Road to Nowhere

KathyK wrote:Wow...that newest MAF data looks impressive!
Way to go!

Thanks, Kathy! For comparison purposes, the times are about where they were when I ran a 3:52 marathon in Sacramento back in December 2009. As you can see from the chart below, my MAF times got faster as I trained for Eugene and the summer, but then dropped off when the overtraining caught up with me.



(Edit: Drat. Page break. Here's the other chart again for comparison purposes.)



It's good to see that the slump wasn't permanent. I was starting to wonder...

Barefoot Run: 3.1 miles on moderate asphalt

Weather: Partly cloudy, cool. 57 degrees. Gear: Bare feet, shorts, T. Fuel: Coffee and rice milk before the run.

Back to my normal shift today, so I got up early to get a few miles in before work. My right hip has been getting a little sore (glute min?), so I kept it in the neighborhood and tried to figure out why. Didn't find anything obvious, though I did realize I've been neglecting to use my arms. That *might* affect hip rotation, so I'll try to remember the arm swing and see what happens.

I kept it easy, and didn't focus on the paces... though I can't help but notice that there's a 0.09 second difference between the pace in my second and third mile. I wasn't even trying to be consistent. It just worked out that way.

Average HR for entire run: 136

A whole .09 second different, huh? Very Mello-like.

KathyK wrote:A whole .09 second different, huh? Very Mello-like.

I was thinking that very same thing when I posted this morning's run! The man's a legend.

Walk: 2.2 miles

Weather: Partly cloudy, warm. 72 degrees.

A lunchtime walk (finally back to a more normal shift) from work down to and along the Columbia River. I'm hoping the reintroduction of recovery walking will help bring that slightly cranky hip muscle back into line. It's also nice getting out of the office and burning a couple hundred extra calories. I've missed it.

I need to follow your lead and MAKE myself get out the door for lunch and take a walk rather than working through lunch at my desk. It would be so much better for my body and mind.

KathyK wrote:I need to follow your lead and MAKE myself get out the door for lunch and take a walk rather than working through lunch at my desk. It would be so much better for my body and mind.

Most likely, it would. Even just getting away from your desk and the press of work helps. I used to eat at my desk all the time -- interrupted by reporters with questions, phone calls, emails, etc. -- when a wise colleague urged me to just go. Better for the digestion, mind and attitude. He was right.

I had to make myself expand that lunch break into a walk earlier this spring, but I'm glad I did. Now, if I could just figure out how to make a walk work on a night shift, I'd be as happy as a pig in mud.

KathyK wrote:I need to follow your lead and MAKE myself get out the door for lunch and take a walk rather than working through lunch at my desk. It would be so much better for my body and mind.

Hey, I am going to barge in on this blog entry with a big +1 in the "getting away from your desk" column. Even if you just go to a different place to eat, like a break room...we have a little courtyard here with a picnic table...it makes a huge difference for your attitude.

I have solved more problems on the short round trip walk to the convenience store to get a container of chocolate milk than I care to admit I had problems to solve

My assistant started extending her two 15 minute breaks (union rules) to 20 minutes and is walking a mile in each one...we measured it together. She is super excited. Then she takes a nap during lunch

E Greenie

Great lunchtime strategy, Greenie! I took another walk during lunch today, and it went well, though I came back a few bucks lighter.

---

Walk: 3 miles over the Interstate Bridge

Weather: Sunny, mild, a nice breeze off the river.

Took a walk over the Interstate Bridge, crossing the Columbia River on a loop that took me into Portland and back.

It was a nice day for a walk. The trails in the hills of Forest Park above Portland were calling to me as the trucks went whizzing by on the freeway 8 feet away. I had one guy in a van yell an obscenity at me (probably thought he was really funny), and I got panhandled in an underpass as I crossed from one side of the bridge to the other for my return leg. The panhandler made a decent case, so I gave in.

I absolutely have to get away from my desk at lunch. I use to work at my desk during lunch, no more and I am so glad I get away even if it is just downstairs to eat or outside my office to watch some tv. Shutting off the brain from work is a good thing and makes me a lot more productive in the afternoon than I was before I did that. Also, I love getting outside for a run during the fall/winter/spring time, those days are the best.

Getting some form of exercise each day is a good thing too. I learned that this past year when I stepped away from doing a full marathon. I am so glad I did because I am that much healthier and happier even during training.

Joel H wrote:I absolutely have to get away from my desk at lunch. I use to work at my desk during lunch, no more and I am so glad I get away even if it is just downstairs to eat or outside my office to watch some tv. Shutting off the brain from work is a good thing and makes me a lot more productive in the afternoon than I was before I did that. Also, I love getting outside for a run during the fall/winter/spring time, those days are the best.

