2009 Running Goal - 12 Races

Years back, I was a decent runner. Then we had kids and life got busy. I also got old. Last year on vacation in Orlando, the whole family ran the Winter Park Watermelon 5K which re-started the racing bug again.

Especially with my wife. Years back, she wanted nothing to do with running. Now she's very competitive and pushes me to train with her.


My Stats:

• All time 5k PR : 20:06 1995, Some Orlando road race
  
• All time 10k PR : 52:11 2008, River City Rat Race 10K
• 2008 5k PR: 23:51 Canterbury "5K Tin Can"
• 2009 5k PR (so far): 22:53 Chris Brown Prediction Race
  

My goal this year is to run 12 races. I'd love to be able to run in the 20's again some day but it's very unlikely. But if I can train enough and my legs stay healthy, I'm hoping to run a 5k in 21+change this year. 21:59 would meet that wish.

[status] 8 races run so far - 4 to more to meet goal

Here's a few handfuls of races that I'm going to attempt to run this year. With the expectation that due to kid's baseball, softball, track, cross-country, and other life events, I'll be able to do about half.

Feb 08,2009 1pm Sun
Run It Walk It For Chris Brown - 5K Prediction Run/Walk
IPFW Hilliard Gates Sports Center, Fort Wayne, IN

[results] 22:53 or about 7:21/mile. Decent day, about 40°. I finished 49/256 overall.

Feb 14,2009 2pm Sat
Fanny Freezer 5K (FWTC Points Race) - 5K
Shoaff Park, Fort Wayne, IN

[results] 23:00 or about 7:22/mile. Kinda winterly looking day, around 33°. It snowed the night before but the course was clear. I run Shoaff Park almost every week so I should have done better but this is a hard course for me. I was breathing at the end and I finished strong, so I'm happy. A few more Shoaff races are planned - I will do better. I was 71/230 overall, 10th in my age group. But wait. This just in. Chris of Dangerous Logic says that there was a bandit or two loose on the track. My watch time was 23:04 but the official stats said 23:00. I guess the bad guy(s) went thru the shoot instead of staying to the side and skewed the times. I don't care, I'm not giving back the 4 seconds. Damn bandits.

Feb 28,2009 10am Sat
Think Spring - 5K Run & 1 Mile Run
Ligonier Elementary, Ligonier, IN

[results] Wow, it was cold. About 19° at race time. Instead of "Think Spring" it should've been called "Spring : Wishful Thinking". It was brutal. This was a slow race for me. 23:54 or about 7:41mile. I was 18/46 overall, 2nd in my age group. It was a straight out and back course. At the halfway, I was running 10:48 and thought I'd finish with a 22:30 or so. But then the non-stop-in-the-face-to-the-bone wind drained everything from me. I was dying. I let two people pass me in the last half mile. I re-passed one of those in the stretch but couldn't catch the other - a 13yo girl. Oh but the good news. On the way out, I saw a cell phone on the side of the road. Since I was motoring, I didn't stop to pick it up. On the way back, since I had slowed to a near crawl, I figured that I might as well snag the phone but couldn't find it. My wife says that if I would've ran the back half instead of looking for the phone, I would've had a better time. Maybe. After the race, we drove up the stretch and sure enough, there it was. A damaged BlackBerry 8100 with sim card and 2G SD. This had been out in the weather for a while. Missing back cover, missing battery, missing trackball, rusted inside, and the screen has water inside. What a prize.

Mar 14,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run -Indy - 5k
Eagle Creek Park, Indianapolis, IN

[results] This was by far the toughest, most challenging course I've ever run. Tree roots, logs, hills, stairs, kitchen sinks, you name it. Since I've been running about ~23 minutes for 5Ks lately, I predicted ~25 for this race. So when I crossed the finish at 23:35 or about 7:35/mile, I was surprised. Sore, tired, near-death, but surprised. I was 4th in my age group, 50/195 overall. Very fun, I hope to run in the next 6 DINO trail runs. BTW, my wife finished 2nd in her age group and won a nice plaque.

Mar 21,2009 11am Sat
29th Annual Nutri Challenge 5M Run
The Chapel, Fort Wayne, IN

[results] Nope, couldn't do it. I had a cough all week and just couldn't see myself going for a 5M race. I'm still hoping for next week's trail run in Anderson

Mar 28,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run - Anderson - 5K
Mounds State Park, Anderson, IN

[results] I thought DINO trail run 1 was hard. This was very tough. Monster hills and stairs. My finish times are suffering by running trail runs. These are fun but I'm dying! I haven't had to walked in a race in probably 10 years. Yet I walked twice today, both times mid-hill. My time was 26:08 (or about 8:24/mile), by far my slowest 5k in recent memory - maybe all-time. I was 36/152, 5th in my age group. Yes, I'm running the next trail run. I have to. BTW, my wife finished 1st in her age group and my daughter was 4th in her's.

