bad idea #2 (I sense a pattern...) & the Animal Shelter Scurry

So, if you have the chance to get up early, take morning blood pressure and vitamins, eat nothing, then go run/walk a 5k, this might not be a great idea. I had a plan. I was gonna interval this bad boy and wrestle it to the ground. Well, I finished it, and in a better time than last time, but did not pin the sucker. sort of just kept it in submission. This was the Cherokee Animal Shelter Scurry. 27F. Carol took photos of my frozen sweat.

I was about 100yards into the 5k when I realized how bad it was that I had nothing to eat. dry heaves will make you walk. but, like I said, I finished the distance. time was 46:something. they are supposed to post results.

Later, I plan to visit the t-shirt place near us and see what warm-ups they have. I hope to find some dark colors in fleece or thin sweatshirt material.

bad idea #1

so, if you have the chance to attend a business partner chili cook-off, you know, the kind where you sample about 15 varieties of chili with names like "Chernobyl," "brimstone," "slap yo momma" or "no crybabies" try to do it on a non-running day. (nahhh, I did not barf, but thought I might 2 times)

Finished Couch to 5k week 4. Ready for week 5. it was really rather cool to her Lance Armstrong n the Nike+iPod with congratulations, you just recorded a new personal best for the mile. We sort of tweaked our route. Part of the road was a bit slanted (hey, this is a rural area...) and was sort of bothering Carol's knee. We now, warm up around 1 block, then go linearly out a road to were it tee into another road, then return. Same distance, just not a loop.

running in 44F and wet? yep

very motivated to do this. no end. have not missed yet, and still looking forward to going.
I am very excited to see the podrunner intervals first day to 5k, gateway to 8k, and roadway to 10k. lovin' Nike+iPod to really geek out on the runs and data.

I wonder if we will be ready for Peachtree Road Race in July?

looking like the Revolution Runners will be doing regular5k race. Really great since that provides us with 4 runs/week rather than just the 3 couch to 5k runs.

started week 4

ran ALL segments of 1st week 4 run. 3 mins, 5min, 3min, 5min.

1st 5 k ever - Johnson Ferry Polar Bear Run

Well, it arrived faster than I wanted since we have not finished the Couch to 5k training at all (we are in week 4 starting Monday,) but we tried. I think I might have run about 1/3 of the 5k. Plus, it was raining. We had 6 revolution runners entered, and 2 more planned to walk, but since it was raining they decided to cheer instead. my time: 49:44. I t was *really* cool to have them cheering as we finished. We had several other folk drive over jut to see us. That was neat.

Next week, we have another 5k. This one is close to home.

Week 3

well, this set is
walk 5 min warm-up
run 90 sec, walk 90 sec,
run 3 min, walk 3 min,
run 90 sec, walk 90sec,
run 3 min
5 min cool down.

able to finish each run. 
we bravely signed up for a 5k Saturday in Marietta.  we will probably walk more than run it.

when it rains

Pastor Gary comments that WNL bring WND. That is Whole 'Nother Level brings Whole New Devils. Man if that ain't happening now! People getting involved in places they do not belong and lying about it, wife gets murdered, family loses precious 14 month old. youth crying out to God and getting their own WNL.

We all want to thing that God does approve "my sin." NOT. sin is sin. speeding on I-75 is sin. rolling through a stop sign, yep, you guessed it. we are way too forgiving of ourselves when we should see ourselves differently. Man, do I have sin. some big, some small. secret sin? well, to other people, but not my wife. She knows the real me. as does God.

My heart breaks for the family that lost mom today. my heart cries out to demand comfort from the only one who can comfort the family and friends. I am very impressed to see my church go WNL when a 20yo who is here with friends and away from family cries out.

maybe its time to skip a L or 2 and really go WNL^2.

Frozen Sweat? Oh Yeah!

Running in sub freezing weather is, as the phrase at Revolution Church goes, a "Whole 'Nuther Level" (WNL) so it was little surprise finding frozen sweat in my hair Saturday morning after I completed the 2.5 miles of Couch to 5K week2 plus walking another 0.5 miles for an even 3 miles. I was wearing long sleeve under armor, long sleeve t-shirt, short sleeve under armor, sweatshirt, lined warm-up pants, gloves, and a 'boggin for my head. I took off the sweathshirt during the 2nd mile to stay cooler. When we arrived at park, temp was 14F then when we left the temp had risen to 24F.

