Brandon Fuller

Weekly Training Summary (52.45 miles / 8:00:24)

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:47:37 -0700

Comprised of 2 trips up Green, a well done long run, and nice tempo run. Decent miles on the easy days. And a rest day on Sunday with the snow. Sounds good? That total looks pathetic though. However, it is just February I suppose. And those trips up Green eat a lot of time but not much mileage.

I feel like I am firing well and not too fatigued. Tracking that TSB number a bit now to see if it correlates to how I feel.

I moved up into a new section of the training plan. They removed speedwork and put in the hills now. I am not doing the hill repeats though. I like to think I get the same thing out of a Green Mountain trip -- maybe more. Opinions? In any case, hoping to put down a few more doubles this period so I can keep up when JV returns from hiatus.

Run: Easy 7M (7.02 mi @ 08:59)

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:08:02 -0700

Snowing and cold. Bailed on the long run. Just put down an hour to stay loose. More tomorrow? On the bright side, this should dress the hills back up.

I went 7.02 miles with an elevation gain of 222 feet in 01:03:09, which is an average pace of 08:59. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Performance Management

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:49:22 -0700

One of the charts that Neal put up at the lecture was a Performance Management Chart. The idea was that you could track your effort and workload in such a way that you could measure your "form". Form = Fitness + Freshness, where fitness is result of training stress and freshness is the result of rest. Let's see how I rate right now since the beginning of the season on January 1st.

The purple line, known as ATL, is the acute/short term effects of training. Workouts done in the last 14 day

The blue line, known as CTL, is the cumulative/long term effects of training. Workouts done 15 days ago and older.

The yellow line, known as TSB, is your Training Stress Balance. If it is positive number, then this would mean you would have a good chance of running well and would suggest that you are both fit and fresh. While if your TSB was a negative number, then you it would mean that you are most likely tired from a high training load, which could possibly consist of both your CTL and your ATL being high.

I like what my ATL and CTL are doing. Up and to the right. Load is increasing meaning I am working harder. But it isn't very periodic. There should be ups and downs according to Neal.

So where is my TSB now? -74 today. The lowest of the season was -104 right before surgery. I had run 22 days non-stop. I felt fatigued. Did Green 2x in one day just before that. The rest days got me back to a -43. Do I feel like a -43? I don't know -- probably. I wanted to run this morning but my legs were tired when I thought about it laying in bed. Today is a rest day on the plan. So I think I will take a rest. This chart helps enforce that and back it up with a visual trend.

More examples and information on how to read this chart here.

There is more analysis to be done with this tool but I thought this one was cool right off the bat.

Thoughts?

Calories

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:14:27 -0700

As mentioned, I have been counting calories -- meaning I write down what I burn and what I consume. I have done no modifications to my diet during this period. I still ate what I normally would. I just observed. The goal was to understand my caloric intake a bit better. How much fuel does that meal give me for an hour run? Let's find out.

Some items that you should be aware of:

I used a tool called MyPlate at livestrong.com. Its free for 45 days of rolling data. They have an iPhone app too for $3 that I bought. I thought that would come in handy but wasn't as much. Easier to do the full analysis once per day back in front of the computer at night.
Eating at small non-chain places is brutal for this process. The local Italian place and Snarf's (sub shop) we go to has no nutritional information available. They aren't "bad" places as far as the nutrition goes but I can't tell what I am eating. For those, I had to substitute in something I thought was comparable but it could be way off. For instance, I used Subway's turkey sub instead of Snarf's. This made me gravitate towards wanting to eat things that had numbers.
Eating at home takes more work. When Kim would prepare a meal, I would have to type in all the ingredients, measure out portions, and record an approximate. The MyPlate tool helps you do this nicely and records the meal so you can reuse it later or share it.
I let Garmin tell me how many calories I burned each workout and I guarantee it isn't right. It just uses some generic formulas. We are all different. Newer HR monitors take your HR into consideration when calculating calories burnt. My watch does not. It is only time and distance.

So here is the chart that I plotted out for the time period:

Calorie Goal: The tool sets this based on how much weight you want to lose. I put in that I wanted to maintain my weight at 145. This gave me a daily baseline on what I could eat if I just sat still. You could pick your daily activity level which I set at sedentary/office worker. Your workouts aren't in this. My number was 2054.

Calories Consumed: The blue line was what I ate day to day. The average was 2693. So 600+ above what I could consume a day with no exercise.

Calories Burned: I had a 3 day dip to 0 during surgery. Liken those to normal rest days. Thought it would be good to see if I overate on those days. Average was 1323 not counting those 3 rest days.

Net Calories: The big money! My number was 1603. Remember the goal was 2054 in order to maintain my weight. So this says I was 451 calories short on average per day. If I changed my goal to lose a pound a week, the daily calorie goal is 1554. Just below what I was putting down. So my guess is that my deficit was causing me to burn about 3/4 pound a week.

Did that line up? No. I haven't lost any weight. I am hovering (frustrating!) quite nicely at this weight. I see dips through the week but I haven't seen anything I would call a trend.

I am not out to lose massive weight right now but dropping a fraction of a pound a week sounds good to me. Over the course of a season/cycle, I should see a dip then. I hope to get into the 130s at some point and then hold that for the rest of my adult life.

The other thing the tool does is give you daily breakdowns. Here is a random day so you can see. I am not smart enough yet to know how to manage this. That would be a whole new dimension. Getting the calories but making sure they are the right breakdown.

Conclusions:

If you really want to track calories, specifically calories burned, you need a method that uses HR to help make the data more accurate. Otherwise, you are not going to accurately know what you burnt. If you are trying to lose small amounts of weight per week, the inaccuracy of the numbers will factor in and frustrate you.
There is no possible way for a person to lose weight if you don't exercise. Oh, I know that's not true. But looking at my calorie intake -- small breakfast (200 calories) and controlling portions, it wasn't enough to get under my calorie goal for the day. A "normal" lunch and dinner blows you out of the water. And you haven't had a snack! So if you want to lose weight happily, exercise. Run. It is the biggest bang for the buck around. It litterly gets you an entire meal and a snack.
Counting calories is easier than it used to be but still is tough unless you live by things you can measure.
I was under my FDA fiber every day by 50%.
I am under-eating -- just slightly. A GU (100 calories) and a Gatorade (200 calories) per run would top me off. I need to get better about eating pre and post run. Not a huge amount but making sure I am replacing the calories right after the workout.

Not sure if I am going to continue logging. It is easy but I am not going to collect data just to collect data. I got the picture of how I am right now. That is what I was after and I learned a lesson and will make a small change. Otherwise, unless there is other big no-no's in this, I have other areas that I can spend time in for improvement.

Thoughts?

Now Playing Facebook Support Updated

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:39:47 -0700

The "API gods" over at Facebook have decided to once again change the world by removing the ability to update profile boxes via the API. They seem to be locking down the profile by only allowing some type of tabs to be created. I am bored. Too many changes.

Given that and the difficulty in setting up profile stuff, I am bailing on the profile support and giving in to the demands of my users that have asked.

Now Playing does status updates or publishes news feed items!

You can choose between status updates or news feed items. Here is what a status update look like this. Text is fully configurable.

However, if you want a juicier post, you can go for a news feed item. If you get an Amazon match for the track, you will get a prettier display with album artwork. I am not supporting custom album artwork here because most people can't get it right (read too hard to support). The message part of the post is configurable but the rest is not -- for now.

You will have to grant Now Playing another Facebook permission to make this work. The best bet is just to repeat the setup process on the plugin configuration page.

I also brought over the recent Twitter changes I had put into the Mac edition. Now all editions have the same functionality for Facebook and Twitter.

Hope you enjoy the new stuff. Let me know how it goes.

Run: Green Mountain (5.74 mi)

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 08:13:35 -0700

Ran from the bottom to the 4-way with no walks today. Even up that last steep slope. Calves were burning. I tend to stay on my toes on the uphill I noticed. Is that good or bad? Put some speed back into my downhill successfully today.

Kind of thinking about getting another in tomorrow...

I went 5.74 miles with an elevation gain of 2,610 feet in 01:19:22, which is an average pace of 13:50. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

BTR Speaker Series: Training Intensity

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:07:48 -0700

Last night, I went to see a presentation put on by Neal Henderson. Neal is the director of the Sport Science department at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine and an elite coach. He has been named USA Cycling's national coach of the year in 2009 based on his work with multiple-time world champion Taylor Phinney. Given that resume and a free lecture, how could you pass up this kind of knowledge?

I opted to eat at Larkburger beforehand. Ran into Justin there. He was coming/going from a massage nearby. Headed over to Sherpa's and waited while 30+ folks finished up their dining on the Napali and Indian buffet before we got started. Neal is a Boulder guy so he had plenty of anecdotes about locals and would throw in stuff like "...when you are running up Sanitas". Right up my alley!

He went over a lot of information on training methodology. Most of this stuff isn't radically new information to me. You pick up up over time reading here and there. But it isn't often put together in such a way with a qualified professional spoon feeding it to you slide by slide and answering your questions. I didn't try to capture every slide he put up instead I was really trying to digest everything and see how I compared.

Over the hour+ Neal spoke, he covered a lot of data. I collect a lot of data on myself day to day but I never exactly know what to do with it. Look at my HR graph. Pretty. Next. Well, Neal gave some insight on what things you should be looking for and how you can take that data and do more with it to understand your body and your training cycles. He would share anecdotes about a situation with a world-record level athlete and then some random 10k runner from Boulder. They see all kinds and while there are different levels of athlete at play, the variables are all the same.

After the presentation, I headed over to Boulder Baked to get a box of custom made hot and fresh cookies for Kim upon my arrival home as a thank you for letting me escape my nightly kid bedtime ritual. As I was walking to my car, I walked by the Tesla dealership and gazed at some car porn for a few seconds. I didn't get as big of a hard one as I did the first time I saw this car. It seems so small now. But I still love it and once I turn 40 and can show I have the kid's college money in the bank, something at this caliber will probably be parked in my garage.

Oh, I almost forgot -- what did I learn? Where do I begin! In no particular order and only as far as I recall...here is a random list of things. Some of this I already knew but it was clarified or further explained through data.

Choose Your Parents Wisely: Some people are gifted at the sport and others are not. This is a major factor. Don't let it stop you but understand that you are not like everyone else. Some people get more fast twitch muscles. Some get more slow twitch muscles. If you understand your strengths, then you have more informed knowledge about choosing events that cater towards your strengths. Meaning a slow twitch guy isn't going to get the WR in sprinting but has an advantage in longer endurance events.
Overtraining is a disease: If they see one thing more than anything at the Center, it is people that overtrain. Neal showed plenty of graphs to illustrate this. One tool he showed took your GPS/HR/etc. data and converted into power and fatigue numbers. Then when graphed, you could see peaks and valleys. Neal talked about how people in the valley tend to show psychological signs of fatigue (like being pissy). His goal was to balance their training out. People who had hit the wall have come to him for this analysis. They often end up running less for 6 months and then breaking their PR with proper coaching or insight.
You probably do more high intensity work than pro/elite athletes do. He showed some good graphs that broke down every workout by zone 1-5. Over the course of a year, these elites were doing 0.5-2% in zone five for the year. Not much at all. Low minutes a week if that. The majority of the time 40-60% was all zone 1 stuff. Running slower is a major component to running faster. I personally got this concept last Fall training for Denver. Much slower in training, yet 20 minutes faster on the PR.
Lactate Threshold is important. We spent a lot of slides on LT. Neal explained exactly how they test and measure this on you if you come in. I finally got a solid answer on how they know the moment you cross LT. The graphs showed what your lactate levels do after LT. Hockey stick baby! He backed up the recent article I read saying lactate is not evil. There were 4 lines on that graph and I forgot to snap a photo of that one. Great to visualize that data.
Training just below LT is much better than training just above LT. He explained psychological reasons and physiological reasons on why this is. Overall, you get more bang for the buck being on the low side. But you have to know where that is.
Nutrition is important. He showed slides on how various athletes burn carbs vs. fats at various paces. Many graphs were like this where they took pace across the X-axis and started you slow and kept increasing in steady increments. You could see how the mix of carbs to fat burnt changed at each interval and how it correlated back to LT. You could find crossover points. You could take those paces and those amounts burnt and calculate for your given race requirements what it would take to get to the finish line. They discussed short races, marathons, and 100 mile races and how the requirements change because of the time you have available to feel the effects of what you are consuming.
Training cycles should include rest. Neal seemed to gravitate towards a 16 day on period followed by a 5 day rest period. That makes 21 days or 3 week in a period. Multiple periods for a cycle. If rest isn't a part of your training plan, then you are wrong from the start. He explained that he takes your event date and first works backwards to insert the rest periods. Then starts coloring in the workload. Rest didn't mean do not run of course. Active recovery was well advised. But cutting down your workload by up to 50% was. Workload was the term often used...not miles or time. He had a formula for workload and it involved time, effort and frequency. So your mileage should drop of course but might not be by 50%. If you can drop your workload but still get miles, you might be better served.
Peaking? He touched on it but didn't detail it. We were over an hour at this point. He could have done another whole hour (or more) on that topic alone. I got the feeling that he could easily teach a one hour class on this stuff and you still wouldn't get through it all in a semester. I guess that is why there are coaches! They do the brain work while you spend all your time outside running around the block.
Barefoot running? Neal asserted that there is something to it during a quick Q and A session.
Going to sea level to race? I asked this question to see if he had any advice for Boston. He gave me 2 tidbits that made a lot of sense. One costs money and the other is free. I may do both.

