Month: March 2014 Page 1 of 3

http://www.strava.com/activities/125108372

When one makes false calculation by accepting the recognition of oneself as a being, a dichotomy of active and passive occurs that may be called delusion.

Gorge50k is in the books. What an amazing run!
Recapping a few notes so that I remember for next time.

The course was *extremely* technical. When I lived in D.C. I volunteered at the Massanutten 100 twice. Both times at the 50 mile aid station. I found it to be the time when people really decided to continue or take a perma-seat under the aid station tent. A lot of people pulled the plug at that aid station. It began with stopping to talk… kind of a blank stare at the food table… then they maybe sat in a chair or on a cot…they they just keeled over and rested. I think the fastest way to eject yourself from an ultra is to sit down.

Never. stop. moving.

I never felt like I was going to fold. Ever. I never contemplated stopping until I was finished. That’s the best I could hope for.

In no particular order…

I killed my iPod shuffle. It’s kaput. I think I lost all tunage around mile 15. Maybe it just got wet from the rain … can’t remember if it was raining that early or not. The silence was nice actually. I chatted it up with a few runners and in one section through the forest *the BIRDS* – they were singing so loudly. It was amazing.

Need to start closer to the front of the pack. I stayed in the back 2/3’s because I wanted to keep it slow at the start.. but there wasn’t enough runway to thin out before the trail converged into singletrack and I was behind a line of people walking uphill. It was rough passing… but once I started it became easier. “Pass on the left, please.. (pass)… thank you!” Again and again. I took off with Mr. Chicago for a while … and we rolled for a few miles around a sub-10 minute pace… in another section a woman stuck with me as we passed a few people – I think this was going into the first aid station; “I found you!” she said. You always want to find the person who is going to match your pace. We hung for a while, but then I lost her at the first aid station.

There was snow on the trail 🙂 I passed a group of 3 or 4 people up high crossing a snow slope. I shouldn’t have done that – I could have slipped and fallen on them (or fallen down the mountain myself).

Strategic f’up –  My pace was slower than I anticipated and I was eating and drinking sooner mileage wise than I normally do… so I made a mistake when I blew through the first aid station at mile 9 with one bottle + a little bit in the other. I should have refilled at the opportunity. By the time I got to the 2nd aid station at mile 18 – I had not had anything to drink in about 3-4 miles. That was really dumb. I ate a few Clif blocs with nothing to drink and they just stuck in my teeth. I didn’t feel bad at all – I just wished I had something to drink.

The UD vest is too big. As I became more dehydrated, the vest became looser and the bottle in my left front was hitting my rib and causing a bruise. More annoying than painful. Super annoying. I ran holding the bottle every so often to keep it from bouncing. I ended up only refilling the front right bottle and keeping the left bottle half  / empty so it wasn’t so heavy.

I lost all GPS and pace/mileage/time 🙂
The watch started to go into auto-pause mode b/c I couldn’t reach satellites in the Gorge and yeah… that’s it. I locked the buttons at the start so that I didn’t accidentally stop it and for some reason (still have no idea) I couldn’t push the correct sequence of buttons to unlock it to actually see what time it was.  So I had no idea what time it was (until I finished). Strava recalculated all the blacked out sections and kept the final end time (plus moving time) and only messed up the elevation. Totally unreliable though. Heh.

I left a drop bag at mile 18 and was going to change my shirt (soaked), until I realized I would have to unpin/repin my race number – meh. I decided to just keep trucking. It wasn’t raining at the time and I wasn’t too cold.

The suck.

Coming into the aid station at mile 18 I could hear my girls ringing the cowbells. Sooo awesome. My youngest gave me some M&Ms and my oldest filled up my bottle. And I was out. The next section was about 3 miles on the road — flat with a headwind.  Then the course went into the woods and started climbing on very technical (rocky) singletrack. Major low point. I couldn’t see anyone.. didn’t see any course markers.. the sky was starting to get dark as weather was moving in. This was the low point mentally in the race. I had no idea where I was (no idea what time it was)… knew the biggest climb was coming at mile 25. So yeah. This was the suck.

I’m not sure when it started to hail. The temp dropped, the wind picked up. I was getting cold – so I ate some more Clif blocs and kept drinking. I rolled into the last aid station and kind of stared at the table for a few seconds. It was pouring and I was standing under the shelter. I grabbed some potato chips, drank 2 cups of coke and had my bottles refilled with electrolyte water.  Then I asked a volunteer to pull my shell out of my pack and I zipped up over my pack and rolled out. A mile or so later I asked a hiker to shove my shell back into my pack – I was trying to unclick the buckle on my pack and I couldn’t get my thumb to work b/c my hands were so cold. ** I dumped my iPod and gloves at mile 18. ***Always keep gloves.

