Category Archives: Running

August Update

Posted by on August 2, 2008 Comments Off

So I sat down to think about why I haven’t touched this blog in two and a half months and that last entry pretty much tells the story. Turns out starting a business takes a lot of hard work and long hours and an emotional and physical toll (channeling Mike Rowe here) that doesn’t leave much room for writing self-indulgent blog posts about how awesome I am.

The business, in this case, is a new division of an existing company, but that makes little difference. Since March of this year my every waking thought has been on video production, and building a department that could not only present quality work from outside producers, but produce our own, and I only now, in August, feel like we’ve gotten somewhere and I can maybe take a breath.

We went out to LA with a crew to cover the E3 2008 conference and managed to put together \several episodes of video coverage of the event. I think it’s entertaining. Six episodes are up now, and one or two more are forthcoming. If the response is good enough we may do more video using a similar format. We’re still refining the process and our approach, but I think we’ve hit on something that could be a lot of fun, and we’re having fun making them. So I call that a win all the way around.

So that’s all been keeping me busy, but the wheels seem to be greased now and I might get some breathing room. Who knows? Perhaps even enough to start updating this blog regularly again, but if you hold your breath waiting for that one, be sure there’s an EMT standing by with oxygen.

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Race for the Cure 2008

Posted by on May 15, 2008 Comments Off

There are three possible reasons a guy might be for supporting the fight against breast cancer. The first would be that he’s a breast fan, which, let’s face it, most of us are. The second might be that it’s one of the single most deadly diseases to women in the world, and things like that are pretty damn scary to think about. The third would be that he knows someone who’s had it.

In my case all three apply, and since I’ve been on this running kick lately, the chance to run and support the search a cure simultaneously just sounded like a good idea. So I’ll be running in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure competitive 5K, June 14 in Raleigh. If you’d like to come out and watch me suffer in the miserable heat, the race details are below. If you’d also like to run, you can sign up at the race site. And if you’d like to sponsor my run and help me raise some money to save some breasts, you can do that by following the link below:

http://race.komennctriangle.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=1030&px=1280386

I’m not shooting for the moon on raising money, because I hate asking, but every little bit helps. And if you just want to come down and throw things at me, that’d be cool, too.

April Running

Posted by on April 18, 2008 Comments Off

I hit the 100 mile mark with Nike+ two weeks ago. That was thrilling. I’d been running for a few months before picking up the Nike+ system, so my actual mileage total is somewhat higher, but there’s something inherently cool about having evidence of that sort of thing.

I wrote about this in The Escapist last week, in my feature article, “Master Chief in Sneakers.” The gist being there’s an art to making life as interesting and fun as playing a game, and Nike has mastered it. If you run, and wish running were more fun, you should give it a read.

Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong has been talking to me a lot lately. I’ve beaten my personal best for the mile three of the last four times I’ve gone out. Perhaps it’s the warming weather, or perhaps I’m just feeling the need to push a lot more lately, but whatever it is, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I’m clocking a mile at just under 8 minutes lately. I think going for 7 is a real possibility.

I am a bit frustrated with the Nike+ right now though. I may have to recalibrate it. I paced out a course running about 2.8 miles a while back, and the Nike+ keeps clocking it shorter and shorter. I may have to recalibrate it, which is a pain in the ass. This makes me distrust all of the data it gives me, which is even more of a pain in the ass. Especially if it means my recent gains are just ghosts in the machine.

There’s no denying the physical effect of all this running though. I’d bought a couple pairs of new jeans in the fall, because my old ones didn’t fit anymore. I was up to a size 36 for a few months before I started running. I had to buy 34s again in February, now those are too loose. I don’t think I’ve worn a size 32 jean since high school. Shirts I had to give up wearing last year are suddenly too small, and I’m actually starting to feel fit. It’s hard to describe, but almost everything seems more possible now, more manageable. It’s as if, having reclaimed my body, there isn’t anything it and I can’t conceive of accomplishing.

