Did you know that you can find me on both of them?

Here are my pages:
http://twitter.com/RunToWin
http://www.facebook.com/RunToWin

For about a year and a half now, I’ve been putting up a quote of the day that is related to running, or motivating yourself to run, or giving you another reason to laugh about running.

If you have been following me for any length of time, then almost every weekday that isn’t a holiday you’ll have seen the quotes.

If you think back to last March (2009), you may recall a coaching session that I did with Mike Brooks.

It is not yet available for sale, but I am going to be giving away copies of the coaching session in conjunction with the 1 More Mile for Sunshine Challenge! Thanks to Mike, I am raising money for Camp Sunshine, so it seemed fitting to give away our coaching session.

In order to win one of the 5 digital copies, all you need to do is go to this article and leave a comment:

http://www.1moremileforsunshine.com/79/you-can-win-a-free-coaching-cd

If you want an extra chance to win the physical CD (I’ll even pay for the shipping costs) then in your comment you just need to leave a guess as to how many quotes you think I’ve offered up in 2008 and 2009. (My cut off date for counting them was on January 1st!)

Even if you don’t want to make a guess in order to win the physical CD, any comment is eligible for the digital versions. I’m closing the comments on this page since you need to leave your comments over at the 1 More Mile for Sunshine Challenge website in order to be eligible to win.

And while you are over there, take a look around and check on my progress. I’m now 6 days into the challenge…only 25 left to go!

The Millrose games will be televised live on ESPN2 tonight from 7-8:30 p.m. It will also be televised tomorrow on NBC, January 31 from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. ET. If you’d like to play along with Fantasy Track, then you have until 5:40 p.m. tonight to make your picks.

Here are the details on how that works:

How it works

Fans create their ultimate track and field team each week by going to www.visachampionshipseries.com and selecting the athletes they believe will compete well at that week’s meet.

Each Visa Championship Series meet is “virtually” scored, with 10 points going to the first-place athlete in each event, 8 points to the second-place athlete, 6 points to the third-place athlete and so on down to sixth place. The selected athletes score points for your team.

During the 2008 indoor season, after the conclusion of the AT&T USA Indoor Track & Field Championships, Jim Dunaway’s team from Austin, Texas, had scored the most points during the Indoor Visa Championship Series. He won a grand prize trip for two to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track & Field, courtesy of Visa. David Donley won the overall second-place prize, a $250 Visa Gift Card and Nike gift bag, including but not limited to a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Anthony DeSain won the third-place prize, a $100 Visa gift card and Nike gift bag.

2009 Indoor Pick-N-Win Fantasy Game

Grand Prize: One Grand Prize winner will be awarded a $2,000 Visa Gift Card and a Nike gift bag, including but not limited to, a Nike/USATF bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Approximate Retail Value: $2,100.

Second Place Prize: One Second Place Prize winner will be awarded a $250.00 Visa Gift Card and a Nike gift bag, including but not limited to, a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Approximate Retail Value: $350.

Third Place Prize: One Third Place Prize winner will be awarded a $100.00 Visa Gift Card and a Nike gift bag, including but not limited to, a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Approximate Retail Value: $200.

Three Weekly Prizes: Each game week, a Nike gift bag containing a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap, valued at $100, will be awarded. Weekly Prize winners will be determined by the top score achieved during the appropriate week from among all eligible entries (excluding the Grand Prize winners) received by the online deadline.

Pick-N-Win Fantasy Game New Features

• Invite a Friend: From the Pick-N-Win website, players have the ability to email a friend the Fantasy Game link and invite them to participate.
• News Page: Athlete scratches and additions to start lists will be updated on the news page.
• Facebook: From the Pick-N-Win site, players can click on the Facebook link and go to the USATF Facebook page to discuss strategies with other players and interact with their competition.

You can find all these items at
http://www.usatf.org/events/2009/VisaChampionshipSeries/play/

Fantasy Game timeline:

• The game kicks off with the historic 102nd Millrose Games (Jan. 30) and continues through the Reebok Boston Indoor Games (Feb. 7), Tyson Invitational (Feb. 13), and the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships (Feb. 28-Mar. 1).
• The first deadline for players to make their final 102nd Millrose Games picks is Friday, Jan. 30th at 5:40 p.m. ET. The game will conclude on Feb. 28 at 11:55 a.m. ET.

There’s a craze going around right now about doing 100 non-stop pushups. The craze was started by one of the readers of this site, Steve Speirs.

He started the Hundred Pushups, which provides a 6 week program designed to get anybody into shape fast so that they can complete 100 pushups. It may take some people a little longer than 6 weeks if they have to repeat any of the weeks, but it is a proven system that will build up strength and endurance in record time.

