End of Week 9. Layers: Onion vs. Parfait

Shrek and Donkey are arguing about layers... Shrek insists that ogres are like onions, with lots of layers. Donkey suggests that not everyone likes onions, but cakes have layers, and a parfait has layers. Then, maybe the funniest line in the movie happens, as Donkey says, "Have you ever met a person, you say, 'Let's get some parfait,' they say, 'Hell no, I don't like no parfait'? Parfaits are delicious!"

So, I did not post anything from last week, because there were no results... I've been sick with stuff (that's the technical medical term, by the way), and sort of gave up. But, I found my motivation again, and got "back on the horse" this week. And I needed some layers of my own... it was a bit nippy this morning, the the 11-12 F range. So, I layered up with a bicycle jersey (long sleeves), then a micro fleece, then a thick fleece coat. Found a better hat than my ball cap, and headed out for a bit of a walk/run.

Because I had been out of commission for a while, I decided to take it a little easier in terms of intensity, but still wanted a decent work out. I decided to just go farther... So I did two warm-up loops, then a run, then two walking loops, etc. Went over 30 minutes, which was exciting.

And speaking of exciting, a stretch of the trail had all kinds of crazy ice formations... So after I finished, I went back for the camera. Here's what I discovered:


The photo leading the entry is the portion of trail that had the fun icy stuff. As I walked or jogged along, my feet kept breaking through icy leaves, almost like little cave-ins. I pulled some of the detritus back, and that's the first picture, above... the gap between the snow-covered leaves and the ground had a lot of moisture, and that moisture clung to the bottom of the leaves, eventually freezing into little fuzzy stalactites.

The second photo above is what composed the portion of trail... delicate, icy strands that formed as moisture from the ground expanded on freezing, and passed through the perforated clay soil. You can see particles of clay trapped in the ice. If I were to squeeze the collection of strands, they would break apart into many fine tendrils.

The final photo is nearby to the portion of trail, and explains all the moisture! It's the edge of a still-wet stream (despite several nights with single digit temperatures), whose surface has an interesting "flash frozen" star pattern on it.

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:49.2
Loop 2 (walk) : 4:41.3
Loop 3 (jog) : 2:56.8
Loop 4 (walk) : 4:42.2
Loop 5 (jog) : 3:21.5
Loop 6 (walk) : 4:49.9
Loop 7 (cool down walk) : 6:01.8

Total distance: 2.8 km, Total time: 31:21.9, Best mile: 15:41.8
Weekly weigh-in: 310 pounds    <-- Hell, yeah!
Average power: 476 Watts
Heart rate following final run: 165
Heart rate five minutes after cool-down walk: 111

End of Week 7 - and Mixed Metaphors

Mixed metaphors... done well if done intentionally, but usually done poorly because the person simply doesn't realize what they're saying. Here are two I've heard recently...

1) It was an eleventh hour, drop back and punt situation. Not only is this a mixed metaphor (taking the notion of completing a task in the 11th hour, or with very little time to spare, and confusing it with the notion of using 4th down to punt away the football, signifying a situation in which you are temporarily ceding control to another group, or giving up entirely), but the ideas themselves are completely disparate! An 11th hour situation is one in which you marshal your reserves and push toward the deadline... A drop back and punt situation is one in which you are giving up now in hopes of regaining the momentum later.

2) Two to one, half a dozen to the other. This one makes me laugh every time I hear the person say it... I'm not exactly sure what is meant, because it is nonsensical as is, but I think the confusion here is between suggesting there are "two" available choices, and that one of those choices is to call it a half dozen. We all know this should really be "six to one, half a dozen to the other," and it suggests that one person may use the number six, while another person may use the phrase "half a dozen" and they really mean the same thing... We'd use it to suggest, "Hey, you know, we may be using different words, but we're describing the same thing."

I know it shouldn't be funny to me when someone screws up trying to sound learned... but it is. I'm just a terrible person that way.

