Category Archives: Running

Race Recap

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Ok, so that was just about as hard as I predicted it to be.  Despite telling myself to just focus on running at a steady pace and to ignore everybody else, I really didn’t do that.  I started at the very back of the pack, hoping that the traffic ahead of me would slow me down and make me run at a reasonable pace.  In fact I was just in front of the Nordic Walking ladies, so I nervously kept some distance in front of them, hopefully out of pole-swinging reach, in case they held any hard feelings for our past run-ins.  At the starting gun it was awesome, all of those people running at the same time.  Anyway in spite of me telling myself that there was lots of race to run, I loped along at a very very unreasonable pace, passing much smarter people than I everywhere.  I was far too busy running to notice their (probable) knowing smirks at my misplaced enthusiasm.

Anyway this worked great for the first 4km or so, and then the day got hotter and I got tired.  Really tired.  Then all of these smart people started to trot past me and I felt not so smart.  At around the 7km marker I scoffed that someone was probably in big trouble since they messed up the 9km marker and put a 7 there instead.  And the race still didn’t end, and I had to keep lurching along like some kind of guy who thought he could run a race with hardly any preparation, and gallop the first 4km and think he could keep that up for the whole 10.  Yeah, just like that.

So needless to say it was harder to run that particular 10km than any of the other 10kms I have run in the past.  Yeah.  However I was happy to see my wonderful family waiting for me at the finish line cheering me on, and the last 10km didn’t seem so bad now that it was done.  Several bottles of water and a patch of shade and the real sweating can properly begin (why is it that the sweat seems to be worse after running is over?) and life is very good indeed.

So, despite messing up in the worst rookie way possible, I did manage to hit my goal of finishing in under an hour:  58min, 26sec.  I was pretty surprised to be able to do that actually, considering how very very bad the stretch between say, 5km and 9km was.  The last half let’s say.  Yeah that part. I’m happy with my time, except that apparently there were 59 guys in my age group that finished ahead of me.  That can’t be right, can it?  Yes, yes it can.  Get off your ass, Vallentyne and actually prepare for the race next time…

So, there you go.  The first one done, and not the last.  Next time I think maybe I will run with earbuds and some music to help keep me in my own race, and not try to beat everybody in the first 300m.  Yeah, that should be better.

Pre Race Post

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In a fit of stupidity earlier this month I registered to run my first actual race, the Kanata Canada Day 10k.  As with most of these things as I registered I was stoked and fired up with the drive to kick some butt on my first race.  I still had four long weeks to get my aging body into race shape.  Besides, I had already started running this year and was feeling cocky about my fitness level (as measured by running alone of course).

The weeks went by and I was getting some runs in, maybe not as many as I had hoped, but I will catch up and really log some serious klicks (I told myself).  More time passed, with runs fitfully scattered in a very irregular fashion here and there. 

So today I decided to take stock of my training (in an effort to make myself feel better about how I will do tomorrow) and it seems that I decided unconsciously to only run 10 times this year before running a real race.  What?  That can’t be right.  Even worse, of those 10 runs, only 4 of them even come close to 10k.  So, needless to say this did the exact opposite of making me feel good about tomorrow, it made me feel way worse.

You can mock my feeble efforts to date here:

http://runkeeper.com/user/cvallentyne/activity

Yes, that isn’t enough training.  No, I don’t think I will “kick butt” tomorrow.  Yes, I do think the other racers will be better prepared.  No, I shouldn’t just be sitting here typing and drinking root beer, but it’s too late now.

So there you go, a little pre-race guilt freakout for your reading pleasure.  I promise to report back after the race and let you know what lack of preparation gets you.

On another note, I found a great running blog today:  Science-Based Running   Go and check it out, it’s really good stuff.

Whistling at girls

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As I was running on the weekend, trying to get ready to run my first actual honest to goodness race (more on that later), I overtook a pair of older ladies on the path who were doing this Nordic Walking thing (which I haven’t quite figured out just yet).  They were passed by a couple of bikes just ahead of me, who lawfully rang their bells to warn the ladies before they were overtaken.  As I passed the girls however I startled one of them as I jogged past.  She remarked that I didn’t have a bell, and I said no I don’t and apologized for startling her.  As I kept jogging I mentioned that I could always whistle, but then again that would be rude.  Her response?

“No. That would be nice!”

I laughed for the next 3km.  I still think that whistling at ladies wielding sticks is probably not a good plan.  Nikki concurs.

On the Nordic Walking front, if you haven’t heard of this yet you clearly haven’t been outside anywhere in the last three years.  To the untrained eye, let me describe it for you:  It’s basically walking.  Holding ski poles.  That’s it as far as I can see.  There must be more to it however, since you can become a certified Nordic Walker, which must involve more than just walking around holding things.  If that were a sound path to physical fitness my own sport of Bavarian Lurching would be much more popular.  It involves attending summer outdoor concerts with a plastic cup of beer in each hand.  You have to slosh the beer onto everyone else’s shoes without getting a drop of it on your own.  Very tricky. 

