So today I ran the Summerfast 10k with the new Garmin 405. I was pleased with my time (49:20 was my official chip time). My best time for the 10k ever was 5 minutes faster than this, but I was about 20 pounds lighter, 6 years younger, didn't have kids and was in a Track Club. All in all I'm pleased with the time. I've had 10k races since I moved here that were 10 minutes slower than today.
I'm really pleased with how the Garmin 405 performed. It came in at 9.86k. That is pretty dang close. The interesting thing is that it seemed to be off by that much by the 2nd kilometer marker. There was a brief tunnel, and there were some tight turns and a brief out and back jog in the course before that. I think it might be more accurate than that if there were less trees, turns and no tunnel. I could hear the kilometer marks chiming on the Garmin watches around me (there were tons of them) and they grouped really tightly. It seemed they were all off by about 100 meters after the 2km marker and they tracked right, but 100m off, for every marker after that. The pace data was great, and I'm convinced that having quality feedback on the fly helped me come in under 50 minutes. I would check my pace and if I was above 5 minute kilometer pace I would suck it up and run faster. I was really tired around kilometer 7, but pushed through it.
I had a bit of a frustrating start. I got sidetracked answering questions about my shoes and the watch had gone into power-save mode when the race started. I had to step out of the crowd and wait for the Garmin to acquire the satellites. It was frustrating, but not a big deal since the race is chip timed. Once it got going I dropped into a quick easy pace and stayed there. It is amazing being in a race. It isn't that I'm all that competitive (I'm mid pack overall and in the back of the pack for my age division). But it is amazing to have so many people to pace yourself against.
The rest of the day has underscored how out of shape I am. I've been starving and exhausted. It is pretty clear that I need to get back on the program in terms of diet, drop some pounds and pick up more mileage. Now I need to pick my next race. I'd like to do another 10k soon and at least one Half Marathon in the Fall.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Garmin 405
You can even buy a crazy expensive scale that claims it can record "weight, body fat percentage, and hydration levels." Once you have this scale, it records all these metrics, uploads them to the watch, and the watch then transmits them to Garmin Connect. So in addition to tracking your mileage, pace, route, elevation and heart rate, you can also watch your weight and muscle to fat ratio over time. It is a data addict's dream come true. Still, I'm not going to run out and buy the scale just yet. But, I think I will start weighing myself often on the scale I have and entering that info so I can track gains and losses over time. That could help keep me focused.
So how is it? Seems great so far. The night I bought it we went to New Brighton Park for dinner with a friend and her kids. We enjoyed the beautiful afternoon, had a cocktail and ate takeout sushi. Afterwards, as the ladies conversed on a blanket and the kids blew off steam at the playground, I ducked out for a very brief jog to see what the watch could do. My first impression is that the immediate pace feedback is far better than what the Nike+iPod system provides. I set up the workout screen to show pace, distance and heart rate. A gentle acceleration or deceleration showed instant results on the pace readout. The main reason I wanted to jog around though was so that I would have some data to sync when I got the software set up. Check it out:
So the Garmin Connect site is pretty neat. You can pull lots of information out of there. I'm really looking forward to getting more familiar with this system. I did another easy run this morning. I ran an easy 4km in to work. I'm dieing to get out and do a longer run, but tomorrow morning I do the Summerfast 10k around Stanley Park. So an easy 4k was the most I could justify.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Finally a good run.
Yesterday was the best run I've had since I hurt my calf. I have no idea if I was fast, as I haven't replaced my nikeplus foot pod or bought a different gadget yet. But I felt strong, and it felt good to push myself a little past my comfort zone. I had a good, steady run Monday morning. It was my 10k out-back-work route that has some small hills & gets me to the office. It was nothing to write home about, didn't push myself, but nothing felt bad. I debated going out Tuesday (yesterday) at lunch. I don't want to push myself too hard, but I'm behind on my training for the Sumerfast 10k next Saturday. So I decided to go out for a quick 7k. I felt surprisingly good: even breathing, quick foot turnover.
Once I settled into my pace on the seawall, running north towards Coal Harbor, I had a couple of people pass me. Both of these guys looked the part. They were real runners. I picked up the pace. I was still falling behind, but not nearly as fast. It felt good to push just a little. After I hit the gravel path around Lost Lagoon I heard footsteps closing in on me (forgot my iPod). I didn't want to get passed again, so I picked up the pace. I figured I would simply tire out and get passed, but my pace held. The footsteps locked in behind me. They would accelerate when I did, but never pushed around for the pass. I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I felt great. That tiny bit of competitive spirit really does push me.
Then I had a bit of a vain, demotivating thought: I bet this person is old, fat or wearing jeans. It is a common frustration when I run that as soon as I feel like I'm doing great, someone who looks like they only get off the couch for another soda will pass me. I remember once, not long after I first started running and covering 10k at a time in my training runs, I thought I was invincible. Then, during a run where I thought I was doing fantastic, I heard a conversation approaching from behind. I also heard the random creak of wheels and tires, so I move a bit to the right so the bikes could pass. I was not prepared to be passed by two mothers, running and pushing their babies in jogging strollers, while they held an easy conversation. It was all I could do just to get air into and out of my body, and these two moms were holding a conversation while pushing their babies.
It isn't fair of me to think this way. They are obviously more committed and focused than I am. But it stings when I'm being passed by people who are pushing 60, or who have a pear shaped body or are pushing another small human in addition to themselves. So the thought lingered. The sound of feet crunching in the gravel behind me pushed me forward, worried about who was about to pass. Finally, as I crossed a little foot bridge and made a sharp right, I got a quick glance behind me. It was a runner! Lean, fit, tan and wearing real running clothes, the lady behind me looked like she was serious. With the boost to my confidence I was able to hold the pace and keep her behind me for much of the rest of my run, until I cut back to surface streets to head back to the office. It was the perfect pace to keep me just above my comfort zone, and made me miss running with a track club or a running partner.
So, there is the possibility of me getting a decent time at the Sumerfast 10k. I hate to speculate when I've had a dip in my fitness and lost my ability to see pace data, but I think it is possible for me to come in under 50 minutes. It would be the first time in years.
I'll know before 9:00am this Saturday.
Once I settled into my pace on the seawall, running north towards Coal Harbor, I had a couple of people pass me. Both of these guys looked the part. They were real runners. I picked up the pace. I was still falling behind, but not nearly as fast. It felt good to push just a little. After I hit the gravel path around Lost Lagoon I heard footsteps closing in on me (forgot my iPod). I didn't want to get passed again, so I picked up the pace. I figured I would simply tire out and get passed, but my pace held. The footsteps locked in behind me. They would accelerate when I did, but never pushed around for the pass. I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I felt great. That tiny bit of competitive spirit really does push me.
Then I had a bit of a vain, demotivating thought: I bet this person is old, fat or wearing jeans. It is a common frustration when I run that as soon as I feel like I'm doing great, someone who looks like they only get off the couch for another soda will pass me. I remember once, not long after I first started running and covering 10k at a time in my training runs, I thought I was invincible. Then, during a run where I thought I was doing fantastic, I heard a conversation approaching from behind. I also heard the random creak of wheels and tires, so I move a bit to the right so the bikes could pass. I was not prepared to be passed by two mothers, running and pushing their babies in jogging strollers, while they held an easy conversation. It was all I could do just to get air into and out of my body, and these two moms were holding a conversation while pushing their babies.
It isn't fair of me to think this way. They are obviously more committed and focused than I am. But it stings when I'm being passed by people who are pushing 60, or who have a pear shaped body or are pushing another small human in addition to themselves. So the thought lingered. The sound of feet crunching in the gravel behind me pushed me forward, worried about who was about to pass. Finally, as I crossed a little foot bridge and made a sharp right, I got a quick glance behind me. It was a runner! Lean, fit, tan and wearing real running clothes, the lady behind me looked like she was serious. With the boost to my confidence I was able to hold the pace and keep her behind me for much of the rest of my run, until I cut back to surface streets to head back to the office. It was the perfect pace to keep me just above my comfort zone, and made me miss running with a track club or a running partner.
So, there is the possibility of me getting a decent time at the Sumerfast 10k. I hate to speculate when I've had a dip in my fitness and lost my ability to see pace data, but I think it is possible for me to come in under 50 minutes. It would be the first time in years.
I'll know before 9:00am this Saturday.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Rapidly approaching 10k
Everything has gone to hell
Too much has happened since my last post. A total breakdown in my body and gadgetry has thrown me off. While my injury is gone, my fitness took a hit while I waited for the calf to heal up. Somehow, I have also misplaced the foot pod for my nikeplus system, which has put a bit of a dent into my motivation. It is hard to want to go out and run knowing it won't count. I've been running some, but I feel a bit slower. I'm not sure that I'm slower, as I have no feedback.
