The Truth Will Make You . . .

Slow?

So, I was reading a few Mini Marathon training message boards over the weekend and one of them was discussing the Nike + training module which happens to be the one I use to help me track my progress when I train. There is a little computer chip in my shoe that connects wirelessly to my IPod and it keeps track of my distance and pace and stuff like that so that I don't have to think about it.

What the message board was saying was that NIKE + has a real problem with calibration though and if you aren't careful can really get off track. So just to be safe I did three- one mile calibration walks on the track at the YMCA today to calibrate my NIKE+.

The good news is that the miles were no problem at all, I wasn't winded and my IT problem in my leg didn't flair at all even when I went full out for the middle mile just to test how fast I could really go.

The bad news is that each of the miles was a little bit off; meaning when my IPod said I was done with my mile I wasn't quite done with the seventh lap on the track. so when I completed the seventh lap I had to hit the calibration button each time to make it right. The first time it was way off. The last time it was actually a little bit over a mile.

So I finally think I have it right, but with the calibration being that touchy, I wonder just how accurate it really is. It added back all of the time I thought I had gained in my per-minute splits, so maybe I am not really getting as fast as I thought I was and what I was doing was not quite walking as far as I should have been.

Oh well. now that I know that about the IPod NIKE + I will just have to be more dillegent about calibration, especially when I start training outside on the road in the spring.

Just goes to show, you keep learning new things when you start a new activity.

Pax

It Has to Start Somewhere

I hate to admit it, but I am swiftly approaching that magic number birthday, when I will start to get all that wonderful mail from the old folks organizations. I hate to even mention it, but I will (gritting my teeth and closing my eyes)be 50 on my next birthday.

Wow, look at that, the world didn't even shift a bit, no portend of impending doom. I am just going to be officially one of those old people. I will no longer be able to call myself an "older young adult" and will have to start referring to myself as *gulp* "younger middle aged".

Anyway I have decided that I needed to do something momentous for my birthday. Something fitting the passage of time and something that will help me to feel like I am fully alive. Since I am much to sane to 1) jump out of a moving airplane, or 2) jump off of a stationary bridge, I decided that it would have to be something that would require all of my strength and determination. Some friends at the school where I volunteer are putting together a training team to run in the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon, so I have decided to join them, only I have no illusions that I will be able to run 13.1 miles by then so I am planning to walk the mini. Mrangelmeg is being so supportive that he signed up to run in it so that we can be there together (we will see each other before it starts and then he will be waiting for hours after he finishes for me to cross the finish line, but that is the kind of supportive spouse I have.)


This race is one that has thousands of participants every year. It is a huge deal around here.

I started training with my initial three-mile walk today. I was hoping for a pace of 18 minutes per mile. What I accomplished was 16.34 minutes per mile! Tomorrow I rest and then I walk again on Wednesday and Thursday. I rest again on Friday and then my longest walks are on Saturdays. By ten weeks I should be up to 13 miles on Saturdays. Then I rest a week and start the whole process over again.

After three rounds of training I will be totally ready for the race. And a natural by-product of all that training will be that I should be in pretty awesome shape in time for my 50th birthday, and then mrangelmeg and my anniversary which is just a few months after my birthday. So my deciding to give myself this mini marathon for my birthday will have benefits that will enhance the rest of our lives.

And it all started with my looking into the inevitable abyss of AARP membership applications.

How cool is that?

Pax