The actual, real sport of Nordic Walking seems to be incredibly popular though, so I will now stop making fun of it.  It only makes sense since the people I make fun of probably already own two things with which to beat me and/or skewer me.  And they might be in good shape.   That’s just too dangerous.

Mistreated Calories

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I am certainly blessed with good genetics as far as my weight goes, I have a great metabolism that hasn’t slowed very much so far. I will confess that while I enjoy exercise for the health benefits, my ulterior motive for exercise is to treat calories with utter disdain. I don’t eat too much fattening food, but I exercise so that when I do, I can pretty much just sneer at that Big Mac without any form of remorse at all. I exercise so I don’t have to care about those two beer, those four mini chocolate bars, and that pound of butter I ate last night.
I don’t respect calories at all. Never mind that I am undermining my own efforts when I do this, it’s one of the worst forms of discrimination, it’s calorieism.

My name is Courtney, and I am a calorieist.

Most folks have a lot more respect for calories than I do, I know that.  I need to change my perspective a bit, and put myself in their shoes for a bit.  Everybody hates them, the fewer calories there are, the better for most people.  Poor little buggers.  I should kiss and make up with this lemon poppyseed cake from Starbucks.  A little peace offering.

Nope, didn’t work.  I still ate it with a sneer.

Sigh.  It’s a long road.

Sweating it out at work

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I have been thankfully settling into a much more regular running routine since starting a new contract for an old client.  The shower facilities here allow for a midday run, which I really am learning to love.  It’s exactly the kind of energy boost I need sometimes, especially on days that I am particularly tired.  Even better is I get to run alongside the Rideau Canal, which is always picturesque.
All is not sunshine and roses though.  There’s a problem I have with exercising during the workday: sweat.  I can cover (a rather leisurely) 6km and get a shower done within an hour, which is my self-imposed limit so that I can still keep the billable hours up.  I eat lunch at my desk, and this passes my own moral test of conscience.  The real problem with this is I have no real time to do a proper cool down, so I hit the shower as I am just really starting to sweat profusely from my run.  I have the water as cold as it will go (for some reason this isn’t that cold here at work, but it’s still brisk) in an effort to chill my scrawny core down to below sweating-level, but it’s hopeless.  By the time I am half-way done getting dressed I’m still beading up and wiping off.  Rushing is not helpful.  I get back to my desk flushed and steamy, it’s not subtle, and it’s not the healthy glow of exercise that I have.  It’s more the gland-bursting, pit-stained frantic methamphetamine-induced kind of sweat that looks like I have been wrestling gorillas with Jane Goodall in the Amazon basin while wearing two angora sweaters.  It’s alarming to my coworkers to see a middle aged man sweating like that in the middle of the day.  I have had to fight off two separate workplace safety supervisors who were trying to start CPR to save me from my very obvious heart attack.

It’s entirely possible that I am extremely out of shape since I haven’t really done a heck of a lot of running this summer, and this will get better when I’m not working so hard.  I must say that the reality of running in the winter is looking more and more attractive, where before it seemed absolutely ludicrous.  Perhaps hypothermia will extinguish the internal heat in a more reasonable time frame.  Then it’s just the frostbite I need to worry about.

Too bad gamers are already fitness gods.

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Scott Adams (the Dilbert guy) writes a really excellent blog that I follow religiously. This sentence doesn’t make sense, especially when you read a lot of his blog. Scott is rather sure that we are all moist robots living in an artificially constructed world, or possibly a very complicated computer program. It doesn’t matter, since this moist robot right here enjoys reading his stuff.

Recently he posted about an idea for a gym where all of the gym members participated in a MMO or multiplayer video game just by working out. The machines kept track of your efforts and these translated into points that made your team more competitive in the game. You could watch the game unfold in real time as you worked out on huge monitors, your team captains directing your real efforts so our team would beat others in the game. The harder you worked out, no matter what exercise you were doing, the better your team would do in the game. To say that this idea makes me excited is an understatement. I think I would be incredibly, scarily suited to this for many reasons:

  1. I’m a data nerd, the more detailed data the better. If it’s also about fitness, all the better. My running hobby (I wouldn’t call like 7 runs all summer a habit, but still) is largely driven by the fact that I can easily track it using my iPhone running app. If I wasn’t sure how far I was running, or how fast, or easily chart my progress, I wouldn’t give a crap. The game would have to let you keep track of your personal contribution as well as the whole. I would imagine a series of milestones, or badges, or something to keep you motivated. Maybe like Foursquare badges, something to keep you going and keep it fresh.
  2. I love video games, and games in general. I never have time to play, naturally (ask Wilson, I literally haven’t finished a game since Myst, I think it drives him nuts more than me), but I still love ‘em. This would let me get exercise and play games at the same time, and it would probably prove to be an incredibly addicting combination. Scott even mentions that folks might need to be monitored so they don’t get too wrapped up in the game and work out too hard or something. I honestly believe this.

So, with that in mind, I am requesting that some brilliant tech wizard take Scott’s idea and start a bunch of gyms around it. You would very likely need to partner with a large game development company or technology firm to make it a reality. I will join. I promise. You will probably be rich. Now, off you go.