Half a mile at a time!

Last night was intervals, tomorrow night is tempo. Yesterday I parked at the beach and used the same path as last week; it was warm but not as warm as it had been in the week and my car said early 80s. I had wanted to run an interval ladder 400/600/800/1200/800/600/400 but found out that I can’t program anything so complicated through the watch and have to use GTC, so instead I settled for 7 x half mile repeats with one minute rest in between. I headed to the restrooms to change and realized that I had no socks; three choices; nix the run, run without socks or run in dress socks, I went for the latter thinking if I don’t care why should anyone else?

I set off on a warm up run for two miles and also used the time to measure out the half mile distance and try to find as flat a section as I could. After 2.33 miles I was set and headed off. Twenty five later I was done, although I confess to only managing 6 out of the 7 intervals, I had ridden for an hour before breakfast and my legs were feeling it. I finished off with a mile and bit for a cool down for a total of 7.5 miles...very neat! It wasn’t easy or pretty but I was pleased with results and I got a real sense of achievement when I loaded the data from my Forerunner onto my PC. The quickest half mile: 3:07, slowest 3:20, a 3:14 average. The full set can be seen in the picture below. Sunday I am back running with the TRC, I have not been out with them for nearly two months! They are planning a 14 or so mile run, I have a 26 mile run planned so I get there early and stay late, rain is forecast so at least it will be cooler than last weekend!

Good luck to everyone racing and especially Robin who will be completing her first 50 miler this weekend at MMTR!

Swap Beat...bring it!

After the recent success of Worth the Weight I was prompted to organize a second competition especially given that I received a bunch of prizes towards the end of the final round and so instead of dumping them in the mix I held them back. So I am pleased to announce the new competition Swap-Beat…bring it!

The idea here is to swap and beat and that you bring stuff...just in case that wasn't clear!

Here are the rules:

1. The competition will last from Monday November 3rd through Sunday December 20th
2. Enrollment will be from today through 12 noon PST Sunday November 2nd
3. Each competitor must “bring” a running related item with a face value of a minimum $20, please send me a photograph (quadrathon at gmail dot com) of it or failing that a link on the web where it can be found for sale, description would be useful including size, color etc
4. When you send me your photo of the item send me you name (that you want people to see on the ‘net) and your blog link.
5. Clothing must be new with tags, sweaty and grungy used items will be rejected.
6. Food stuffs must be unopened; that tub of PowerAde in Celery flavor that seemed such a good idea at the time, that you tried and hated…sorry you can keep it
7. Weigh-ins will be every Sunday please email me before noon 7pm PST
8. Weekly winners will be announced Monday, maybe Tuesday depending on how much “life” I have going on!
9. The Winner(s) then choose the item they would like. Depending on the total number of entries 10. I will just divide the number of entries by the number of weeks and then take that number of the top x people and they choose a prize in descending order and post their request as a comment i.e. 60 people /6 weeks = 10 winners a week, that way everyone gets something…hopefully!
11. If you are a winner three weeks in a row you forfeit and a name will be drawn from a hat of non winners from that week
12. It is up to the winner to contact the sender to arrange shipping and all that good stuff, I did get a raised eyebrow from my wife when she took all the parcels from WTW to the Post Office.
13. Weight loss will be calculated and illustrated as a percentage only
14. The usual stuff about consulting a Doctor and overly rapid weightloss etc, you're all grown ups, right!

Ok, I am sure I have missed something and I reserve the right to change or modify things but I think that all makes sense. So let the games begin.

Oh one last thing you probably want to know what I’ll be bringing, well thanks to some friends in high places (Nike Pro 16 aka Clover you rock!) I have the following:

2 Nike+ iPod Armbands for G2 Nano
1 Nike + chip (you’ll need a sensor, Amp or Sportsband)
2 Nike Prefontaine Posters
1 Pre; the Story of Steve Prefontaine book
1 Nike Women’s Drifit shirt (m)
1 Nike Men’s Olympic Trials Eugene Drifit Shit (m) it fits me fine 6'1''
1 Nike Olympic Trials Eugene shoe bag
A signed Sanya Richards poster and
A bunch of Nike+ “You Suck” cards!

So unless you are a complete knucklehead there is no need to explain where I got the prizes from. I run with a Nike+, and have done for the last 2500 miles, you can find me in the competitions and forums under the rather obvious moniker; SLB+ in fact it was the catalyst for this this blog and it's title comes from a Challenge that I did not start but that I now host. It’s a fun and easy way to track your miles and there is a great support forum with some excellent contributors and competitions going on, check it out at http://nikeplus.nike.com. I’ll be posting some pictures of the prizes later.

I am going to batch these into two sets of prizes and an third for the overall Winner!

Finally I am only hosting this as incentive to drop to my desired racing weight during the next 6/7 weeks, with everyone watching it's more of an incentive.

So without further ado let the enrollment commence!

A missed run, a bad run and two great runners!

Friday I missed my tempo run, I left work late got home later, no biggie I thought I’ll get it done and by the time I looked at my watch it was 10:00pm, with a long run the next morning I knew it was too much. I prepped everything for the next morning and hit the hay. The next morning I was up and at them early but I knew it was a sign when my iPod decided to blow up; not literally but after a hard reset I was running late. Reloaded I headed out.

I was on the trail at Cheeseboro Canyon by 7:30am with a clear blue sky overhead I knew it was going to be a warm one. Twenty two miles was the distance of the day and so I headed along the canyon floor, taking a sharp left turn I pushed over into the next canyon, my plan was to tackle the long climb first and avoid the worst of the heat. I reached the Palo Camado trial and started to climb. An hour and half, 6 miles and 1400’ feet elevation change later I was at China Flats. I found a nice trail that took me to top of Simi Peak and I snapped some video of the view.

There was a helicopter buzzing around I wondered given the Red Flag Warning if they were looking for more wildfires? I finished up the loop and started back down the trail toward Shepherd’s Flats and the Ridge Trail, it was getting warmer now and despite having two handhelds and a UD Wasp (over 100oz in total) I was concerned that I might run out and so I changed the route in my mind to swing by the parking lot so I could replen.

The Ridge Trail, as per its name, rolls along the ridgeline of the southern side of Cheeseboro Canyon for six or so miles finally you take a connector which spits you onto the valley floor and the main “in and out” trail. By the time I reached this point I was out of fluids and feeling a little worse for wear, with another two miles to parking lot I was taking it easy. I reached the car a little after 3 hours and 16 miles and knew that, as usual, I would be racing the clock, I ditched my vest refilled a handheld and headed out to try and cover as much distance as I could in the remaining time I had in a simple out and back. Probably being too conservative I scraped another mile and half turned around and headed back to the car. The finally tally 19.38 miles, over 2.5 miles under my goal.

I threw my kit in the car and headed home stopping off at gas station to pick two 32oz bottles of Powerade that were drunk in the 15 minute drive! I guess I was a little more dehydrated than I thought, not surprising given that the temperature reading in my car said 96 degrees, ugh!

So I am putting these runs (or lack thereof in Friday's case) behind and moving on, this week will be better.

Finally, but by no means least, check out the shirt I am wearing. I have never been to Greenville SC, but I know someone who has, in fact some great folks who live there! How cool is this, it arrived in the mail Friday and I had to take it on the trails ASAP. Thanks Robin and Scott you guys are awesome!

I am putting together the rules for Swap-Beat and will post them tomorrow.

Here are some photos and the MotionBased data: