Tucson 1/2 Marathon Gang

My $135 Asics shoes I love are 1/2 off on Eastbay. If you want a stability shoe for a bigger runner, you should buy these. I am buying another pair.

Buy Me

How will the group runs work? Lets start taking suggestions. Most of the 13mg is far east side (all I guess). I would prefer not to run on a track, but that's just me. Saguaro National Park? Old Spanish Trail? Somewhere in Vail? Tucson to Vail on I-10?

Also, want to make sure we come to an understanding about these: my take is these are not competition. Run as fast or slow as you like, doesn't matter. No running in a group so everyone feels included. Any thoughts?

So who is in?

What are your personal goals?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050817/ap_on_fe_st/run_like_gump

"Why settle for just having a job and getting married?" Williams told the Tribune-Review newspaper in Pittsburgh, when questioned about his motivation. "Why not just do something different? Why not just live?"

This is what my training log looks like. I have a similar view with my "goal", and then one with the delta so I can graph my progress.

For now, my biggest initiative is to just get the time in, which is represented by columns T. The approximate distance (miles) is in column D, and the percentage of the time that I spent running is R. Soon, the goal will be to have the R column be 100% on most days, especially the long run day.

I am also logging my weight loss, but you don't need to see that....

Over the last 5 days, I have been afflicted with:

• Minor knee pain
• Strange "coming and going" hip pain
• lower back pain, especially in the morning.

This, coupled with previous commitments and weather means I am getting way off schedule. The knee pain I think is just "normal", and the back pain is fine after I move around a little, but makes it hard to run in morning.

Looking through our gear list, I noticed that alot of you are running in cotton-type baketball shorts. Let me say from experience that somewhere after the 4 mile mark (assuming you like me are a mild to grossly fat dude) you are very likely to get some chaffing going on your inner thighs. Putting something slick under your shorts can go along way to preventing this. I use either bike shorts or spandex. I have read that they have various kinds of lube (Body Glide is one type) but that just seemed goofy.

I also read that after 8 or so miles you can start to get the same problem under arm and even on your chest (nipples in particular). I have only gone over 8 a few times and never had any of that but we will see as we get higher in training.

G$ brought up GPS and running tights in his last comment. I'll probably sound defensive but I think it might be worthwhile to discuss the gear people are using for our little adventure. What do you like or not like etc.

Headwear
Audio
Shirt
Jacket
Shorts/Pants
Socks
Shoes
Watch/HRM

Caloric Burn Discussion on Running vs. Walking from Runners World

The above article discusses the "physics-al" difference between running and walking, and why they burn different amounts of energy to travel the same distance. Excerpted from the bottom of the article:



What's the Burn? A Calorie Calculator

You can use the formulas below to determine your calorie-burn while running and walking. The "Net Calorie Burn" measures calories burned, minus basal metabolism. Scientists consider this the best way to evaluate the actual calorie-burn of any exercise. The walking formulas apply to speeds of 3 to 4 mph. At 5 mph and faster, walking burns more calories than running.

Adapted from "Energy Expenditure of Walking and Running," Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise, Cameron et al, Dec. 2004.

I finally got my Garmin 301 (link) uber-watch to work here in Stockholm. Turns out if you leave a 100 mile radius from your original setup you have to do a kind of reset. Not only is it working now but it is so awesome I am having trouble not running again today. The software it comes with makes a good graph showing either distance or time against pace and heart rate.

I got the data to then upload to this site (www.motionbased.com) and from there can be displayed with more options than the native software.

If you can't sleep nights wondering what my runs are like, feel free to log on to www.motionbased.com (id=csbaker24, pw=running), click on My Activities. Click an activity to see the details or put a checkbox next to it and hit Keyhole to see it displayed in Keyhole. If you don't know what Keyhole is (now named Google Earth) you should definitely download it and play around. Its amazing.