So, the walk/run today was very, very cold and wet... the course has managed to become almost swamp-like in places... and the air temperature this morning was about 27 F... so as I broke through thin layers of crusty ice, my feet got soaked in cold, gooey mud. I'm not complaining... I started to like it after a lap or two. It was a bit of suffering that I was able to transform into joy! My daughter, though, has insisted that if I were more careful, I could avoid the dampness along the course... so I invited her to come out with me next time! We'll see how she fares.

Because I missed last week, and most of this week I was out with a serious cold, I did an 11th hour drop back and punt kind of thing and reduced my distance back down to 2 clicks, or 2K if you prefer... two to one, half a dozen to the other.

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:19.4
Loop 2 (jog) : 3:05.6
Loop 3 (walk) : 4:27.0
Loop 4 (jog) : 2:57.4
Loop 5 (walk) : 4:22.8

Total distance: 2 km, Total time: 19:12.2, Best mile: 14:45.2
Weekly weigh-in: 320 pounds
Average power: 626 Watts
Heart rate following final run: 165
Heart rate five minutes after cool-down walk: 108

End of Week 6 - The agony of de feet

Well, just for disclosure's sake, there are no results for this week. I injured my left foot a few days ago, tripping over a pile of wood cut ends near the barn project, and the impact set up a "trauma" in my left big toe. Then, yesterday I got dehydrated working outside all day (I keep forgetting that you have to drink, especially in the cold), and coupled with the toe trauma, this led to an onset of gout in the left toe this morning. Yes, "gout," the condition that makes you sound like you live in the 15th century...

Gout is a form of arthritis. Specifically, it is the crystallization of uric acid in a joint, typically the great toe (i.e., big toe), elbow, or wrist. The toe is especially susceptible because of the great stresses and strains that act upon it; the great toe serves as the single point of propulsion for the human gait. There is evidence that one can be more prone to gout depending on various factors, including diet, trauma, hydration, and genetic history.

Dietary considerations involve consumption of too much red meat. I haven't had a great deal of red meat in the last few weeks, so that's out. But, certainly, I qualified under trauma and hydration! Hydration plays a role because as the base amount of water in your system decreases, by default the concentration (i.e., amount of stuff dissolved in some unit of water) of all minerals and compounds in your blood will go up. So, when you get dehydrated the concentration of sodium goes up, as does the concentration of uric acid. Uric acid is a cellular waste product that is filtered by the kidneys. Unfortunately, if the concentration of uric acid gets too high, it will crystallize... forming sharp edges that cause inflammation in the joint it chose to sit on and form crystals.

So, for me, the treatment is two-fold. I drink a lot of water to get well hydrated, and I take serious anti-inflammatory meds to keep things in check. This strategy usually means I only have to suffer most of one day, rather than the three-to-four days that used to be typical for me (before I understood what was happening chemically). Sadly, that day happened to be today, when I should have been out on the course doing some timed walking/running. C'est la vie, n'est pas?

I did have to spend time on my feet, trying to close in the remaining parts of the barn before real, serious snow starts flying... so I was quite thankful for my orthotic inserts from the VA, the ones with the band of carbon fiber running along the great toe line, that help support the propulsive efforts of that joint. Although, to be honest, I cheated and just limped about not flexing my left foot at all!

Hopefully, I'll be able to get back into things later in the week.

The Turkey Trot

Well, we're up in Fort Kent for Thanksgiving... a couple of inches of snow and ice are on the ground, and the temperatures are their typical 10 degrees (F) cooler than down in western Maine... but I love it up here, in my homeland.

So, as we pull in yesterday afternoon, my Dad asks me, "Hey, now that you're a runner, do you want to go into town with me tomorrow for the Turkey Trot?" After I laughed at being called a runner (but had that secret pride nonetheless, especially from my Dad, who has been a runner and Nordic skier for the last 30+ years... trains with Olympians... he likes to run), I decided to go along with him, my brother Pete, and two of my nephews to the Turkey Trot 5K Charity Walk/Run.

The charity part of the event is to raise funds for the sports program at the Fort Kent Elementary School, which is fine by me. The 5K part was a bit daunting... Remember, my END goal for this blog is to get up to 5K, and the farthest I've run so far is one very slow mile back on Veterans Day. Well, so what? I figured I'd just walk by myself and let the fit members of the family do the run.