After easing back into running, once I was sure my calf was holding up OK, I got one pretty good run in before I left town. I Did my 13k out and back with hills and I felt OK, but the run wasn't without it's mishap.
Dog tired
There is a long steep climb on that run. I'd finally topped the hill and was picking up some speed on the gradual downhill. I was running strong, but I was tired. On the sidewalk coming at me was a little old lady walking a bull mastiff. It was a beautiful creature, but it was the type of dog you would draw if you were a cartoonist and you needed somebody to be eaten. She had a control collar on it, but the dog weighed nearly as much as that frail old lady did, and she looked a little worried. Plus, I couldn't help but remember that on that very same steep climb a couple years ago I had been passed by a faster runner. Just after he came around me and was pulling away, a pit bull ran out of a yard and attacked him. He was bleeding, but not too bad. It was the only time I've felt lucky to be fat and slow...
But, I decided to give the dog the benefit of the doubt. Dogs are mostly good. Also I was tired and didn't feel like crossing the street. So all my attention was on the dog. I was waiting for him to snap or lunge, and even when I got past him my head was slightly turned and my perception was focused on that little sliver of peripheral vision over my shoulder. Just then I hit a little lip of raised cement on the sidewalk. I wish I had a video. My arms were windmilling around like an angry Pete Townsend trying to break the strings of his guitar... my feet were doing quick little steps trying to catch up as the trunk of my body sloped more and more toward the sidewalk in slow motion. Then everything sped up in a whirlwind of sidewalk, sky and road rash.
I feel pretty lucky about not getting hurt bad. There was a bunch of blood, but other than one hand and knee I just hand mild road rash. Those two spots were not so mild, but they are healing nicely. At least I didn't bounce my head off the ground or break anything.
Another hit to my running came with my recent whirlwind trip to see three Phish concerts in NC and GA. I had a blast, but only got out for one easy run. It was a gentle run through Charlotte, NC. I meandered through the 4th Ward neighborhood and wound up in a big cemetery. I did a couple laps winding through there, but the pace was easy and it wasn't that far. Who knows how fast or far? Damn my missing gadget.
So the Nike+iPod foot pod isn't turning up. I'm sure it will, once I replace it or get something else. The something else I've been thinking about is the Garmin 405. A coworker recently got one and I'm fairly impressed. It gives you accurate pace and distance data. Can generate amazing maps of your run that include altitude info. You can add a heart rate monitor and a foot pod if you like and collect data about your heart rate and the turnover of your feet. With the foot pod you can still log runs on a treadmill indoors.
Too much has happened since my last post. A total breakdown in my body and gadgetry has thrown me off. While my injury is gone, my fitness took a hit while I waited for the calf to heal up. Somehow, I have also misplaced the foot pod for my nikeplus system, which has put a bit of a dent into my motivation. It is hard to want to go out and run knowing it won't count. I've been running some, but I feel a bit slower. I'm not sure that I'm slower, as I have no feedback.
After easing back into running, once I was sure my calf was holding up OK, I got one pretty good run in before I left town. I Did my 13k out and back with hills and I felt OK, but the run wasn't without it's mishap.
Dog tired
There is a long steep climb on that run. I'd finally topped the hill and was picking up some speed on the gradual downhill. I was running strong, but I was tired. On the sidewalk coming at me was a little old lady walking a bull mastiff. It was a beautiful creature, but it was the type of dog you would draw if you were a cartoonist and you needed somebody to be eaten. She had a control collar on it, but the dog weighed nearly as much as that frail old lady did, and she looked a little worried. Plus, I couldn't help but remember that on that very same steep climb a couple years ago I had been passed by a faster runner. Just after he came around me and was pulling away, a pit bull ran out of a yard and attacked him. He was bleeding, but not too bad. It was the only time I've felt lucky to be fat and slow...
But, I decided to give the dog the benefit of the doubt. Dogs are mostly good. Also I was tired and didn't feel like crossing the street. So all my attention was on the dog. I was waiting for him to snap or lunge, and even when I got past him my head was slightly turned and my perception was focused on that little sliver of peripheral vision over my shoulder. Just then I hit a little lip of raised cement on the sidewalk. I wish I had a video. My arms were windmilling around like an angry Pete Townsend trying to break the strings of his guitar... my feet were doing quick little steps trying to catch up as the trunk of my body sloped more and more toward the sidewalk in slow motion. Then everything sped up in a whirlwind of sidewalk, sky and road rash.
