Kenyan Nights

Flight back Mon was delayed by a few hours so I missed the regular Kenyan Nights session. On way back home made up a hill session on own. 4miles, 15.00 w/u, 25:00 2 hill loop, 9:00 w/d. 3 reps of 50 steps backwards up hill. Feeling it after all the travel. But kept form and 10 reps under control. Managing to increase heart rate each set.

Hyde Park, London run with Neil

I was meant to be in Scotland to do a long slow coastal run, but after 6 hours of standby trying to leave London Heathrow, I gave up as I'd managed to sync up with a friend in London who was in town for the weekend. Ran with them twice round Hyde Park. 9 miles. Despite cool weather and an earlier English breakfast, the run for me was surprisingly tough. I'll blame it on jet lag. Neil effortlessly managed to double his normal distance. Park crazy busy with families enjoying Sunday afternoon (is 6 hours ahead in London). Some hills to contend with. Tried to put some effort in on last hill as heart rate graph shows. Great to see the famous London sights on way round. Plenty of other runners were running effortlessly around. Garmin worked great in UK as expected. The route we ran uploads easily to Google Earth and fun to check-out the extra detail there. To make up for unexpected travel changes, had bought some Scottish beer and Scotch Single Malt whisky - both were excellent after the run. Definitely worth the 5000 mile flight for the run and fantastic hospitality staying in heart of London.

The run was bookended by a mellow BBQ Sat night and excellent Polish food and drinks Sun night.

Kenyan Nights

Working on an emergency hot fix when training time came along. Slipped out for an hour. Minimal w/u and w/d. Fartlek session for 25:00. Used Garmin 405 for slow, medium and fast section timings. 10:00 w/u, 5 loops - nice and consistent. 5:00 w/d. Went straight back to work - cleaned up a little - but hid in my cube until done a few hours later.

Memorial Park Runners Loop

2 x 3 mile Memorial Park running loop. Idea was for 6 miles easy. Kinda a "grit your teeth" for second loop. Checking out the Garmin 405 on this run since 1/4 mile markers on the runners loop. Got some consistent laps on second loop despite the effort. 1/2 mile w/u and 1/2 mile w/d.

Kenyan Nights

Hills. 5 miles. Limited to 1 hill loop due to soft conditions after thunderstorm. 17:30 w/u, 2x10:00, 5:00 rest. 12:15 w/d. 5:00 core. 11 hills each set, 1st hill a warm-up to give time to separate out. Had a glitch starting Garmin on second set so warm-up lap missing. Felt not too bad after session. Cooler. Pace fairly OK and able to keep the session going. Used heart rate as a guide and spotted a few people training same pace and being consistent too. At end also jogged backwards on toes up hill for 50 steps - 3 times.

Memorial Park Trails

5.5 miles on Memorial Park Trails and last 2 miles on runners loop. Started raining 1 mile in. The trail ultra slick on the areas that erode - usually when no tree cover. Humidity brutal at end, completely negating cooling effect of rain. Everyone at end was walking or jogging ultra slow.

Garmin 405 issues:

It's official - watch doesn't work in the rain. The touch sensor bezel can't differentiate between drops of water and human touch. How did it get off the drawing board with such a flaw? But occasionally when it is locked out - now have beeps turned on - see/hear the odd raindrop cause screen to change. I guess the workaround is to have the screen scroll between them so when it is locked out I can still see the data I want. Just have no control over device and have to wait for screen to scroll - and if too fast - no time to read it.

Kenyan Nights

2nd Time Trial. 15:33. A 20 second improvement on last time. 95F. 10F warmer than last time. 1/2 mile splits: 3:58, 3:52, 3:57, 3:46. Warm-up was better than last time. Stronger going up the hill. Cloudy during warm-up, but sun burning down during run. Monitored speed on Garmin. Was able to do 8:00 pace to start and saw it drop to 7:40 on last 1/2 mile. Breathing was getting out of control towards end, but felt relatively strong. HR peaked at 171. Theory is that hill session interfered with this time trial. Legs really feeling the workout later that night.

Garmin issues:

1. Touch bezel which allows change screens doesn't work when wet. I don't understand how a product can be created that doesn't work when the runner sweats! I've not been able to find anyway to dry my finger so I can use the watch normally 30 minutes into a run. End up touching the bezel in vain to get a different display. Only the Lap and Start/Stop real buttons work. Buyer beware.

2. I couldn't quickly recall the split times to see time trial results. I e-mailed them in after downloading them. Some more user manual reading time is needed to figure out how to recall stored times on the device.

Kenyan Nights

Second 2 mile Time Trial. 5 weeks into training program since first time trial. This time will be able to measure progress on GPS/HRM watch. Have figured out how to display splits and heart rate zones.

Working Late

Day off. Missed planned 6 miles on Memorial Park Trails. Had a software release testing at work till 9:30 pm and monitoring it till 1:30 am at home and up early again Wednesday.

Kenyan Nights

Hills. 5 Miles. U shape loop for 25:00. Both hills reached Memorial. 19:19 w/u, 11x 0.22 miles, av 2:20. 10:30 w/d. 5:00 core. Walked down after each hill. Second hill jogged across flat. Medium effort on both hills. Concentrate on maintaining form. This time straight through at 25:00 to minimize chance of injury by greater speed of 2x10:00 5:00 rest. Have second time trial on Wednesday.

