Run to Win

About a month or so ago I was in touch with a gentleman at Ball Dynamics, a Colorado based manufacturer and distributor of the FitBall^® product line. They sell a variety of swiss balls and medicine balls and accessories, which should be a staple in any athlete’s home exercise equipment.

In exchange for this review, they sent me their Pressure Points™ product, which are a couple of hard rubber balls that are used to put pressure on various parts of your body when there is nobody around to massage you. There are 20 points on the body that are the most sensitive and conducive to acupressure. These points were chosen by acupuncturist and program creator Marc Coseo. Along with the two balls, the package comes with a poster to help you find the 20 different points and a DVD that leads you through finding each point within about a 30 minute timespan.

The packaging for the product recommends that you use the Pressure Points™ system to warm up muscles before athletic activity and to help relieve muscle soreness or back and neck pain. Prior to receiving this product, I have used similar methods as what are described to self-massage some of my muscles, especially on the bottom of my feet.
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In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about do-it-yourself home exercise implements throughout February and March. This week, I’d like to teach you how to make screw shoes.

Stabilicers are a good product and will go a long ways towards making your run safer by providing good traction in icy conditions. They have a few problems, however. If you don’t put them on right, then they will come off during your run. They can get heavy, especially when you get snow packed in between the stabilicer and the sole of your shoe. They are also more expensive than the alternative.

So what is the best alternative? Screw shoes.

Here’s a quick video that demonstrates how to make screw shoes:
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In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about do-it-yourself home exercise implements throughout February and March.

This week, Scott describes how to make homemade medicine balls.

This summer, I definitely need to go the sand and foam in a basketball route. Last year, I painted almost every room in my house and made a medicine ball out of the painter’s tape that we used to protect our ceilings and windows.

That’s a nice, lightweight 2 or 3 pounder that is made entirely out of what otherwise would have become trash. So outside of getting a new piece of workout equipment, I also got to amuse myself by seeing how long I could keep each piece that I wrapped around the ball without it coming apart as I ripped it off of the ceiling.

Scott also describes how to make tornado balls, stress balls and juggling balls.

The tornado ball is basically a medicine ball on a string, and the juggling balls are basically stress balls with a different filler.

Another way to make a juggling ball, which is what I did when I was in high school, is to fill a tennis ball with water. You can add a dash of the chemicals that you use in your pool or a water bed to keep anything from growing inside of the tennis ball, and which also gives it a slight foaming ability that can create an oddly balanced ball that lets you do some really neat tricks while the ball is in the air.

You’ll need a syringe in order to get the water and chemicals into the tennis balls, but the hole will heal itself within a few hours of removing the needle. Just be sure not to mistake one of these for a real tennis ball; that’s a quick recipe for destroying your tennis racket.

In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be writing about do-it-yourself home exercise implements throughout February and March. Scott starts us off this week with almost a dozen do-it-yourself grip tools that you can build cheaply at home.

My favorite implement that he describes has to be the water ball (pictured left) - it never even occurred to me to fill my swiss ball with water.

I have used a few of his tricks before. I’ve used the rice or sand in a bowl implement, and I’ve fattened up some of my weight bars at times. I usually use a hand towel as a quick way to add or remove thickness.

I’ve also created my own clubs, although I used to be a professional juggler so those were more for creating odd implements to amuse others with than as a specific weight lifting implement.

For some good ideas, be sure to check out Scott’s article on how to make your own grip tools.

I wore my new Garmin ForeRunner 305 to the indoor track today so that I could make use of the heart rate monitor. That aspect of my workout was a failure, but I learned quite a few things about my new GPS watch and running on an indoor track.

When I got home, I was amazed to discover that the GPS worked inside!

Not particularly well, since it thinks that I was running around the infield at an average pace of 42 minutes per mile instead of 4 minutes per mile, and it thinks that I ran through the walls a few times, but the map was great:

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I got lost in the middle of a lake today while I was out running. (If you have never done it before, then be sure to read the FAQ about Lake Running first!) You would think that it would be pretty difficult to get lost in the middle of a lake. After all, there are no hills you can see for miles because everything is exactly level, and there are even a few islands to use as landmarks that you can run around.