Rainbow from the spray coming off Multnomah Falls (from the finish).

The climb was really tough. Up and over Multnomah Falls over the Larch Mountain trail. Really tough climbing on tired legs. Descending was very loose and steep … and wet. Finally the trail smoothed out… it’s usually where the tourists turn around I guessed. It became more runnable.. then turned to tarmac switchbacks. Down and down and down and down and down. Then back up and over to more singletrack – still runnable though. I passed 3 people here and left behind my descent buddy.

That’s mostly it. I crossed the finish line and gave the race director a high five.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_qo5A_9bYY]

sub-5 hour ETA

1 Hour / ~7 miles / gel
2 Hour / ~10 miles / caffeinated gel [Cascade Locks aid station at 9.3, pass through and eat past the aid station]
3 Hour / ~ 20 miles / caffeinated gel [maybe Yeon aid station, big climb] [drop bag / swap bottle / maybe change shirt]
4 Hour / ~ 27 miles / solid food / drink drink (No Name aid station graze or mojo bar) [haul ass to finish]
5 Hour / Finish

There is no try. Only do.

Pre-race jitters (Gorge50k). For a long race there is this point where you try to essentially… outsmart yourself… but you know it’s happening, so it kind of doesn’t work. What I mean is that… your mind is about to f**k your body over. It’s the mind vise and it’s about to go into a different mode. You know it’s going to happen and the only thing to do is make sure your body is prepared.

I’m mostly just trying to remember everything, here’s my list.

• first aid station is at mile 9… that’s too late for me, I need to eat around mile 7. So I may stop early and then just pass through the first aid station and not stop. Aid stations are like black holes… they’ll suck you in and the longer you stay.. the harder it is to leave.
• Remember your dip at mile 11. It’s going to creep up b/c you’re not going to be thinking about… so head’s up. I think I’ll write it down on a piece of tape stuck to my shirt forearm.
• Make a feed chart with time and remember to eat at the right times. Tape it to your shirt. Because guess what… the most difficult thing to do when you’re 20 miles into a run is… math. It’s almost impossible.
• To drop bag or not to drop bag… I’m considering leaving a bottle of cytomax at the 18 mile drop and at the 25 mile drop. And carrying 2 bottles from the start. My long runs are always unsupported and I don’t want to get sucked into the aid station black holes. Keep moving. Don’t stop. No matter what. Keep moving.
• It’s going to be in the high 40’s and raining… consider carrying a second shirt or maybe just a vest to put on when I get to the top of the last climb …so I don’t get too cold descending to the finish.
• The last climb at mile 25 is about 1500 ft. It’s going to hurt. Swing your arms if you’re running – take big strides if you’re power-walking it. Pass some people.
• Relax. Run your race. All systems are a go.
• If things get bad… smile.
• Remember the 3rd rule of fight club. Have fun and try your best.

• Listen for the cowbells (I bought my daughters cowbells for the finish).

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmCJEehYtU]

At dinner conversation ranged from the JVM to Oculus Rift to OpenGL. I had a headache afterward as a result of too little coffee plus the 3:30am wake up to catch a plane to San Jose.

Back at the hotel I said goodnight to Portland via Facetime and decided to go for a big walk to stretch my legs, pick up some water and get some fresh air. I was walking past Palantir HQ behind 3 visitors from out of town as they remarked how nice the restaurant across the street looked… so modern and open. I passed them as they started to walk over to the “restaurant” which was in fact the Palantir cafeteria.

The alternate universe of techno-utopia. My headache was gone when I got back.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e6Hj7MwWaI]

Excellent day on the mountain today.  Blue skies, corn snow, temps in the upper 50’s. Palmer lift was running and my daughter and I skied top to bottom all day. Knackered.

Looking up toward crater rock from the top of Palmer. Sitting down to take in the views and eat a Mojo bar. This is only the 2nd day in 5 years that I’ve ridden to the top of Palmer. Every other time I’ve gone up it has been skinning at 4am in the comforting glow of my headlamp.

We could see a few people up on the Hogsback, but I think most had already summited and descended by mid-morning.

You know those tweets where someone tries to take down their internet provider? This is not a post about that. This is about design decisions that companies make and how those decisions impact their customers.  But it’s mostly about innovation.

