Yeah it’s that time again, so I’ll keep it short.
I looked back at the goals set this time last year, they and their results were:
• A sub 6:00 50km; eh nope, (but a new PR and a reduction of around 30 minutes down to 6:22)
• A sub 10 hour 50 mile; not even close (OMG what was I thinking!? 11:24 was my best effort)
On face value it doesn’t look so good but in reality it was actually a pretty good year. What you don’t see is the amount, even if you look really close, I have learned about this sport of running; like nearly everything it’s an ongoing process:
• I learned to respect the distance; I had my first DNF
• I found I could hear my body when it was talking (instead of screaming through an ibuprofen haze) to me; I managed to stay nearly injury free, (it was touch and go in the Spring for a while though)
• I trained smarter; covering less mileage than in 2007 and had better results; I picked up new PRs at the 5k, trail HM and 50k distances
• I made new friends both real and virtual and
• I ran new trails, climbed new peaks, saw new vistas and managed to get just a little closer to the horizon
So yes the main goals were not met and so they remain but so do I hopefully smarter, faster and stronger.
Happy New Year everyone, may your goals stretch you to new heights!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Eeenie Meenie...
Alas there seems to be no Minie or Moe, and the Enie and Meenie are not quite right either. I have, over the last few weeks been scouring the ‘net looking for a suitable race for 2009 Fall/Winter but have come up short, well actually I have come up long!
The plan for 2009; two ‘A’ races of 100km in length, the first is set; Twin Peaks in February, that latter is wide open. The criteria are simple; (1) 100km (62 miles), (2) on trails, (3) run in the Fall or Winter, that is October through to the end of the year, (I’ll run shorter distances in the tail end of Summer but otherwise it is too hot!) and (4) it needs to be local, Southern California preferably, but at a push Northern California, and a real push Southern Nevada or Western Arizona. Training takes up too much time so disappearing for a three days over a weekend is just not fair on the family. So with that in mind I have come up with a grand total of nil!
The only two that fit most of the bill are longer, way longer, like 38 miles longer. And while I am planning to step up to the 100 mile distance; that was reserved for 2010. Going for it this year means, more training time, longer runs and more of them, they also need to be qualified for so that may mean extra races to get the right qualifying times and at least one of them will require me to put in some trail maintenance time, not that that’s a deal breaker; just another thing to consider.
The two races and some of their benefits/highlights and my concerns are:
AC100 September 19th
• Local; the finish line in Pasadena is about an hour from my home, the start is further away but I can car pool to it
• Very well established; this is the 23rd year, it’s a nationally recognized event and very well organized race
• Qualifying entry; a completed 50 mile race within 12 months of start date
• Entry fee starts at $200
• Some of the peaks skirt around the 9500’, that may present a problem given my trip to the area this summer
DRTE100 October 2nd
• Local; the start and finish are about 90 minutes from my home
• Inaugural year; should not be a problem but may become one if the organization is not up to par
• Unknown entry qualifications
• Unknown entry fee
• The route has lower peak summits but the race bills itself as having the greatest elevation gain of any 100 mile race in the US; 36,000’
Given the distance it’s likely that both races may require me to have a crew, even a minimal one and maybe even a pacer at the end which is another couple of things to organize, I will have a better feeling for the need of a crew and pacer come the end of February. So as you can see both have positives and negatives, registration is open for AC100 now and opens for DRTE100 on February 1st.
Decisions decisions…
The plan for 2009; two ‘A’ races of 100km in length, the first is set; Twin Peaks in February, that latter is wide open. The criteria are simple; (1) 100km (62 miles), (2) on trails, (3) run in the Fall or Winter, that is October through to the end of the year, (I’ll run shorter distances in the tail end of Summer but otherwise it is too hot!) and (4) it needs to be local, Southern California preferably, but at a push Northern California, and a real push Southern Nevada or Western Arizona. Training takes up too much time so disappearing for a three days over a weekend is just not fair on the family. So with that in mind I have come up with a grand total of nil!
The only two that fit most of the bill are longer, way longer, like 38 miles longer. And while I am planning to step up to the 100 mile distance; that was reserved for 2010. Going for it this year means, more training time, longer runs and more of them, they also need to be qualified for so that may mean extra races to get the right qualifying times and at least one of them will require me to put in some trail maintenance time, not that that’s a deal breaker; just another thing to consider.
