Day 417

I thought we had karate, but they changed the classes for Halloween. So I'm glad I ran, but not glad I didn't go further. Everything felt fine, an easy run.

Day 416

After spending a few hours out working on the snow, I came in, a quick bite to eat, and running with wet socks. Not my favorite way to run.

Day 415

We're definitely snowed in for today. It's been snowing all day, and windy, and so I just jogged along, watching Star Trek on the treadmill. Everything felt great, and it was a good run today.

Day 414

Snow coming down all day, the kids out of school, I had the feeling no karate would be taking place. So I went a little longer than otherwise, cruising easily through the jog. My neck hurt a little, but not too bad.

Day 413

After snowboarding, my body tired, I made myself jog through a short one.

Day 412

A good lunchtime run today. Nothing hurt, it was easy to cruise along.

Tracking your efforts

I have three tracking tools for running:

1. this blog
2. Nike +
3. Mapmyrun.com

Of these, I think this blog, and mapmyrun.com are the authorities of what I’ve done. I still need to get a few runs marked at mapmyrun, but for the most part that tracks what I’ve done. Especially since the Nike+ has proven unreliable at times.

I’ve had sensors break, and I’ve forgotten my iPod, so I can’t count on Nike +, at least not until I can manually enter runs in there. I do like the service, and I like the tracking on the device, but it needs to improve.

I sync my data over from Nike+ to mapmyrun.com every week or so. That reduces the amount of time I spend entering data. However I like this blog since I can note when things feel good or bad, and I have a separate service that lets me track things. It doesn’t total up distances or times, but it helps to keep me focused on paying attention to my progress.

I’d recommend any of these services, just be aware of the Nike + limitations if you use them.

Day 411

With snow outside, and a cold day, I took the opportunity to have a nice, steady run on the treadmill. Went 2 miles, and then lifted. A good exercise day.

Day 410

Another day, another run. Up early, my eyes hurt, after getting back from Scouts, I just jogged it out.

Day 409

The body felt beat up today. Not much happening tonight, but I still took it easy. The pace was steady, and I even increased speed, but I didn't strain at all. Guess I'm getting in better shape.

Day 408

An easy run. Didn't go too far with karate tonight.

Day 407

A nice, easy run today. Everything felt great!

Day 406

I did a karate class this morning, and then tried to run before heading home. I went along my short karate route, and it was a struggle. The ankle was slightly sore, but more it was just a struggle to find the energy to run. Glad I had some coffee and a bar before the class.

Day 404

I slipped a treadmill run in. It's nice outside, but the neck is sore, so I didn't want to strain anything.

Nike + Profiles

Nike+ has been improving their service, including adding some things like the ability to delete runs, etc. One thing I noticed recently is that I could include my profile on my own web site, so here it is:

Nike + Profile



It's a pretty basic profile, but it does allow me to share some information. I'm looking forward to getting a better Google widget to include things here.

Day 403

A nice, steady run inside. Felt good.

Day 402

A busy day, I slipped this in at lunch. Legs felt good, but I was hungry and distracted.

DAy 401

Taking it easy on the treadmill today. Felt good.

Day 400

After a pounding outside in the cold in Denver, I flew to Austin, was up until midnight, then up at 6:45am CST for another pouding run on sidewalks. I was at a hotel without a treadmill, and didn't have much choice with a busy workday.

My knee was a little sore, as was the ankle, but I took it slow. It had rained the night before, was warm, and very, very humid, so it felt good and after 10 minutes, the legs loosened up and felt OK.

Day 399

A rushed run in the am before karate. I went a little longer, around an extra block. I hadn't eaten, but the run felt good.

Day 398

A nice run in the afternoon.

Day 397

A nice, steady, long run. We had talked about going to the high school track to run with the karate group, but it was so cold I decided not to go this week.

Tracking Progress

Someone asked me recently how I was tracking my progress running. Here's my response:

I mainly use this blog as the primary means of tracking things. It allows me to see which days I've run (all of them) as well as log things. When I had a spreadsheet and the treadmill, this worked out fine.

I use the Nike + site to store some runs, which are sync'd automatically from my iPod with the Nike + dongle. That works well, but if I don't have the iPod, I can't log things. To me that's a major issue with the system. I know they want me to use their system, but the lack of being able to log things when the Nike + fails, means that it's incomplete.

I use MapMyRun.com early on to track some runs around town before I had the Nike +. It allows me to enter runs, though I think some of the info they want (essentially 3 descriptions of the run) is annoying. Still, it's the most complete set of my runs and it imports from Nike +, so it has all that data plus more. It's missing some early runs, but I'm moving them over there as I can.

Day 396

I ate a big lunch, had karate class before it, and wasn't feeling up for running, but we're going over to a friend's tonight and I needed to get it done.

Day 395

A nice, long run on the treadmill with snow outside.

Day 394

A quick one before karate, out in the rain and snow mix. It felt good, and I had a quick one. A mile in under 9 minutes.

Day 393

My neck hurt today, so I took it easy. I alternately struggled to run and felt good as I got through it, but I cut it short to not push too hard.

Day 392

I went slow, but a little longer today. Things are sore, but I felt OK, so I kept going after thinking I might stop at 14:00.

Day 391

A nice easy run today, the knee sore when I started, but loosening up as I went through it.

Holding Back

I'm an active guy, and it's not all running. Despite the running streak, I also play baseball in the summer, snowboard in the winter, and do karate 2-3 days a week. Other than a few months in the fall, I typically have 3-4 other activities every week where I'm working my body. I'm also trying to weightlift a few times a week as well lightly for strength.

And that doesn't count chores around the ranch.

Lately I've been doing karate one morning a week since it better fits my schedule. What I've been trying to do is then run before I take class. Either I'll jog around town right before class, or hit the treadmill at home before I leave.

As I was running the other morning, I felt awake, ready to go, and was happy to get the run going. I like karate, so my body was feeling amped. I walked for a minute, and then started going, knowing I had 20 minutes before I needed to leave in the car.

So I ran at 5.6mph.

My "normal" pace is 6.2mph, and I run at 6.5 fairly often. A little quicker outside as it gets exciting. I could have shaved off a minute or two, or run a little further in the 15 minutes I'd allotted myself before packing up. But I didn't.

I knew this was the first thing, I had a long day of work and Scouts, and possibly chores. I needed to conserve some energy and remember I'm in this for the long haul. It's not a short training cycle for some race. This is the rest of my life.

Learning to hold back is hard. I find myself starting to overdo it sometimes, but so far I've been able to catch myself within a few days and hold back.

Day 390

A short one, but a little faster, and it felt good. My knee is a little sore from tiling the bathroom, but overall it doesn't feel that bad when I run. Glad I did it early, though.

Day 389

Took an easy one today, letting the legs take it easy.

Day 388

A nice easy run today, in between chores. Took it easy to let the legs heal a bit.

Day 387

A nice, easy jog around Parker before karate. It was cold outside, so I had on a sweatshirt and hat with shorts. Not too windy, but a brisk fall day. My ankles were slighly sore, so I just had a slow, steady pace around a few blocks.