And that's pretty much what happened, except my Dad decided to walk with me. We had a great time talking about various carpentry projects he's doing, the horse barn I'm building, his ridiculous interactions with the Maine State Department of Education (I'll explain in some future post), fun things happening at my work, and just the sundry things we never get to regularly talk about because we live six hours apart and neither of us like talking on the phone much. It was the best 51 minutes I've had in a long time.

So, like I said, we did the 5K at a walk in 51 minutes, which is about my regular pace, and it was a great time, for which I'm quite thankful.

End of Week 5 (or, how to run WITH a cold)

There is a certain lack of elegance to the most basic bodily functions. These are made especially inelegant when you happen to have a cold. As I had during the run today...

Before I go any further, I should admit to having grown up surrounded by potato fields and potato farmers in the northern reaches of Maine (in the very lovely town of Fort Kent - no sarcasm, I really enjoyed it). As such, you learn certain, let's call them "short cuts," when dealing with having, for purposes of this example, to blow one's nose. One simply plugs one nostril with a finger by applying inward pressure on the fleshy bit of the nose, and then takes a deep breath through the mouth, closes the mouth, and exhales as rapidly as possible through what will hopefully soon be a cleared nostril (the one you are not holding your finger up against). Repeat with the other nostril.

Now, it should seem obvious that performing this maneuver while wearing flip-flops is verbotten. Or should be, in decent company. But obvious things are not always evident to me... so I had to learn this particular lesson the hard way. Well, technically it was the "soft and gooey" way, but I'm sure the point has been made.

So, running with a cold... I don't recommend it. My dad swears that running will help "burn off" any kind of cold you may have, but all I really experienced was discomfort and a nasty taste at the back of my throat. Regardless, I had already decided to up the distance, so I did manage to complete a total of 2.4km today, and that is it's own little victory!

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:33.2
Loop 2 (jog) : 3:07.8
Loop 3 (3:1, jog:walk) : 3:29.2
Loop 4 (walk) : 4:39.8
Loop 5 (jog) : 3:08.9
Loop 6 (walk) : 4:43.5

Total distance: 2.4 km, Total time: 23:42.4, Best mile: 14:19.1
Weekly weigh-in: 319 pounds
Average power: 636.6 Watts
Heart rate following final run: 175
Heart rate five minutes after cool-down walk: 114

End of Week 4

The ground is still waterlogged with the heavy rains we received about a week ago. In the several low areas around the course, there is some standing water, but mostly the moisture lurks in the form of soggy moss and wet grass atop a rich stew of black, viscous mud.

My MT910 trail shoes, described last month, are up to the challenge in terms of grip and support, even in these messy conditions... but what they lack is a certain ability to disallow liquid dirt from getting in through the cool and airy mesh linings... Ah, well. Can't have it all. Although, I used to sport GoreTex socks as part of my bicycling kit, but I imagine they'd be somewhat uncomfortable for running. If conditions worsen, I'll dig them out and give it a go. On the other hand, there's a certain je ne sais quoi to having your foot plunge into freezing cold muck... motivates you to keep warm by running faster!

I does seem I'm getting a little faster... and I want these evolutions to be at least 20 solid minutes of effort... so I'll have no choice next week but to add some extra distance. We'll try by adding one extra lap each of walking and jogging, bringing the total distance (for next time) up to 2.8 km... Over half way to the 5K goal!

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:12.6
Loop 2 (jog) : 3:02.7
Loop 3 (walk) : 4:29.3
Loop 4 (jog) : 2:51.6     <-- Personal Best!
Loop 5 (walk) : 4:40.0

Total distance: 2 km, Total time: 19:16.2, Best mile: 14:36.2
Weekly weigh-in: 319 pounds
Average power: 622.2 Watts
Heart rate following final run: 174
Heart rate five minutes after cool-down walk: 117

Throw the Change Up!

So, when I used to ride my bicycle a lot, I had a particular training schedule I used when getting ready for a big ride, especially centuries. Monday was an easy spin day, nothing in the big ring. Tuesday was sprint day, all-out efforts for increasing distances allowing full recovery between each effort. Wednesday was a distance day, trying to pedal at least 75% of the upcoming weekend ride, but done slowly. Thursday was interval day, 95% all-out efforts on hills or out of the saddle, never fully recovering between. Friday was another easy spin. Saturday was an easy spin with a couple of sprints. Sunday was the big ride, going for distance in the best time manageable. Then it started back with Monday...

