When It Feels Like Homework, Stop Doing It
Posted: February 20, 2012 Filed under: Random 8 Comments »
Now that I’m 46 years old, I have a simple rule “if it feels like homework, stop doing it.” Writing this running blog has started to feel like homework, so I’ve decided to stop.
This is the second time I’ve tried to use a blog as a format for a public running journal. In each case I got bored of doing it after a few weeks. It started to feel like homework. And I hate things that feel like homework.
I already enter my running data into a few web services. I log automatically on RunKeeper (since I use RunKeeper / my iPhone to track my runs.) I then manually enter the data into TrainingPeaks (which my coach uses with me), SmashRun (which I like because of the data visualization), and Daytum (which I use to track mileage in different locations.) I also have all my step and activity data logged in Fitbit.
I really want a better / more integrated / automated approach. I thought the blog as a “running journal” might tie it all together. But it doesn’t. So – with that – I’m done with this particular attempt, at least for now.
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Doubling What My Coach Said To Do
Posted: February 17, 2012 Filed under: City Running | Tags: miami, sand 9 Comments »
When I pondered my run from yesterday, I felt kind of lame. Yeah – I had the excuse that running on sand is like running in molasses, but I still didn’t feel like I worked nearly as hard as a should. So when I saw that today’s run was a mere 40 minutes, I decided to double it.
I have a double long weekend coming up – 2 hours on Saturday and 2:40 on Sunday. That’ll be about 25 miles or so. With the 6.46 I ran today I’m already at 25 miles for the week so I’ll have the potential for the first 50 mile week in a long time. And that feels important to me since I’m about two months away from a 50 mile run in Sacramento.
I can’t seem to get much pace at all for the segments on the beach. I’m doing an 8:2 pattern and as you can see from my 135 average heart rate I’m not really working that hard. Or maybe my heart is just in awesome shape since I’m running at sea level and it’s been trained at 5000 to 9000 feet. Regardless, my recovery time was quick – an hour after I finished I feel like I could go for a run again.
We’ll see how I feel on Sunday afternoon after another 25 miles of this.
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The Only Difference Between Snow And Sand Is The Temperature
Posted: February 16, 2012 Filed under: City Running | Tags: beach, cruise intervals, miami, sand 7 Comments »
I’m on Miami Beach working on my Startup Communities book. Actually, today was the first day I’ve written anything – I spent the past two days getting acclimated. Ok – I spent the last two days procrastinating, but that’s how it works for writers. Maybe I’ll go on a bender all night long, sit by the pool with a bottle of whiskey in the morning, and crank out 50 pages.
Or maybe I’ll try my cruise intervals again. 6 minutes fast, 3 minutes walking times 5. One minor problem – I forgot that I’d be on sand for most of it. Have you ever tried to run in sand? It’s like running on snow except it’s warm. As I started the first interval, I thought to myself “ok – let’s go.” After a minute I was depressed. I was working hard, but not moving very fast. After two minutes I decided to change my attitude and just run. I ended up with some boardwalk on the way back and turned in an 8:26 and a 9:19 which was a solid way to end.
I’m back to procrastinating. This blog post was another delay tactic. Soon I’ll need to take a shower and go out to dinner. Writing a book is really hard.
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Flying South For The Winter
Posted: February 14, 2012 Filed under: City Running | Tags: miami beach 10 Comments »
RunKeeper told me that I just set a new record for avg. pace (9:05). I didn’t feel like I was working that hard – I just happened to be (a) at sea level and (b) in a warm place. Let me repeat (b) – I’m in a warm place. For the next two weeks. I’m officially sick and tired of winter.
Yup – that’s my wife’s car (the red one) stuck on the road leading up to our house. This is the second time she’s pulled this magic trick and it resulted in yet another 10 mile run to the office for me on Monday. Ok – I like the 10 mile run to the office so I’m mostly just giving my awesome wife a little bit of virtual shit. But I love her, think she’s super cute, and am glad we are spending Valentine’s Day together in a warm place. Plus, she’s a much better driver than me – I wouldn’t have even dared to try to get up the driveway.
During my run today I spent most of it thinking about a friend of mine who is having surgery today. He was recently diagnosed with testicular cancer and is having – well – one of his precious jewels removed. While I ran I sent him as much good karma as I could – I just kept repeating his name over and over again in my head. I haven’t heard how the surgery went, but as I ran along the beach in Miami I remembered that we are all mortal and should appreciate every minute of this thing called life.
Last year Amy and I spent Superbowl weekend here. This year it’s two weeks as I finish off my Startup Communities book. Maybe this will turn into an annual winter tradition. It sure is nice to be warm right now.
