I have returned…

Greetings readers… if there are any left 🙂

It has been quite some time but I have returned.  Finally.

I have been having a very difficult time being motivated since the day of the marathon.  That was a tough day.  I am very glad that I was able to do something so difficult.  As troublesome as the distance was, the mind game before, during and after the race hurt me more than any physical pain.  First a recap of the race.  It was, in fact, a full 42.2 km.  A number that didn’t seem so bad until I crossed the half way point that day.  I did so in pretty good time (under two hours) and was feeling a bit tight but all-in-all, pretty good about things.  The next kilometer would see to that.  By the time I crossed 23 km, my IT band had tightened right up and I was forced from a run to a slow hobble.  I stopped and stretched a number of times, however, the time between running and hobbling quickly evaporated and I found myself shuffling the kilometers away.  I am not a quitter.  On that day, I really wished I would throw in the towel and get a ride back.  There is no shame in that.  I am also stubborn.  The last 19 km were tough on my body and on my mind and I think, on that day, I hurt both pretty bad.

I finished the race with a time of 4:43: 39.  It was 43:39 slower than my target time.  Was I disappointed?  Then, yes.  Now, not so much.  I finished and I know what it took to get there.  It was a victory for me, and a hard fought one at that.

Since that day, I have not run much.  I had put in a few runs before the holidays and a few since, but nothing with any regular schedule.  I have been feeling alright about that.  I have signed up for the Mississauga Half Marathon this spring.  As I write this, the race is in 80 days.  I am not overly worried about making it to race day.  I know that I can make the distance and am hoping to best my PR.

This is not what has motivated me.

Because I have had limited running (and any exercise in general), I have felt myself slipping back into pre-running shape.

I know that I can and will do better but this is not what has motivated me.

I took a good long look at things on a recent car trip.  I have felt beaten down lately.  Things haven’t felt like they are going right.  A few missed opportunities, some rejection, family health issues and an overall feeling of malaise.  This is what is stifling me.  It has been easy to say that life is doing this to me.  Be passive.  Accept it.  And it has been easy.  I have realized that this is just part of the cycle.  Part of what makes it difficult to break free.  I need to be back in control.  I need to get out of this rut and I need it now.

This is what has motivated me.

My first step has been to share.  One of the things I read about getting out of a slump is to define a goal.  Check.  Find inspiration.  Check.  Commit Publicly.  Check.

I look forward to sharing more as the days go by.  Sharing my runs, thoughts and things that help me keep motivated.

Thank you.

PS – I wrote a short article for iRun.ca about why my run club is the best.  Wanna read it?

It has finally arrived

Hello all,

I know it has been a long time since my last post, however, things have been busy.

As you may know, we picked up Franklin a few weeks ago. He is such a monster… But in a good way. Very cute and starting to get the idea of how things work around here.

Also, since late June, The Girl and I have been training for our first full marathon. It has been tough. Really. I am actually looking forward to the race so it can be done. For reals.

That being said, tomorrow is the big day. We are, in fact, running the Niagara Falls International Marathon. 42.2 kms (or 26.2 miles for some of you) starting in Buffalo and finishing at the brink of The Falls here in Canada.

We are very excited. We could not have done it without the help of so many people in our running community. Thank you to all of our friends and family and our Runners’ Edge family.

I hope to make another post after the run… That may take a few days 🙂

A Hell of a Weekend (runs, cars and puppies)

Greetings all! It has been a while since I have made a post. Please accept my sincerest apologies.

To make it up to you, I have a report of what may be the greatest weekend ever.

We started the weekend with our longest run ever. 35km! The run took us from the Runners’ Edge all o the way to Niagara College and back. Wow! Check out the details here. (http://bit.ly/oTS4YE)

After the run, The Girl and I went home and cleaned the place up in preparation for the rest of the weekend.

In the late afternoon we went to the Burlington Autopark and guess what… We bought ourselves a new car! It had been a while in the making but we finally pulled the trigger. Here is The Girl with our new Misubishi RVR.

Post car-buying we headed over the The Girl’s parents where we continued to lay the new laminate flooring (and it looks great).

Sleep.