Why do I mention this? I'm running now, not biking... but I realized today that, following my successful one mile attempt from Wednesday, it might be time to start introducing alternate training elements into my three days a week.

Early this morning, then, I set out to do something I hadn't  done since high school ski team practice... I was going to go do Fartleks! Basically, a Fartlek is similar to doing intervals or sprint training. You simply vary your pace throughout the course of your run or walk. (If you really want to try this technique, this article has more details).

The way that I did it today was to warm up with one lap, then on each subsequent lap I walked 250m, then started a jog, then sprinted the final 20m. Wash, rinse, repeat.

It was fun, actually. I think it's important to have variety in a training program so that you don't become mindless to what you're doing. So, I'm going to take one of my two non-timed days each week to do something like this... whether they're Fartleks or some other technique. Viva la difference!

What'd you do on the Marines' 235th birthday? I ran a mile!

10 November 1775: The "birthday" of the US Maine Corps... In Basic Training, Infantry School, and all during deployments and training evolutions, we ran. We ran in sneakers and shorts for the fitness tests, we ran in "Boots and Utes" (combat boots and camo fatigues, aka battle dress utilities) for motivation, we ran with rifles, we ran with packs, we skied (running on snow) in the White Mountains and in Norway, we ran in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq. Running formed the basis of our aerobic fitness, and you need to be fit to be an Infantryman.

So today, on my Marine Corps' 235th birthday, I left work early to go run. I walked a warm-up loop, then ran a full mile. It's the farthest I've run all at once since beginning this experiment... I just picked a nice, easy pace, and kept at it. Considering the distances that Marines run every day, a single mile is not all that impressive. But it was my own personal contribution to the birthday celebration; a return to running marks, in a sense, a return to the ideals of the Corps itself: Semper Fidelis, the motto of the US Marines, means "always faithful." We are always faithful to each other, our brother and sister Marines. The Marines are as effective a fighting force as they are because we don't fight for honor or our country or one god or another... we fight to protect the Marine next to us, because he is our brother. We perform as well as we do not for fame or medals, but because we don't want to disappoint our team mates. Running out on my little wooded course today, doing my first mile in a long time, I felt I was being faithful to the spirit of my Marine training, and being faithful to myself for following through and not quitting.

One of the things Marines do, and I'm sure this is done in many other places, is sing Cadences while we run in formation. It's a call and reply kind of song, following the rhythm of the boots striking the ground... some are about the history of the Corps, some are about tactics, others are just plain cool. In the last 100 m of my run today, in memory of all fallen Marines, I sang my favorite cadence...Note: language warning!

Yellow birdie with a yellow bill
     (yellow birdie with a yellow bill)
Landed on my window sill
     (landed on my window sill)
I coaxed him in with a bit of bread
     (I coaxed him in with a bit of bread)
And then I crushed his fucking head!
     (and then I crushed his fucking head!)

Semper Fi.

End of Week 3, or: How to Run in the Cold

It's like when that squirrel had to finally break it off with the foreign exchange chipmunk... sometimes it's just not meant to be, and you wind up driving each other nuts. Weather is like that, too... when it's cold, it should snow. If it's warm, it should rain. It's when weather gets all inter-species curious that we wind up with days like today: 34 degrees (F) and a nasty, windy rain.

Probably would have been better to stay inside drinking cocoa, but I knew if I didn't get outside, and tromp through that course, then I'd be a lump all day. And I was expecting a delivery of freshly cut pine boards for the barn, so get off your ass, Marine...

Running in the Cold, Rule 1. Breathe in through your nose, as the air will be a bit warmer in your lungs. My result? Haha! Breathe through my nose!?! I'm lucky I can gasp enough air through my mouth, nose, and cute little belly button (all at once, this is an impressive sight)... there's no way I could breathe just through the nose without passing out. 