Apr 11,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run -Avon - 5k
Washington Township Park, Avon, IN

[results] What a mess. We left Ft Wayne at 6am to make a 9:10 start time. We arrived at 8:58, 12 minutes before race time. Google maps led us to the wrong side of town and we were lost. No one at gas stations had a clue. A police officer on the side of the road had never heard of Washington Township Park. I was panicing and started driving towards home. Luckily a guy stopped at a red light with us knew the place and we made it just in time. Not exactly how I like to race, no time to stretch and relax. But we made it. Kinda wish we hadn't. My time sucked again. 26:44, 62/167, 5th in age group. The course was insane. The hills didn't seem as bad as last race but the terrain was really really challenging. Super fun. I wish I could run it again next week cause I'm sure that now that I know what it's like, I could do better. My wife came in 1st in her age group again (2nd, 1st, 1st for last 3 DINO runs!). My daughter came in 5th in her group. We'll get better. 4 more DINO trail runs to go.

Apr 18,2009 9 a.m
Shoe-Sucker Seven (FWTC Points Race) - 7.3 miles
Kilsoquah Campgrounds, Roush Lake (Huntington Reservoir), Huntington, IN

[results] Not going race it. Besides being a 7 mile race thru mud that doesn't sound really exciting, I've signed up for a seminar at IPFW that day.

Apr 25,2009 9 am
IPFW 14th Annual Mastodon Stomp - 5k
IPFW Hilliard Gates Sports Center, Fort Wayne, IN

[results] I'm starting to run out of excuses for doing crappy at a race. It was a beautiful day, a balmy 60°. After months of running in 40s or less, it felt hot. And I bonked. A decent 1st mile of 7:18 and everything was fine. Then the wheels fell off somewhere in 3rd mile and a pack of old men (all in my age group) passed me. What's really bad about this is only 30 seconds separated me from the above 5 runners in my age group - All of who passed me while I was bonking.
I finished at 24:48, 90/356 overall, 9/18 in my age group. My times are going the wrong way after a decent start this year. My main problems: I'm old and I'm not training so I don't have endurance.

May 16,2009 10am Sat
Warbird Road Race 2009 (FWTC Points Race) - 5K
10515 Majic Port Lane, Fort Wayne, IN

[results] 24:49 or about 8:00/mile. 4/15 in age group, 38/485 overall. Decent run, started out a little slower than normal because it seems like I'm really bonking in the 3rd mile lately. My daughter stayed with me thru the first two miles and then started to slow in the 3rd. Since we were on a good pace for her, I was afraid she was going to really slow and ruin a good effort. So I stayed with her and encouraged her to keep it going. Result - she took first place in her age group! 24:51, a new PR by 20 seconds! And because the large crowd, we didn't cross the start until 20 seconds after the gun so if the chip timing really worked, her time would've have been close to 24:30. My wife placed 3rd in her age group 27:34. I'm so glad that they run, I can't wait until my son starts running races also.

May 30,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run -Nashville - 5k
Brown County State Park, Nashville, IN

registered

Jun 13,2009 8am Sat
Tinkham's 5K Trail Run
Camp Whitley, Columbia City, IN

Jun 21,2009 8:00 AM
Run 4 Trails - 5K Trail Run
Metea County Park - 8401 Union Chapel Rd. Fort Wayne, IN 46845, Fort Wayne, IN

Jul 4,2009 7:30AM
19th Annual July 4th Watermelon 5k
Winter Park, Florida

Jul 18,2009 7:30am Sat
Dr. Phil O'Shaughnessy 5K
Foster Park, Fort Wayne, IN

Jul 25,2009 8:30 AM
Bruin Alumni/Open - 5K
Shoaff Park, Fort Wayne, IN

Sep 05,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run -Indy - 5k
Town Run Trail Park, Indianapolis, IN

Sep 07,2009 9am Mon
Blueberry Stomp - 5K
Centennial Park, Plymouth, IN

Sep 19,2009 9:15am Sat
Hope Center 5K
Shoaff Park, Fort Wayne, IN

Sep 26,2009 7:30am Sat
Fort-4-Fitness 4 Mile Run
Freimann Square Downtown, Fort Wayne, IN