Sunday is a day to mark in our books. We drove to Moorefield and picked up our new puppy! Everyone, please welcome Franklin.

Also coming home was Neema, The Girl’s parent’s new puppy.

Franklin and Neema are both miniature dachshunds just like Ellie.

Needless to say, Ellie is having an adjustment period, however, every once in a while, you can catch the three of them playing together and it is sooooo wonderful.

To finish it all off, tonight we have an episode of Doctor Who to watch and get ready for my week of vacation.

Ahhhhhh. Love it.

How did you spend your weekend?

Calling all hands, we need to come up with a name!

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since I have posted. I am sorry for that. Things have been very busy.

Our Chicago Marathon training has begun and it is intense. We are running five times a week now and each run is longer than we are used to. Also, it has been so HOT here lately that every run is a battle.

On another note, my ‘other work’ has gotten busier as well. We have nearly doubled our clientele in the past two months. Busy is good in this case 🙂

As if things were not busy enough, The Girl and I have decided that it may be time for another puppy! This will be our second puppy (oh yeah, I call all dogs puppies… sorry). Ellie, our miniature dachshund, is seven now and we thought it would be fun to get her a play friend. Our new puppy will be a black and tan mini doxie (this isn’t our puppy but cute none the less) and we hope to be picking him up just after the Chicago run.

Now here is where we need your help. We are having a touch of trouble deciding on a name. If we could get your input, we would really love it. Here are the options:

Here is a bit of explaination around the names we started with.

Mr. Darcy: Classic Jane Austin reference. Because of the colouring of the black and tan, our puppy will always arrive wearing a suit. Classy, handsome and loyal.

Flynn: Totally a nod to Tron. I loved Tron (the original) and the sequel, Tron: Legacy, was pretty good too. Kevin Flynn is the name of the character played by Jeff Bridges. JEFF BRIDGES. Enough said.

There are lots of other good dog names and we would love to hear them. When we pickup our little puppy, I will be sure to post a follow-up and let you all know what we decided.

Thanks for your help!

Showing off your Garmin

Hello All,

Let me first apologize for missing last week’s post. It was a busy week and a busier weekend.

Now, here’s the deal. You have this great Garmin. It tracks all kinds of awesome data that you can then look over in your Garmin Training Center software that came with your device. And that is great! What if you want to share your progress? Here’s an idea.

Have your Garmin plugged into your computer and goto the Garmin Connect website (http://connect.garmin.com). If you haven’t already got one, create an account. Don’t worry, it is free. Once your account is created and you are signed in, you should be looking at what they call your Dashboard. Here is a list of your most recent five (5) Activities uploaded the the site. If this is your first visit, you likely don’t see anything.

Now, this may be the trickiest part. We need to install a plugin that runs in your Internet browser that lets the browser talk to your Garmin.

In the upper-right corner of the site, there is a white Upload button. If this is your first time uploading to the site, you will be asked to install the Garmin Communicator Plugin. Press the Download now button and you will be directed to the Download page. Once here, you can press the Begin Installation button. Follow along with the prompts from the website, making sure to Run the program once you have downloaded it. It will take you through an installation process (which requires closing your browser). When the installation is done, you can return to the Garmin Connect site.

OK. That part is the hardest part and once it is done, you do not have to do that again (unless you use another computer to add Activities of course!).

Once you are back at your Dashboard, it is time to add your Activities. This may be the easiest part here. Once again, press the Upload button in the upper-right corner of the site. The site will then identify the Garmin you have connected to your computer. Press Upload All New Activities. Any Activities that are not currently uploaded to the site will be sent. That is all there is to it.

I say Activities because as you probably know, your Garmin can track a couple of different Activities; running, biking or other. Once you get your data into the Connect site, you can actually classify your Activity even further; four (4) types of running, seven (7) types of cycling, and more. As well, you can classify the type of Event; was this fitness, recreation, race, training and more. You can really be specific in identifying your Activities. Personally, I don’t go far into that. I make sure it is marked as Running (or Biking if I happen to be out on my bike of course). We can get further into this in another post.