Running in the Cold, Rule 2. Wear gloves to protect exposed skin. My result? Well, I use my iPod as my lap-timing device, and I can't operate it with gloves... so, yeah.

Running in the Cold, Rule 3. Do your warm-up inside. My result? Hmmm, no. I suppose I could warm up on the exercise bike, but I would have to re-adjust it for my size, then put it back to my wife's size...

So, in the end, I breathed though every available orifice, went bare-handed, and did my normal warm-up. And I did survive, obviously, but I tell you what, that first lap of running, my legs felt like concrete! So I think I will at least walk two laps for warm-up in colder weather, and see if that helps.

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:31.8
Loop 2 (jog) : 3:07.8
Loop 3 (walk) : 4:44.3
Loop 4 (jog) : 2:56.5  <-- Personal Best!
Loop 5 (walk) : 4:44.1

Total distance: 2 km, Total time: 20:04.5, Best mile: 15:20.2
Weekly weigh-in: 322 pounds
Average power: 602.9 Watts

End of Week 2

Wow. Two weeks... So far, so good, I guess. Dropped four pounds - can't complain.

An interesting thing happened this morning... we had our first snow! I grabbed this shot of part of the trail while it was still snowing relatively quickly... big, wet flakes that I knew wouldn't last the day, but something I just had to walk and run in for old times (old times being high school ski team...).

I also grabbed a video of the entire trail, while walking, and once I edit the sound a bit I'll post that, too.

Maybe it was the cold, but there were a couple times during the run that my motivation sagged. I found myself saying things like, "It's snowing - no one will blame you for stopping early." I'll often argue with myself like that, with Evil Homer and Good Homer sitting up there on their respective shoulders, offering opposing advice.

In the end, I decided that even if I had to run slowly, I would not stop running during the run sections. I have heard that advice countless times doing dry-land training for Nordic season... "Just keep going! Don't stop!" Heard the same advice in the Marines, during PFTs (Physical Fitness Tests), or during particularly grueling training evolutions... And I even gave that advice to my high school athletes when I coached football and track.

I never really understood it, until I had to tell myself to do it.

I realized that, on this day, in this snow, at this moment, I was out there for myself, and all the excuses in the world would fall flat if I gave up now... because I would know they were excuses, not reasons. So, I managed to lurch through the course with not great run times, granted, but with a stronger sense of motivation and purpose. Can't complain.

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:30.8
Loop 2 (jog) : 3:06.8
Loop 3 (walk) : 4:36.6
Loop 4 (jog) : 3:16.0
Loop 5 (walk/jog) : 4:19.8

Total distance: 2 km, Total time: 19:50.0, Best mile: 15:13.4
Weekly weigh-in: 322 pounds
Average power: 633.4 Watts

Lions, Tigers, and Bears... Oh No!

It's no secret that bears crap in the woods. It's also no secret that Maine has plenty of wooded areas. Lastly, it's no real secret that we live out in some of these said areas. Now, putting it all together, one would expect to logically stumble upon some bear crap, from time to time, if one lived in the woods. And so it has come to pass...

Well, I didn't actually stumble upon bear crap (more accurately, "scat"), but I did learn that some hunters had tracked a bear to a nearby farm, treed it with their hounds, and killed it. All perfectly legal, as it's bear hunting season here, and they were with a registered guide. In general, I support all kinds of hunting, even though I usually don't do any hunting myself. It's a choice each person should be able to make for themselves, it seems to me.

Anyway, back to this bear situation... So, logically I understand that I live in habitat suited to bears, but until these hunters showed up, I had not put theory into practice, as it were.

Black bears are not terribly aggressive to humans. Most actual attacks are due more to hunger than to them being territorial. Because of this, it is actually best to fight back with a black bear attack, rather than "play possum" as you should do with a grizzly attack. So, how to fight back? While out for a run?

Enter the Gerber LMF II Infantry Knife... relatively small, but plenty tough, a well placed shot between a bear's shoulder blades would do the trick if worse really turned to worst.

This is my knife, there are many like it, but this one is mine... I've added some 550 cord around the sheath, because I'm a complete and utter 550 cord geek... love the stuff. Combined with duct tape, it's hard to imagine a fastening job that couldn't be done with panache.