I feel pretty lucky about not getting hurt bad. There was a bunch of blood, but other than one hand and knee I just hand mild road rash. Those two spots were not so mild, but they are healing nicely. At least I didn't bounce my head off the ground or break anything.
Phish
Another hit to my running came with my recent whirlwind trip to see three Phish concerts in NC and GA. I had a blast, but only got out for one easy run. It was a gentle run through Charlotte, NC. I meandered through the 4th Ward neighborhood and wound up in a big cemetery. I did a couple laps winding through there, but the pace was easy and it wasn't that far. Who knows how fast or far? Damn my missing gadget.I did wear the Vibram KSOs to three concerts, so I got a bit of a foot workout from the boogie. My goofy finger shoes got a lot of questions from some spun out hippies. The interesting thing was that I had several people walk up and say: "Are you a runner?" I find that interesting, as I rarely see people running in them. Barefoot running is seeping into the collective consciousness. The concerts were fantastic, by the way.
Race in less than a week
I'm not sure where this leaves me for the 10k I'm signed up for next Saturday. I'll finish. I'm mostly healthy. I'm probably slower than I was a few weeks ago, but have no idea how much. I'm pretty sure I can do better than my Sun Run time of 53 minutes. Can I break 50? Guess we'll see.
My next gadget?
So the Nike+iPod foot pod isn't turning up. I'm sure it will, once I replace it or get something else. The something else I've been thinking about is the Garmin 405. A coworker recently got one and I'm fairly impressed. It gives you accurate pace and distance data. Can generate amazing maps of your run that include altitude info. You can add a heart rate monitor and a foot pod if you like and collect data about your heart rate and the turnover of your feet. With the foot pod you can still log runs on a treadmill indoors.I'm going to have to get something quick to push my motivation back up. It is time to start looking for a Fall half marathon.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Strikes and Gutters
Amazing what can happen in a week...
A week ago today I had a fantastic run. It was one of the most enjoyable 20k runs I've ever done. I dropped in to an easy quick pace and never felt tired. It was one of those runs that makes me love running, a scenic out and back from my house past Kitsilano Beach. I was passing people effortlessly and it didn't even seem like work to hold a good pace.
Then on Tuesday, another good run. This was my out, back and to work run with hills. Not quite as good a pace, but with the hills and so soon after a fast 20k I was pretty pleased with it.
Thinking the iPod was likely fried, I figured I'd hoof it back to work and see if I could dry it out. Unfortunately, as soon as I started to run my left calf knotted up really bad. It was all I could do to make it back to work. I had to run/walk just to make it back in. It was the worst run I've had in years, after nothing but improvements for a couple months.
So the iPod works fine once it dried out (pro tip: put wet electronics in a bowl of dry rice to draw the moisture out). I gave myself a couple days rest, and my calf has been fine. So, I figure it's time for a repeat of last Sunday. I gear up for a long easy run. It is a beautiful day and I have a fresh soundboard recording of the Phish concert they played last night. I was excited to zone out and cover some miles. But two kilometers in I felt a twinge of pain. It got progressively worse. After pausing a couple of times, it was clear that there was no sense in pushing myself, and I hopped on the SkyTrian by Science World, and then a bus up Commercial. Run over...
Bummer...
I'm thinking lack of sleep and stress caused the calf problem in the first place. I hate to call it an injury; it is just some soreness and inflammation in a muscle. But then I guess that is what an injury is, isn't it? I'm wondering if the high stress and lack of sleep could have elevated cortisol levels in my system. Or maybe I was just so tired and distracted by the rain and malfunctioning iPod that I was running with terrible form. Maybe I was just pushing too hard too soon after long mileage.
Either way it is going to keep me from running. I think I should lay off until Thursday or Friday. Guess we'll see how it goes.
As a wise man once said "Sometimes you eat the bar. And, well, sometimes he eats you."
A week ago today I had a fantastic run. It was one of the most enjoyable 20k runs I've ever done. I dropped in to an easy quick pace and never felt tired. It was one of those runs that makes me love running, a scenic out and back from my house past Kitsilano Beach. I was passing people effortlessly and it didn't even seem like work to hold a good pace.
Then on Tuesday, another good run. This was my out, back and to work run with hills. Not quite as good a pace, but with the hills and so soon after a fast 20k I was pretty pleased with it.