Good news is that I was on to most of that stuff already. I am not really respecting the rest as I should be though. I need to chart that out some more and plan for it better. See where it really is. I felt totally drained before my surgery from those 22 days straight of good workload. Then 3 days off then a few days easy and I was back faster and better. The data is all there and my geek brain needed a push to get me to the next level in analyzing it all.

Part of me leaves a session like that and thinks "I should get a coach!". But then I realize that 1/2 the fun in this for me is that I do it on my own. I use friends and community as resources but I feel like if I had Chris Carmichael on the payroll and then finished 10th at Leadville, everyone would go....did you see who is coach was? Duh. But if I finish deeper in the pack on my own, I will feel more satisfied with my achievement. That being said, I can see taking advantage of one time consulting sessions with experts like Neal to get a 2nd opinion on what you think you are doing. I might not be able to spot something as quickly as a trained professional even though it is in my own body. Frankly, we are sometimes the worst judges of our own abilities.

The "marketing message" out there is train harder and train more often. OK, yes but the part they leave out is "train smart" and that involves not training at all -- sometimes.

Thanks to BTR for a great evening.

Now Playing Twitter Support Now On Mac

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:45:26 -0700

When I started seeing this phenomenon, I knew I had to get back to work on my Mac OS X version of Now Playing.

I added Twitter support for my Windows editions back in 2007. However, that was before Twitter was Twitter and nobody knew what to do with it. Fast forward to today when people are manually typing in their personal "now playing" messages. How barbaric!

I wasn't going to add Twitter support on the Mac edition because of the lack of usage I saw on the Windows side. However, with this #nowplaying trend, it got me excited about giving it a go. Not too much to code other than all the required OAuth stuff that I had to put in. Got that going which has the added benefit of putting "Now Playing" as the source of the tweet. See?

That is a hyperlink to the plugin too. Very cool. Hopefully that raises awareness.

I just pushed out the update today after working on it over the course of a week. So to all you faithful plugin users, get your update on and start #nowplaying!

Download here.

Run: Slow 11M (11.19 mi @ 07:34)

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:16:18 -0700

First 15 minutes were bumpy. Effort was lower than it should of been till I got warmed up and convinced myself to go. Ended up locking into the Slow zone which means max 148 HR. Started finding myself below PR marathon pace while in the slow range. WTF? Sweet. Legs were warm by the end and I was dipping sub-7 while staying at 148 bpm. It all came together today.

I went 11.19 miles with an elevation gain of 330 feet in 01:24:41, which is an average pace of 07:34. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Green Mountain (5.67 mi)

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:50:19 -0700

Sydney wanted to go out for breakfast this morning so we did. I usually don't eat much pre-run but I had a few hundred calories, including chicken, egg, and a bagel. I wasn't sure how it was going to sit given I don't run well on a moderately full stomach. But I figured with the uphill today, it wouldn't be so constricting.

Hit the trailhead at the normal time and started up Gregory. Decided that I was going to try something different like I had on Sanitas before. Instead of attacking the start, I was going to rate limit my HR to about 155. I usually will spike to 160-165 and then blow a lung and have to back down for a few to get it back. So staying lower should help me stay more consistent on the effort. I ran everything but 2 spots: the big rock face that is all bulletproof ice right now and the steps by the telephone pole. Hit the lodge in about 20 flat. A little slower than recent splits but I took the downhill into the lodge pretty slow.

From there, I headed up and knew this section would be tougher to hold the goal. Saw AK on his 30-ish summit. Made it to the Greenman junction with no issues. Got up to the ridge with no issues. Then comes the big climb. We need a name for that next section. It is straight up. I was burning up my calves but I kept on the run. I made it up to the top of that climb and I was still on it. Sweet. Keep on the run all the way up to the next ridge and all the way into the switchbacks. Gave up the run when I hit the final snow covered pitch. It is probably too steep to run anyway. Hit the 4-way in 20 and change. That was a good split for me. A minute off the other days 2-3 minute PR.

