Nice 8mile

I hit the pavement tonight at 5pm thinking I would just run for another four miles or so (given that my last two runs have been pretty, errr, crappy).  The weather was nice and warm and the sun made it out by the afternoon.

 

At mile four I realized I was actually feeling pretty limber and thought I should take the opportunity to push a little further.

 

At mile six I still felt solid, though slowing some by now but decided to do another lap around the lake.

 

All said I finished 8 miles in a reasonable time and felt very solid afterward.  I could've definitely gone 10.

 

I think this distance running thing depends a lot more on physical exertion over the past several days than I realized... recovery runs and days off are a must (limited alcohol and poor diet while out of town a close second).

Dallas / Las Colinas

The past two days were beautiful but rushed; we left home Friday morning around 6am to arrive in Dallas-Ft. Worth by 9am and to the resort thirty minutes later.  We checked in early and did an hour in the gym prior to our noon luncheon.  I wound up doing 3 "miles" on the elliptical plus a one mile 'sprint' on the treadmill, along with some nautilus machine work.  The luncheon was followed by an afternoon of meetings / lectures until around 6:45pm.  At this point the evening activities got underway, which included a tequila bar and heavy hors devours.

 

Unfortunately stayed up too late to be able to get my 5am run in...  wound up stumbling back down to the conference at 7am to sit through another 5 hours.

 

Immediately following a box lunch Saturday (maybe this was a mistake) I headed out for a Colinas neighborhood run.  As you see from the map, not exactly the most scenic path, but I was a little pressed for time to catch my flight.  Las Colinas seems like it was originally a middle class suburb that got overrun with 3 or 4 large resort and country clubs.  Interesting mix of small ranch homes, average apartments and very large golf course houses.

 

I was pretty exhausted after this one.  Again, must attribute it to my eating, sleeping, and exercising the day before.

 

Best part was I was already checked out by this point so I used the spa to shower, shave, get dressed, and relax in the spa lounge.  I think definitely I could start everyday in a spa facility.  Sorry no pictures!

Upcoming: Dallas

I will be headed out for Dallas in the AM for a quick meeting and returning Saturday.  I plan to run Saturday morning before the morning meetings (which will mean getting up like 5am).  I'd like to run a few miles in every city I visit and the Forerunner seems like the coolest way to record it.  So the Naples runs for January, Dallas for Feb and planning on a week in Chicago later in March.

 

I'm compelled to call this sport "Georunning" but it seems like that's already been coined and refers to running only when going to or from a "Geocache".

 

You'll notice this week the running has been lighter than most.  It should pick back up next week...

 

Oakland Cemetery

Oakland Cemetery is one of my favorite stops on my neighborhood runs.  It is a beautiful "garden cemetery" established in 1850 on the edge of downtown Atlanta.  It is about a mile-or-so loop I add to the "far corner" of my run.  It's filled with water fountains and cool air, a nice break from the parking lot that is so much of Atlanta.  The gate on the WEST end of the cemetery (nearest the guard house) seems to always be open to foot traffic, whether its 5am or 3pm.

 

The Atlanta skyline photo is from "Bell Tower Ridge" at Oakland.

 

The headless statue I just thought was, errrrr, interesting.

 

 

 

(btw I plugged my lcd tv up to my computer until my new dell monitor arrived so I can update my motionbased account and photos)

Brutal 8.5

Today a full day of 9-hole golf, played the front 5 horribly and straightened it up with 4 straight pars to finish.  The trick is I finally figured out what a "swing plane" is and am swinging that way without "breaking" my wrists on the backswing.  It definitely feels a bit wimpier but the balls are flying straighter, and without the spin, farther.

I only did a 4 miler Friday in hopes of a long run today, so after golf I got ready for a nice "warm" afternoon stroll.  I basically did my usual route through the neighborhood and through the Oakland Cemetery, but added a small detour for a total of 8.57 miles.  ALL SAID IT WAS THE WORST RUN I'VE HAD A IN WHILE.  I felt horrible all the way till about mile 4 then just felt weak and fatigued.  Looking back my breakfast today consisted of coffee on the way to golf and lunch was some chips and salsa.  Let's hope that's what did it.

I took a few pics of the cemetery when running through (been meaning to do that) and will upload them when my desktop computer gets its new monitor this week (thanks Dell).

For the Garmin Forerunner crowd, my neighbor and I ran together.  He has the 305, I have the 205.  We were careful to start and stop them exactly the same time and of course we ran together.  His recorded us going 8.67 miles, mine 8.57.  The only difference was that mine was set to "auto pause" when we stopped for water and photos, and his kept recording.  I guess that's what did it... or do you think the 205 and 305 have different algorithms?

On-On till next time

Calories Burned Running Hills (Controversy)

Top Rated Otolaryngologist, Ballon Sinuplasty, Sinus Surgery in Atlanta
A buddy and I have been debating the caloric expenditures of running hills. After a little research it seems there is a reasonable discrepancy out there about just how much "work" is done when running up and down hills.