This works great for two reasons. The first is that your Garmin data is now stored ‘in the cloud’. The Garmin Connect site is managed by the good people at Garmin. This means that it is backed up and your data is safe. You can access this data from any computer which has access to the Internet and never have to worry about backing up your data when you get a new computer. Second, you can share your Activities with your friends by Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and lots more with a simple click. It is very nice. I am sure some of you have seen some of my Activity posts. You can do the same from the Connect site. I will get further into sharing in our next post.

Thank you all so much for reading. I hope that I have been able to share some helpful information with you.

As always, you comments and feedback are really appreciated.

Enjoy what is left of the weekend!

This Week’s Running Recap (Ending 09-Apr)

Hello all.

I apologize for not getting this post up sooner. It has been a very busy week/weekend and I did not have much of a chance to get a good Garmin-related post together. I promise, I will have something good for you next week.

Today, I thought I may just post a short entry about my re-entry to running this past week.

As you may know, I had some difficulties in the ATBRR which resulted in a mild case of ITBS. All-in-all, I am feeling so much better. I had a great massage and have acquired a fantastic tool for everyday use. Excuse me while I gush here but I love our TriggerPoint. This system is super handy to use lightly before and more aggressively after a run. It really helps work out some of those knots. This along with some core exercises are helping me on my way to make sure this does not happen again!

With all of this new attention to my body, I took the liberty of taking to the road this week. Thursday, although hesitant, decided to head out for 6km. A nice distance. Not too short but not long. The weather was beautiful and I had some great company on my way out in The Girl, Michelle and Carol. This was a fabulous run!

My next run was Saturday morning. I was originally gunning for 7km or more but when I got to a descent sized dip/hill I decided that it would be in my best interest to not have to tackle it twice (being on an out and back of course). This was still a wonderful run as it appears that this winter’s weather may be passing along now.

So there’s my story for this week. I am sorry that it has no tech-related content at all (which may be a first for me).

How have your runs been? Are you glad to see the warmer weather rolling in? What do you do to recover between runs?

Garmin Cleanup

As most of you know, I had my big race last week. It didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked but it has given me another running goal: do it better next year.

One thing I usually do before a big, long distance race is cleanup my Garmin. The reasons are pretty obvious; leading up to a long race, you have likely had many long training runs which use up the storage space on your device. The last thing you want is to get into a run and at some point be told by your Garmin that it is out of space and can no longer record your data (I have had this happen, no fun).

This should only take a few minutes. If you have been downloading your run details to your computer or to the Garmin Connect site, you don’t need to worry about losing your data.

Here are the steps:

With the Garmin on, press the mode button

Select History and press enter to enter the History section

Select Running and press enter (if you use a different sport mode, select the one you use) to enter the Running History

Select Delete… and press enter to access the Delete options

Here there are three options:

Keep 1 Month

Keep 3 Months

Delete All

Your selection here will depend on how much history you keep on your Garmin. Personally, I like to keep the last month’s worth of runs. I could not explain why but it is just how I roll. Obviously, if you select Delete All, there will be no run history left on your Garmin.

Select the option you wish and press enter to active the delete command

Press the mode button four (4) times to return to the main timers window

Please feel free to leave me some comments, requests or feedback.

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ATBRR Post-Race Wrap-Up

So I have arrived home after a crazy morning. Today’s Around the Bay Road Race was a 30km test. I say test, because that is exactly what it did. Tested us. Tested our training. Tested our bodies. Tested our mental preparation. Let me just say that personally, I don’t think that I did too well on the last two.

Our training was perfect. Rounding through the 20km mark, I felt pretty good. Sure, there were some voices in my head asking why would anyone run this much? To them I answer, why not? I felt prepared and comfortable. Michelle and I were turning in just under six-minute kilometers (although our time does reflect a slight pee break I had to take around 13km) and aside from a slightly cold chin, I felt relaxed.