Up the stairs nice and easy. Probably should drop my spikes at that point. Topped out with a nice time for me. Happy that I ran so much of that thing. Keep that up and then bring in some speed. Took a breather at the summit and then headed down. Took it super slow just for the sake of my right nad.

Felt like doing more distance but needed to get back home and get rolling on the day.

I went 5.67 miles with an elevation gain of 2,993 feet in 01:24:38, which is an average pace of 14:55. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Slow 16M (16.34 mi @ 07:42)

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 09:36:53 -0700

After yesterday's crappy run, I was hoping for more today. I took my pulse first thing and it was down to 40. It was 53 yesterday after my short 6 hours of sleep. My body felt much more rested. Things were tight from the start and I thought it was going to be a long day. I hit Panera at mile 7 to get a glass of water and take a Gu. Why carry it if you can stop and get it fresh?

After that pause, things picked up. My legs were loose and I felt a bunch better rhythm. I spent most of my effort keeping my HR dialed in. I wanted to stay in the high side of the slow range. I would fade down now and then. Went high a few times. But basically held it.

As I neared home, I dropped the pace by :30 a mile to bring it home strong. Legs were just starting to fatigue a bit as I hit the watch for the finish. Encouraging run today. Slow long runs used to be in the 8s. Then 7:50s. Now, 7:40s.

I went 16.34 miles with an elevation gain of 607 feet in 02:06:00, which is an average pace of 07:42. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Easy 5M (5.01 mi @ 08:35)

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:47:04 -0700

Weird day. Only 6 hours of sleep and I feel it. Knew I couldn't do the scheduled long run today because of work meetings so postponed till tomorrow. Did eat lunch before the run and didn't get out till 2. Was just dead and sluggish and hamstrings were tight. No fun so came back early. Basically a rest day.

I went 5.01 miles with an elevation gain of 139 feet in 00:43:00, which is an average pace of 08:35. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

January Training Summary

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:51:40 -0700

250.23 miles in 29 outings in a time of 38:10:34 with an elevation gain of 29,695 feet at an average heart rate of 145.

The first month of the year is in the bag. Feels good to be on the road to the promised land. It won't come soon enough.

Looking backwards, I only ran more miles 2 months last year -- just before Denver. Ran only 1/2 this total last January. Clearly, I am on a new mission. I will call it now -- 250 is my minimum floor for monthly mileage 2010 until Leadville. Onward and upward. It was a good workload for me with a family/work balance. I am glad I have those 2 things because I bet I would be doing 400 out of sheer determination.

Ran with lots of the boys this month -- JV, Homie, GZ, Chris, Jim P, and Tony. I owe Brownie a run up this way. And I have yet to hook up with Lucho.

While others will top me in mileage, this was a great month for me. I was able to run every single day that I was physically able. Took 3 days off for the big surgery and those were my only rest days of the month. Makes me feel good to be so consistent. Maybe too much so but I didn't feel like I was hurting myself. I could probably rest a bit more now and then but I feel much better putting down a solid strict easy run. Keeps my blood pumping, lungs prepared, and metabolism in check.

Another big change over prior training months was putting down more frequent and longer uphill training sessions. I traded in Sanitas this cycle for Green and it was a welcome change. I am getting a much better workout from my trips up there. 7 trips up Green Mountain so far this year. If this trend continues, I might shoot for 52 trips on the year just so I can say I visited nearly every week of the year. It takes me 30 minutes door to trailhead so I am losing valuable running time when I choose to go down there but I think it is going to pay off. I will be excited to do a time trial up there once the snow is completely gone.

Wasn't so hot on the speedwork this month but when am I ever? Hopefully, it will start coming to me this month. But the long runs are just smooth now. Oh, how I used to struggle with those 2-3 years ago.

So how are am I progressing against the goals?

A) Leadville - It seems so far away but almost not. Once the weather warms up, I know it is going to just be around the corner. I feel good about the trail runs and the 2-fers and the lack of rest days. All those things seem to be good Leadville training. Talking to Tony, I need to get up to 12-15 hours a week solid. I see that as a nice jump and I don't have any fear of that. The days are just too short right now. Plus, it isn't time. Post-Boston I think.

B) Boston - Who knows? I ran further in January than ever before. I should be in good shape since I am on my sub-3 hour training plan and following it -- and doing more. I just don't see the speed coming my way to drop to the pace I need. But I am not in that phase yet so I won't sweat it.

