Posted on Aug 24, 2009 under Race |
I got my race photos of the America’s Finest City 5K run from last weekend (All photos). I always tell myself (before the race) to actually look at the camera and give a decent pose. But when I’m actually running in the race, smiling and posing for a camera is the LAST thing on my mind. I really don’t care about that and am focused more on how tired I am. I really need to just lighten up and just try and give a smile one time, so I’ll have a good picture to use as a profile pic or something.. I’ll have plenty more races to try and do that. There were actually more pictures of me, but these are the ‘best’ ones. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on Aug 23, 2009 under running |
I was surprised to find out that I was sore from last Sunday’s 5K race. I don’t recall getting this sore after any of my other races and I didn’t run that much faster this time. However, I didn’t have time to really stretch before this race though, so that may be the reason why I was this sore. I didn’t run on Tuesday because of some work stuff that I had and I guess because I was still sore. Maybe I should have taken Monday off instead Tuesday.
I think the visuals in Nike+ are cool, but not sure what else. DailyMile FTW!
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Posted on Aug 17, 2009 under Race |
Here are my results for the America’s Finest City 5K Run: 19:53, 1st in my age division and 13th overall (out of 1,200 runners!). Official times here. I’m a little disappointed with the time because I was hoping I would run a little faster, considering all the great workouts I have been having recently. But I am even more surprised about actually winning my age division, which I have never done before. I’m not going to ignore the fact that the main race for the AFC was the half marathon, which is probably where all the other fast runners were at. But when I was looking at last year’s times for the 5K, I thought it would have been just as competitive this year. Oh well, I’m not really going to complain about winning my race! Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on Aug 15, 2009 under running |
This is the week before the America’s Finest City Half Marathon and 5K, so I didn’t want to do anything too crazy to get myself tired or injured before the race. I’m only doing the 5K and am starting to feel bad just racing such a short distance. I can back myself by saying that I have only been running 3-5 mile workouts since I started running again in March and have hit 6-7 about 3 times. When I ran in high school cross country, the most we ever ran was 10-11 miles, so racing 13.1 miles just seems so impossible for me right now. But constantly reading other people’s running blogs about how many marathons and half’s they’ve ran has really motivated me to finally get one under my belt. After the AFC 5K, I will start looking for longer distance races and also register for a couple of half marathons and probably one full so that I will have no choice but to get started on a training program for those races. It’s probably going to be a really hard workout schedule with many more miles than I have ever ran before, but I know I can do it. I hope I can.. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on Aug 09, 2009 under running |
I didn’t get to run on Thursday because we were having dinner with a co-worker of mine who is leaving us to go to medical school at Harvard. I don’t think there is any better reason to skip running. I was able to get in some pretty good workouts in this week if you look at the times. However, from my perspective, a lot of the runs didn’t really feel that fast. Meaning, after many of the runs this week, I would think to myself that I didn’t run that fast, but looking at the overall time and splits, it looks like I ran really well. After Saturday’s run, I have come to the conclusion that I have simply moved up a level in my training program. I am going to attribute this level up by switching to running at night. Since that switch, I have been able to get some quality runs in, at very fast times and paces. And from those workouts, my body has gotten a lot more comfortable running that fast. So now when I am running, even though I feel like it’s slower, the time and pace is significantly faster than a month or two before. So on those rare occasions that I have a really good workout, my time and pace will be that much faster. Now is probably a good time to start increasing the mileage, although the reason why I haven’t done it yet (other than the fact that I wasn’t physically capable) is the time factor. Running in the mornings was hard because I was waking up so early just to get in a short run, waking up any earlier would have been very hard for me, especially since I’m not really a morning person. Now that I’m runnning after work (which I come home fairly late), running for too long is not something that I really want to do, since I still have to shower, eat dinner, do a little more work, relax and then go to bed. I’m hoping increasing the mileage on Saturdays will be good enough, maybe throwing in a slightly longer run once or twice a week.
Nike+ graph of my pace during the Brick ride and run. Notice the sluggish start where my legs felt like 'bricks'!