Steve told me about his new site when he first launched it, and it was right after I started my own program for the Summer. I am looking forward to this Autumn, though, when I plan on following Steve’s program to see how many pushups I can work up to.

The site allows you to follow each week separately or download the complete program all at once. You can also choose to be listed with others taking the challenge so that you can provide mutual support and encouragement while getting public accountability.

If you are in the market for a new weight training program, then this is a good solution to throw into the mix and can give you something to be proud of once you have completed it. Pushups are one of the best exercises that you can do and having a strong base can really improve your running.

Have you joined the challenge?

You may also want to take a look at the Complete Running Family, who has been providing the same service for the past few years.

I’ve been in Ryan’s private coaching club for the better part of the last year, and he has a lot to offer. His prescribes Tabata workouts, which are high intensity 4 minute workouts that fast, efficient, and that leave you gasping for breath. You spend 20 seconds doing work and 10 seconds resting repeated 8 times. Normally I keep a piece of paper in front of me that have the exercises listed in order, and then program my watch to beep at the appropriate intervals.

Ryan has simplified the process, though, and has created the BodyBot, a web program that will let you set up a program, will lead you through it, and will show you on the screen what you should be doing at any given time.

I bought a membership to the program on Friday evening, and have been using it ever since. I’ve even gotten my wife doing the workouts with me, and trying to get her to lift weights or do body weight types of exercises can be like pulling teeth sometimes. The program isn’t perfect, but it does have a lot to recommend it. I’ll get into some specifics about what areas need improvement, but first let me demonstrate how it works so that you have an idea of what I mean:

The process is simple:

1. Open the webpage.
2. Choose a category, then drag the exercise that you want onto the timeline. (Repeat as necessary until you have 8 exercises chosen.)
3. Choose a tune to work out to.
4. Optionally, do a 2 minute warm up before you begin.
5. Press Start, and follow the on screen instructions.

What is this process good for?

Tabata intervals are a super compressed workout that is ideal for burning fat. Even if you don’t want to lose weight or burn fat, it can work your muscles quickly and efficiently and is a great supplement to your running program. Using it as a cross training activity can help build strength and prevent injuries during your middle distance or marathon training program.

Step 1: Exercise Selection

There are 70 different exercises in the BodyBot, which means that you could do a different workout every day for 7 years without repeating the same workout. This is a good way to keep yourself from getting bored, and to prevent your body from adapting to the point where the workouts are no longer a challenge.

There are plenty of open slots for future expansion, so I expect to see new workouts added over the course of the next year. The majority of the current exercises can be done with just your bodyweight, and the ones that do use implements can be done with a simple dumbbell or a chair.

If you don’t know what an exercise is, you can just look at the video in the center of the screen to see Ryan demonstrating it for you.

When choosing your workouts, you just need to click and drag them onto the desired exercise slot. It is a very easy and intuitive process.

Unfortunately, it took me a few tries to figure out that it is the left side of the box that depicts your exercise that determines which slot your exercise will appear in when you drop it, and not where your cursor currently is. This makes it easy to accidentally drop the exercise into the wrong slot. This is easily fixed, and even easier to avoid once you learn that it’s the left side where you need to drop it.

Even easier would be if you could double click on an exercise and it would fill the first available slot so that you don’t have to drag it at all.

Step 2: Tune Selection

Once your 8 exercises are chosen, you are given the option to move forward and select the music that you want to listen to while you are working out. You aren’t given the option to change the exercises that you’ve chosen, though. It isn’t very difficult to just refresh the page and start over, or even to just do the workout you chose instead and then fix it for your second set, but it would be nice if you could move backwards through the selection process and make changes.

There are 13 different tunes to choose from that you can listen to while you are working out. Most of them are pretty upbeat and I am sure are just the thing to get your heart pumping. You could rotate through the different options to avoid getting bored if you wanted.

Personally, I’m not a very big fan of any of the available tunes. This bothered me a lot the first couple of times that I used the BodyBot, but I’ve since discovered that you can skip this step and not have a music track playing. Just click on the warm up button to move to the next step. You can then listen to your own music or just work out in silence like I do.

Step 3: Warmup

Before beginning your workout, you have an optional warmup that you can do. It lasts for about 2 minutes and involves a few simple motions that will get you loosened up and ready to work out. I wracked my brain but couldn’t find anything wrong with this section of the program. You have the option of skipping it if you have already performed a set or if you are doing these workouts after your run (which is what I normally do), or if you just don’t want to warm up.

The warm up includes exercises like neck rolls, arm and leg swings, and hip rotations. If you don’t feel that you’ve warmed up enough, then at the end Ryan will point at you and then start all over again. When you are ready to begin your workout, just click through to the next step.