The two races and some of their benefits/highlights and my concerns are:
AC100 September 19th
• Local; the finish line in Pasadena is about an hour from my home, the start is further away but I can car pool to it
• Very well established; this is the 23rd year, it’s a nationally recognized event and very well organized race
• Qualifying entry; a completed 50 mile race within 12 months of start date
• Entry fee starts at $200
• Some of the peaks skirt around the 9500’, that may present a problem given my trip to the area this summer
DRTE100 October 2nd
• Local; the start and finish are about 90 minutes from my home
• Inaugural year; should not be a problem but may become one if the organization is not up to par
• Unknown entry qualifications
• Unknown entry fee
• The route has lower peak summits but the race bills itself as having the greatest elevation gain of any 100 mile race in the US; 36,000’
Given the distance it’s likely that both races may require me to have a crew, even a minimal one and maybe even a pacer at the end which is another couple of things to organize, I will have a better feeling for the need of a crew and pacer come the end of February. So as you can see both have positives and negatives, registration is open for AC100 now and opens for DRTE100 on February 1st.
Decisions decisions…
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Be Alert; Your Country needs Lerts; setting Alerts in your Forerunner
A’ la my post from November about Forerunner features here’s a quick in between Christmas and New Years Day post about the Alert feature. There are four types of Alert; Time/Distance, Pace, HR and Cadence, I have used all four at times but this post will only review the Pace which is probably the most common one that I use and was certainly the most helpful in my recent speedwork sessions.
So first we need to get into the menu, to do this press Mode, scroll to Training, select (press Enter) Training Options and then select Alerts. Here you are faced with two options; Fast Pace Alert and Slow Pace Alert, this is very self explanatory but remember if you want to run within a prescribed range you should set both of them to create the pace window.
There are two ways to set them: based on your Garmin Training Center settings or Custom. The latter is easier on the fly and the GTC settings require that (a) you have entered all your pace ranges in and (b) you can remember them or have written down everything you entered. For this purpose I’ll focus on setting them on the fly.
With Fast Pace highlighted Press Enter and scroll to Custom Press Enter and the Alert Above becomes highlighted, Press Enter and a numerical drop down menu appears, select the pace you want, you’ll need to put either a “0” or press “>” to move to the second column. Once you have entered the required pace Select Done and press Enter, scroll to the Slow Pace Alert and repeat if required. Otherwise skip fast pace and just set only the Slow Pace, to do this just scroll down.
Once completed press Mode to back out of the menu till you get to the home screen and that’s it you’re all set. To turn them off go back to the Alerts menu and instead of selecting Custom simply select Off. Confused; click on the photos to make them bigger...yeah that means you have to actually come to my blog and get out of your reader! The alert itself is a series of chimes; not too loud but loud enough and different from the distance/lap alert if you have that set. I can usually hear them while wearing an iPod.
So there you go that was easy and now you have one less reason for avoiding that speedwork!
So first we need to get into the menu, to do this press Mode, scroll to Training, select (press Enter) Training Options and then select Alerts. Here you are faced with two options; Fast Pace Alert and Slow Pace Alert, this is very self explanatory but remember if you want to run within a prescribed range you should set both of them to create the pace window.There are two ways to set them: based on your Garmin Training Center settings or Custom. The latter is easier on the fly and the GTC settings require that (a) you have entered all your pace ranges in and (b) you can remember them or have written down everything you entered. For this purpose I’ll focus on setting them on the fly.
With Fast Pace highlighted Press Enter and scroll to Custom Press Enter and the Alert Above becomes highlighted, Press Enter and a numerical drop down menu appears, select the pace you want, you’ll need to put either a “0” or press “>” to move to the second column. Once you have entered the required pace Select Done and press Enter, scroll to the Slow Pace Alert and repeat if required. Otherwise skip fast pace and just set only the Slow Pace, to do this just scroll down.
Once completed press Mode to back out of the menu till you get to the home screen and that’s it you’re all set. To turn them off go back to the Alerts menu and instead of selecting Custom simply select Off. Confused; click on the photos to make them bigger...yeah that means you have to actually come to my blog and get out of your reader! The alert itself is a series of chimes; not too loud but loud enough and different from the distance/lap alert if you have that set. I can usually hear them while wearing an iPod.So there you go that was easy and now you have one less reason for avoiding that speedwork!
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