Weight is holding steady at my Denver Marathon weight. I will expand on this shortly. Getting 2 weeks of calorie data first and then we will dissect.

Thanks for all the comments this month. The daily posts probably get boring at times but it helps me as I take a minute each day to reflect on what I am doing right or wrong.

Run: Easy 10M (10.05 mi @ 08:31)

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:50:31 -0700

Ran late. Went easy. Sun went down on me and I was in the pitch black. Couldn't see the road anymore. I was dressed in black. Yikes. Got it in to cap off the month.

65 miles on the week. With 1 Green Mountain trip in there and 1 day off.

I went 10.05 miles with an elevation gain of 303 feet in 01:25:39, which is an average pace of 08:31. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Green Mountain (5.66 mi) & Slow 6M (6.50 mi @ 08:06)

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:04:33 -0700

Ain't no stopping me now. 2-fer day! Brownie claimed he wasn't going to run while in Durango so I need to catch back up.

Woke up and saw the sun and decide to go to Green today instead of tomorrow. Exactly 7.5 days post-surgery and I was headed back to the dirt. How awesome. I couldn't have asked for a better recovery. However, come June I will probably be wishing I took more than 3 days off when I had the chance.

I ran my normal pace up to the lodge. Splits are now pretty consistent at 19 flat to the lodge. I will get another minute once the snow is gone and I can slam the downhill there as you descend to the lodge. Got 50 yards up from the lodge and ran into Tony. Stopped him to chat for a minute. I was slightly rested from the stop so I motored to the 4-way taking 2-3 minutes off my winter best split. Then up the stairs and summit. Not a bad ascent. Legs were fresh for the first time in ages. Lungs were hurting.

I was ready to rock the descent but I took one jump off the first rock and my right nad said: No way. Um, OK then. I was like it was attached to the shock absorber in my right leg. I can run flat or up all day but big down bounces on that leg didn't feel good. So I slowed down and got used to it. As the descent continued, I practiced leading with my left leg. Apparently, I always take the steps right leg first. So this was a fun correction exercise.

Spent time with the family and helped Kim do more payroll taxes and stuff for Orion. Year end sucks. Some of it had to go in the mail today so I put on my Nathan vest and loaded up with mail. Special delivery! I ran to the post office and back to make the last drop off of the day. Never say that I don't try to be green. Felt good to get some slow miles in to up the total. The only sad part was that I realized while showering after that I only ran ~2:15 today and not 2:20 total. Oh well.

I went 12.16 miles with an elevation gain of 2,980 feet in 02:14:14. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Steady 11M (11.01 mi @ 07:30)

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:40:55 -0700

The fog lifted finally and the sun was out. I felt like getting after it a bit today so I moved up into the steady (150s) zone. Had to keep managing my pace as I found myself drifting up from time to time. At mile 10, I got a big side cramp. Brought down the pace and pushed through it to finish at 11M as lunch was being delivered by Kim. Was in the mood for more today before the cramp but it was good to cap it.

My week was spent doing full on performance improvements to my Directory product. We aren't even out of beta yet but that isn't stopping me from fine tuning every angle of this thing. It has been a good exercise this week. I probably should write up what I did but it is all a mix of everything else that already exists online. Just had to find it, apply it, and verify it.

Guess who got an iPad?

I went 11.01 miles with an elevation gain of 393 feet in 01:22:43, which is an average pace of 07:30. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

iPad

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:27:04 -0700

Of course, I was all excited to see what Jobsus would bring down from the mountain yesterday. The tablet was real. Finally. Nearly tired of it dominating the rumor discussion for the last few years. However, from there it kind of went downhill for me.

I agreed with Steve that netbooks are not great for anything. They are cheap computers. And maybe for some folks, they are awesome. But for me, they don't fill any need. I am constantly trying to run a dozen applications while debugging code, updating my blogs, watching or listening to something, etc. The laptop form factor works for me...most of the time. When I am mobile or sitting in bed, I like it. But during the day, I need multiple 30" screens to keep my mind busy. I need my full on keyboard, etc. A netbook would provide me no value.

Shooting to the other end of the spectrum, we have the iPhone. I use it a lot. I stay connected all the time. I keep on my work email, personal email, and more all the time. I also can keep moving through my steady stream of news for the day. Roughly 250 articles a day. I skim things at stop lights, waiting in line for food, and on the toilet.

So in between my desktop, my laptop and my iPhone, I don't need any other devices that I know of to work, play or consume media.