Getting some form of exercise each day is a good thing too. I learned that this past year when I stepped away from doing a full marathon. I am so glad I did because I am that much healthier and happier even during training.

Those are great points, Joel. I think if more people simply got away from their desk at lunch, and tried to do something active every day - even if just taking a nice 30-60 minute walk - we'd be a healthier country. I wish that message could get through, but it gets lost in the noise.

Barefoot Run: 5.66 miles on roads and trails (South Ridge and Grist Mill loops)

Weather: Sunny, cooler. 51 degrees. Gear: Bare feet, shorts, T. Fuel: Coffee and rice milk.

Back to the trails this morning. There was a taste of late summer/early fall in the air - the temp was only 51 when I started out, and my toes actually felt a little cold (!) until I warmed up.


I ran 1.5 miles on roads to Whipple Creek Park and ran the same loops I did last week, except the opposite direction. It made them feel like completely new trails and forced me to play close attention. I tried to keep it light and easy for most of the run, but was surprised a few miles in when my legs decided to take off when I hit a nice piece of single track. It felt like I was flying - in a way, it felt easier than going slow - and I eventually had to force myself to ease back to a lower intensity. I was having too much fun.

I seem to have done a better job avoiding chunks of things in the trail, though I wish somebody hadn't rammed a bunch of branches through a chipper and tossed them out on the trail. Nothing like trying to avoid random 3-inch sections of tree branch. At least slugs squish. (No, I didn't.)

I stopped and took a few photos, and later on startled a deer as I was heading back on the roads.

Average HR for the entire outing. 137

A few photos:

Morning on the trail. This is one of the few clearings in the entire park. It gives that nice "frolic through the meadow" feel.


This is the view into the forest from the meadow.


Another part of the park got some nice morning night off a neighboring pasture. It was a pretty morning.

So beautiful! You run in Paradise. And yes, I too am feeling a little fall in the air...

E Greenie<--who lives in southern Paradise

EugeneGreenie wrote:So beautiful! You run in Paradise. And yes, I too am feeling a little fall in the air...

E Greenie<--who lives in southern Paradise

We just need to keep telling ourselves that when it's the fourth straight month of 38 degrees and drizzling, Greenie...

Green's gotta come from somewhere, I suppose.

Mark B wrote:

EugeneGreenie wrote:So beautiful! You run in Paradise. And yes, I too am feeling a little fall in the air...

E Greenie<--who lives in southern Paradise

We just need to keep telling ourselves that when it's the fourth straight month of 38 degrees and drizzling, Greenie....

No comment!!

You do live in Paradise though, UBER jealous with all that beautiful scenery.

Mark B wrote:

Joel H wrote:I absolutely have to get away from my desk at lunch. I use to work at my desk during lunch, no more and I am so glad I get away even if it is just downstairs to eat or outside my office to watch some tv. Shutting off the brain from work is a good thing and makes me a lot more productive in the afternoon than I was before I did that. Also, I love getting outside for a run during the fall/winter/spring time, those days are the best.

Getting some form of exercise each day is a good thing too. I learned that this past year when I stepped away from doing a full marathon. I am so glad I did because I am that much healthier and happier even during training.

Those are great points, Joel. I think if more people simply got away from their desk at lunch, and tried to do something active every day - even if just taking a nice 30-60 minute walk - we'd be a healthier country. I wish that message could get through, but it gets lost in the noise.

+10000000000000000000000000000000

Nice shots, Mark. Looks like a great trail for some barefoot frolicking, as you called it.

Joel H wrote:

Mark B wrote:

EugeneGreenie wrote:So beautiful! You run in Paradise. And yes, I too am feeling a little fall in the air...

E Greenie<--who lives in southern Paradise

We just need to keep telling ourselves that when it's the fourth straight month of 38 degrees and drizzling, Greenie....

No comment!!

You do live in Paradise though, UBER jealous with all that beautiful scenery.

Well, maybe it's a bit paradise-like, Joel, especially this time of year. But it comes at a price. Those long, chilly, damp, dim months eventually wear on you. We just lost a reporter who grew up in southern Louisiana who ended up with a Vitamin D deficiency and swore, after last winter, that he'd find a new job before he had to spend another fall/winter/spring in the gloom. He didn't find another job. But he's leaving anyway.

I grew up here, so I'm more accustomed to it (the monotony of dry sunny days in Southern California, on the other hand, just about drove me batty in the nine years I lived down there)... but our extended winters even get to me after a while.

That's why, when it's sunny and bright and green, we frolic.