Somewhere between then and now it has all fallen appart. After this decent morning run in to work, and a bit of a deadline-driven stressful work day, we went out to see Joe Cocker and Tom Petty. Both bands were surprisingly good and we were up pretty late. But I was in good shape to handle another busy day at work on Wednesday. I think Wednesday is where things started to go off the rails. That evening Nora bumped her head. Hard. So Katie ran her to Children's hospital and I stayed home so we didn't have to wake Eliza up. But I couldn't really sleep, and Katie and Nora didn't make it back until morning. (Nora is fine, but it is good we brought her in). So I was in terrible shape Thursday, running on a two night sleep deficit with extra helpings of stress.
But having had a fantastic string of runs I thought I should get in a lunch run. It might even make me feel better, I told myself. Heck the ultra-marathoners go without sleep that long and never even stop running, so buck up! So, off I go on my 7k loop around Lost Lagoon. It wasn't even raining, all that hard. Yet. But rain it did. What started as a refreshing cool mist turned into a dump. I wound up with my shirt and shorts stuck to me like a Corona T-shirt on a girl-gone-wild. I spent the first half of the run trying to keep my pace high and shield my iPod Touch from the deluge by holding it face down, cupped under my left hand.
That didn't work. Almost exactly half way into my run, on the other side of Lost Lagoon, my iPod turned itself up to eleven and could not be adjusted. Moisture had found its way into the volume rocker switch and shorted out the contact that turns up the volume. I paused the run and started playing with it to see if I could get it to work, but my stomach dropped as the iPod spontaneously rebooted. Losing the run data was the least of my worries. A water-soaked iPod spontaneously rebooting can't be a good sign. I tried to power down, but it rebooted itself again.
Thinking the iPod was likely fried, I figured I'd hoof it back to work and see if I could dry it out. Unfortunately, as soon as I started to run my left calf knotted up really bad. It was all I could do to make it back to work. I had to run/walk just to make it back in. It was the worst run I've had in years, after nothing but improvements for a couple months.
So the iPod works fine once it dried out (pro tip: put wet electronics in a bowl of dry rice to draw the moisture out). I gave myself a couple days rest, and my calf has been fine. So, I figure it's time for a repeat of last Sunday. I gear up for a long easy run. It is a beautiful day and I have a fresh soundboard recording of the Phish concert they played last night. I was excited to zone out and cover some miles. But two kilometers in I felt a twinge of pain. It got progressively worse. After pausing a couple of times, it was clear that there was no sense in pushing myself, and I hopped on the SkyTrian by Science World, and then a bus up Commercial. Run over...
Bummer...
I'm thinking lack of sleep and stress caused the calf problem in the first place. I hate to call it an injury; it is just some soreness and inflammation in a muscle. But then I guess that is what an injury is, isn't it? I'm wondering if the high stress and lack of sleep could have elevated cortisol levels in my system. Or maybe I was just so tired and distracted by the rain and malfunctioning iPod that I was running with terrible form. Maybe I was just pushing too hard too soon after long mileage.
Either way it is going to keep me from running. I think I should lay off until Thursday or Friday. Guess we'll see how it goes.
As a wise man once said "Sometimes you eat the bar. And, well, sometimes he eats you."
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Pace, Phish, Evolution and Data Addiction
Considering how slow I am, some will find it comical how much I look at the data around my pace and distance. Some of it is from a genuine desire to know when I'm improving, and to be able to predict how well I could do in a race. That certainly is motivating, at least when the numbers show I'm getting faster. But, the painful truth is I might have a bit of a data addiction. As a case in point, I'll allow myself a bit of a digression from what has so far been a barefoot running blog (where are all the Non Sequiturs, anyway?).
