and as it stands right now everything is looking very good.

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.