This will be complete data nerd nit-pick about my watch (still hesitate to call it that). It looks like this:

(It’s only slightly smaller than the image actually. Meaning – it’s a big watch).

List 1 (old way).

1. Ride (bicycle) to the office in the morning.
2. Arrive at desk, Ant Agent running on tiny USB in laptop is in search mode and syncs data to USB drive.
3. Go for a run at lunch
4. Return to desk…eat hummus and crackers… Ant Agent running on tiny USB in laptop is in search mode and syncs data to USB drive
5. Log into Strava
6. Upload new activities
7. Look at my weekly mileage for running and riding and feel pleased.

List 2 (new way).

1. Ride (bicycle) to the office in the morning.
2. Open iPhone, open Garmin Connect Mobile app
3. Click Menu > Sync on watch
4. Wait for data to sync to mobile
5. Arrive at desk, log in to connect.garmin.com
6. Navigate to activity
7. Download .gpx file to desktop
8. Log in to strava.com
9. Upload .gpx file from desktop
10. Go for a run at lunch
11. Return to desk…eat a whole wheat fig newton…open iPhone, open Garmin Connect Mobile app
12. Click Menu > Sync on watch
13. Sync failed, msg “Unlink device from phone.”
14. Unlink device from phone
15. Put watch in Pairing mode
16. Pairing failed
17. Uninstall Garmin Connect Mobile app
18. restart iPhone
19. restart watch
20. Pair iPhone and watch
21. Sync begins and completes
22. Log in to connect.garmin.com
23. Navigate to activity
24. Download .gpx file to desktop
25. Log in to strava.com
26. Upload .gpx file from desktop
27. Consider calling my mom and asking her for advice about my life choices

See what I mean?

So here’s what happened. Garmin (the company) does not want customers to use 3rd party systems to view data collected with their devices… or they just don’t really care about making it easy to do (anymore). This is both a design decision and a product decision.

Strava is a better platform than Garmin connect. Instead of out-innovating a smaller competitor, they decided to put the customer in the middle and make it painful to use the competitive platform. They deprecated the technology (that worked perfectly fine) for a newer technology that more closely ties the consumer to their ecosystem of product and service. Apple does the same thing – but Garmin is no Apple. Garmin software is buggy. Really buggy.

This is also a lesson for Strava and building services on products they don’t control. Is Strava so compelling that users will go through the pain of List 2 above? Or will consumers wait until Garmin (maybe) catches up? Should this technology be “open”?

Finally…this post is about the programmable web, APIs and the internet of “thangs” (much cooler than things).  Strava tried to pull back their APIs from developers last year (Twitter did the same  and got away with it – because the platform *is* so compelling) and got their hand slapped by said developers.

For my immediate pain – there are a couple of options  to explore. There are a few services that will auto-update between platforms – so when data hits Garmin, it will automatically sync with another platform (like Strava). There is also https://ifttt.com/ and https://zapier.com/ that I may be able to automate some kind of sync. We’ll see.

btw. The best ifttt recipe I saw was a recipe to begin flashing Philips Hue bulbs and play music when dad was nearly home from work each day. I’m not sure if I could do that to my kids (imagine the therapy later in life)… but if I did, this would be the song that would play when the lights started to flash. Imagine the EXCITEMENT!!!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YOYlgvI1uE]

I didn’t even get nerdy. Oh… and here’s the run on Garmin Connect:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/465104512

I don’t even know what to do with all this data. I mean… “my vertical oscillation was all over the place” … lolwut? **As evidence of the buggy software – the HRM and 3rd sensor stopped transmitting data at 25 minutes. Boo.

Checking all the boxes here: bold, uncertain outcome, unwavering focus.
This is what it means to dig deep.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7CTAqTqD7U]

I learned (I hope 😉 an amazing lesson in the past year. It had to do with design and unmet needs and emotional triggers. I think the most powerful association a design can make with a person is to satisfy a need they don’t know they have… and once that happens – on an emotional level there is the epiphany of the need being met and from that… springs the well of user addiction. It’s kind of the fundamental reason behind why everyone (most 1st world, middle class + up, caveat, caveat) carries a mobile in their pockets.

This is tangentially about quantified self. Just a little bit. What did you actually do if you didn’t track/record/disseminate the experience to the intertubes?

