farewell to February

My favorite mother-in-law gently scolded me for not blogging... so here goes.

It hasn't been the most active of months. I missed my mileage goal, didn't manage to get a consistent running rhythm back, and have still managed to sustain random injuries -- or maybe just flareups of what are now semi-chronic injuries.

But there are races ahead -- so I have to get back on track. Next big race is the Vancouver Half Marathon on May 2.

Still thinking about buying a treadmill... even though the days are getting longer and the weather is getting better, so it shouldn't be such a chore to get out and run. But there are plenty of nights when I don't really feel up to heading out into the real world... and just doing some fast running on a treadmill sounds appealing. I wonder how tall exactly the running deck of a decent treadmill is?

So let me try this again -- no more excuses. Looking back at last year, I wasn't exactly churning though the miles in February. I do think it's difficult to get back on track after a marathon. But last year I didn't have a race coming up in May! :)

Farewell February -- hello March!

ran today!

Ran before work on the treadmill -- a quick 50 minutes plus warmup and cooldown. Felt pretty good throughout, and increased my pace along the way. Not sure if my sensor is reading my walking pace very well, but it seems to read the running okay. 19 more miles to hit February's goal... but as long as I don't skip any more runs I should make it. We'll see!

no running! ack!

Haven't run for a week. No real reason why, just haven't. Haven't felt like it, haven't made time for it. Making my mileage goal for the month seems pretty unlikely. Boo.

It does make me think that I should get serious about researching treadmills. Yes, I know that it's staying lighter later... but there will still inevitably be nights when I don't want to run in the dark, but I don't feel like going to the gym. And for those midweek runs that are an hour or less, a treadmill seems almost perfect.

75 days away from the Vancouver Half Marathon. It's been fun to watch the Olympics, even if I feel a bit bad on Vancouver's behalf.

training calendar updates

Decided to sit down and plot out my training calendar leading up to the Vancouver Half Marathon. So I plotted out the dates, figured out my workouts, and felt a little weird that some of them are half what I'm running now. But my goal of course is just to stay healthy and arrive at the race feeling good. I love looking at a training plan -- so satisfying to see the weeks advance and the miles build back up. Yay!

we'll see you in Vancouver!

So yesterday I called the Hotel Sylvia and, well, they still had rooms available for the weekend of April 30 - May 2. And I've always wanted to stay there. And, well... today I registered for the Vancouver Half Marathon. So now I officially have an event on my calendar before the Disneyland Half on Labor Day Weekend. (Oh, um, did I mention I signed Wil and myself up for that? No? Well... I did.)

Tuesday morning treadmill

Ran on the treadmill before work again today -- felt pretty good, and distracted myself by watching the woman next to me run what appeared to be a couch to 5K interval set on the treadmill. It made me happy to see other people starting to run, and also made me thrilled to see how far I've come. Sure, I'm not -- and probably never will be -- fast, but I can plod along for a decent amount of time. And, for the most part, I enjoy it. 5.71 miles in 60 minutes, including 10 minutes of warmup and cooldown -- not too shabby for a Tuesday.

another little run

Ran this morning out to the lookout, around the triangle bit, and then home. Ran too fast again, which made me feel nauseous a couple of times, but all I needed to do was slow down a tiny bit. I'm going to try very hard to run Tuesday and Thursday and get back into the rhythm of running.

Nike+ sportband

So... I managed to brick Cupid -- my beloved magenta Nano. Short and stubby, but lovely... not one of these new-fangled (or older-fangled...) models that are tall and skinny. Cupid was squat but got the job done. Until, after perhaps 10 too many times of my throwing her to the floor, post workout, she just stopped working.

I considered getting a new Nano... heck, they come in purple now... but I really don't like the form factor very much. I mean, if I wanted a tall, skinny iPod, I'd just use my old Nano.

But I do love Nike+... and we had been looking into the sportband...

So yesterday, on a visit to Niketown so Wil could pick up his once-favorite shoes, the Nike Air Jordan 6, I had a look at the sportband. I never use the spoken feedback feature on my iPod -- I just sent the workouts for basic and then stop them when I'm done. So would it be so bad to just use my iPod for music, and use a sportband for Nike+?

My concern about the sportband is the limited feedback. I mean, at least on an iPod, you can see what's happening. But the sportband has limited space to tell you whether it's working, etc.

But it was easy to install the utility on my Macbook, and get it charged, etc. I even thought I knew how to get it to link to my sensor and record.

I went to the gym at work this morning to try it out. Let's just say I think I must have misinterpreted the pictogram instructions. I pushed and prodded, "held" and tried over and over as I did 5 minutes of warming up and then 10 minutes of running. Finally, after about a mile, I managed to get the screen to display "LINK" and then "RUN". I watched it suspiciously as I ran, comparing it with the treadmill, but it was tracking about the same distances. And I managed to turn it off. So today's run was 5.15 miles, or 4.20 miles according to Nike+.

I should admit that it was most likely user error... and I'm hoping things go more smoothly on Thursday.