This week is exciting, because I get to celebrate my marathon taper! Not that I didn't get a good taper in a few weeks ago when I was sick with a sinus infection... but that doesn't really count. I'm staying hydrated, trying to not eat too much crappy food, and relaxing a little. Feels nice.
Last week, I went to Hands On Massage (my friend Mel's business) and had a great neck and shoulder massage. It felt so nice! My neck has been getting sore from biking and being sick, and the massage worked out all the kinks. Now if only Mel were in town the week after my marathon...
Time to get some more work done. Take care!
Garmin Forerunner450CX
Well, I got an early birthday gift. Adam was much too good to me this year... maybe he likes me? We stopped by the Bike Shop after a great lunch with Jill at the Lunch Bag (I had my "special" Reuben- corned beef, kraut, and swiss on top of potatoes!)- and Adam passed me along my new awesome device: The Garmin Forerunner 405CX. I was a little hesitant, or was it intimidated? The watch came in a box with three cables, a USB drive, a plug, and a device that looks like a pulse oximeter. Turns out, the pulse oximeter thing is the charger for my watch. It's pretty nifty.
Anyway, now, I'm sitting on the couch, and I plugged in my USB drive. The watch started talking to my computer, and then I logged into Garmin Connect. The results? Check it out!! So flippin' cool. I think I can handle this type of advanced technology...
The Forerunner405CX is fairly easy to use. The face of the watch has a "touch" bezel, and it can be locked fairly easily. The menu selections are easy, too. The different features of the watch are typed right on the bezel, and if you want to get to one screen or another, you just lightly touch the area (menu, time, training, or GPS) and it will take you to that screen. The auto-scrolling display when the stopwatch is running is cool, too. Up to three features can be displayed on the screen at one time, and up to four different screens can be flashed at various intervals. For example, on today's run, I was monitoring my overall time, pace, and heart-rate on one screen, and just my heart rate on another. The display is HUGE when the feature of interest is displayed. So easy to see. The heart rate monitor is comfortable, very similar to Polars. It's a little bit of a bigger face, though. The battery is replaceable on it, as well, so I won't have to send it in when it dies and wait for another one to come back (not that I've had to do that with any Polar band yet... but I heard that can be an issue).
The only downside is that the watch is fairly big. The bands are not very flexible around the face, and there is are gaps between the band and my radial and ulnar bones. The watch is also somewhat tricky to get synced with the GPS after the stopwatch is started... but that just might take more practice. The cool green color is pretty slick!! The watch looks tough. Adam warned me that its only water resistant, though, and it definitely makes me nervous that the charging nodes are on the backside of the face-- where my wrists get all sweaty.
All in all, I think this is a sweet watch. I am really excited to try it out for my marathon. My old heart rate monitor didn't have laps on it, so just that alone will be great. The best thing will be the large display of time and heart rate... I'm so excited!!!!
Anyway, now, I'm sitting on the couch, and I plugged in my USB drive. The watch started talking to my computer, and then I logged into Garmin Connect. The results? Check it out!! So flippin' cool. I think I can handle this type of advanced technology...
The Forerunner405CX is fairly easy to use. The face of the watch has a "touch" bezel, and it can be locked fairly easily. The menu selections are easy, too. The different features of the watch are typed right on the bezel, and if you want to get to one screen or another, you just lightly touch the area (menu, time, training, or GPS) and it will take you to that screen. The auto-scrolling display when the stopwatch is running is cool, too. Up to three features can be displayed on the screen at one time, and up to four different screens can be flashed at various intervals. For example, on today's run, I was monitoring my overall time, pace, and heart-rate on one screen, and just my heart rate on another. The display is HUGE when the feature of interest is displayed. So easy to see. The heart rate monitor is comfortable, very similar to Polars. It's a little bit of a bigger face, though. The battery is replaceable on it, as well, so I won't have to send it in when it dies and wait for another one to come back (not that I've had to do that with any Polar band yet... but I heard that can be an issue).
The only downside is that the watch is fairly big. The bands are not very flexible around the face, and there is are gaps between the band and my radial and ulnar bones. The watch is also somewhat tricky to get synced with the GPS after the stopwatch is started... but that just might take more practice. The cool green color is pretty slick!! The watch looks tough. Adam warned me that its only water resistant, though, and it definitely makes me nervous that the charging nodes are on the backside of the face-- where my wrists get all sweaty.
All in all, I think this is a sweet watch. I am really excited to try it out for my marathon. My old heart rate monitor didn't have laps on it, so just that alone will be great. The best thing will be the large display of time and heart rate... I'm so excited!!!!
Race focus and Twittering
Less than two weeks until Lincoln! I am a plethora of emotions about it... excited, nervous, anxious, slightly discouraged. Excited: I get to see Jess, Leslie, and Sarah! Three friends from three super-important times in my life, all of whom are running the race with me on May 3rd! Nervous: I don't know if I feel prepared. This also goes with slightly discouraged: I got sick about two weeks ago and am still coughing pretty poorly. Antibiotics have helped, but I am worried that I lost a lot of training during that rest period. But mostly, I'm anxious: Anxious to see how I'll do, how I'll perform, how it will come together (or won't?) on race day.