Oct 10,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run -Indy 5k
SouthWestway Park, Indianapolis, IN

Oct 18,2009
2009 Great ANT Race - 5K
Fort Wayne, IN

Nov 14,2009 9am Sat
Vasque DINO Trail Run - Fort Harrison 5k
Fort Harrison State Park, Indianapolis, IN

Dec 12,2009 10:30am Sat
Reindeer Romp 5K
Botanical Conservatory downtown - Calhoun at Jefferson, Fort Wayne, IN

Nike+ with Linux

When we left town for Christmas, I wanted to bring my Xbee and Arduino stuff with me. I made decent progress during the Turkey break but then work took over my life again and I did nothing with 'em for the next 3 weeks. With almost two weeks of pending freedom, this seemed like a perfect chance to get working again. But as I was packing two shoeboxes full of junk, my wife said "ah ... no". Damn. I hope Santa brings me something fun or I'll go nuts.

He didn't disappoint. For Christmas I got a Nike+ which is a piezoelectric accelerometer that slips into your shoe and then transmits data to a receiver on an iPod. Yes, this is just a fancy pedometer but it's something to mess with on Christmas break and keep me sane. I used to run a lot. Now I run when I can. My problem with running (besides not having much free time) is that I'm obsessed with my stats. Sometimes I have to run without a watch else I stress myself out over my splits, my pace, what I did last time, what I should of done this time. I'm a mess. I'm better now with this obsession than I was 15 years ago. But I'm also fatter and slower so I've had to lower my expectations of myself. I guess age not only makes you wiser, it makes you feel mortal.

Anyway, Santa brought me a Nike+ thing that will only feed my stat obsession because it tracks my runs by distance, time, pace, and calories burned. Sounds cool. Since the Nike+ sensor requires an iPod, Santa also brought an iPod Nano.

Not so good. See, I'm not an Apple fanboy. Not at all. I pretty much hate Apple, iPods, iPhones, iTouch, i-whatever. Not that I think the products are crap, it's just the whole Apple religion that the fanboy freaks sign up for. And I hate that punk in the Windows vs Mac commercials.

So I have an iPod. Which means I need iTunes to run the thing. Oh joy. Last time I ran iTunes for my daughter's iPod, it completely trashed my mp3 library and "optimized" it so that I couldn't find a damn thing. Task 1 - Look for an iTunes replacement that runs on Linux. I googled around a bit and tried a few alternatives. My favorite so far is the freeware Floola which can run without installation on Windows, Mac, or Linux. This app is pretty nice and hasn't disappointed yet. I loaded up 7.3GB of music, slipped the Nike+ sensor in the shoe and went for a run. Besides struggling with the headphone cable that wanted to choke me and trying to find a comfortable spot for the iPod armband, the first run went well. The interface couldn't be easier. Select a work-out, choose music and go. When done, click a button.

Nike has a website that good little fanboys/girls are supposed to use for syncing the workouts and tracking progress. What a piece of crap. The website is all in flash. It requires iTunes to upload the run. I wanted to be fair and see what it was about so I booted into Windows, installed iTunes and fought with it for about an hour. Did I mention that it was crap? The latest iTunes is better than the crap I had used a few years ago but still crap. The iTunes - Nike Plus link is very fragile. On the first run, you have to have a nike+ account already established else iTunes fails to upload your run and then won't ever ask for your website login info. Very crappy. I'm not the only one with this problem. Many people rant about it in the Apple forums. For me, the fix was simple. Using Explorer, I accessed the drive directly and copied the workout XML file from the sync folder to the latest folder. I made sure I was logged into the Nike+ website, then re-opened iTunes and clicked sync on the Nike+ tab. The result wasn't worth the effort. Crappy interface showing my run. woo hoo.

There's gotta be a better place that manipulates the Nike+ data, it's just XML. One of the first alternatives that I checked out was Runner+. This is pretty decent but only two options for syncing the data. Pull the data from Nike Plus crap website or use a Yahoo Widget that only runs on Windows or Mac. Next, I looked into Runometer. To sync data on this website, no widget or ActiveX control is need, all you need is the XML file. You can upload runs from your Nike/iPod kits, Garmin devices, or use KMZ files generated from MyMotion-enabled Windows Mobile devices. Very linux friendly since it only cares about the data. I also like the ability to publish my most recent run/runs like the image above.

I'm wondering how long the sensor will go before the battery dies. When it does, I'm going to give this instructable a try: Replace battery in Nike+ sensor for under $5