Don't make the super geek mistake that I made tonight

Funny story that I think people will like. I don’t know if everyone knows what a podcast is or not but essentially it’s a verbal blog. Yup it’s a voice blog that you subscribe to and you can hear a short commentary about whatever. Well I’m not into this because I think it sounds dumb. Well today I was messing around with iTunes (the application I use to play music on my laptop) and noticed this podcast icon. So I clicked away and saw a bunch of podcasts and thought nothing of it because like I said I’m not really into this whole uber lazy geek thing. I like a little work if I’m going to be a geek, I can read so I might as well.

Well I came home from my run today and Sonja was out rock climbing and Tanya, our roommate, went for a run which left the house to myself. This normally isn’t a big deal because I spend most days working from home but tonight I wasn’t working and had no plan on doing work tonight. So ate dinner (boiled potatoes with a can of beans on top. Love it when Sonjas not home) and then I was about to start doing the dishes. Now normally I would turn on the radio or even listen to some music on the laptop while I was doing dishes. Well tonight after a good run I was feeling a little adventuress so I thought what the heck I’ll listen to a podcast while I do the dishes. Huge mistake and this the reason why.

I thought I’ll listen to some light and easy so I dug down and found a track podcast. I was super pumped as I was hoping they would talk about workouts or times or something seriously track geeky. So I turned it on and started doing the dishes and what it was high school coach talking about how thankful he was that he had a job. It was so bad that I wanted to turn it off but my hands were wet and I didn’t want to touch the laptop with wet hands. I tried to blog it out but this stupid American southern accent just kept coming through. “I’m so thankful that Jon Jr. ran over the summer he’s real fast blah blah blah.” It was a total conflict I was getting slowly getting killed by this guy but I knew if I touched the laptop with wet hands that would kill me as well. Thank god the podcast was only 2 minutes since it didn’t actually kill me but I did lose three fingers and one baby toe. Lesson for all those people reading the blog don’t go the next step it totally isn’t worth it.

Do you know this useless fact?

Uk's daylight savings was last sunday and in victoria it is this coming sunday

Useless to some but useful to others who were supposed to have meetings at 4:30 our time but it turned out they were at 5:30 our time. We learned our mistake after 15 minutes on the phone waiting for Victoria to pick up. lol stupid daylight savings time grrrrr...

Sonja's Birthday on Friday

Sonja's birthday is on Friday so the plan is to go see "Lion King" something that she has been bugging me to see since we have been here. We'll go for dinner then see the play/musical. The next day we're going to make risotto and then head to a lounge style place for some drinks and then out to the clubs. We'll see how late we are out since Sonja has a long run during the day and normally she doesn't have that much energy to do anything after that. This week her long run is 3 hours, yikes. She is building for a June marathon so hopefully she stays heathly since that was the problem last time she attempted the marathon.

g

Next Friday I'm coming home woot woot

Just thought I would post last weeks training since a few of the runners are following it:
Monday:7km easy
Tuesday: 7km to the track then 16*400m with 45 seconds rest all around 67-69 ending with 65, 7km home
Wednesday: Easy 12km
Thursday: off due to work
Friday:
Morning: 25 warm up then 15 tempo, 15 cool down
Night: 7km easy with Sonja
Saturday 40 minutes easy
Sunday:25 minute warm up then 8km race at 25.58, 20 minute cooldown and then 35minutes easy running later in the day.
Total kms: 95

Race report: I'm fit is all that the race told me thats about it. I wouldn't call it a race though because it was a 12 stage relay and when it was my time to run there was no one sight so I ran the whole 8kms by myself without seeing anyone. The course was fairly flat but there was a killer wind which I think slowed me down a little bit. I'm happy with my fitness but unhappy about my speed which I'll have to work on over the next couple of weeks.