So I decided to try it out... I put a carabiner on the sheath for easy attachment to my shorts, and just shoved it in a pocket. Today I walked/ran 2.4 km, with the knife, and it didn't really bother me at all... so it will now be a permanent addition to my regular walk/run routine.

Not to say I'm going to go out and antagonize a bear into attacking me... nay nay! This is just for that amazingly slim chance that I'll ever, ever, ever get attacked by any kind of animal while out on my little course, and in particular, by a bear. But, a little preparedness never hurt anyone, I say.

Oh, almost forgot... in the 2.4 km I did today, a full 1 km was done at a jog! I actually ran a whole kilometer... brings tears to the eyes... and I sprinted the last 40m just for fun. I had mostly given up hope that I would ever use the concepts of "running" and "fun" in the same sentence... but here we are.

End of Week 1

Well, the first week ended on a high... Walk/ran the course last Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and then again today, Sunday. Those three days (S, W, F) will work as something I can do week to week, which means it will be easier to keep up with the program.

So, the big excitement for me was getting a sub-three minute... 400m! Haha... It's nice that the "progress" can be mixed so effectively with "humility." But, progress is progress... I also added a bit more distance during the Friday walk/run, and changed the order to alternate walking and running each 400m loop, which I duplicated today.

The other thing I'm incorporating doing the walk/run on an empty stomach (e.g., see this article). One of the things I learned in long distance bicycling is that I'm usually good for about an hour of endurance work before I need to eat something. Since none of my walk/runs are going to push that time, there doesn't seem to be the need to worry about carrying water or eating before hand. Apparently, by working with low blood sugar, the body is encouraged to dig into fat burning mode... and this is a very, very good thing.

Lap Times
Loop 1 (walk) : 4:26.2
Loop 2 (jog) : 3:11.2
Loop 3 (walk) : 4:35.2
Loop 4 (jog) : 2:59.8       Woo hoo!
Loop 5 (walk) : 5:06.5

Total distance: 2 km, Total time: 20:19.8, Best mile: 15:12.4
Weekly weigh-in: 326 pounds
Average power: 602 Watts

Power Calculations

Power is the term we use to describe the rate at which energy is used. Or equivalently, it is the rate at which work is done (in this case, work means mechanical work, gravitational work, etc.).

You hear all the time about power settings on exercise equipment... Set the bike for 200 Watts, and so on. Well, that just means it's going to take a certain amount of energy on your part, spread out over some amount of time.

Mathematically, Power = Energy / Time. So, if you expend 100 Calories of energy over 1 hour of time, you would describe your average power output as 100 Calories per hour. I say "average" here because we're only interested in the TOTAL energy and the TOTAL time, not the instantaneous values (the values at a single moment).

However, Calories per hour is not a standard unit for power. We typically use the Watt to represent power, and just as you might purchase a 100 Watt light bulb, you can do 100 Watts of output on a walk, run, or bike. Or, just sitting around, too. But remember that TIME is part of the equation... the longer you spend expending some fixed amount of energy, the lower your power output would be. You end up dividing by a larger number, since time is in the denominator, so that makes sense.

So the standard unit is the Watt, and that is defined as 1 Joule per second. A Joule is the standard unit of energy. We're more used to thinking in terms of the Calorie, though, as a unit of energy. A banana has 100 Calories of chemical energy stored in it, for example. Well, one Calorie is the same as 4,200 Joules. So if I burn 200 Calories in 2 hours of exercise, then my average power is P = 200 C / 2 h  = 200 C * 4,200 J/C / 2 h * 3,600 s/h = 117 J/s = 117 Watts. As you can see, if I burned the same number of calories, but spread it out over 4 hours of exercise (by exercising less intensely, or by taking lots of breaks, or whatever), then my average power would be P = 58 Watts.

It turns out that lots of physiologists have done studies to figure out how many Calories we burn while walking and running. As you might expect, this depends on your weight... great. It turns out that running burns 0.63 * Weight (in pounds) number of Calories per mile, while walking burns 0.3 * Weight (in pounds).