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20 Cold Miles and One Warm Dump
Posted: February 6, 2012 Filed under: Training | Tags: cold, dump, snow 5 Comments »On Thursday and Friday we got a typical extreme Boulder snowstorm. That means 24″ of snow. I was stuck at our condo in Boulder and Amy was stuck at our house in Eldo. That was no fun so on Friday morning I ran to her.
I thought it would be snowy so I wore a brand new pair of icebugs. Of course, I got the wrong size (they are 12′s – I should have gone 11.5′s). More importantly, I only needed them for the last 250 yards as the first 9 miles was dry road already (the sun was out, it was in the 40′s, and the snow plows had done their work, including on the sidewalks.) Of course, the last 250 yards was two feet deep so I’m not sure I needed the icebugs for that either so I just postholed my way through. Have you ever run 10 miles uphill in spikes on concrete and asphalt with shoes that are half a size too big? It sucks. So I took a bath when I got home.
I was going to run back to Boulder on Sunday mid-morning. I woke up at 9:30, had some breakfast, read a book, and crawled back in bed to take a nap. I woke up at 5:30 in the afternoon and decided to stay home and watch the football game with Amy. She’s a crazy Patriots fan so I rooted for the Giants just to annoy her. Hah!
I left my house this morning at 6:00am. It was pitch black except for the full moon lighting up the sky. The first 250 yards were a reverse of postholing through the snow – this time I had some footprints (big, deep ones) to step in. The next mile was over a sheet of ice where the snow had melted and refrozen in Eldorado Springs. After several ballet moves I decided to walk the last half mile so I’d quit trying to fall. Once I hit the pavement the road was once again dry.
At mile 7 I had a feeling come over me that all long distance runners know. I ate too much on Sunday but left before I’d had a chance to empty myself. I figured I only had three miles left so it wasn’t a big deal. Wrong. I started reconsidering at mile 8. By mile 9 I was in full clench – I’d waited too long and was now hunting for a building to duck into and find a bathroom. Fortunately I was at CU Boulder so I shot into the first building and went from a state of complete and total panic to utter relief in about six seconds.
As I trotted the last mile smiling, I thought to myself how nice it was to end a frustrating 20 miles with a very warm dump.
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A Random Run In DC With A LivingSocial Dude
Posted: February 1, 2012 Filed under: Travel | Tags: dc, livingsocial, random, travel 2 Comments »
Just when I thought I was home I woke up in DC (well – Arlington, Virginia). In the dark of night (well – 6:30am) I went down to the lobby to meet up with a guy named Matt Lattman. It was pretty obvious who he was since he was the only person in the lobby and was in shorts and a t-shirt ready to run.
About a month ago Matt had bravely left a comment on my blog at Feld Thoughts which I replied to. This generated an email exchange about going for a run the next time I was in the DC area. That was today and off we went.
I knew nothing about Matt prior to the run other than he knew how to leave a comment on a blog, was training for a half marathon, and could spell pretty well. It turns out that he’s been at LivingSocial for the past year and a half and has experienced their growth from 300 to 5000 people. In addition to a nice (although damp) run on a bike path along Rt. 66, we had an awesome chat about scaling a business, culture, and the DC entrepreneurial community.
While I often run alone, I like doing random runs with people who reach out to me. This one was great and I made a new friend. Hopefully Matt will call on me to be helpful in the future with his endeavors, as he was helpful with mine this morning.
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10 Miles Is Starting To Feel Routine
Posted: January 30, 2012 Filed under: City Running | Tags: 10 miles, Boulder, office, record 7 Comments »
I regularly run from my house in Eldorado Springs to my office in Boulder. My standard run is right around 10 miles and has been a staple of my weekly “medium” runs when I’m in town. I usually leave my house just before dawn and enjoy the sun coming up on my way up 170 to Broadway (the first 4 miles) and then have the sun on my back for the remaining 6 miles into town.
As I’ve been losing weight (I’m now solidly under 200 and have been for a few weeks even with a long trip to the east coast) I’ve been getting faster. I knocked out a bunch of 10 milers at sea level in Boston and this was my first in Boulder since I went to Keystone in the middle of December.
I crushed it. I did a 9:1 pattern which means I walked a minute every 10 minutes and still turned in solid 10 minute miles the whole way, averaging 9:44. I had plenty left at the end although I definitely felt like I’d been working hard. For a 10 mile run, I’m often in the 140 – 150 range for average heart rate so 158 is an indication that there was some exertion today.