However, sometimes there are better ways to do things. Being the geek I am, I have been waiting for a eBook reader that seemed like it would work for me. I almost pulled the trigger on a Kindle before Christmas but then I decided to test it with their iPhone app that reads the Kindle books. I read one whole non-fiction book on it over the holidays. It wasn't terrible. I would slide in pages here and there. Waiting on a table, standing in line, etc. Then I could think about those pages, consume them, debate them, before getting into a few more later that day. The downside was that my eyes were bugging out. 15 minutes and I was glazed over. Staring so intently at an actively lit screen was at fault. Now I get the digital eInk...passive!

So I should get the Kindle and be done with it. Well, once I got back from the holidays the "iSlate" rumor mill got cranking and put me into a state of FUD and I didn't pull the trigger. Maybe Apple will have one and you know you have to have that one I would tell myself. No matter what the Kindle might do...you know you will want an iPad just because. Its the Apple brainwash in full effect. I would never have to explain my iPad to anyone but I would have to for the Kindle.

Now that the cards are all on the table, what to do? The Kindle is simple. It does books. It is trying to do more but that is just so they can check boxes. It seems to be the best eBook reader around. The downside lately seems to be about every other book I want is not available. Mostly geek books. The publishers just are not on board. Plus, something about not being able to see color photos if they were in the book bothers me. I almost want a screen with dual modes but that seems impossible.

As for the iPad, a few things bugged me.

1. Going with the iPhone OS? Son of a bitch. It is one thing to lock my phone down on me. But I see the iPad as more like a laptop than a phone. I want Mac OS X. I want to install my own apps. I want file system access. I know I maybe in the minority here. Plenty of (less sophisicated) users would be just fine with apps from the App Store. These follks don't know what to do with a Finder or a Terminal anyway. That is cool. But that isn't me. I wish the iPad had an option for a limited or full experience.

2. For me, a tablet will never be a tablet until we have ink input. It has always been my dream. Writing on the screen. Whiteboarding. Having those things solidify into actual text, shapes, etc. Much like the game Crayon Physics has done but more in a business application. We didn't get that. Surely, somebody will have improved App Store apps where you draw with your finger. But I wanted Apple to innovate there. We needed the big guns.

3. So then for input, we are back to on screen keyboards. I have grown used to it on the iPhone. If the iPhone had a fold out keyboard, I might go with that. I appreciate keeping the screen space for display and not a hard keyboard. But on the tablet, it is just going to be the same issue for me as the iPhone -- if I have serious input to do, I wait until I get home on a keyboard and pound out the text 10x faster. I can then include links, photos, etc. I just don't see a good input potential. I don't see it being the "better email client" as Steve said.

4. Then maybe its a remote media screen. Well, major fuck up there. The screen dimensions are wrong. Its more like a 4x3. We are at 16x9 now. And then we have to tolerate wide screen movies where we still get black bars. I don't want this 10" display and only use 4" of it to watch the movie. Might as well be on my iPhone then.

5. So back to the book reader. Assuming they will all have the same titles over time and that the costs are all the same, what's the difference. It boils down to the active vs. passive display for me. I go back and forth. Active would be nice for some books where there are color pictures. My kids would prefer reading Dr. Seuss on the iPad of course. But for a business book, the Kindle/passive would be better. Right now, they both just do the books and don't seem to add any new value to the mix. How about cool note taking abilites? Clipping? Sharing with friends? I need some interactive and social features and nobody is there. Good thing about the iPad, I think those could be in release 1.1 via software upgrade. Something tells me I would have to buy a new Kindle if they did it there.

On the final front of pricing, you can get into a Kindle for $250. That isn't bad. Would be nice if it came with book credits or something for a deal. Base iPad at $499 but I would never buy that one. I would max out everything bringing me up into the $829. But I don't get the 3G service free with that. $30 a month? I can't tether to my iPhone. Fail. I do a ton of 3G data on the phone so I imagine the same with the iPad -- or not. I will probably not be doing this in a car. Mostly at home? And if I was on a road trip, the 3G is pay as you go so pick up a month. Frankly, I have desired that for my laptop from time to time. Like over the holiday travel it would be nice to have a 3G card but you can't do month to month like that. Anyway, $250 -> $829 is a huge price jump if you are really into the $$ but we all know you pay more to be outfitted in aluminum with fruit logos.