It worked out rather well to have 4 week 2 workouts (Sunday Tuesday Thursday and Saturday) during the week to help prepare for week 3 even though we have missed some days off. (Well, we only walked the Saturday between last Week 1 repeat run and 1st week 2 run so that should not have been too bad. We felt it was important to join up with the revolution Runners. Some of them are insane.)

Week3:
5 min warm-up
90 sec run then 90 sec walk
3 min run then 3 min walk
90 sec run then 90 sec walk
3 min run then 5 min cool-down.

I think I might die this week.

I am still looking for a nice stretching type podcast we can listen to before and after the C25K portion. found a couple, but not quite what I need. These were video podcasts and just need descriptive audio tracks. Still looking. What I'd like to do is to make a play list with a 5 or so minutes of stretching followed by the couch to 5k running podcast or later podrunner intervals or podrunner podcast then another or a repeat of the stretching podcast. That would allow focus on thinking about life, and just 'doing' the instructions rather than having to focus on the exercise so much that is all we are able to think about.

Amber

Wife just called. Vet says kitty cat has even more problems, her temperature dropped, liver failed, etc. so with all this, she is being put down. sad afternoon, and rough week.

Couch to 5k goes down again plus a sad thing

I thought last time was the closest I have come to barfing while running, but today was closer.  Weather currently shows 26F with wind chill 20F.  I guess I really am insane.  This week is 5 min warm-up, then 90s ec run with 2 min walk.  I am still 'running' the segments, although I feel a bit like George Burns shuffling along.  Going to geek it up a bit.  The shoes we got are Nike+iPod compatible, so I got an iPod Nano and Nike+iPod kit.  We will see how we progress along.  I need to calibrate the adapter.  My car odometer showed a path of 2.15 miles while Nike+iPod showed 2.37. looks like about 10% error.

Going tonight for viewing of 15 month old daughter of great couple at church.  terrible accdent at home.  everyone is simply torn up about it, but since we have chosen to believe that Jesus was not a liar, we have the wonderful hope that provides an amazing peace.

What a Sunday

wow. this was an amazing day. Closest I have EVER been to not being ready with the tech stuff for 1st service. Convention Center had wired their wall outlets 'incorrectly.' They had 26 circuits places along the wall where our stage is, in a twist lock, quad plate, and twist lock. They had used 3 prong twist lock sockets, but the sockets they used were actually 120v sockets AND THEY WIRED THEM AS 240v, with no neutral. So, we adapted our system to use this. Then the conf center figured this out. So, they changed in a way that placed a duplex outlet with the bridge clipped to install the sockets on individual circuits which replaced 1 twist lock. This was mostly fine, except we had to replace twist plugs with standard plugs. A headache, but not too bad. BUT on the other twist socket, they e-wired it to be correct as 120v. This we lost 5 circuits. Not a deal-breaker, but since we use 17 o more, going from 26 to 21 is a bit of a risk. So today, on the fly, we had to re-wire our twist plugs to standard plugs with little fore-warning. (We had been told a) the change was to be phased and b) the change was to start 2 weeks from today. So I was ready to re-wire 2 circuits per week in a mostly casual way, but NOT all 12 in one day.) Buy my brother and his cousin pulled a MAJOR rabbit out of heir butts and with some guidance on what was which, they were able to get the wiring done. We were even able to make a few extra twist lock to standard extension cords.

to top it off: AWESOME message, and I am told that we had about 40 people decide to accept Christ. Makes the headache and pressure (Which I secretly love, please don't tell Pastor Gary) worthwhile.


I simply LOVE the small references that tie series together. Today he comments on 'all-in' which was our poker series.

Couch to 5k week 2

Ran.walked 2 miles with Revolution Runners Saturday.  Great group with lots of challenge since several are training for 1/2 marathon.  Of course, they are insane, but great motivation.  This group runs at park in Canton.

Today we ran week 2 of the couch to 5k.  this is 1.5 min run 2 min walk.  same course in downtown Ball Ground.  Carol travels to South Florida for the week, so we will be working out separately.

Revolution Runers Rule!

well, 11 folks from church including with Carol and I went to Boling Park near Cherokee High School in Canton for the 1st Revolution Runners group which meets at 8:30AM Saturday morning. More should join up with us later. I know several others are interested in joining to walk as well, which will be great. 2 runners are training for 1/2 marathon. The rest of us are at various stages of trying not to die. Fortunately, another runner is a paramedic, and had O2 with him.