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Posted on Aug 06, 2009 under Reviews |
I was contacted on behalf of Zensah (@zensah) to review a pair of Prograde Compression socks, which I gladly obliged to do. I have never had special socks specifically for running. I usually just wore regular low-cut cotton ankle socks during my runs. Because of the crazy tans that we would get while running after school, I would sometimes pull mid-ankle cut socks down to low-ankle level and fold the excess sock under my foot. Sometimes it would be pulled too low and the whole sock would ride below the heal of my foot, which was very annoying. My coach would sometimes run in dress socks because he said that they were softer and felt more comfortable. I’ve tried that a couple of times, but because they’re so smooth, my feet didn’t really have any grip on the actual shoe (unless I tied my shoelaces very tight). I never thought that running socks would make that much of a difference in performance. I know from experience that shoes do because I raced for half of a cross country season with running shoes that made my feet burn within the first mile! The next race I ran with different racing flats and I didn’t have any issues with my feet burning.
Since I have never owned compression socks before, I really didn’t have anything to compare it to. However, after reading what others think of the Zensah compression socks, I have to agree with what most of them have to say about the socks. First off, I’ll point out some of the features that the compression socks state they do:
Increase circulation
Arch support
Recovery & travel
Improve performance
Active Ingredients & Benefits
Zensah Fabric: ultra comfortable
Silver Ions: thermal regulating
Pin-Point Compression: promotes oxygen blood flow
Moisture Wicking Properties: ultra breatable
Seamless Construction: anti-chafing
Non-elastic Band: no cut-off of circulation
Actually says this on the packaging:
Warnings: May lead to ultra comfort and improved performace.
The thing I noticed when I was looking at the socks on the website was how it is thicker around the arch and footing area. When I actually got the socks, I thought that a size small would be too tight for me, but since they are compression socks, they seem to be the perfect fit. The seamless technology is cool and I never have to worry about it bothering my feet while I run. When I first ran with these socks, I did feel like there was a difference on my feet. It may have just been a psychological thing, but that very first run, I ran the fastest time I had on that route and about a week later with the same socks, I ran even faster on that route! The socks provide padded arch support, but I also notice that my feet never burn while running longer distances or in the heat (thermal regulating). I had a long run yesterday and my calves felt kind of sore so I decided to try and wear them after the run to help improve recovery. We’ll see tomorrow how much the compression socks played an effect.
When I ran back in high school, the only running gear I had were running shoes, regular socks, shorts and a t-shirt (I didn’t get a running watch until my last year of cross country that I bought for $10 at Target or Walmart). Now, I have running shoes, special compression socks,
shorts, a t-shirt, a heart rate monitor, 100-lap stopwatch, an iPod Nano & Nike+iPod Sports Kit. At this moment, my times in high school were a lot faster than they are right now. So it looks like all of that extra gear that I have now is not helping me run any faster. But I am still only about 6 months into training and at 6 months into running in high school, I was not as fast as I am now. So maybe all of this gear is helping me run faster, but I know there are more than enough runners out there that feel the need some days to just run without all this technology. I have yet to do that, but will definitely try it out one day.
I was contacted on behalf of Zensah (@zensah) to review a pair of Prograde Compression Socks, which I gladly obliged to do. I have never had special socks specifically designed for running. I usually just wore regular low-cut cotton ankle socks during my runs. Because of the crazy tan lines that we would get while running after school, I would sometimes pull mid-ankle cut socks down to low-ankle level and fold the excess sock under my foot. Sometimes it would be pulled too low and the whole sock would ride below the heal of my foot, which was very annoying. My coach would sometimes run in dress socks because he said that they were softer and felt more comfortable. I’ve tried that a couple of times, but because they’re so smooth, my feet didn’t really have any grip on the actual shoe (unless I tied my shoelaces very tight). I never thought that running socks would make that much of a difference in performance. I know from experience that shoes do because I raced for half of a cross country season with running shoes that made my feet burn within the first mile! The next race I ran with different racing flats and I didn’t have any issues with my feet burning.