My legs are feeling better, although I still get tinges of pain in my hamstrings. The Sole orthotics help, though. I did some LTs this morning at the Fitness Connection- It felt good to get my legs moving so hopefully I pumped all that bad crap out of my legs. Thinking about the race today- the Boston Marathon- got me motivated, though. To think, the winning women are running just under an hour faster than I hope to run in two weeks... That's so fast! The fact that they can run splits of 5:20s after already running 20 miles... I don't know I could run a 5:20 minute mile right now by itself!! I just have to relax and trust that the training base I put in over the winter on snow, the tempos I got in on the treadmill this spring, and the high cadence I've been putting down on the trainer are going to push me to keep my feet turning over and my breathing steady. Come race day, I can put it all together. One last push this week, and a nice taper, and that's all I can do.
I was really hoping to watch some of the Boston Marathon online today, but I couldn't get my Quicktime to work on my Mac. Bummer! I love the quick updates on the bostonmarathon.com website though. This new quick-update thing is pretty slick- I was ultra put off by it at first- the Twitter thing especially- because I didn't really understand why anyone cares what I am doing every second of the day. But, my friend Lynn talked me into it by describing its networkability and how I can stay in-the-loop on cutting edge technologies and news and stuff. Pretty slick. So, I'm following tweets from NSF, NIH, NPR, professional triathletes, my favorite magazines, my sponsors, and my friends. It's cooler than facebook, I think. It's like an insta-blog, almost.
That's about it. I am heading home to see what delicious dish Adam whipped up for dinner. Then its rest, an early morning ED run, and the Bike Task Force meeting!!
My legs are feeling better, although I still get tinges of pain in my hamstrings. The Sole orthotics help, though. I did some LTs this morning at the Fitness Connection- It felt good to get my legs moving so hopefully I pumped all that bad crap out of my legs. Thinking about the race today- the Boston Marathon- got me motivated, though. To think, the winning women are running just under an hour faster than I hope to run in two weeks... That's so fast! The fact that they can run splits of 5:20s after already running 20 miles... I don't know I could run a 5:20 minute mile right now by itself!! I just have to relax and trust that the training base I put in over the winter on snow, the tempos I got in on the treadmill this spring, and the high cadence I've been putting down on the trainer are going to push me to keep my feet turning over and my breathing steady. Come race day, I can put it all together. One last push this week, and a nice taper, and that's all I can do.
I was really hoping to watch some of the Boston Marathon online today, but I couldn't get my Quicktime to work on my Mac. Bummer! I love the quick updates on the bostonmarathon.com website though. This new quick-update thing is pretty slick- I was ultra put off by it at first- the Twitter thing especially- because I didn't really understand why anyone cares what I am doing every second of the day. But, my friend Lynn talked me into it by describing its networkability and how I can stay in-the-loop on cutting edge technologies and news and stuff. Pretty slick. So, I'm following tweets from NSF, NIH, NPR, professional triathletes, my favorite magazines, my sponsors, and my friends. It's cooler than facebook, I think. It's like an insta-blog, almost.
That's about it. I am heading home to see what delicious dish Adam whipped up for dinner. Then its rest, an early morning ED run, and the Bike Task Force meeting!!
Spring Fling 5K
Today was the Spring Fling 5K. Phew! It's not easy putting together a 5K race. I tried to keep it as low-key as I could. I didn't want to spend a lot of time meticulously organizing or fretting over the little things. Luckily, I had some great help. Adam took the reigns of marking the miles on the course as well as the turn around. I manned the table and took care of registration. I had three [!] finish line helpers, one Prince's Point marshall, and a turn-around navigator. After it all, I'd have to say it was a success. I'm exhausted!!!
Over 20 people competed this year, and first place male and female finishers won a $20 cash prize! Every finisher also got a raffle prize, which were sweet, and included Taco Bell coupons, sweatshirts, Portage Health Camelbak bottles, Downwind Sports bike bottles, Crocs, a Keweenaw Co-op gift certificate, and more. It was sweet! And, there were so many bananas, everyone got to take some home. Special THANK YOU to our sponsors, especially Arnie Kinnunen, who supported the sweet Portage swag and 'naners. Check out more on the CCRC BLOG!
Over 20 people competed this year, and first place male and female finishers won a $20 cash prize! Every finisher also got a raffle prize, which were sweet, and included Taco Bell coupons, sweatshirts, Portage Health Camelbak bottles, Downwind Sports bike bottles, Crocs, a Keweenaw Co-op gift certificate, and more. It was sweet! And, there were so many bananas, everyone got to take some home. Special THANK YOU to our sponsors, especially Arnie Kinnunen, who supported the sweet Portage swag and 'naners. Check out more on the CCRC BLOG!
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