Anyone who knows me well knows I like live music. While I like all kinds of music, from electronica to country to hardcore, the band I've seen the most is Phish. How many times have I seen Phish? Funny you should ask... I've spent the last couple of weeks obsessing over just that. I had kept a record of all the shows I had seen. I had an old copy of a book called the Pharmer's Almanac that listed all shows and their related setlists up through the Spring of '98. I'd gone through and marked the shows I had been at so I could thumb through and reminisce. As I kept seeing shows after the date where the book left off, I kept count but did not keep a record. Until recently I was completely convinced I had seen 90 Phish concerts. Since I will be seeing a couple shows this July (for the first time in 6 years) I thought I'd figure out exactly which shows I've seen. After spending a little time at the the excellent phish.net site, I came up with this list. I think there is one more show I haven't accounted for, as I don't think I would have counted the 8/14/1998 soundcheck as a show. It bugs me that I can't find the missing show. Was it Chula Vista, in 2003? That may just be it. But really, why would I care? Because it is fun to play with the data. For instance, the song I've seen the most is Maze. I've seen it 30 times. It is a good song, but I could never figure out why they play it so much. Turns out they don't. If you look at the Overplayed/Underplayed statistics on my own personal Phish Stats, you can see it is an anomaly. In the 89 shows I have listed, I should have only seen that song 18 times. Strange. I can also see that there are 52 songs that I saw the very frist time Phish played them, including some classics they play all the time.
It is fun to think about, and http://phish.net makes it easy to play with, but it is probably a pointless addiction to plow through all that data.
Which brings me back to running, and trying to interpret the data from my Nikeplus iPod attachment. While I've been encouraged by my recent pace improvements, a run last week made me think that, maybe, the calibration is more off than I would like. According to the data I ran 7.75 km at 4'37"/km pace (4.82 mi @ 7'27"/mi). Looking back, I think this is the fastest run I've ever logged since I started using the iPod to track pace in 2006. This was certainly a fast run for me. No doubt. And I've ran a certified 10k at a faster pace than this in the past, so it isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. But outliers like this make me nervous about the calibration of the equipment. Can it really be my fastest run in years? Is barefoot and minimalist running driving that much of an improvement? Really?
If the pace is off the distance will be off, right? So, I went out and mapped my lunch run on the mapmyrun.com site. It comes out to 7.34k, while my logged run reads 7.75k, roughly 95% accurate. So, plugging in the numbers at an online pace calculator, my pace may well have been 4:53/km rather than 4:37/km. It is still a good pace for me, but not as good as I had thought: 16 seconds per kilometer slower, or more than two and a half minutes over the course of a 10k. It is not the fastest run I've ever logged, as I had thought. The good news is, looking back at the data, it is still impressive. The last time I matched that pace was during a short run on May 17th, 2007.
My seat of the pants feelings about my runs are correct. I'm seeing improvements. Now to see if I can feed that data back into the iPod to improve accuracy. When I complete a run, the iPod offers a calibrate option. That way you can set a completed run to a known distance. I did that for the Sun Run 10k. It is not a well documented feature. I don't know if it simply calibrates that one run, or if it feeds that data back for future runs. I guess we'll have to find out. Next time I do the Lost Lagoon run I'll stick strictly to my mapped route and calibrate it to 7.34 after the fact.
So I'm obsessing about details of both my runs and the concerts I've seen. I'm not really OCD, but I do like to pour over all this data. And just how does this data addiction relate to running in general? Does it? Well, I just finished reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougal (a fantastic book everyone should read) and came across an interesting idea. Stick with me here... (Wait, WTF?!? You are still here?) A major premis of the book, besides being an interesting story about an obscure ultra-marathon that was staged in the Mexican wilderness, is that humans evolved to run. We are better distance runners than any other animal. Our build allows us to conserve energy while running steadily, while our hairless body covered with sweat glands helps us cool and recover on the go. No other animal in the world can beat us at a marathon or longer, not even a horse. We evolved that way for persistance hunting: chasing and tracking animals until they overheat and die. Obviously running is a big part of that, but when researchers attempted it they failed. The animals would disappear, fold themselves back into the herd and the hunters would wind up chasing fresh animals. But a South African man named Louis Liebenberg found the answer. He became interested in the origin of logic and scientific thought in human prehistory so he dropped out of society to go live with the Kalahari Bushmen, who were as prehistoric a culture as still exists. During his time with the Bushmen, Louis learned persistance hunting. Running was only half the equation; it turns out it takes a lot of brains as well as running.
So not only are my running and my data addiction related, they are at the core of who we are as a species. Beter than any other land animal on the planet, we can settle in to a nice comfortable run and cover huge amounts of ground. Similarly, we can take disparate information from multiple sources and see patterns, connections and causalities. We can take two seemingly unrelated points of data, non sequitors in the conversation between us and our environment, and fill in the blanks and find causal connections. You see what I did there?
