Half Marathon in One Month: Race

The week before my race I was feeling confident.  With a new personal record and what I thought was adequate training, I planned to finish the race in well under 2 hours.  I was recovering from my long practice run and with all my other activities I ended up not running at all during the week.  I went out drinking Friday night and Saturday I recovered from the alcohol, did some yoga X (P90X yoga), and went to be early.

Race Morning:

0800h Get up and eat breakfast (one banana, one nutri grain bar, one cup of coffee - my performance booster)

0845h Get my gear together and do one last bathroom break.  Clothes consisted of toe socks, MEC synthetic underwear, cycling pants, MEC Impulse Zip-T, nike skull cap, glove liners, and sunglasses

0915h Leave for the race

1000h Race begins

1019h 4km mark (by now I've started to feel a stitch in my side)

1025h 5km mark (clear cramping happening in my abdomen)

1055h 10km mark (slowed down - feeling ok)

1115h 13km mark (feeling tired)

~1135h last water station (feeling extremely tired - took some gatorade)

1140h 18km mark, had to start walking, left calf beginning to spasm

I walked the last 3km.  I tried to run periodically but my left calf cramped every time I tried to run and my right quad was starting to cramp as well.  I ran the last 100m across the finish line but I was mainly using my arms as my left calf was completely cramped and immobile.  

Finish: 2:07:10

I've learned a two valuable lessons.

1) Hydrate and take those electrolytes

2) Racing is completely different than training.  It's hard to control the pace.

I've already signed up for my next half marathon.  I don't want to fail again.

Programming Around the World: Part One

I've been curious about how people who read/write in different languages program in languages developed by the English speaking world.  I've struggled through using a French keyboard before and it was not pleasant.  So I began to ask myself, how do people around the world program? Do the Japanese program in Japanese?  Are there Japanese compilers?  Do the French use accented characters in their code?

We begin at looking at the keyboard layouts.  If C++ was designed in English, how does someone without an English keyboard program in an English language?  Well the answer is, all keyboards are English.

As you can see, the French keyboard layout contains all the letters in the English alphabet (although the layout is not QWERTY like we're used to).  Despite having to accommodate additional special characters, the ability to program in English exists.  But what about something more obscure like Japanese?

Surprisingly (or not), the Japanese keyboard can be fully QWERTY.  If you do more research into keyboard layouts (wikipedia is a great source), you will find out that most (if not all) keyboards have the ability to switch to some form of the English alphabet.  This means that all programmers have the ability to program in English specified languages.  However, the question remains, do non-English speaking programmers still program in English programming languages?

Half Marathon in One Month: 21km (Week Three)

P90X is a time eater.  I only ran twice this week - Wednesday and today.  P90X also destroys my body.  Wednesday's run was terrible.  With only my arms and abs "worked out", I thought I'd do a fast 5km on the treadmill.  So I threw on my newly purchased toe socks and my Five Finger shoes and turned on an episode of Friends.  I ran for a whopping 1.75miles before I had to stop.  The treadmill was set at 7.5mph and 2.0 incline.  My abs cramped and I didn't even make it 15mins.  Needless to say, I failed.

Today was a different story - with more triumph and less failure.  I ran my 10.5km route twice for a total of 21km.  My 10.5km split was 55:30 (a new personal best) and my finishing time was 1:54:20 (also a new personal best).  So I broke the 2 hour mark for a half marathon and I have all the confidence to do the same for the race next weekend.  The other bonus was that I had no blisters today.  I can attribute this to wearing toe socks instead of my normal socks.  I think this allowed my toes to better spread out in my running shoes and not rub awkwardly on the sides.  It might also be because my toes can rub around inside my normal socks (causing blisters), where that is not the case with toe socks.  Toe socks recommended!

Half Marathon in One Month: 15km (Week Two)

This week I did not focus on running.  I started P90X with a group at work and that really cut into my running schedule.  I only ran once this week before my long run.  I did 3.2miles on a treadmill using my barefoot shoes (7.3mph, 2.0 incline).

My long run suffered.  I had a great first 5.25km where the wind was at my back with a 27min time.  Around 30mins I started getting stitches in my abs and the head wind was very cold.  My 10.5km time ended up being 56:40 (slower than last week).  My last 5km slowed considerably.  I ended up with a 1:25:24 (~5:30min/km).  Next week I will have to pick up the pace.

Also, I'm starting to think the sensitive nipples may not be caused by chafing, but by extended periods of nipplitus.

Half Marathon in One Month: Second 10km

The week following my practice half marathon has been a recovery week.  I only did a short run on tuesday, and a 5km yesterday.  My legs recovered nicely and today I decided to run another 10(.5)km.  The roads and sidewalks were fairly clear today and I finished in 56:20.  This is around 9mins faster than my original time.

I have four weeks until my race and I have planned it out as following:

- week one: 10km

- week two: 15km

- week three: 20km

- week four: recovery/race

Sexist (and Ageist) Bike Trainer

I'm looking at some bike trainers and I came across this one with an interesting description.  Not only does the bike trainer aim low ("light-duty"), but throws some pretty big insults to "women and aged people".  They imply that women and aged people are at the same level as any beginner.  If I were you, I would be angry - now go make me a sandwich stick it to the man!


Check it out:

"M-series is the light-duty magnetic tire drive trainer line mainly for daily exercise. M60-D is the special model in the new M-series with milder resistance power for the beginners, women or aged people."
http://www.unitedcycle.com/vpd/Minoura/M60D-Bike-Trainer/2043217/products.do

Code Snippet: keepalive="true"

Today I saw an XML element with a keepalive attribute.

<element keepalive="true".../>

I wonder what our attributes would be set to if we were all XML elements.