The trick now is not getting complacent. I’m treating myself to meals out and the occasional wine binge here and there. But certain foods and beverages are still just plain out. Perhaps for good. Ice cream, for example, and Five Guys Burgers and Fries, Vishnu help me. I’m hoping I’ve reached a point of balance where I can occasionally enjoy some of the things I used to enjoy too much, but my ultimate goal is just to never get so out of shape again that I can’t wear my own clothes.

I was a fat kid, and I’ve had a few run ins with weight trouble in my adult years, but I still just don’t get people who put on an extra hundred or two pounds before deciding to do anything about it. Over a two year period, I backslid a whole jean size and it upset me so much I’ve been doing all, of this. I don’t think it’s remarkable, what I’ve done, I just decided to do it. Perhaps that’s the remarkable part. I don’t know. I wish we lived in a world where that sort of thing was commonplace, that kind of determination to pursue self worth was integral to all of our beings. I know it isn’t, and that is the saddest thought I’ve had all week.

I Have a Crack In My Finger

Posted by on April 18, 2008 2 comments

I’m sorry but it seems I, along with you, am doomed to suffer only twice monthly updates to this blog. I promise to do better, and yet I fail. So many analogies, so little time …

My excuse this month is one of those annoying cracks on my finger. My right hand typing finger, to be precise. My dirty secret: I’ve never learned to type properly. Instead of caressing meaning from a variety of finger presses, silently coaxing words from the QWERTY keyboard, like my colleagues, I pound them out like Beethoven at a piano, but using fewer fingers, and making a less pleasing sound.

Bystanders frequently ask why I hit the keys so hard. I have no answer, save I learned (and I use the term loosley) to type on an old Underwood typewriter. Although I never mastered the art of five finger typing, I did get the science of pressing letters out of ancient typewriter ribbons down pat. BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, KA-CHING! ZZZZZZZZZZZT. BAM. As much as I now love word processing and electronic storage, I do miss that Underwood. We had some good times.

My problem now, however, is it’s been oddly cold, and I’ve been working with my hands, refinishing an old mirror I found in the trash several months ago. The work is easy, and relaxing, but hard on the fingers. Seeing as it’s been two years since I worked with wood, they’ve become unused to rough treatment. This pains me more than i can say, in a few different ways, but there’s nothing for it but to keep at it. The fingers will adjust.

Yet the cold and the sandpaper, sawdust and solvents have combined to erode the integrity of a ti ny bit of skin near the nail bed of my right hand middle finger, the one I usually lean on for pecking at most of the letters to the right of Y. Where there used to be a large chunk of semi-hard pink skin, there’s now a giant crack, like the Grand Canyon in micro scale. I can see deep red, and there’s occasionally blood and it hurts like hell.

This is not a new phenomenon. When I was working with wood full time, I endured these fissures pretty frequently, especially in cold weather months. The difference then, however, was I wasn’t typing (again, loose definitions, please) 10,000+ words a week. As much as I’m enjoying tinkering in my workshop (Oh yeah, I have a workshop now. I rented a garage nearby and have been outfitting it with the tools of my former trade. I’m hoping to use it regularly enough to justify its existence. Today refinishing a mirror, tomorrow, perhaps building a chair.), the meeting of my two separate worlds is creating at least this problem.

I can still type, but damn, it hurts. And avoiding that one finger, my main finger, my Beethoven finger, makes the hands work even more s,lowly than my mind, which is incredibly frustrating. I say again: will someone please introduce the mind-to-page interface. Seriously. It can’t come soon enough.

Still Running, Etc.

Posted by on March 31, 2008 1 comment

I’m still running, by the way. I took another break while I was in Jamaica, but was pleased to discover I hadn’t lost too much ground when I got back. Last week I took it easy, but the two runs I got in were good ones, and my pace is now pretty reliably under nine minutes for a mile.