There is a an old-school formula out there that most treadmills and exercise calculators use that take your calories burned at a given pace and multiply that by the grade (or incline) to get the marginal increase or decrease in running hills. For example:
[kcals @ 5% incline @ 7mph] = [kcals @ 7mph] + [kcals @ 7mph] x 0.05

To me it seems this equation has a few shortcomings and assumptions:

• Assumes that the relationship between CALORIC EXPENDITURE and GRADE is LINEAR. So going from 20% grade to 25% grade is just as hard as going from 1% to 6% grade.
• Assumes that running downhill is easier than running uphill, and to the SAME DEGREE. So running downhill 15% is just as easy as running uphill 15% is hard. Weird double speak I know.
• BOTTOM LINE IS that if you run in a loop at a steady pace all your uphills will cancel with your downhills and you get no calorie calculation credit for any "hills" that are in the loop, no matter how big. I think most can agree that a hilly run is almost always SLOWER and harder than a flat run (we should get credit!)

I did some digging in the scientific literature and a study by Minetti et al (J. Applied Physiol., 2002 Sep;93(3):1039-46) looked at normal adults running on a treadmill placed at varying "extreme inclines" or declines. After running a bit the subjects had blood draws done to look at oxygen consumption, basically a very accurate method for determining calories burned.

What they found is very complex to interpret, however Figure 1 seems to make it most clear to the "rest of us":

1. The increase in calories burned going uphill DOUBLED when the grade increased by only 20% (for example going from 10% to 30% grade energy expenditure went from 5 to 10). By the traditional calculation our calories burned would've only gone up by 20%, rather than 200%.
2. When running downhill, energy expenditure seems to follow the traditional rule until we reach about a -17% grade. At this point it actually gets HARDER to run downhill than uphill.

Yes I know it is rare that any one of us is running on 30% grades, but there are area here where we're hitting 15% and 20% from time to time. [FYI grade is like a slope, just in percent form. So a rise in elevation of 100 feet over a 1000ft length is a 10% grade, downhill grades are indicated as negative].

So the net result of all this is that when running in hilly terrain we are burning far more calories than our old-school calculators are telling us, even if we run in a loop where the uphills "cancel" the downhills.

To go a step further I took a 1 mile loop near my house where I run up (and down) a big hill. Using the traditional calorie calculation I'd burn about 130 kcals (based on weight and steady pace). If I add in the corrections for hills from this study it bumps my calories up to 220 (about 70% more; note that doing this calculation was tough and used excel, I will spare you for now).

So the challenge is twofold: 1) repeat this study a few more times under varying conditions to validate it, and b) change the fitness calculator world to account for this.

A third challenge is underway and might just be patentable, so I will hold off on unveiling it for now.

Happy Hills

Premium custom digital hearing aids made for iPhone

Strange Thing Happened...

Strange thing happened on the way to the blog: I did a self-search for thismanruns at technorati and found a) that I have NOT been automatically pinging my posts so technorati barely knew me but more interestingly b) an off-beat mashup-advertisement-only website about elliptical machines apparently borrowed my most recent post and presented it like thier own original content.  There is probably a techno-savy term for this, but I don't know it.  Apparently they have a bot out there that searches for posts that mention "elliptical trainer" or the like and then they copy those blog entries into their own feed.  This gives the appearance that they are hosting this awesome blog with postings from elliptical experts everyday.

Also on the way to the blog you'll notice I made a few layout changes.  I hacked the Blogger template and made the two columns a little wider so there isn't so much wasted space on the sides.  I also added some new buttons, like the " Digg This" and one for the Complete Running Network Blog Family.  Additionally I got this new piece of blog-flare, the Romlet.  I'm still not sure what the Romlet is.  It does something to keep track of how many of their tracked sites link to you.  It was billed as being some kind of tool to build a blog social network or something, but I don't see how.  Unless I find it useful in the next week or so I will kill it.

MOST INTRIGUING TONIGHT was around 7pm when I was at a stoplight on the East side, facing south I saw THE BIGGEST METEOR EVER.  It looked like it could've been a missile heading to Earth, but burnt out about 20-degrees off the horizon.  Mind you it was so bright it was very clear and bright in the middle of the city with lots of ambient street lights around.  I even thought it could've been a plane or something going down.  It started dim like most shooting stars then brightened up, got a tail, got dim then got real bright, like an explosion and dim again until dark.  Lasted about a second.  I've been out at 3am to "meteor showers" before in rural areas and never saw one this bright.  Cool is all I'm sayin'.

In running news I did my usual weekday-workday routine yesterday, this time adding an extra half mile or so.  I will probably do the same Friday.  Still chilly here, but most of the cold is coming from the whipping wind.

And yeah, Brian, lets plan on a pre-ING run - maybe 3/15? (early AM)  Everyone else invited of course...