Watched rest of fantastic US Golf Open. Unfortunately my work colleague whose computer screen is in my view each time I leave my cube had a web page up with half screen photo of the winner kissing trophy. So much for trying to avoid knowing the result before watching it on HD DVR. But still worth watching in entirety.

Fathers Day

Day off. Watching USGA Open between family duties. Watched Fri, Sat and Sun. Tomorrow go into a news blackout as recording Mon playoff.

Long Run

12 miles. Ultra slow. Second outing at a morning long run to avoid heat. Last one not too successful. So Friday was a day off work. Resting watching US golf open on pacific time. Had a great evening meal. Early night. No beers. Even awake around 4am. Alarm 5am to allow time to wake up. So this time ready for stillness of morning as dawn breaks and 77F. But hooking up with trail legs were hurting. Then a bathroom break I though I'd taken care of at home couldn't be put off to the restroom at turnaround point. So worked on goal of making it to Eldridge with plenty of folks out training. Stopping to hydrate at water fountains. Ultimately feeling nauseous and legs hurting made whole experience quite ugly. Running for me has mostly been fun - although tiring. What is it I can't handle about morning runs? I read blogs of other runners always up at 5am to avoid heat and they report no issues. Sure the first 2 miles are a warm up/wake up and can be brutal. But it is meant to get better. Today it did not. On the way back I tried to hang with 4 guys running about 8:00 mile pace. But taking long water stop breaks. So a few miles were faster.

Kenyan Nights

Intervals at Dog Park. 6 miles. 31:26 w/u, 9 x 0.11 miles medium effort during 20:00, 9:25 w/d. 5:00 core. w/u was a little long for the heat and after yesterday's run. However, concentrated on form and got into the session on last 4 reps. Progressively faster and in control.

Figured out how to show more data on Garmin 405 - able to display lap time now and can better monitor training session. The Garmin arrives with all these screens switched off. Also have heart rate zones switched on now.

Terry Hershey Trail

7.3 mile run from home. Great run. Cooler than yesterday. Earlier thunderstorms in area resulted in below 90F and cooler breeze. Mostly shaded on run. One week with Garmin 405. Took mile splits. Pace worked out fine. Note the later miles have 30 second water stops so little faster.

Garmin issues:
1. Elevation data all over the place.
2. Garmin Connect data presentation not as feature rich as Motionbased.
3. Total and Moving time not delineated.
4. Lap times not showing on watch. (I need to read manual how to fix).
5. No Heart rate zone info.
6. No temperature or wind speed info.
7. No GPS signal quality info.
8. No ascent time, descent time and flat time.

Kenyan Nights

Hill session. 6.25 miles. 25:20 w/u, 2x10:00 1 hill 0.16 mile loop, 5:00 rest btwn, 16:15 w/d. Crazy hot today. New hill location opposite Federal Reserve. Next to ideal hill to run backwards up at end. Not done this before and could barely keep going near top.

Also had to run out and get new running shoes at lunch time. Remembered on drive-in to work that forgot to put them in. Shoes are getting drenched with sweat so they can't live in car. Got some Asics 2130s. Felt good. No shoes on special - although these are Jan 08 model and $10 off MSRP at Academy. Put the gas money savings of not having to drive home into the fact bought shoes at not the optimal discount.

Memorial Park Trails

Memorial Park trails. 6 miles, 1:07:00. Rained at start - cooled down a little. Plenty of shade in forest and mostly cloudy on runners loop. Still figuring out Garmin - accidently got an extra data point when syncing data - so total time is way off.

Kenyan Nights

Progressive run. 5 miles. 18:00 w/u, 4 x 0.52 miles, 2:00 rest btwn, 8:00 w/d.

Splits: 4:24, 4.02, 3:52, 4:01. So going flat out on last didn't work out. Interesting heart rate graph showing progressive effort.

Heard on radio driving in that 2008 has had 3 times more days over 90F than this time last year. 19 versus 6. Currently a high pressure parked over us. Said similar to last time US climate came out La Nino phase

Virgin Garmin 405 run

About 4pm got the UPS Quantum delivery notification e-mail that Garmin was sitting by front door. Finished up at work and tried to beat the rush hour traffic. Luckily relatively light now school is out. A friend had joked earlier that wouldn't be able to use it right away as need batteries. Well - found out it uses lithium's that are shipped uncharged. So first order of business was to plug it in. Meanwhile spent some time familiarizing myself with quick start guide, signing into Garmin website and downloading sync software. At 28% charge did a quick test and was ready for a training run. Chose classic short run from home which I'd measured on Google maps was 3.8 miles to turnaround. Came in at 3.5. Route is here

Of course it was 90F with little shade and breeze. Spent a lot of time during run checking distance, pace and HR. So finally - the "non-brick" GPS has arrived! What gets measured gets done. Got the light green version since only one available, and due to size of receiver in band - a bit more camouflaged.

Kenyan Nights

Hills. 28:00 w/u. 20:00 double hill loop. 7:00 w/d. 5:00 core. This one Sean ran. Idea was to rest during one of his loops when lapped. So happened 4 times. Lots of people. Hot. Kinda chaotic. Something different though. Great to be back to running after 4 dedicated family days. Although they were active ones in home and yard with chores, playing and swimming.