I’m not sure if I’ll try for a marathon or anything of the sort, at least not for a while. I think right now I’m in a good spot where I’m getting plenty of exercise, feel great and can still carry on with the mainly sedentary pursuits with which I’ve previously filled my time. I’m afraid if I kick up the running any more I may have to forgo things like sitting on my ass watching TV and playing games.

Some may say this is backsliding, and perhaps it is. But I’ve never believed I’d suddenly becomes star athlete by running a few miles a day. Really, I just wanted to fit into smaller pants. As far as that goes, mission accomplished. I’m now back in th4e size I used to wear when I was working outdoors all day in the summer. And they fit loosely.

I’ve pasted the Nike+ widget into the sidebar of the site. You can see it on the front page. It doesn’t really fit there so some day when I feel like screwing with the CSS, I’ll wedge it in a bit more securely. But for now you can use it to track my continued progress toward being an actual fit person. If I get in a run this evening, I’ll have topped 100 miles since I started using the iPod to keep track of my runs, back in December.

You may have also noticed there are now ads on this blog. I’m not seriously expecting to make any kind of money with them, nor do I need to at the moment, but it is a fun experiment. If anybody reading this is seriously annoyed by them, please let me know. I generally don’t notice them, except for when they’re all about dog collars and stuff, and then I just laugh.

Still Running

Posted by on February 16, 2008 Comments Off

I’m doing about 3 miles a day now, every day or every other day, and have gotten my pace down to under 10″ pretty reliably. As I suspected, the gains are coming much more slowly not that I’m in a groove, but I still feel stronger every day, and every day can’t wait to run.

Here’s the link to my Nike+ profile in case you’re curious. I think this decade will be known for the rise of the geek/jock. I’m running with a mini-computer strapped to my arm, receiving telemetry from a sensor in my shoe and uploading the data to a social networking website to share with my “friends.” Really, it’s the absurdity of it all that keeps me going.

The hardest part of keeping to a routine, I’ve found, is keeping to it when you don’t have one. I was in Las Vegas two weeks ago for business, working 14-hour days, and fitting in a run was the hardest part. I was there for four days and only got one run in. I felt terrible the whole time. That one run was like a shot of morphine, not to belabor the addiction analogy.

I’m about to head off again, this time to San Francisco for almost a whole week. The hotel assures me there’s a fitness center “nearby,” but I know San Francisco. Nearby could be over a mile away. And there are a number of places I wouldn’t mind jogging down the street, but San Francisco’s Market District isn’t one of them. Especially at night.

So I’m not counting on getting in any runs while I’m gone, instead trying to make the time I have before I leave count. I’m 5’10″, and I’m pretty sure I’m at around 160lbs. I’m going to come home from San Francisco having gained, perhaps, two pounds, and I’ll feel like a whale. Seriously, it’s absurd.

The good news from all of this is that having now learned how to adequately stretch out my legs, my knees have been giving me less and less trouble. I was afraid for a while that my years as a carpenter too brave to wear kneepads had permanently ruined my chances of a fulfilling running hobby, but, like everything else, I just had to whip them into shape. I’d also neglected my back over the years (all 33 of them), so I’ve been adding longer and longer yoga routines into my daily schedule. I used to collect antique whiskey decanters, now I collect fitness routines. I wake up some days and don’t even recognize myself, but I feel good.

Running is a Drug

Posted by on January 22, 2008 1 comment

I haven’t had cravings this bad since I quite smoking four years ago. I got back from Texas late Sunday night, too wrung out to run, and I thought I would die. Not from being wrung out – from not running. It was like all those times I smoked my last butt at 4am and couldn’t find an open gas station to sell me some. You’d be amazed the places you can find a cigarette machine when you’re desperate. To solve that little problem, I took to buying several packs at a time. Of course that led to people bumming more, cause they knew I could spare them. Plus I’d tend to go crazy with all those cigarettes in the house. I’d wake up late in the evening after an all-night bender the day before, fingers stained yellow with nicotine, head three sizes too big, mouth filled with cotton and a stomach drowning in acid. All of which would leed me right back where I started, shopping at bowling alleys to feed my fix. But I digress.