Now, at 14km I asked Michelle if we could take a short break to stretch, as I was feeling a bit of tightness in my left leg. Nothing major at this point but I knew we were running well and didn’t want it to get much worse. Boy, was I in for a treat. As we neared 20km I began to feel my leg tighten up again, this time it was intense and almost all in my knee area. Not good! We slowed down again and I stretched again and it let up a bit but never went away. This was terrible. It was nearly as bad as my Scotia Bank 1/2 Marathon run (same pain at 12km all the way to the end). We ran for a bit and walked for a bit. On and off with the running period getting shorter and the walking period getting longer until 25km. At this point, I was almost limping all the time (even after a stretch and walk). It was terrible pain and a huge disappointment. We had trained well and I (while I kept saying I didn’t really have a goal) I would have liked to see right around three hours. There was a crushing moment when I saw three hours pass on my watch and we were still out a bit. Most of the last 5km was spent walking.

What did I learn today?

This is a tough run. We trained up to 30km and were well prepared for the hills, however, still very tough. If you are going to run it, take the time to train on the actual course (you will thank me).

Don’t worry about the weather. I was worried leading up to today about how cold, how windy, rain? snow? Guess what, it was perfect. -3C and a slight breeze. We spent the winter training in worse and it prepared us for any set of weather conditions. Just pack anything you may need and decide when you get to the venue.

I would have never been able to finish without my running partner, Michelle. You saved my running life (this is the second time now) and I don’t know how I will ever repay you. Alone, I would have given up, I am sure of it. Thank you

We have a fantastic coach. Benny came out near the end and ran me into the Coliseum. This was more help than I could express. Your generosity with yourself to all of us runners is nothing short of amazing. Thank you.

I am a lucky guy when it comes to The Girl. You have been so supportive the last few weeks and specifically the last few days. I could have never done any of this without you (as you may recall, joining the club was all your idea). You are a great wife, a fabulous person and a fantastic runner. I love you, monkey. Thank you.

Our running group is unbelievable. You all are fantastic runners, people and friends. The support received from this community of ours is immeasurable and goes so far beyond words. Some people don’t understand why you would continue to join a running club year after year. Those people do not see the value that this community brings. Thank you.

Click here for my full stats from the race.

Click here for my Garmin details (I forgot to stop it at the finish line).

Here is the break down.

10km split - 59:28	20km split - 2:02:26
15km split - 1:30:42	30km finish - 3:16:10.7

Reboot!

Good day all!

Here is a tip that is less about setup and more about function.

It has happened on more than one occasion that The Girl or I have gone to use our Garmins and the darn thing just wouldn’t start up. In these occasions, the Garmin is fully charged (by USB or AC power), however, we push the power button and nothing happens.

Don’t panic! Believe it or not, this is a common issue. I couldn’t say why, but the unit just won’t power up. Crazy, I know! Here is how I managed to reboot my Garmin.

Press and hold the mode and reset buttons for a few seconds [never hurts to count to ten :)]. Release these buttons then try powering up the unit with the power button.

This usually works.

If it does not work then you may need to perform a master reset. I have never had to use this method and do not particularly want to as it could erase your user data. Please be careful. Here are the steps right from Garmin’s support site.

To master reset your device, please use the following button sequence:

• Power the device off
• Hold the mode and power button
• Continue hold mode and power until the “Do You Really Want To Erase All User Data” message appears
• Use the up and down arrow to highlight Yes
• Once highlighting Yes, press the enter button to master reset* the device

*Master resetting the device will erase all history in the device and reset the device to factory default.*

Of course, if you select No when prompted to erase your data, it should leave your data alone.

Good luck!

On another note, there will not likely be a post next week as I will be running in the Around the Bay Road Race. I will likely post an item about the race *gasp a non-Garmin post!?!* later in the day.

Please feel free to leave me some comments, requests or feedback.

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Manual Lapping – REDUX!

As some of you may know, I had already posted an item on the Runners’ Edge Facebook Page about manual lapping which spawned this whole idea of a weekly blog post. So, to do it up right, I thought I would post the item here, to keep with all of the other items.

This is how I track laps on my Garmin. The process is simple and will result in multiple laps in a single run.

• To start a lap/interval: Press Start/Stop button
• When you end your lap/interval: Press Start/Stop button then press Lap (this will clear your current lap times and set you up for your next)
• Repeat

Please feel free to leave me some comments, requests or feedback.

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