Step 4: The Workout

Once you are on the workout screen, you can press Go and the workout begins counting down the first 20 seconds for exercise 1. The video in the center of the screen will display what exercise you are supposed to be doing so that you can follow along. After 20 seconds have passed, the video blanks out and counts down from 10 seconds before moving into workout #2. This continues until you have done all 8 exercises, whereupon you are given the option to do another workout or recommend the BodyBot to a friend.

As I’ve said before, the process is simple to follow and makes doing the workouts much easier. There are still a few areas for improvement, though.

First, I think that the rest and the work should be reversed, so that you rest first. That way when you press go you aren’t immediately thrown into exercise number 1, which means that you won’t waste the first 3 or 4 seconds moving away from the computer.

Second, it would be nice if the exercise that you are doing would be listed on the side of the screen. That way somebody who isn’t familiar with the exercises could begin to associate the name of an exercise with the exercise itself. The names of the exercises are only listed in the bonus workouts that come with the program (or that you can buy separately). It would also make it easier to anticipate what exercise is coming up next if you don’t remember off hand which exercises are in the current workout, especially if they swapped the 10 seconds of rest and the 20 seconds of work.

Third, it would be nice if your current workout could be listed at the end so that you could write it down if you liked the workout and wanted to do it again some time. There is no method for saving workouts, and if you click on the workout again button you are put back at square one. That makes sense because it forces you to take a minute or so of rest while you set up the next workout, but it would be a nice feature.

Is this program worth buying?

I certainly think that it is. I am a big fan of the Tabata Intervals methodology, especially since I began doing them with my bodyweight workouts. It saves me the 30 minutes to drive to the gym and the 40 minutes to an hour of lifting weights, and I think that the results tend to work better with my running programs.

Ryan Lee is not a fan of long aerobic exercise, but he doesn’t run marathons (or even 5k races) so that is understandable. I think that as a supplement to a running program this can make weight lifting more approachable for the average person who doesn’t have any experience. Even for those who do have experience, it can simplify your workout and let you make the most of your time. Doing 2 or 3 sets through the BodyBot only takes 10 or 15 minutes, which anybody can fit in first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening.

What I have been doing is bringing my wife’s laptop into the basement for workouts that involve jumping, and hooking the laptop up to our television for other workouts so that the videos are easier to see on the big screen. Doing a couple of sets after a run has worked well for me, as has doing 3 sets first thing in the morning before work to wake myself up and then going for a run in the evening.

The program comes with 5 or 10 workouts that you can try right away, or you can just jump right in and start experimenting with putting your own programs together. There is also an option to purchase 100 “Done For You” workouts if you want some ideas to get you started. That is the option that I went with. I printed them off 9 to the page and am currently working my way through them 1 at a time to decide which ones I like and which ones I don’t.

If you have already purchased the BodyBot, let me know what you think of it or if there is anything that I’ve missed in this review.

Here are the official entries in the order in which they were received:

1. Nick Cross wrote: It was -34 windchill and I was running. 3 Inches of snow on the ground. People commuting on bicycles. That made me feel less crazy but am I?
2. Pathfinder wrote: Round a corner. Hint of red. A tree, a leg. Pump my arms. There he is! Fast legs, heavy breath, his head turns. I am on him and he knows it.
3. David Parry wrote: A Running Story:Toddler throws her shoe out the window of a car. I pick it up and chase car. Two stoplights later return to surprised mom.
4. Aaron Engulsrud wrote: The finish was in sight. He knew the reward would be worth the price. He dug deep. The big clock told the story: 4:29:08, a new PR. Victory!
5. John Frenette wrote: In the distance, the Golden Gate Bridge becomes clearer with each stride through the fog. Headwind pushing back, I’m ever-nearer to my goal.
6. JoLynn Braley wrote: The rain never stopped her from running but this was a bit too eerie. A dense fog hung in the air, like that time when she ran for her life.

While my wife and I were waiting for our flight at the airport, we went through the entries and decided which ones that we liked the best. There were really only 5 entries to choose from, because one of the entries didn’t exactly follow the rules; it was only 138 characters long.

The story that we chose was Nick’s story, about crazy commuters! I’ll be sending you a PDF copy of my book about Marathon Preparation and Recovery, Nick, so you can expect that in your inbox sometime tonight.

Thanks to everybody who participated, and good luck if you also entered your story into the parent contest over at CopyBlogger!

Update: @Copyblogger Twitter Contest Results

So get creative, write a story in exactly 140 characters, and then click here to link to your story so that you can be entered into the contest! There are 6 submissions so far, so you have a good chance of winning a copy of my book. If you don’t enter, though, you will not have any chance to win.