When I hit the treadmill Monday night, it had been five days since I’d last run. Five days since feeling the rush of endorphins, the thrill of exerting my energy and the boost in confidence that comes from shedding the equivalent of a Double Whopper’s worth of calories in a single half hour session.

I was jonesing hard so I pushed it up a notch and ran for three miles instead of my usual two. I did the two mile session as usual – start slow, pick up the pace, pick it up again and sprint the last quarter mile – and then I kept on going. I dropped the pace down a bit, ran another three quarters of a mile and sprinted again top the finish. Boom. Three miles done. Lance Armstrong told me I’d finished my longest workout yet. Thanks Lance. I know you’ve got my back. Too bad about Sheryl. Her new album rocks. You did that. Just remember. That was you.

Today, again, I ran a solid three and I feel great. I’ve been on a two-day bender. My knees are aching, my back and abdominal muscles are screaming in protest, my heart feels like it will explode and I feel great. Just great. I’ve hit both my pace and distance targets and all I had to do was take a four day break to guilt myself into pushing it. Maybe I should write a book. Although I suspect someone has already beat me to that.

In any case, my friend Jess suggested I go for one of those 13 mile mini-marathons, but I’m not anywhere near ready for that. Next goal is to get my pace to about 9 minutes again and hit 4 miles sometime in the next month or so. I’ll be busy running around at various shows so that may not happen, but looking at how far I’ve come in a month I feel pretty good about it. Gotta be the shoes.

Speaking of, I’ll be writing about the Nike+iPod device in a special installment for The Escapist this week. I think on Thursday. Which means it’s due tomorrow. Which means I need to write it. Too bad you can’t type on a treadmill.

Getting Strong Now

Posted by on January 17, 2008 Comments Off

I did a few more runs around the neighborhood last week before the weather turned shitty on us again. Been on the treadmill since. I can do 2 miles without really feeling it now, except in the knees. Oh, Vishnu the knees. I now regret the years I spent working on construction and refusing the wear kneepads. Tiger Balm helps. And heat pads. And drugs. I feel like a real pro athlete now.

Anyway, I’ve been upping my pace and taking it slow pushing myself to do more mileage per workout. The goal is still 3 miles in a month or so, but I’m also working on getting my mile pace regularly under 10 minutes. I’m doing about 11 minutes now.

I know a lot of people take up exercise regimes after New Years, and, like Susan said, a lot of folks buy the shoes and run for a week or two and then blow it off. I know this. But I don’t do that. I’m fairly committed to this, and it’s yielding benefits (my clothes fit again) and I’m feeling great.

But I’ve known I would enjoy running for a long time. I used to dream about running, and in my dreams I’d feel like I was flying. That feeling hasn’t translated exactly to the waking experience of running. Slogging my way uphill through the last quarter mile of my run feels more like being buried alive than flying, but afterward I always feel good, and good about myself for doing this. I also feel about 1000% percent better from day to day, sleep better, eat better and wake up feeling like an actual human being.

I don’t want to be trite and say something Oprah-tastic like “running changed my life,” but, well, it very well might. I feel like a whole new person; stronger, fitter and more capable. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I probably wouldn’t have beens o enthusiastic about starting this regimine without the Nike+ device. Damn technology, gets me hooked every time.

I’ll be writing up the Nike+ iPod device for The Escapist’s Gadgets issue next week. Stay tuned for that. I feel like such a shill now, but I’ve always believed when you find a product you can get behind, you shouldn’t be afraid to gush about it. Actually I feel that way about anything I like. I gush. I’m a gusher.

Speaking of, I can’t say enough about geocaching. Fortunately I’ll be putting up about 2000 words about it at The Escapist next week. If you ever looked at pirate treasure maps as a kid and wished you could go off on an adventure to find the X that marks the spot, you’d probably enjoy geocaching. It’s like a giant Easter egg hunt, substituting the whole planet for your back yard. You can read more about it at the geocaching website, and next week at at The Escapist.