Zensah Compression Socks
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Posted on Jul 30, 2009 under running |
No new running events for a while now. There is a race on Saturday that I heard about through the local newspaper, which I’m considering. If not, the next race I have signed up for is in mid-August, which feels like forever. I’m trying to start posting a recap of my runs for the past week, which can also be viewed on my account at DailyMile. There are weeks however, where nothing incredible happens during my runs. But I’m sure I will be able to think of something to say about 4-5 days worth of runs. This past week, I had some great runs. Last week was the first week I started running after work at night. I am fairly convinced that running at night makes me run a lot faster. My pace for the past two weeks have been the best ever and even the easy runs feel a lot more comfortable. Last Monday, my first day running at night, I had run my fastest on that route. This past Monday, I improved on that same route and only two days later I had run the fastest 4 miles ever! All of that happened within a two week period! I don’t know if I’ll ever get close enough to break that time for quite a while. Once I start using my Nike+ and I find new routes to run, I may consider running a lot more miles. But for now, I will enjoy this running high that I have had since yesterday.
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Posted on Jul 22, 2009 under Random |
I was recently asked to be interviewed by Dave Tiefenthaler of tips4running.com. I have never been interviewed before and although this was not a traditional interview in person, I still felt pretty special to even be asked in the first place. Just so everybody knows, Dave interviews many runners on his site, which you can read here. Either way, it still felt cool to be asked about how I got back into running, what kind of workouts I do and a lot of other personal questions that showed that he was truly interested. The answers to some of these questions I have never mentioned on my blog before. Not necessarily because I didn’t want to, but just never found the right time to say them. Dave did a great job asking interesting questions that allowed me to really express how into running I currently am.
The interview is linked at the top of my blog, but click here to read the running interview.
Posted on Jul 16, 2009 under Training |
The great debate about running in the morning and running at night.
Morning Running
Athletes have different preferences when it comes to running in the morning or running at night. Back in high school we would run in the mornings during the summers and weekends. But once the school year started, we would run in the afternoon after class. The reason why we ran in the mornings during the summer was because it would have been way too hot to run in the afternoons. It worked out because big invitational races were always on Saturday mornings, so we would be running in the same conditions. However, when the school year started, we had no other choice but to run after school, which was a lot harder than the mornings. But during the school year, our league meets against other high schools were after school, so we would be used to those conditions as well. There were a few times during the year where we decide to run at night..
Night Running
Night running is a lot different from running in the mornings. We once ran with glow sticks, but that didn’t really help and my teammate just threw his into the trees on the run back. Running at night is actually pretty scary for a couple of reasons. When we ran on the trail, we wouldn’t be able to see the path ahead or anything on the ground so we could have tripped on rocks, branches and other stuff. It was also dangerous because there could easily be an attacker hiding in the bushes and we wouldn’t be able to react or anticipate it. Because of those reasons, I always ran a lot faster at night than when I would run in the mornings, similar to how I sometimes run faster in the rain. There are a lot of reasons why I run faster at night, and fear is definitely one of the main reasons. There have been many runs where I ran faster because I was running with the fear of my teammate catching up to me and beating me. In the case of running at night, I was always afraid that there was something or someone coming up behind me, so it was like it was being chased the whole way.
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Posted on Jul 16, 2009 under Reviews |
I used to go to sleep with my earphones on with my mp3 player, even though I would literally fall asleep within minutes. The problem with that was that I was falling asleep with loud music playing and sometimes slept on my sides. It was not until I heard about Tinnitus and Meniere’s Syndrome that I realized how bad of an idea that was.
There are many diseases in the world that I’m unaware of, but one that I didn’t think was that common was Tinnitus or Meniere’s Syndrome. In fact, 50 million people suffer from this strange disease. Fortunately, it has been something that has been addressed and nutritional/dietary supplements like Lipo-Flavonoid have helped people cope with and even end symptoms of Tinnitus and Meniere’s Syndrome.
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