The track at Boling is nice crushed gravel and has 2 courses of 1/2 and 1 mile. Carol walked 2 miles and I walked 1.5 miles and ran most of the remaining 0.5 miles.

now for the sad part...

the Persian may have to be put down tomorrow. She has some issue that the Dr cannot identify. losing hair, skin tender and cuts forming, losing weight, kidney issues, and stays dehydrated even though she eats and drinks. She was found abandoned several years ago and has always been a bit off.

oh well, sad night.

Well, the medicine might finally be working. She has been far more active, but the skin still looks really bad. Carol will discuss with the vet, and will likely board the idiot cat for the next week while she travels. Hopefully, this will allow some better analysis at the vet to find out what is happening.

2 weeks complete!!

well, we repeated week 1 since we are old ad very out of shape, but each sessions seems to go better.  This week, Carol travels to Florida so we wil work out separately.  We will be doing week 2 of the "Couch to 5k" program from c25k.com and trying to work up toward a 5 k or longer race.  I was very impressed with podrunner.com podcasts that progress through the couch to 5k, then to 8k and finally 10k.

I hope we can keep this up.  I am really enjoying the flat an looking forward to being able to do some real road work with hills here in North GA.  Maybe Carol and I can make a quilt of road race T-shirts we collect.

We got our nice new Nike Air Pegasus+ shoes, and they are great.  We are waiting now for the iPod Nano and Nike+iPod to be able to really geek out our workouts.  I cannot wait to see just how slow we really are.  But this should be a great starting point.

how's this for insane

OK. I have a customer in AL using a part, and having trouble determining the registers to interface to the memory chip. So, I decide to use some time over the Christmas break and go through the memory chip data sheet and the memory controller section of the processor to help him with the controller settings for his design. I print the memory data sheet and the memory controller section from my processor. (Apparently, I printed 2 copies, but that gets important later.)

So, during my time off over Christmas vacation, I sit and make lots of notes about processor speed, clock cycles, memory setup and hold, etc. Then I translate these to the memory controller register settings that will be required to allow the processor to read and write the memory chip. After I complete this, I put the papers with the notes aside until I get back at work at which time I plan to send email to the engineer providing him the data he will need. Days later, as I get ready to compose the email, I grab the papers, BUT, unbeknown to me, I get the OTHER copy. So I sit down to go over the notes to review and send the info to the engineer, and my notes are not there. My first thought: Am I insane? Did I DREAM this? I know I have some VIVID dreams, but I can recall with almost photographic memory the notes I took to determine the register settings and values, and the memory timing that I analyzed. I had added some timing notations to the memory timing diagrams, and transferred these to the memory controller timing diagrams to compute the math. I had also made notes on each register of the settings it needed. There we NO notes of any kind in these papers. This is completely nuts. Or I am. No kidding, it took almost 15 minutes to find the original papers with my notes. Wow.

workout #8

it was 44F tonight. Beautiful clear sky with near full moon. My fingers were a bit cold in the warm-up but after the 1st run it was all good. I even sweated (like THAT is a surprise...) as each run ended, I circle back to walk long with Carol. This was the first run with our new shoes. very nice. Nike Air Pegasus+ for him and her. And the iPod Nano is shipped, ad the Nike+iPod is shipped. How much of a geek am I? G++ should give you an idea...

Predicted to be MUCH colder by next week, but Carol will run in sunny South Florida while I freeze here.

ran in rain

repeating week 1 to help us get a bit more conditioned. very muggy and about 60F in JANUARY... had been raining most of the day. Fortunately, it did not rain much in our running window.

3rd workout

Well, closest yet to stopping (and barfing) but we completed week 1.  I think we are old enough that we will do week 1 again.

the podcasts are very helpful.  the area we found is very nice, not much traffic, and flat.

awesome. it is raining

and 39F

so we will probably look like Michelin men tonight.
I do not know which is worse, bundled up and drenched from sweating, or less bundled up and wet from rain. either way, cold and wet....

this will be 3rd session of week 1 couch to 5k.

walked the circuit

how lame is this?
with 130 bpm soundtrack (http://www.djsteveboy.com/podrunner.html), it took 32:05 to walk what we did in intervals with 8 runs of 60 sec each in 30:00 mins...

I would seriously think that the runs would make the walking take a bit longer...

but then, we are mostly dead due to advanced age of mid-40's.