This week so far has been the following:
Monday:12km easy
Tuesday: 32 minutes to the track-8*600m with 75 jog all around 1:45-7 then 35 minutes home. Once again I can't believe how quickly I am recoverying in these reps I think it shows that I'm fit but who knows.
Wednesday:32 easy

Standing sucks

So I’m away in Manchester for a conference that the company that I work for has a booth. This means yesterday I spent 10 ours on my feet in nice dress shoes. I’m going to lie my feet hurt and I am totally not used to this. When I work from home I roll out of bed and walk to the living room flip on the computer and start work. I normally forget to brush my teeth until lunch when I stand up and think wow I haven’t brushed my teeth in fact I haven’t moved for the last 4-5 hours, weird. Five hits and then I normally flip the computer off and think about making dinner before I head out for my run. I normally run between 5 and 7 every night for those wondering this is the only time I leave my house when I work home. Why do I bring this up? Well it’s because this is hard standing for 10 hours if your body isn’t ready for it. The run that I went on last night was totally slow because my legs were sore from standing all day.

I was asked why I’m flying home twice. The reason is I have a business meeting in Seattle in the middle of April so the company is flying me home so I’ve just extended it a little bit longer to be home for Easter and the second reason I have a wedding at the beginning of May that I have to attend. Since the TC 10km is a week before I’m coming in a week earlier so that I can run it. This trip is coming out of my not so deep pockets. I have yet to buy this ticket but I think I’ll do that in the next couple of days.

My TC 10km goal was a question that Nick Walker asked about. I would have to say that I’m not really sure how fit I actually am so I’m not sure what my goal is. My club is competing in 12 stage relay against all the other clubs in Southern England and I will be running a 8km stage so hopefully this will give me some indication on how quick I am right now. I had a good workout on Tuesday 16*400m with 45 seconds rest and all the 400m’s were between 67-69 which is OK but it was my recovery that I was really impressed with. Each time the rep was done I was almost completely recovered when the next rep started. This shows me my fitness is coming along nicely I just have to work on my speed a little bit more. Hope everyone is having a nice day.

Oh man I'm coming home for a short visit

Well I haven't mentioned it to anyone because I didn't want to get people excited but its looks like I'll be home in the middle of April and then again at the end of April. The exact dates of my time in Victoria are the following April 7,8,9 and then again 13,14,15 and I fly back to the UK on the 16th. I then will be back for a solid week at the end of april but those dates aren't finalized as of yet. I'm working on buying that ticket but these things cost a lot of money and I have to make sure I have enough in the back account to pay rent (yes I know highly over rated).

So my past week of running has been the following:
Monday: Easy 6km 32minutes
Tuesday: 55minutes to practice 12km then 5*600m with 60 seconds rest (1.47-50) then 2 minute rest then 5*500m then 35 minutes home. Total km for the day 25
Wednesday: 58 easy 14kms
Thursday: 35minutes to practice then 10*50 second hills 35 minutes back. 18km
Friday: Taken off because my km count for the week was climbing a little fast
Saturday: 20 warm up then 8 tempo, 3 down, 6 tempo, 2 1/2 down, 6 tempo, 1 1/2 min down, 5min tempo then 20 cool down. 16km
Sunday: Long slow run 86 minutes AHR 150 AKM:4:20

Total kms for last week was 99.

G-out

Last week of running

This past week has been a little crazy for me. On Monday morning I headed up to Dundee Scotland to upgrade a client as well as do some training with them. I was up there from Monday until late Wednesday night. Normally this can cause a major problem with running but I seem to be really motivated right now so I'm making sure that I'm getting all my runs in. Here is a quick breakdown of the weeks running:

Monday:9km easy run after a really hard race on Sunday
Tuesday: 20 min warm up then 2reps of 8 minutes of tempo running with two 1 minute pick ups in the 8 minutes then 1 five minute tempo with a 1 minute pick up. 20min run home
Wednesday off because I was flying and everywhere I went during that day was broken. Eg the train from Heathrow to the nearest train station to my house, which normally only takes 15 minutes, was broken so I had to take the underground so that added 45 minutes to my travel.
Thursday: 8km to meet my group then 10*55 second hills then 7km home. I felt like a fat cow running up a hill my power isn't there yet but I'm sure it will come as I continue to run hills.
Friday:12km easy
Saturday: 20min warm up then 8*3min loops. The loop has a gradual uphill then downhill then a flat section so its good for power, turnover, and maintaining speed. 20min cooldown
Sunday:78 minutes really easy.