I should mention that the values above are to calculate your NET Calories burned... meaning, those above and beyond your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) Calories.

So, if you weight 100 pounds, you'll burn roughly 63 Calories per mile while running, and 30 Calories per mile while walking. This is for "medium" speeds (3-4 mph walking, for example).

Using all this information, and given my current weight of 326 pounds, by doing three walking loops and one running loop (for a total of one mile), I burn 0.75 * (0.3 * 326) + 0.25 * (0.63 * 326) = 125 Calories. Now, the faster I do that mile, the greater my average power output must be. Since I only time myself once a week, and I've only been doing this a week... I'll use my first set of times. My total exercise time was 17:08, or 0.28566 hours.

Therefore, I burn 125 Calories / 0.28566 hours = 436.6 Calories per hour. Converting this to standard units (remember 1 Calorie = 4,200 Joules, and 1 hours = 3,600 seconds) yields: 509 Watts.

My average power output is 509 Watts over the 17 minutes it takes me to do my mile.

What should be obvious is that since I'm capable of maintaining 509 Watts over 17 minutes, as I loose weight, I should be able to see improvements in my times, even if my fitness doesn't improve at all. Simply by weighing less, I could go much faster... If I weighed 200 pounds, I'd only need 77 Calories to go a mile, then my 509 Watts would get me around the course in 10:31. Now, that's still not really a world class mile time... but in reality my fitness (and therefore my ability to generate a larger average power output) will be increasing as well, so by the time I've lost all that weight my average power might be closer to 750 Watts, which would give me a mile time of 7:08. Still not world class, but that would be damn acceptable to me!

Dark Matters

One of the things I learned in the Marines was what we called "night movement." Of course, back in the 1990's, when I was in the Corps, the kinds of night vision devices in use today were much less common. Instead, we simply learned to place our feet carefully and keep our biological night vision strong.

I remember one particular training evolution down in Georgia... my Fire Team was tasked with moving quickly, quietly, and with violent purpose up the flank of a suspected enemy scouting party. It was probably close to midnight when we slipped into the trees to parallel the road under full cover of both night and the forest. Somehow, though, we got disoriented and ended up bypassing the scouting party and continuing deep into the Georgia woods... After several misadventures, we made it (finally) back to our company's position by 06:30 or so. Our Fire Team leader was forever known, after that night, as Corporal Compass.

So, why tell that story? Because tonight I got home later than I wanted to, but felt the need to get out on the course for some walk/jog time... The sun was fully down, and I'd say we were well into dusk, if not the tail end of dusk when I set out on the course. I had a small flashlight in my pocket, but I found that my night vision came in pretty well, aided by a fat waxing gibbous moon. I did a walk loop, a jog loop, then two more walk loops. It felt good, actually... I never felt like I would lose my footing, although I did get smacked in the face a couple times by low hanging pine and spruce twigs.

The nice thing was that my run felt a little stronger than the last time... not faster necessarily, but I didn't have to stop on the steep part! These are the "mini victories" that I need to stay motivated, so it's important to find them whenever I can.

Wooden Shoe Like to Know!

Ah, shoes.

My wife has unfortunately caught onto my fascination with shoes. As I sit on the side of the bed, taking off my shoes for the night, I will occasionally pause, shoe in hand, and stare. She'll ask, "What are you doing? Are you pretending rocket ships again?" And it's true... the sleek oblong-ness of a well made shoe seems, to me, as if it were meant to be a Space Cruiser, speeding to Aldebaran with a load of emergency supplies and the 4th Marine Expeditionary Force... meant to bring relief to the beleaguered pioneers on humanity's most distant space colony.

Shoes are meant to hold things. Of course, those things are our feet, not the 4th MEF. But my feet are pretty messed up... they started very flat, and only went down hill during my time in the Infantry... so it's hard to find just the right shoes to make anything comfortable. I believe I have finally found such shoes, thanks to the good folks at New Balance and their willingness to produce 4E widths!

Behold, the size 12 width 4E MT910... Things of beauty.