I started to fade a little around mile 8. I remember saying out loud “C’mon Feld – quit fucking around” as I picked it up again. As I made my way past the construction on Broadway (where they are building a new underpass), I smiled and hoofed it for the last mile.
Even with all my running, 10 miles used to feel like a long run until recently. Now, it’s just a routine run on my way to a day at the office.
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A Gilligan Island Run
Posted: January 28, 2012 Filed under: Long Run | Tags: bike, Boulder, clif shot, gilligan 7 Comments »
Whenever I go out for three hours or more, I think of it as a Gilligan Island Run. Everyone from my generation immediate starts singing “a three hour tour” in exactly the right key. I challenge you to get that out of your head.
My coach scheduled this for Sunday but I wanted to knock it off today. Amy and I got home late on Friday – I’d been gone for three weeks (mostly Boston, some New York). I knew that the elevation would get me a little and that I was generally wiped out from all the work I’ve been doing, but figured I’d test myself a little and then relax on Sunday.
I used an 8:2 pattern and still averaged 11:28 which was better than I expected (meaning that a bunch of the running segments had to be right around 10 minutes, or even sub 10 minutes.) I drank water and did three Clif Shots every 30 minutes. I ran out of gas around 14 miles and slowed down – I can’t tell whether it was the fuel, fatigue, or elevation. I had a headache for about 10 minutes at 15 miles (it went away) and needed to take a dump at mile 11 (it was very satisfying.)
I ended at a bike shop and picked up a new bike. After getting fitted I hopped on it and went three miles back to my office – mostly downhill. You can go a lot faster on a bike than on foot, even after running for three hours.
A shower followed by an awesome massage and I’m ready – for a nap. But dinner is in a little while so I’ll just power through and sleep late tomorrow morning.
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Running Harvard Stadium
Posted: January 25, 2012 Filed under: Cross Training | Tags: bussgang, cambridge, cross training, harvard, stadium 7 Comments »
My friend Jeff Bussgang from Flybridge gave me a new experience today – we ran Harvard Stadium. To be precise, we ran half of Harvard Stadium, or 19 of the 38 sections. We started at one end (section 38), ran up the stairs, and then walked down. We shifted over a section and repeated until we were done.
It took 20 minutes. It was a beautiful morning – about 40 degrees – and the sun coming up over the edge of Harvard Stadium was stunning. The stadium was empty except for a few other crazy people running the stairs. We stretched for five minutes, Jeff gave me some hints, and we were off.
He finished each segment in about half the time it took me. He used to do this in college when he rowed crew at Harvard so he had a great rhythm. I tried a few different approaches but each time seemed to fade about half way to the top. By the tenth segment I was walking the last five to ten stairs each time, totally winded.
I expected my legs to be more tired but the breathing was the harder problem. I’d go anaerobic almost immediately. My heart rate never got about 165 but for some reason the effort of pulling myself up the stairs overtaxed by breathing. Before I realized it we were finished with half the stadium and my legs were shaking. That was plenty for a first timer like me.
RunKeeper clocked it at 0.62 miles and Fitbit was at 1.20 miles. The GPS data is totally fubared so I’ll call it a mile. Fitbit showed 67 flights of stairs up which is about the same as I cover in a 90 minute trail run and seems about right since each segment was about three flights of stairs.
Thirty minutes later I have a nice burn in my legs and I feel the soft fatigue that comes after a solid workout. I’ll definitely be running more stadiums in my future. Thanks Jeff!
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Early Morning 11 Miles Around The Charles River
Posted: January 24, 2012 Filed under: City Running | Tags: boston, cambridge, charles river 8 Comments »
I did another long bridge loop around the Charles River this morning. I tacked on an extra bridge at the end (Museum of Science) and ended up with 11.42 instead of the 10-ish I’ve been doing. It was early when I started – 5:44am and pitch black. The snow was gone – it had been washed away by the drizzle and the 45 degree temperatures.
I started off slow, but picked things up by mile three. I again used an 8:2 run:walk pattern so that I could consolidate the miles – I did a few at 9:1 but overall just wanted to cover the distance. As the sky got lighter I started noticing more runners and the Esplanade was had a steady stream of bridge loop people out by the time I got to it. The sun was shinning when I finished at 7:45 and I felt strong and would have kept going but I had an 8:30 meeting.
Tomorrow morning (in 9 hours) I’m running Harvard Stadium with Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge. I don’t think I’ve ever done a full stadium anywhere so I took a look on YouTube a few minutes ago to see what I’m in for.
Based on the video I’d better get my ass in bed and rest up.
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