Beach Series Race 13

This last week I actually did a bit of running. I did about 10k in our neighborhood, up the hills and around some of the back roads. It's a nice route, it passes some farms, paddocks and orchards, with nice views out towards the Waitakeres. I'll have to haul my little camera along one of these times. That was Sunday, I could still feel it a bit while warming up.

In any case, it was another perfect night for the beach series. I was feeling fast, but the course didn't quite cooperate. The tide was on it's way in, pushing the course lines up a bit from the optimal line, and putting the north end turnaround flag into a big wide pool about a foot deep (more so on the second lap).

So I pushed hard, but my time was about 20 seconds slower than last week. I probably would have been faster on the same conditions. Hard to tell, I also did a fairly hard warmup, and ended up coming in hot to line up at the start with just seconds to spare before the gun went off . . . oops.

There are 3 races left, the series tracks a point system though all 16 races. I've noticed now that I'm currently ranked 5th in Men 30-39. The top 3 in each age group win some nice travel vouchers. I don't think I can break into the top 3, they're way ahead of me, but I think I can take number 4. Still holding out for getting back to my pre-xmas times before it's all over. We'll see . . .

Week	Time	Place	Notes
2	23:21	22nd	High tide course - loose sand, 3 laps.
3	20:56	28th	Low tide course - perfect weather.
4	22:52	28th	High tide course - good weather.
7	20:49	21st	Low tide course - hot.
8	22:23	23rd	Low tide course - out of shape.
10	23:23	30th	Low tide course - still losing fitness.
12	22:05	26th	Perfect weather, hard work.
13	22:30	21st	Perfect weather, some loose sand and splashy bits. Still feeling Sunday's run.

Splits:

Leg	Last Week	This Week
Start to South End	4:23	4:04
South End to North End	5:29	5:50
North End to South End	5:34	5:48
South End to North End	5:37	5:42
North End to Finish	1:05	1:04

Hmm . . . now that I've entered the splits . . .it definitely looks like I went out too fast: This weeks splits compared to last weeks: (-19, +20, +14, +5, -1). Looks like out too fast and into oxygen debt, followed by a gradual return to a stable aerobic pace. Wouldn't matter if there were 5 or 10 more Ks to the race, but that's typical marathon behavior that I'm trying to get rid of. ;-) Need to run more anaerobic: go out fast and keep it up.

Beach Series Race 12

Last night was race 12 in the beach series.

Weather was pretty much perfect: warm, with a slight crosswind. Tide was about halfway up the beach. I think that ends up making the course slightly longer, but it's hard to tell by how much. You can always see the lines you need to run, and the waves push that line in a bit from straight, but the snakey line of fellow runners ahead of you is just as much of a distraction, if not more.

Anyway, I ran a 22:05, which is over a minute faster than last week. Not due to fitness, pretty much by will alone. I was sick of getting slower the last few weeks. Last nights time was the fastest since before xmas.

Week	Time	Place	Notes
2	23:21	22nd	High tide course - loose sand, 3 laps.
3	20:56	28th	Low tide course - perfect weather.
4	22:52	28th	High tide course - good weather.
7	20:49	21st	Low tide course - hot.
8	22:23	23rd	Low tide course - out of shape.
10	23:23	30th	Low tide course - still losing fitness.
12	22:05	26th	Perfect weather, hard work.

Splits:

Leg	Last Week	This Week
Start to South End	4:49	4:23
South End to North End	5:56	5:29
North End to South End	5:52	5:34
South End to North End	5:37	5:37
North End to Finish	1:13	1:05

Digital Inventory

Picking up an iPhone has made me take stock of all the applications and sites I use to ourganize myself and keep in touch. At this point, I should be able to do most of the miscellaneous organizing and reading I do on a computer from my iPhone.

Calendar: Google Calendar - synched with iPhone calendar app via Nuevasync.
Mail: Gmail - iPhone mail connects.
Tasks: Remember the Milk + free iPhone client.
Work Notes: Combination of TiddlyWiki and Evernote. I started on Evernote, switched to Google Notebook, and recently switched back. They have an excellent iPhone client app.

RSS Reader: Google Reader. Has an iphone optimized site. Also use Gazette offline reader for iPhone, it synch's with Google Reader subscriptions.

Workout and Run Logging: Shapelink. Has a mobile optimized site. Nice mapping interface to Google maps as well.

Links: Delicious primarily, though I still have stuff on Google Bookmarks.

Books: Shelfari for tracking and rating, and Safari Books Online for technical reading.

Social:
Social Hub: Facebook - all my social content feeds hit Facebook eventually. Facebook has a fantastic iphone client. I prefer it to the web interface! If I didn't have to type on that tiny little keyboard with my big fat fingers, it would be the only interface I'd use.
Photos: Flickr (though see below)
Status Updates: Twitter + Tweetie iPhone client. Though I find Twitter a bit limiting, see Microblogging below.
Blogging: Blogger (obviously). Blogger's a little too clunky for iPhone.
Micro/Mobile blogging: Tumblr. I like Tumblr a lot. I think I may start doing small and minor technical blog posts on Tumblr in preference to Blogger. Blogger's still great for larger posts requiring more layout and formatting, but for a single picture and a little blurb, or a small status report, error message screenshot and technical solution, Tumblr is nice. Their iPhone interface is excellent.

The Photo Problem

Picasa 3 is my camera import tool and the first catalog they go into. They get sorted, picked over, and edited. The best ones, or the ones I need for blog posts get uploaded to Flickr using the Picasa2Flickr plugin.

I'm still trying to figure out the best process from there. Photos that tell a story end up here on the blog in a post. But other snapshots don't necessarily warrant a blog post (say from the Lantern Festival last night).

Facebook wants photos to be uploaded to their photo library. That's OK now I suppose as Picasa has both Facebook and Flickr buttons to make that easier.

So far I've been importing my Flickr photostream RSS feed into Facebook, but that get's slightly annoying, there's not much control over how they're displayed, and I'm getting duplicates from the feeds from the MyFlickr Facebook app. I think the solution is to turn off the wall posting of the flickr stream item. I can subscribe Tumblr to a specific RSS feed from Flickr, and subscribe Facebook to Tumblr.

Beach Series Race 10

Tonight was race 10 in the beach series.

I've still been slacking off on my running, so I tried to hold back the race autopilot.

Weather was quite warm, very windy, and the tide was on it's way out, so low tide course.

Week	Time	Place	Notes
2	23:21	22nd	High tide course - loose sand, 3 laps.
3	20:56	28th	Low tide course - perfect weather.
4	22:52	28th	High tide course - good weather.
7	20:49	21st	Low tide course - hot.
8	22:23	23rd	Low tide course - out of shape.
10	23:23	30th	Low tide course - still losing fitness.

Splits:

Leg	Last Week	This Week
Start to South End	4:14	4:49
South End to North End	5:39	5:56
North End to South End	5:50	5:52
South End to North End	5:30	5:37
North End to Finish	1:09	1:13

I think I've finally come up with a plan for lunchtime running.  A couple days a week I'll bring my gym bag on the bus, and use the locker rooms at Club Physical in the city. It's only a K or so from Datacom, so I should be able to get back and forth in an hour or so.  

Six races to go.  Need to get back in gear.   At this point my goal is to set a new PR on the low tide course by the end of the series.