My Sunday run was super easy because I'm attempting something new for myself. While at university I used to cruise my long runs and sometimes I would actually push a little to hard. So now I have my heart rate monitor telling me if my heart rate gets above a certain level and if it does I have to slow down. The idea is that I keep my heart rate below 70% of my maximum heart rate. Its something that I was reading so I'll give it a try for the next couple of weeks and see how it all plays out for me. My thought is I may have worked to hard on my easy days while at university when in fact I should have been taking those days easier and having better recovery for my workouts. Who knows it may massively backfire but I think its worth trying.

British food

I now know why this Jamie Oliver guy has his own tv show. I was at a university cafeteria today for lunch and the choices were the following:
-Fish and chips with green beans
-Some type of gravey meat thing with chips
-Grilled to death chicken with over cooked corn and boiled potatoes with tons of salt on them.

Now I didn’t spend as much time in the cafeteria as I would like because I was with a client and he was paying but I didn’t see any type of salads or even an option for soup. Now I’m sure they had at least one vegetarian option but I didn’t see it so maybe that was the one really healthy choice. Which one did I go for? Well I decided on the Grilled to death chicken with over cooked corn while the two Brits I was with went for Fish and chips. This is a university were the people are supposed to be smart you’d think they would want to feed their minds with healthy food instead of this type of crap. Like I said there may have been a healthier place on campus but I didn’t have time to go look around for it.

rock on I’m going for a run.
g

Glenn in front of Notre Dame

Glenn in front of Notre Dame,
originally uploaded by Glenn Saqui.

Pictures from Sonja and mine trip to Paris for our 7 year anniversary. We had tons of fun.

Three week goal

OK yes I know that I haven’t blogged in a while but this one is a good one. This one is about my heart rate monitor. The heart rate monitor that I have is the Polar RS200ds which means its not only a heart rate monitor but a speed distance monitor as well. The speed distance monitor is a little thing that you put on your shoe.

So at first I wasn’t a big fan of the heart rate monitor but that’s because I hadn’t spend enough time figuring out what everything meant and I hadn’t figured out how to use it. Well this week changed things for me. This week I’ve been doing some hard training attempting to drag myself back into shape. I’ve been stacking the workouts back to back in an attempt to get myself into shape. I’ll talk about this idea later in the blog but the watch is actually helping with this stacking of workouts. On Thursday I had a really hard hill workout (6*2min up a massive hill) and I was totally exhausted when I got home. The watch didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know from the workout, I knew that I had worked very hard and I wasn’t in shape. Friday is when the heart rate monitor was really useful and I’ll tell you why. Friday was meant to be an easy recovery day but when I started running I wasn’t running that quickly but I looked down at the heart rate monitor and it was telling me my heart rate was higher than it should be for an easy run. This was a warning sign that I was tired from Thursdays workout and that I should slow down even more to get the full benefit from the recovery run. Normally I would have just thought that I was lazy on Friday and would have pushed through the run and not complained or even known that I was overly tired. So finally this heart rate monitor has become useful. You can set the watch up so that you can be in between certain heart rate zones and if you get outside of the zone the watch will beep at you but I’m not sure if this is something that I’m really interested in right now.