Anyone who knows me well knows I like live music. While I like all kinds of music, from electronica to country to hardcore, the band I've seen the most is Phish. How many times have I seen Phish? Funny you should ask... I've spent the last couple of weeks obsessing over just that. I had kept a record of all the shows I had seen. I had an old copy of a book called the Pharmer's Almanac that listed all shows and their related setlists up through the Spring of '98. I'd gone through and marked the shows I had been at so I could thumb through and reminisce. As I kept seeing shows after the date where the book left off, I kept count but did not keep a record. Until recently I was completely convinced I had seen 90 Phish concerts. Since I will be seeing a couple shows this July (for the first time in 6 years) I thought I'd figure out exactly which shows I've seen. After spending a little time at the the excellent phish.net site, I came up with this list. I think there is one more show I haven't accounted for, as I don't think I would have counted the 8/14/1998 soundcheck as a show. It bugs me that I can't find the missing show. Was it Chula Vista, in 2003? That may just be it. But really, why would I care? Because it is fun to play with the data. For instance, the song I've seen the most is Maze. I've seen it 30 times. It is a good song, but I could never figure out why they play it so much. Turns out they don't. If you look at the Overplayed/Underplayed statistics on my own personal Phish Stats, you can see it is an anomaly. In the 89 shows I have listed, I should have only seen that song 18 times. Strange. I can also see that there are 52 songs that I saw the very frist time Phish played them, including some classics they play all the time.
It is fun to think about, and http://phish.net makes it easy to play with, but it is probably a pointless addiction to plow through all that data.
Which brings me back to running, and trying to interpret the data from my Nikeplus iPod attachment. While I've been encouraged by my recent pace improvements, a run last week made me think that, maybe, the calibration is more off than I would like. According to the data I ran 7.75 km at 4'37"/km pace (4.82 mi @ 7'27"/mi). Looking back, I think this is the fastest run I've ever logged since I started using the iPod to track pace in 2006. This was certainly a fast run for me. No doubt. And I've ran a certified 10k at a faster pace than this in the past, so it isn't completely out of the realm of possibility. But outliers like this make me nervous about the calibration of the equipment. Can it really be my fastest run in years? Is barefoot and minimalist running driving that much of an improvement? Really?If the pace is off the distance will be off, right? So, I went out and mapped my lunch run on the mapmyrun.com site. It comes out to 7.34k, while my logged run reads 7.75k, roughly 95% accurate. So, plugging in the numbers at an online pace calculator, my pace may well have been 4:53/km rather than 4:37/km. It is still a good pace for me, but not as good as I had thought: 16 seconds per kilometer slower, or more than two and a half minutes over the course of a 10k. It is not the fastest run I've ever logged, as I had thought. The good news is, looking back at the data, it is still impressive. The last time I matched that pace was during a short run on May 17th, 2007.
My seat of the pants feelings about my runs are correct. I'm seeing improvements. Now to see if I can feed that data back into the iPod to improve accuracy. When I complete a run, the iPod offers a calibrate option. That way you can set a completed run to a known distance. I did that for the Sun Run 10k. It is not a well documented feature. I don't know if it simply calibrates that one run, or if it feeds that data back for future runs. I guess we'll have to find out. Next time I do the Lost Lagoon run I'll stick strictly to my mapped route and calibrate it to 7.34 after the fact.
So I'm obsessing about details of both my runs and the concerts I've seen. I'm not really OCD, but I do like to pour over all this data. And just how does this data addiction relate to running in general? Does it? Well, I just finished reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougal (a fantastic book everyone should read) and came across an interesting idea. Stick with me here... (Wait, WTF?!? You are still here?) A major premis of the book, besides being an interesting story about an obscure ultra-marathon that was staged in the Mexican wilderness, is that humans evolved to run. We are better distance runners than any other animal. Our build allows us to conserve energy while running steadily, while our hairless body covered with sweat glands helps us cool and recover on the go. No other animal in the world can beat us at a marathon or longer, not even a horse. We evolved that way for persistance hunting: chasing and tracking animals until they overheat and die. Obviously running is a big part of that, but when researchers attempted it they failed. The animals would disappear, fold themselves back into the herd and the hunters would wind up chasing fresh animals. But a South African man named Louis Liebenberg found the answer. He became interested in the origin of logic and scientific thought in human prehistory so he dropped out of society to go live with the Kalahari Bushmen, who were as prehistoric a culture as still exists. During his time with the Bushmen, Louis learned persistance hunting. Running was only half the equation; it turns out it takes a lot of brains as well as running.