That’s the challenge that was thrown down by Brian Clark at CopyBlogger, a website devoted to improving your writing.

Can you tell a story in exactly 140 characters?

That’s the idea behind the first ever @copyblogger Twitter writing contest.

It should be a great exercise and a lot of fun. Being constrained to exactly 140 characters will spark your creative juices and force you to focus stringently on word choice, sentence structure, and even punctuation.

The rules for his contest are simple. You need to use Twitter to write your story, it must be exactly 140 characters long, and it must be interesting. The best story wins a 4 GB iPod Nano. Not only that, but I’m going to sweeten the deal by offering a digital copy of my book to the best running related story!

In order to be eligible for a copy of my book about Marathon Preparation and Recovery, your story must have something to do with running or walking. It can be related to a race, to training, to walking on a nature trail, or even to watching somebody else run or walk. You must also leave a link to your Twitter story in the comments below. If you want to be eligible for the iPod, you should also leave a link in the comments over at CopyBlogger, of course. There is only 1 entry per person allowed, so make it a good one. That being said, you don’t need to enter the same story into his contest and into mine, since mine has a content restraint.

Here is an example (and my entry into Brian’s contest):
http://twitter.com/BlaineMoore/statuses/815241805

I passed 1st place at mile 19. I mustn’t let anyone catch me. I am getting so tired. There’s the finish line! The course record is now mine.

By the way, if you sign up to Twitter and want to follow me, you can do so at http://twitter.com/BlaineMoore.

(New to Twitter and not sure what to do or how to use it? Click here for some simple, step by step directions.)

So start getting creative, writing your 140 character stories, and leaving a link here so that I can read them all! The deadline is this Friday, May 23^rd, 2008 at 6:00 EDT.

Well, this Summer the fun begins again. Both the USATF and the IAAF are providing an outdoor Fantasy Track series.

The USATF is going to center around it’s popular Visa Championship Series of races again, with the first meet happening this weekend at the Adidas Track Classic. There are two deadlines for making your picks. The 800m and the 5000m events are tomorrow night (Saturday) so those picks need to be made by 10:55 PM Eastern Time tomorrow. All other picks need to be made by 1:55 PM EDT on Sunday. A cool new twist on this season is that you can see who the favorites are based on who has already picked which athletes to win in each event. The entrant list sorts each athlete by their fantasy popularity.

The IAAF Fantasy Track game will begin with the June 1^st meet at the Golden League meet in Germany. The rules are a little different than they were for the Osaka games or for the USATF games. Rather than picking the athletes in individual events, or choosing a full complement of athletes with a maximum of 1 athlete from each country, you choose 4 captains that follow you from meet to meet and then you choose 5 additional athletes for each meet. If you choose athletes who score in the top 8 of their events, you score points.

Both leagues are free to join, although you are of course welcome to wager locally with your friends. Speaking of which – is anybody interested in a little friendly competition? Time is short for the start of the first USATF meet, but we could certainly get something together for the additional meets in the season and for the entire IAAF season. Let me know if you have any interest.

This was the first time that I really used the checklist generator, since I haven’t done any destination trips for a race since I’ve developed it. And you know what, it worked great! The default list had quite a few items that I wasn’t going to need, so I cleared those items out. There were a couple of items that I needed to include in the pre- and post- race bags that weren’t already on the list, but not many.

Mostly I just changed the items to be more specific. The luggage list, though, I highly customized. Since I’m going down to Georgia for 4 or 5 days, rather than just making a weekend trip of it, and since I am taking a class, I needed to add quite a few non-running related items onto the list. I then printed the list, interrupted my wife while she was studying so that she could tell me what I’d missed, and now I have an easy checklist that I can use to make sure that I don’t forget anything.

There are a few things that I think are worth changing in the default list, so when I get home next week I will probably do that. I just checked my database, and it looks like over 600 people have used the application to create a checklist, which is pretty cool! I haven’t actually checked that number since shortly after I created it, so that’s over 500 people in the last 2 or 3 months. Hopefully that number expands a bit now that the marathon season is coming upon us!

I had originally created the following video for Complete Running, but around the time I created it I was also busy getting ready to sell my book, and Mark was busy with the redesign over at Complete Running, so it never made its way over there. I’ve got the original video on my hard drive somewhere, so I’ll try to upload it to a better service than YouTube at some point, but if you want to see how the checklist generator works then you can watch this 5 minute introduction to it.

The checklist generator is a very simple tool, it only does one thing, but it does that one thing really well. And now that I’ve used it in a real situation as opposed to a theoretical testing situation, I’m glad I finally got around to creating it! It was on the back burner as a project for at least 2 years. Next time you are going to be traveling to a race, give it a whirl:

http://marathoning.org/checklist