So what to do? I have no god damn clue. Part of me says just buy a Kindle for now. Enjoy it. The books I buy in their store could be viewed on my iPhone, MacBook (soon!), and on the iPad via the Kindle App. It is a good solid reader and might be a great dedicated way to read more. When the iPad finally launches, see how it rolls. Don't be first in line. See what the next revision offers. I really wanted the iPhone 1.0 but I knew not having 3G would kill me when I had it already. So I waited and it paid off. Might do the same here. Then ultimately have one of each. There are 5 people with eyes in our home -- surely, all of these screens will be put to good use at one moment or another.

Thoughts?

Run: Slow 10M (10.53 mi @ 08:08)

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:10:38 -0700

Yucky day outside. I was looking forward to some more white fluffy snow. Instead we got a dusting and that was enough to junk up the roads with big old mud puddles. I went earlier today after yesterday's gut issue from lunch. Felt much better but I was cold. Didn't dress warm enough and my blood temps seem to be warmer these days from our slightly warmer weather. I had my first moment today where I thought -- it will be nice to run in the heat again.

Average HR was higher than target range. Not sure why. There was a headwind and it was wet, slick, and cold. Just zoned out and kept at it today. Not happy with the pace or the HR but oh well. It was a good run and I came in all muddy up the back of the legs. Quads feel tired this evening so that is good. I must be doing something.

Ready to hit the hills again. Might try this weekend.

I went 10.53 miles with an elevation gain of 233 feet in 01:25:41, which is an average pace of 08:08. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Easy 14M (14.01 mi @ 08:35)

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:53:27 -0700

Staying in the easy zone until the weekend but getting good aerobic effort in. It was colder out there today that I expected with the cloudy skies. I am driven by the sun and I hope it returns shortly. Nothing momentous on this run. I never checked my junk a single time so I think it is behind me now.

As I came back within a mile of home, I saw somebody big sitting in the tree near the railroad tracks. I figured it was him -- one of the Bald Eagles that is nesting between our home and Union Reservoir. I stopped briefly and took a look up at him. High in the tree he was perched just checking out the views. I quickly got back home and grabbed Reagan and sped back over in my truck. As we pulled up, he got nervous and flew off. What a cool site it was! Such a wing span. He seemed confused where to go. He headed west and did a big circle then came all the way back to us and landed in another tree nearby. I had my "big ass lens" out so I just started firing pictures. No sense in lining up for good shots. Just shoot and see what I got when I get home. We watched him there for a while before getting back in the truck and heading back home. As we drove beneath him (the tree hangs out over the road), he was looking right down on us. We made eye contact through the sunroof. I took a few more shots out the window and headed out. He then flew off to the north following a pack of of geese (I think).

Looks like a stealth bomber in that last photo. I wish I had time to learn to use my camera better. But it was fun shooting something real in the wild so close to home. A few more pictures in the slideshow.

I went 14.01 miles with an elevation gain of 598 feet in 02:00:16, which is an average pace of 08:35. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.

Run: Easy 7M (7.07 mi @ 08:37)

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:09:26 -0700

First run after being neutered. It is good to be back! Did you miss me?

I had Kim do a scrotum check on me last night for a 2nd opinion. All looks well. No soreness or swelling. I shredded my prescription for Vicodin. Never needed it. Never even took a Tylenol. So I woke up today knowing that I would run. Waited till the afternoon and went out for a leisurely run around the place. Was going to stay in the neighborhood, but that turned into a spin around the county roads then back through the neighborhood. All was well but admittedly I would stop every couple miles and check my junk. I was on edge like all of a sudden I would have Elephantiasis or something.

So 3 full days off. Will just do three 2-fers in the coming weeks and it will be a zero sum outing.

I have 2 more responsibilities with the surgery. First, I was instructed to drain the tube 12 times. Oh, darn! Second, do the follow-up to check for swimmers. That should be good. But the other thing I am sort of dreading is that "drain #1". What will that feel like? Some have pain after this surgery from then on. I hope that isn't the case.

Been seriously counting my calories over days now. Getting into the swing of it. Eat something and I log it online. Restaurants are pretty easy. Stuff with labels is easy. I even dissected Kim's recipe the other night, measured my portion, and logged that. The cool part is that running gives you a great deal more calories per day to play with. If you don't exercise, you are seriously in a box with how much you can eat. I will report in soon on this once I get a couple weeks down so I can see trends.

I went 7.07 miles with an elevation gain of 249 feet in 01:00:58, which is an average pace of 08:37. View my GPS data on Garmin Connect.