Now I really like the speed distance monitor a lot. This thing is totally handy because I travel a lot for work and it’s always good to know the total distance of the run. That being said I have been running long enough that I normally pretty good at telling how far I’ve run so it isn’t that big of a deal. The big thing for me is the speed monitor that can tell you at what pace you are going. I love this because when I’m away and I have to workout I normally set my workout up so that I will do some tempo running. Tempo running is when pick up your pace for a certain time period but the key is that you need to keep that pace for the whole time period. You try to get a total time of tempo running of over 20 minutes because then it has an effect on your total fitness. This means you could do something like 4 reps of 5 minutes or 2 reps of 10 minutes, you get the idea. Well the watch is really good at telling me the pace that I’m at so that for the whole tempo run I can keep the same pace. I love it! When I think I’m going to slowly at the start I just check the watch and it tells me I’m at the right pace or it tells me to get my butt in gear.

For me I use the heart rate monitor to help keep my easy days easy and I use the speed distance monitor to help with my tempo running. Tempo running is only one maybe two workouts a week so I guess I really don’t need that part of the watch but since I bought the full meal deal its been worth it. I do like looking at what my average km is over an easy run and to monitor what my heart rate is at that km rate. I do think that if you are doing shorter workouts on the track I don’t think either the heart rate monitor or the speed distance monitor are that useful but longer lonely runs it can be a lot of fun.

Heart rate monitor

OK yes I know that I haven’t blogged in a while but this one is a good one. This one is about my heart rate monitor. The heart rate monitor that I have is the Polar RS200ds which means its not only a heart rate monitor but a speed distance monitor as well. The speed distance monitor is a little thing that you put on your shoe.

So at first I wasn’t a big fan of the heart rate monitor but that’s because I hadn’t spend enough time figuring out what everything meant and I hadn’t figured out how to use it. Well this week changed things for me. This week I’ve been doing some hard training attempting to drag myself back into shape. I’ve been stacking the workouts back to back in an attempt to get myself into shape. I’ll talk about this idea later in the blog but the watch is actually helping with this stacking of workouts. On Thursday I had a really hard hill workout (6*2min up a massive hill) and I was totally exhausted when I got home. The watch didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know from the workout, I knew that I had worked very hard and I wasn’t in shape. Friday is when the heart rate monitor was really useful and I’ll tell you why. Friday was meant to be an easy recovery day but when I started running I wasn’t running that quickly but I looked down at the heart rate monitor and it was telling me my heart rate was higher than it should be for an easy run. This was a warning sign that I was tired from Thursdays workout and that I should slow down even more to get the full benefit from the recovery run. Normally I would have just thought that I was lazy on Friday and would have pushed through the run and not complained or even known that I was overly tired. So finally this heart rate monitor has become useful. You can set the watch up so that you can be in between certain heart rate zones and if you get outside of the zone the watch will beep at you but I’m not sure if this is something that I’m really interested in right now.

Now I really like the speed distance monitor a lot. This thing is totally handy because I travel a lot for work and it’s always good to know the total distance of the run. That being said I have been running long enough that I normally pretty good at telling how far I’ve run so it isn’t that big of a deal. The big thing for me is the speed monitor that can tell you at what pace you are going. I love this because when I’m away and I have to workout I normally set my workout up so that I will do some tempo running. Tempo running is when pick up your pace for a certain time period but the key is that you need to keep that pace for the whole time period. You try to get a total time of tempo running of over 20 minutes because then it has an effect on your total fitness. This means you could do something like 4 reps of 5 minutes or 2 reps of 10 minutes, you get the idea. Well the watch is really good at telling me the pace that I’m at so that for the whole tempo run I can keep the same pace. I love it! When I think I’m going to slowly at the start I just check the watch and it tells me I’m at the right pace or it tells me to get my butt in gear.

For me I use the heart rate monitor to help keep my easy days easy and I use the speed distance monitor to help with my tempo running. Tempo running is only one maybe two workouts a week so I guess I really don’t need that part of the watch but since I bought the full meal deal its been worth it. I do like looking at what my average km is over an easy run and to monitor what my heart rate is at that km rate. I do think that if you are doing shorter workouts on the track I don’t think either the heart rate monitor or the speed distance monitor are that useful but longer lonely runs it can be a lot of fun.