Photo by me, MT910 Trail Shoes on Woodpile

These bad boys are trail shoes, so they're meant to be a little more rugged, which is a plus for the plus sized gentleman about town. They are the perfect width; my feet don't spill over the inserts one bit! (That's the quickest way to tell if a pair of shoes will fit: pull out the inserts and stand on them...  if the edges of your feet go beyond the insert, the shoes are too narrow).

They even perfectly fit the orthotics I just received from the VA, little miracles in themselves... they're carbon fiber with a shallowed area under the second metatarsal joints to provide relief for some nerve damage I acquired in the Marines. Plus, there's a carbon fiber "rib" that runs the length of the orthotic up under the big toe area to support pushing off from that joint (and therefore reduce the chance of gout). They're pretty effing high tech, and they match the shoes brilliantly.

No, by the way, I don't work for New Balance... :) I'm just lucky to live near a factory store, so fine pieces of footwear can be had at a discount.

So, if these shoes don't help me work up to 5K, no shoes ever will. We're off to Aldebaran! OoRah!

New Course and First Run!

We live out in rural western Maine... I know, I'm repeating myself there. Notwithstanding, we live on a dead-end dirt road on old farmland. We pasture the horse and two ponies up in a couple acres of meadow. We're building a new barn. We're surrounded by pine, spruce, birch, ash, and maple. The occasional stand of black locust trees make great fence posts...

The point is that I have very easy access to the woods, and therefore, to running trails. A neighbor has been allowed to put 4-wheeler trails all over the place, so I figured the fastest way to set up a simple running course would be to leverage what he has already done, coupled with the horseback riding trails I cut this year for my daughter.

I now have a lovely 400 meter "loop" marked off in 100m intervals. Because I'm newly returning to this running thing, I figured I shouldn't jump full force back into it, injure myself, then give it up and have nothing to do with these cool new trail running shoes...

The loop leaves our property, near the west end of the new barn, and heads into a stand of pine. Going up a light rise, it proceeds through a bunch of scrub (cleared for horseback riding) and brush, but then turns through a small opening at the edge of a large field and heads into maple-land. Downhill for the next 100m, with a rocky left turn, bending back through small poplar. Finally, there's a steep-ish climb in the last 20m toward the final marker.

Today is a crisp fall day, the ground is softened by maple and birch leaves, and I did four turns around my loop, for a total of one mile (1.6 km). I walked the first three, then ran the final 400m.

Okay, a one-mile walk/run is not the Boston Marathon... I know this. But it's my starting point, and I'm oddly happy to be here.

Lap times:
Loop 1 (walk): 4:48.0
Loop 2 (walk): 4:40.3
Loop 3 (walk): 4:32.9
Loop 4 (jog): 3:07.3

Total distance: 1.6 km, Total time: 17:08.5, Best mile: 17:08.5

Nice. A seventeen minute mile... :( Haha! Well, here we go! Hard to get worse than that, so I guess improvement is inevitable.

The plan is to slowly add additional loops and to slowly change the walk:jog ratio. The goal is to get back up to a three mile (5K) run, which is 12 loops on my little, wooded course.

W minus 100 and Counting

Here are some fun fact numbers: 42, 326, 100, 1996.

The last time I ran in any way was 1996, at my final Marine Corps PFT. My three-mile time was 21:10. Not terribly impressive, but wait...

I'm now 42, and really, really need to drop about 100 pounds from my current 326. Yikes.

It shouldn't have gotten to this point, I know... I did Nordic skiing in high school, fencing in college, all the sundry physical activities that US Marines do, rode my bike from Maine to California in 1995... I have the ability to do aerobic work. What I lack is the internal motivation to do it any more.

So, a couple guys at work started running recently (one fellow who ran XC in his past, one fellow who never really ran), and I found myself wondering what was keeping me from doing it again. One of the problems of not being stupid is that you get good at rationalizing. I can come up with very good excuses very quickly... bad knees, sore feet, painful back, too tired, didn't eat right this morning, too hot, too cold, solar flares, the moon isn't in Taurus for Christ's sake how am I supposed to go exercise?!?

Well excuses be damned. I went down to New Balance, got a pair of trail running shoes (they had the MT910 in 4E width... so there goes the sore feet excuse), and began running... WILL begin running...

As soon as I set up a course.