Ramping Up The Runs

Friday, May 25, 2012 16:37 Posted by leosaumure 0 comments
So we're down to the final month before the 1/2 marathon, and the run distances are increasing significantly.  Over the past little while, our weekday runs were only about 4-7 KM depending on the day/week. Now, we pretty much don't have any weekday runs under 8 KM.

It would have been a bit of an easier transition if it weren't for the injury that I had a while back, as we lost about two weeks of running. But hey, what are you going to do.

My friend Daniel has a daughter who runs ultra marathons. She's off to Poland soon to compete against some of the best ultra marathoners in the world and he was telling me that she has a daily training routine of about 3.5 hours of running! 3.5 hours of running each day! Holy crap! Talk about making someone feel inadequate...

I figure if she can run 3.5 hours each day, I can manage a few long runs here and there.

Tomorrow's run is a long one (for us) at 16 KM.  But we're feeling pretty confident that we should complete it without too much trouble. We've done a bit longer before, but only once. The next week's runs are around: 8KM, 10KM, 6KM, 11KM and 13KM.

Work That Butt

Sunday, May 20, 2012 18:45 Posted by leosaumure 0 comments
Ever since I pulled my hamstring muscle about three weeks ago, I've had to go easy on my running as it has literally become a pain in the butt. Little by little however, I can feel it getting better. The first run, a week or so ago, was quite sore, but with each subsequent run, it got a bit looser and a bit less sore.

Today's run was the longest we've done since the injury: 13.6 KM. For the most part, it stayed relatively pain free, and fairly strong. Towards the last 1/4 of the run, I could feel it tightening up a bit, so we slowed the run down and I could feel that it was helping.  It was fairly sore when we stopped to stretch, but it didn't take too long to recover after that.

I took my last round of muscle relaxant this evening, but I think it would be prudent to get another round as I still find it stiffens up during car rides.

Tomorrow we're doing a 10 KM, so it should be interesting to see how it faired after today's run.

Multiple Failures

Sunday, May 13, 2012 18:53 Posted by leosaumure 0 comments
Today, the third day back into running, we wanted to go about 12 KM, but it didn't work out that way.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a cold, which took me out of the game for a couple of days. Then, on a run that was probably too strenuous for my condition, I pushed it a bit too hard and pulled my hamstring. I tried resting it for a day or two, but when I tried running on it last Saturday, I found that it was too painful, and it would need more rest.  Judging by the pain I felt in my butt while running, we were a bit frightened that we might not make it for the half marathon.

In some respects it turned out to be a good thing, as Kristie had caught my cold, so she wasn't exactly up to snuff either. So we both rested for a week.

Three days ago, we went for our first run; a 4 KM run, and while my hamstring was quite tight, it seemed that the pain wasn't hindering continued training. Yesterday we went for a 5 KM run, and despite re injuring it again by stumbling at a petrol station, it still seemed pretty good. I was favouring the other leg during the run, but I didn't think much about it.

As I mentioned, today we wanted to do a 10 KM - 12 KM run, and things were going pretty well for the first 2/3 of the route, when I started getting a blister on the arch of my foot due to favouring my injured hamstring.

So for the last two weeks, we've barely been able to get much mileage in due to a series of cascading failures, all started with my cold. I guess I didn't need to say series of cascading failures and it was kind of implied by saying cascading... Anyway, I hope that we're nearing the end of this as our fitness level has been faltering too.

It's Not You, It's Me. Actually It's You.

Monday, May 07, 2012 18:34 Posted by leosaumure 0 comments
Ok, so here is what I've learned about the GIMP issue I was having:

As it turns out, the reason GIMP worked so well for me using Vista was because Vista magically configured the GIMP preferences when I installed the drivers. Apparently, this is something that only happens using Vista; XP doesn't do it, Windows 7 doesn't do it, and Linux Doesn't do it.  To be honest, I do remember having issues with GIMP on my Windows 7 machine at work, so there you go! What is interesting is that I only found this information by scouring the user forums for GIMP. You'd think that they might want to put that into the documentation.

So all is well right? Wrong! There are some strange quirks that happen when setting up the GIMP preferences depending on which version of Linux you are using.

After finding out that I actually had to set the preferences myself, I went on my Ubuntu machine, which I was using at the time, and set up the preferences with no hassle at all. But then I went on my Mint machine and did THE EXACT SAME STEPS, and the stuff that happened was ridiculous!

So, I would place my stylist on the bamboo pad, and when I did so, I would see a dot appear...so far so good. But immediately after the dot appeared that corresponded to where I placed the stylist, a weird connecting line appeared too. This continued to happen every time I tried to make a mark. I double-checked to ensure I set the preferences correctly, and there was no issue, so I tried shutting down GIMP. No luck there. I tried unplugging the tablet; no luck there. I tried rebooting; no luck there. I tried un-installing GIMP and re-installing GIMP; no luck there. I tried virtually every variation of all of these steps, and guess what? No Luck There Either.

I finally thought that the problem might be the machine I was using, so I did the same thing on the machine I was using at home, and once again...nothing. So for some reason, GIMP works fine on Ubuntu, but doesn't work properly on Mint.

Chalk this up to experience I guess.

We're Experiencing Technical Difficulties Please Stand By

Tuesday, May 01, 2012 18:30 Posted by leosaumure 0 comments
I think I already talked about how I started feeling crappy on Saturday morning, but managed to get a 13 KM run in just the same. Well, it got worse that night, and then kind of developed into a bit of a cough, so Kristie advised that I should try to get well before we do any more running as it could develop into something more serious.

So, here we are on Tuesday, and after taking Kristie's advice and downing some paracetamol, I felt pretty darn good today, other than a runny nose. So we did a bit of a different run today. We ran down Crofton Down, and into the Ngaio Gorge, where we usually take the dogs for a walk. From there, we ran to the other entrance of the gorge and then up, and up and up.  We ran up most of Kaiwharawara Road, which is about 2.5 KM long, and all of it up hill; some of it quite steep too. By the time we got to the top of the hill, which increased in steepness the closer we got to the top, we were pretty spent, but were also pretty happy to complete such a hard finish to the run.

The entire run was more than likely around 6 KM, but we can't be too sure as we couldn't measure the distance in the gorge. But judging by the amount of time it took, and the number of steps displayed on the pedometer, we think that 6 KM is fairly accurate.

Oh, and to top it all off, I found five bucks at the end of the run! Yay!