Photo by ezioman
Yet there I was, having done a loop and on my way back, trying to figure out exactly where it was that I had come onto the lake. I could have easily backtracked and found where my footprints in the snow were, but there’s the possibility that snowmobiles had obliterated some and besides, where’s the fun in that?

I have a very good sense of direction, so I pointed myself towards where I wanted to go and it wound up being right.

After a few steps, though, I decided to give the map functionality on my new watch a try. It is a Garmin ForeRunner 305. I haven’t had it long, so I don’t know all of the cool things you can do with it yet. I mostly use it for mapping my runs after the fact.

It turns out that I was going in the right direction and would soon have gotten to a spot of open water that I would have remembered running around on the ice. It makes me very comfortable knowing that the map was there, though, because now I can run trails wherever I want and at least have an idea of what direction I need to go to get home. Once I was back on the path I wanted to take, it even started to warn me about 15-30 feet before every turn that a turn was coming. That was pretty neat, but also a little annoying.

Photo #59 by Don Penta
The run itself was a lot of fun. I ran 15 miles on snowmobile trails, with about a third of that on the surface of the lake. Anytime a snowmobile came near me I had to jump off to the side, where I would sink into knee deep snow. I also got some strange looks when they got close enough to realize I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Hey, it was hot out! It was at least 35 degrees.

Speaking of running without a shirt, the pictures for last week’s Resolution Run are now available. By the time it started snowing during that run, I had stripped down to just my singlet. You can see all of the pictures from the run (the photo to the left is cropped from #59) over at the Maine Running Photos website.

Update: The 15% offer has now expired, but you can use PCHoliday187 through December 18^th to save 10% off of your order.

I received the following message in my email this week. I have written before that I wear my Road ID wherever I go, and every Christmas they offer savings for people looking to get Road IDs as gifts. This year they are offering the discount a month early:

Hello Blaine:

I know it’s a bit too early to wish you “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.” But, that won’t stop us from offering you (a previous Road ID customer) a great Holiday Special. Order from RoadID.com by 11/30 and take 15% off your entire order! Simply use the following coupon code to get your discount: PCSaveOurHair7

Why are we offering this coupon so early? We’ll, last year everyone here went completely bald from the stress of trying to keep up with the Holiday orders. Some of us are just now sprouting new hair and would love to show it off to our families this Holiday Season. By ordering early, you’ll not only save 15%, but you’ll also help save our hair.

ALSO, we have a whole NEW product line to show off. Now, every Road ID is available in an “Interactive” version. What’s “Interactive,” you ask? Well, go to the website and check it out. I think you’ll be impressed!

As you already know, a Road ID is the perfect gift and training partner for the runner, cyclist, triathlete, or active person on your gift list. If you can’t speak for yourself, your Road ID will. If you don’t know exactly which Road ID to purchase, just order a Road ID Gift Card or an online eCard.

Click here to order:
http://www.RoadID.com/?referrer=2219&CID=PCHoliday187

$1.49 shipping on all orders!

Road ID: It’s not just a piece of gear - it’s peace of mind.

Safe Sporting & Happy Holidays,

Edward Wimmer & Mike Wimmer

I do not know that I would bother getting their “interactive” road id. You get a free year’s worth of the service but then there is a charge to keep it going. You could duplicate the same sort of thing by putting a website address on your Road ID that contains your emergency info.

I stand by this product, having bought 4 of them in the past. I’ve gotten 2 for myself and 2 for my wife (pre- and post-marriage and house acquisition.)

Perhaps taking a cue from Katie Williams’ “Inview Goggles,” German company Rodenstock has developed a prototype set of sunglasses that can display your running time and heart rate in your peripheral vision through a wireless data link.

“If wearable computing is going to be popular you need to provide some information, but not a lot,” [optics engineer Mike] Hazel says, “our goal was to produce something very light that could be styled into a normal spectacle.”

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