ario's digital detritus

My first marathon is in the can! Official chip time: 5:23. A little over my goal, but there were mitigating factors... it rained the entire race and my feet were on fire towards the end. I can't do another full without getting some custom orthotics (or radically different shoes).



Now to cross that baby off my list!...



I started off feeling great and really enjoyed the route. That all changed within Stanley Park around mile 17 when I started to feel some sharp arch pain and had to alternate between brisk walking and painful slow jogging until mile 24. I sucked it up then and gunned the last 2 miles to the finish. That time between 17 and 24 is where I lost the most time... but at least I know how to avoid it in the future.



Zoe and Aron had great finishing times... you can look them up here. Huge congrats to them!

Now I must hobble over to Guu with Garlic so I can join them for some dinner.

Thanks to all my friends for your encouragement (and running post toleration)! I look forward to posting more about non-running things in the future :)

Well faithful readers, it's been almost 5 months since I first set out to train for the full Vancouver marathon and the race is a mere 2 days away! I leave tomorrow for a 4 day weekend there and I'm super excited. The weather is supposed to be nice, I'm feeling good, and I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Here's the map of the course again...



Last weekend's run was a nice n' easy 6 miler and I've just been taking it easy this week with light runs, a lil' elliptical machine action, and some yoga at work.

I also had my first shiatsu massage last week which was beyond phenomenal. If you've never had one of these more intense, hurty massages, I highly recommend it. I felt like a different person afterward and had a second appointment this week that got a lot of tension issues I was having worked out.

If anyone wants a good masseuse recommendation, let me know and I'll hook you up with Jen from the Pro Club who did mine... she's got magic hands!

imonk and pinkpucca are also racing on Sunday... wish them luck!

They say you should train how you race (and vice versa) so I'll be taking my mp3 player with me during the marathon.

Poll #978459 Marathon Music
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

What songs (or albums) should I put on my mp3 player to help me stay motivated during the race? Note: I've already put "Eye of the Tiger" on there.

My timing goal for the race is to finish in under 5 hours. I know that's not very fast, but I'm not looking to set any world records here... if I beat 5, I'll be thrilled!

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and now for some misc. linkage...

-- This recent BBC Morrissey retrospective is awesome and well worth the listen.



-- skymob has a new mix! go grab from here.

-- I really got a kick out of this, Jodie Foster has always been cool...

-- Nike Transformers are awesome.

-- If online social networking interests you, then this video podcast interview with the co-creater of iminlikewithyou.com is well worth watching. It also introduced me to geni.com which is fascinating once you start to build out your family tree. I'm learning things about my family that I had no idea about!

-- I haven't listened to this yet, but it's a lecture on dubstep by one if its main men, Kode 9...

DUBSTEP LECTURE: The term dubstep may just be a new branding experiment for illbient, but one of the genre's most proficient enactors, Kode 9, lagging from a recent flight, shed some light on its dark contours when he spoke at length as part of the Red Bull Music Academy late last year. Kode described the music as a sideways outgrowth of the more reggae side of UK garage, which is to say music of choppy velocity that makes room for some dubby swing. The discussion is sadly lacking in many musical examples, but it's rich with details, such as how much it costs to cut your own dubplate, who Kode's working with, the pleasures in dispensing with 4/4 beats, and which British record stores are central to the scene. The file's available as an M4A, which is, essentially, an MP3 with images embedded.

-- The new MIA track is quite catchy!

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oh boy do I have a doozy of an update to post when I get back next week... see ya then!

Yay! The Mercer Island Half Marathon went really well!

I ran something around 2:19... the official results will be posted here.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out... I ran about the pace I wanted and didn't walk once. The only thing that sucked was that I waited way too long to kick it into high gear. I sprinted the entire last mile and had plenty of energy left... so I'm thinking I could've taken the pace up around mile 9 or 10 instead of right near the end.

That's not too bad though since my goal for this race wasn't to get an amazing time... in reality, this was just another training running for the full race in May.

The real work starts now. I have two 20 mile training runs over the next month and a really aggressive weekday schedule. Just have to make sure I keep up with the plan and avoid getting hurt.

My feet are still plaguing me and I think I'm at the point where custom orthotics are the only other route I can go to alleviate some of the pain. They're over $500 so I'm just going to have to deal with it and make sure I ice after each run.

I was also excited to have my friend Renah with me on this race. She's a total running rockstar and she continually inspires me with her dedication. Here's us at the ChuckIt party afterwards...


There'll probably be more pics from the actual race at some point... I'll post those to flickr when they're up.

Yay for runners high! Now on to Vancouver!

Today I ran 10.3 miles, using this route...



Since this map doesn't label all of the streets, I made my own using this extremely helpful Google Maps mashup service.

My pace and heart rate info...

click to see notes, large version here.

Some observations and questions from the run:

1. It was my first double digit run in 3 years and I felt fine.
2. I'm encouraged that with each of these long runs, I feel like I can keep going farther than my intended distance so it's not like I'm squeezing every last bit of energy to get through them.
3. On Saturday, I ran 4 miles and felt quite winded by the end... this made me a bit weary that I could get through the 10. What this tells me is how much of a mental game this whole thing is. If you tell yourself, "I have an X number of miles to run today," it's like your mind and body stretch or shrink to accommodate the distance. Of course, training makes this possible, but this aspect of running continues to astound me.
4. The inner right-hand side of my left ankle bothered me a bit in a few spots and my knees are feeling sore now, but those are the only discomforts worth mentioning.
5. I utilized crosswalk stops to stretch a little mid-run and that seemed to help with the ankle discomfort.
6. Do they make underwear for runners? I've noticed that boxer briefs have a tendency to cause wedgies.
7. It sucked not having anything to drink towards the end. Running around Greenlake didn't help much either since their water fountains don't work anymore.
8. I'm wondering if I should carry some sort of snack or energy bar/gel with me on my next long run... I think it might help.
9. Running in some of the best parts of the city is incredibly fulfilling and provides a different perspective on the sites one is so used to seeing in a car.
10. I also love that I can use technology (blogs, mp3s, mailing lists, 43 things, interactive maps, the Polar watch, graphs, etc) to help me through the training process. All of these have been helpful in their own way.
11. Towards the middle of my run, I completed The God Delusion and wished it would've kept on going. It's a wonderful book and I highly recommend it to everyone.
12. Luckily, I had another excellent book to put on...
    
    
    
    I finished the first disc and started on the 2nd... full of great insights about meditation and his films from the man himself.
13. All in all, I feel great and motivated, and it certainly is nice to see my small belly, which I've always had, slowly shrink each week.

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Other random stuff:

-- To everyone that had trouble downloading that Burial Breezeblock session, I put it up here for your procurement.

-- If that Eyvind Kang performance clip was your kinda thing, all of the clips I shot are here.

-- Thanks to this awesome tip by flavio, I'm now happy to report that I'm going to the second recently added Sarah Silverman show. Lemme know if you're going too. Whoppee!

So I took Buster's advice from his IDEA talk...

************************* REGISTRATION FOR ***************************

BMO Bank of Montreal Vancouver Marathon - U.S. & Foreign Entries

************************ PAYMENT INFORMATION *************************
Payment Date: 2006-12-12 13:53:18.16
Confirmation Number: 4843261-121206135216



this should be interesting. anyone else wanna join me?