Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Trail Running With My New Toy

Trail Run Day
time- 1:45
distance- 7.8mi

Press Power...hmmm...honey!
Today started out yesterday. Wait, that didn't make any sense. Let me go back. To yesterday. In my DeLorean. It's aluminum, it conducts electricity the best. ...Anyway, yesterday I started playing with my new toy, the Garmin Forerunner310XT. It does everything. Pace, mileage, GPS, heartrate, multisport. Everything. Except like Linux OS. Fail, Garmin. Fail. This seriously threw a wrench into the installation of the software onto my laptop, which runs a thousand times better on Linux than it ever did on Vista. But Garmin is not software agnostic and only likes the two major religions of Mac and Windows. Luckily, the Super Awesome Wife's desktop runs XP, and she spent a lot of time helping her slightly technologically inept Dirtbag husband get the whole thing up and running.
Why does none of this look right?

Honey!
And last night Sean (aka Dirtbag Diesel whether he likes it or not) told me he was planning a trail run with some of his ultra-runner friends today and asked* if I wanted to come along.
(*asked in this case means "come on, it'll be fun, no backing out, you'll love it, we'll see you at 4, ok great)
So of course I agreed. To go trail running, which I've never done. With ultra-runners, who run 100km for fun. Right.
And it was a great time! I love trail running with ultra-guys. Did you know they like to walk up steep inclines? They are used to thinking, "Well, I have 90 more miles to go. So I can run up this steepness and blow a bunch of energy. Or I can walk up it, conserve, and run longer later." This is philosophy I can get behind. We ran at a conversational pace for the majority of the run and I only spent a little bit of it huffing and puffing, unable to participate in said conversation. This my kind of running, especially for the big base building I'm doing right now. Sean and I met up with some friends of his after a mile or two (you'd think I'd be more sure but my fancy new Garmin had trouble locating a satellite right away and started me in the ocean. So I have a map of the end of the run, but not the first five miles. Whoops.) and we ran with them for a while along the ridge and to an old '40s military bunker with one of the best views of the North Shore I've ever had. Then they split off and we ran back to the car.
I did discover from them the one thing Super Awesome Wife would like about ultra-running: Gummi Bears. They are a cheap, easy, light source of straight sugar energy. And these guys had a little baggie they happily shared. What swell guys.

And I'm not that sore yet. If I had run nearly two hours on the road I'd be hurting. But trail running is completely different. This only pain I feel right now is in my feet. And that's not the fault of my VFF TrekSports, its the fault of a Dirtbag runner unfamiliar with trail running and constantly trying to kick roots out of the ground. Roots which are firmly, well, rooted. So aside from some kick-stumble-ouch it was an excellent time out and I can't wait to do it again.
Below is the partial GPS of today's run. If you click on the View Details link at the bottom it takes you to a more detailed look at heart rate, pace, etc. I'm really looking forward to using this as a training tool, without coming to be completely dependent on it. Remember, I'm the guy who thought RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running By Feel was the greatest thing between two covers since Super Awesome Wife and I.  

8 comments:

  1. I dual boot my linux machine because of things like this.

    I have become a slave to my Garmin 310XT. I use it to manage my pace splits for long runs. I had to run without it for the 10 mile Turkey Trot where we had to predict our finish time. I was off by 6 minutes.

    Btw, I have the quick release and use it on my bike. It is a really convenient way to track multisport events.

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  2. My laptop hates dual booting so I've gotta use her desktop. Everything works better that way.
    Sean and I were talking about the quick release. I think it might be very cool for tris. Going to have to look into it.
    Also, I forgot to mention eating wild lilikoi during the run. Never done that before. Tart, but finishes sweet.

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  3. During the Honolulu Tri I used my Garmin in multisport mode and it time swim, T1, bike, T2 and run. I just switched the watch from wrist to bike to wrist. Worked well. I only did it to try it out. I don't wear it for race swims any longer.

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  4. Awesome. Sounds like a fun time and learning new tricks.

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  5. If that watch was any bigger you'd be looking like Jake Lonergan. Haha. Jk. Cool toy though.

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  6. Hey Doug... I had to respond to a minimalist running hater on my blog. Check it out. Read the essay with which my post refers. I would love to get your thoughts in a post.

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  7. Doug, where are you man? I need your help on my blog. I need another BF / Minimalist in the mele. I am defending the fort by myself!!! LOL!

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