"When tracking an animal, one attempts to think like an animal in order to predict where it is going," Louis says. "Looking at its tracks, one visualizes the motion of the animal and feels that motion in one's own body. You go into a trance like state, the concentration is so intense. It's actually quite dangerous, because you become numb to your own body and can keep pushing yourself until you collapse."
Visualization... empathy... abstract thinking and forward projection: aside from the keeling-over part, isn't that exactly the mental engineering we now use for science, medicine, the creative arts? "When you track, you're creating causal connections in your mind, because you didn't actually see what the animal did," Louis realized. "That's the essence of physics." With speculative hunting, early human hunters had gone beyond connecting the dots; they were now connecting dots that existed only in their minds.Speculative tracking and persistance hunting probably drove our evolution; made us who we are by rewarding efficient running bodies and the ability decipher almost random scratches in the dirt. While running was a huge part of why we survived, the other half of the equation was the ability to collect and collate data.
So not only are my running and my data addiction related, they are at the core of who we are as a species. Beter than any other land animal on the planet, we can settle in to a nice comfortable run and cover huge amounts of ground. Similarly, we can take disparate information from multiple sources and see patterns, connections and causalities. We can take two seemingly unrelated points of data, non sequitors in the conversation between us and our environment, and fill in the blanks and find causal connections. You see what I did there?
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Improving Pace
It has been a consistent theme of this blog that I think my pace is improving since I switched to minimalist and barefoot running. Well, I think there is now enough data to back it up. I've been using the Nike + iPod system for a long time, with a couple disruptions (having lost my iPod, etc.). The slowgeek.com site has some great graphs for looking at the Nike + iPod data. So, what is the verdict?I have logged 2000 kilometers since 2006, in 305 runs. The last couple of years, I haven't been very fast. I purchased my Vibram Fivefingers KSO shoes on April 15th (6 weeks ago today, as I write this). In the 16 runs I've done since then (not counting a handfull of barefoot runs, which are not logged and are significantly slower) my pace has improved dramatically. At first, some people said it was probably enthusiasm for my new gear, and simply psychological. That may well be, but I seem to be getting more enthusiastic as time goes on. I've logged 16 runs since then: 126 kilometers. Take a look at the above image, which is a snip from my Pace over Time graph. That is quite a jump and it perfectly coincides with buying the VFFs. If it's simply that I'm excited about new gear I find it surprising that I've maintained that enthusiasm over the 16 runs, and that my excitement seems to be increasing. I think something else is going on.
Another thought I've had, and that others have echoed, is that my pace is increasing because I'm running more. The data doesn't back that up either. In this image from my monthly runs graph the light red is 2009 and the dark red is 2010. In 2009 I logged nearly twice as many miles in April, and almost as many in May. But check out the Pace over Time graph above. I'm a full minute per kilometer faster now. What gives? There isn't a backlog of months of strong training this year either. I hardly ran at all this Winter.In the short amount of distance since I took up minimalist running, it can't be all fitness improvements. Sure, I think there are benefits to barefoot running that improve the muscles in your feet and calves. But I can't see how suddenly after a regular amount of training I could see my pace jump up a minute per kilometer. I think these improvements are around increased efficiency in my gait. I've always read that the best way to improve your pace was to increase your turnover and shorten your stride. You see it in races. Several times I've been huffing and puffing up some hill, fighting the good fight, and some person comes around and pulls away doing the marathon shuffle: little quick steps, not lifting their feet high, quick turnover. I've worked on that in the past, counting footfalls per minute and trying to increase my turnover, and I think that is some of how I was so much faster in 2005/2006 (that and working out with the Santa Cruz Track Club). But with the Vibrams and barefoot running this kind of gait just comes naturally. I don't have to think about it.
The improvements I've seen have required no real changes to my training patterns, and that boggles my mind. I'm excited by the prospect of how fast I could be if I applied myself. I feel like if I applied myself (actual speedwork, hills, consistant distance and a long run every week) I could actually close in on my 44 minute 10k PR and my 1:47 half marathon PR. I doubt I could do it for the Summerfast 10k in July, but for the first time in years I think I can run that fast again in the future.
Maybe my running will peak in my 40s instead of my 30s. If it does, I hope I'll be sitting around in 10 years saying "maybe my running will peak in my 50s instead of my 40s!" Hell, at this rate I'll qualify for the Boston Marathon before I'm 60. I'll be a shoe-in in my 80s!
Here is to a bright future as a mid-pack runner.
Cheers.
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