Joel H wrote:

Mark B wrote:

Joel H wrote:I absolutely have to get away from my desk at lunch. I use to work at my desk during lunch, no more and I am so glad I get away even if it is just downstairs to eat or outside my office to watch some tv. Shutting off the brain from work is a good thing and makes me a lot more productive in the afternoon than I was before I did that. Also, I love getting outside for a run during the fall/winter/spring time, those days are the best.

Getting some form of exercise each day is a good thing too. I learned that this past year when I stepped away from doing a full marathon. I am so glad I did because I am that much healthier and happier even during training.

Those are great points, Joel. I think if more people simply got away from their desk at lunch, and tried to do something active every day - even if just taking a nice 30-60 minute walk - we'd be a healthier country. I wish that message could get through, but it gets lost in the noise.

+10000000000000000000000000000000

Alita and I were chatting about this just yesterday. I can be kinda (cough, cough) competitive, and I think it's exciting when people push themselves to the limit and see what their bodies can achieve, but I also know that our culture's hyperfocus of such efforts (whether it be Olympic athletes, P90X videos or Jillian Michaels yelling at people on reality TV) is a major disincentive for those who would live healthier, happier lives if they just got up and went for a walk most days of the week.

Compared with all the macho posturing, it's easy to understand how many would conclude that anything that doesn't involve puking on the side of the road is a waste of time. And really, who wants to puke on the side of the road? Unless you're really into suffering, it seems stupid. And, of course, you and I know that you don't HAVE to kill yourself (or run a marathon) to vastly include the quality of life. But that message doesn't seem to be getting through.

We need to find a way to stop having our national activity "quality" meter measure only Zero or 10 and start promoting that middle ground.

Sorry for the rant (well, actually, I'm not). The former Peace Corps public health worker in me comes out every once in a while. It's interesting how, over in the developing world, the concern was for the health risks of scarcity. Here, it's the health risk of abundance.

Mike MacLellan wrote:Nice shots, Mark. Looks like a great trail for some barefoot frolicking, as you called it.

Thanks Mike! It's a pretty good trail, with enough variety to keep a barefoot runner hypervigilant and his feet hyperaware of the surfaces. Random gravel, fir cones and chunks of tree limb (not to mention slugs and horse poo) are broadly dispersed. I was working pretty hard in the dim early morning light to see where I was going. I have a few more small bruises on my arches to show for my mistakes.

Even so, there was that one stretch where my legs decided to go wild, and I started whipping down the trail with an ease and confidence that surprised me. It was the most fun I've had running in quite some time. It felt so natural, so exuberant, so right.

It makes me want to go try out a better maintained trial, like the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park, and see what happens there.

I am not going to quote your last post, Mark, because it was long, but I oh so agree with you about our country's obsession with measuring, and also with extremes...Thanks for the reminder. I often think of my dad, who if he had walked part of the way to work, or during the day, would probably not be stuck behind a walker, doubled over with arthritis...I think of him a lot!

EugeneGreenie wrote:I am not going to quote your last post, Mark, because it was long, but I oh so agree with you about our country's obsession with measuring, and also with extremes...Thanks for the reminder. I often think of my dad, who if he had walked part of the way to work, or during the day, would probably not be stuck behind a walker, doubled over with arthritis...I think of him a lot!

*Sigh* That's a good point.

And, as an example of the cacophony of information that leads people to paralysis of action, this study reported by the NY Times "debunks" the notion that our ancestors were any more active than we are today. Even though the methodology seems a little sketchy, the fairly obvious conclusions of the study -- that excess body weight correlates greater with diet than it does with activity -- will almost certainly be lost on the hoots of, "See? Look! This says we don't need to be active at all! You fitness freaks are wrong! Ha!"

I'll get off my soap box, for now.

Sorry I don't buy the "price" issue....I would take 30s and drizzly over the tropics anyday....I hate SUMMER!

I agree with the culture of america, we need to find the middle ground, too many people I know think I am nuts for how much I run and I probably am a bit nuts but they don't have to be like to be healthy, just 2-3 times a week of 30 minutes of exercise does a good job of keeping you healthy so long as you eat the right way. A lot of those same people just don't care and don't even do that much....then they wonder why they have so many Dr's bills....I still haven't figured out why I do? hmmmmm....

Hello...Mark? Are you still around?

KathyK wrote:Hello...Mark? Are you still around?

Oops! Yes. I just got back from a couple of days of last-gasp summer vacation, off the grid in Central Oregon. I'll post up details once I get the chance.

And here I half-expected this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Js2Ef5Ojg

Mike MacLellan wrote:And here I half-expected this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Js2Ef5Ojg

Um, considering how that story ends, I'm glad you were wrong.