My new watch (I hesitate to even call it a watch) is sitting at a post office in Portland and will be delivered on Friday (according to FedEx). I’m sitting here thinking about that device. Mostly about what it will provide me and my experiences. It will record, analyze and report on my performance … it will serve as my coach and trainer. It will have a record of my heart rate over time… my Vo2 max… my running cadence. It will know my height, weight. It will know where I live and where I like to visit.

I ran today without recording anything. I was going to take my iPhone, but it didn’t fit in my pocket – so I ditched it.  Was it liberating? Was I lost? Did I crave the immediate feedback of performance? None of the above. I just ran like I always do.

I started this today, but I’m going to stick to it going forward.

1. I’m no longer using my iPhone for an alarm. I’m back to my Sony Dream Machine. It’ll be like the 90’s again. In Portland. Waking up to NPR. Draw your own conclusions.
2. I’m not touching my iPhone (or any device) while I’m in bed. Ever again.

2 simple rules. I was considering  starting to conveniently forget my phone at home on random days – not sure if this one will fly yet. We’ll see.

http://www.strava.com/activities/121300679

Short backstory

My first Garmin was a forerunner 210. In less than a year that one died and I paid the Garmin upgrade for a 610 touchscreen. The build quality was a lot better, but the stainless steel back of the watch started to bubble and separate from the housing. For a time it was staining my skin a greenish color. The watch was still working and I wasn’t having any other issues with it – I think there was a firmware update or 2 that shortened the time to satellite lock, but overall, no deal breakers. Until last week. The watch started to freeze when transferring data and some of my runs would return partial or corrupt data. So I decided to bring it back to REI. I was planning to pay the Garmin and buy a 620 (another upgrade). Then I found out about the Fenix2 that will be shipping at the end of March. So I’ll pre-order and wait. It’s the closest Garmin comparable to the Suunto Ambit  2 (but works with Strava, unlike Suunto).

In summary, I’m watchless right now. I have an old High Gear that  has includes chrono, barometer and altimeter, but no GPS.  I’ve pre-ordered the Fenix2 and am planning to use my iPhone (+Strava app) until it arrives – sometime in early April. I’m really not that much of a device geek… but I like what I like. And I’m patient.

The Run

Today’s run was good. In fact, I rocked it. This was my longest mileage week to prep for the 50k in 2 weeks, so today was the last day to close in on the mileage of a 50k before the race. I’m of the mind to kick your own ass training, so that you don’t get your ass kicked in a race. I’m feeling a lot better after today.

It went like this:

Right after I crossed 26 and started the ups on the Marquam trail – I lost GPS. The run was the same as this though (from last week):

At the library on 39th and Salmon (at 19 miles) there is a city water fountain outside and I had one Hammer gel left. Done and done. I really didn’t think about it too much, I just decided to make it happen and combined this loop with my Mt. Tabor standard:

19.7 + 5.1 = 24.8  / ~ 25 miles. So not only the total mileage but elevation of ~3000k up. I’m going to have more vertical in the 50k, but I felt great in the last few miles, my stride came back and my pace was recovering.

I can’t think of anything more bad ass than this run in Portland. Primarily because it’s a bounce between the 2 highest ridges that can be seen from the city. It was a little bit surreal looking all the way across the valley to Council Crest from Mt. Tabor and knowing that I was just there an hour + ago.

When I was coming downhill in the last mile I went into full back patting mode (I actually patted my own back) – it felt *amazing*. I’ve been so worried about the mileage and that my feet aren’t going to be able to hold up… or my stomach is going to mutiny like it did on Thursday. The relief was immense. It was full-on internal congrats (the most important kind):

“Good job Chris. You’re running strong. You’ve got this. I’m proud of you man. Nice work. This was the test and all systems checked out. You’re cleared for takeoff.”

I came home and weighed myself to check dehydration – I wanted to see how much weight I lost over 25 miles – it was about 3 lbs. Not too bad, I would have been worried if it was 5+.  I hit water fountains the entire time (they’re back on at Marquam Shelter) and went through 2 bottles of Cytomax and 4 gels (2 hammer gels and 2 clif shots). I felt better with the hammer gel, it might be that clif shots are made with brown rice sugar. Not sure.

No primal screams today – just pure focus. The climbing came easy. Nutrition was dialed. Breakfast was half bagel (thank you Bridgetown Bagels) with almond butter and honey and a banana and just a half cup of coffee. Not too much.

The next couple of weeks will be tapering mileage and some race visualization. We’ll see if everything clicks. Fingers crossed.

Today was a good day.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zNSgSzhBfM]