June 2005
Monthly Archive
June 30, 2005
Fall Marathon Candidates
Now that I have done the legwork, there are 7 races that meet my criteria. My criteria is that they must be between September 1st and December 1st this year, and that they must be in New England, and that they must not be in Maine or Massachusetts.
The races are:
The Stowe Marathon and the Mystic Places Marathon would give me the biggest gap if I were to run two from that list. The Mystic Places Marathon is an out and back, but it is supposed to stay pretty close to the Long Island Sound so it is probably quite scenic. The Stowe Marathon is also likely to be fairly scenic, but if I run that then it means that I have to skip the Dan Cardillo 5k, which is a fairly fast course that I did fairly well at last year. It would also mean that I would not be able to compete competitively at the Portland Trails 10k, the course of which is one of my frequent training runs. I have done well in that race for the past couple of years, and I have some friends that will be in town to run it.
I don’t have much interest in running the Breaker’s Marathon, and the Hartford Marathon lost it’s appeal once they changed the course some years back.
Do you know of any other marathons that meet my criteria above that I have not yet found? If so, send me an email or drop a comment below.
June 29, 2005
MarathonGuide.com
MarathonGuide.com is a site that I found last night that has the best list of marathons that I have yet seen. I am in the process of trying to find at least one but preferably two marathons that I can run this fall, and I searched a variety of sites to see what was available. I searched Active.com, I searched Runner’s World, and MarathonGuide.com. Anything that I found on the first two sites I also saw on the third site, as well as a few others.
It is fairly easy to find the races you are looking for, and it provides information about the race as well as Amazon
style user comments/ratings about the race. You can see statistics about the number of finishers and winning times.
I managed to get a list of 7 races in the New England area (that were not in Maine or Massachusetts) this fall in a fairly short time. They also have product reviews and articles, which I have only begun delving into.
June 28, 2005
Smart Goggles
The BBC has an article about a new type of goggles designed by an industrial design student named Katie Williams. They are called the “Inview Goggles” and they feature a small compass which tracks when you change direction in the pool. They can tell you how many laps you have swum and how long you have been swimming.
This strikes me as a good idea. Granted, they will need to make the electronics smaller than the current size (the size of a small stone) but I might consider looking into these once they get on the market, if they are not too expensive. It would be very useful in training to be able to concentrate more on stroke and form and less on how long I’ve been swimming.
June 27, 2005
Literacy Volunteers 5k
The 14th annual Literacy Volunteers 5k Road Race was yesterday. It was certainly a not cold day. Runners battled heat in the 80s and 90s on a course that offers little to no shade. There was a slight headwind in a few places that helped to cool things off.
Blaine Moore led the first half mile with T.J. Hesler, Mike Simensky, and Steve Desjardins. Hesler and Simensky took over at the half mile to lead in a 5:24. Desjardin fell off around 3/4 of a mile into the race to eventually finish 9th overall in 18:51. Moore and Hesler had the lead to themselves basically from 1 mile on. Hesler continued to lead down route one to the small neighborhood turnaround, where Moore took over. Hesler again took the lead coming back onto route 1, but Moore had built a small lead at the 2.1 mile mark and continued to build that lead through the finish, winning with an 8 second margin in 17:30. Simensky finished third in 18:06.
Marjorie Graff won the women’s race by 7 seconds, defeating Amanda LaBelle with a time of 19:19.
(Full Results)
June 26, 2005
Beach Run
When I was in college, we used to go down to Camp Winona for Spring training. 10 miles in the morning, 5 in the afternoon, hang out in Daytona or at Lake Winona the rest of the day.
One day during each trip we would check to see when low tide was going to be early in the morning, and we would drive over to Daytona Beach. Whoever was hurting most and unable to do the run would drop everyone off, and then get donuts and bagels and fill the water jugs. They would wait for us 15 miles down the beach.
That used to be my favorite run. It was hell on your legs, it was hell on your skin, but it was a lot of fun. It helped me learn to deal with the heat when running, which is no small skill to have, even in Maine. There may only be 2 or 3 months of heat like that, but the races are still there and it still gets quite hot.
Proper fueling and hydration are paramount. Sunscreen helps too. Warmups aren’t as important, and should just be long enough to get loose. And if at the end of your run you are able to jump in the ocean, so much the better.
June 25, 2005
Ty Law starts showing the goods
Former Patriots back Ty Law is finally doing workouts for teams again. He must be recovering from his broken foot sufficiently to show off the goods, so it will be interesting to see where he winds up. Given that he is represented by Kevin and Carl Poston, a couple of agents who tend to ask for ludicrous contracts even when the playres they represent are happy with what is being offered, Law should be getting a good deal somewhere. Unless of course the NFL clubs have decided to stop doing business with the brothers so that they can avoid the shenanigans in the future. If only they wouldn’t sign any of Drew Rosenhaus’s players and let them sit on the sidelines for a year or two until they got an agent with morals…
June 24, 2005
Beef Jerky
Beef jerky is a great snack. It’s easy to make, it stays good for a long time (especially in an air tight container out of the sun), it can be frozen and thawed as many times as you want without affecting the taste, and it is easy to carry. You can make it taste like almost anything.
(Click here to continue reading…)
June 23, 2005
Antispam Cleanup
One of the annoyances of running your own blog is cleaning up all of the spam hits as they come in. It hasn’t been too bad, but they come in waves so I need to constantly be checking. I hopefully have fixed it so that I won’t be getting spam comments from bots, but we will have to wait and see how popular we get here first.
On a positive note, the b2evolution antispam centralized black list began working today. So even though I have been trying to get updated black lists for the last few months, I was finally able to today. I hope that it keeps working. If not, then I will have to continue filtering things out individually as they come in.
This is all in an attempt to keep the site worthwhile for visitors and to keep it from being bogged down by the less than moral folk.
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