Trying out EveryTrail

We turned on EveryTrail on my iPhone about halfway through our quick walk in the Foxboro State Forest today. One bad data point in there, but otherwise pretty good. We'll try to remember to turn it on when we start next time.

Foxboro State Forest

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Wiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!

We bought a Wii and Wii Fit a few weeks ago. I haven’t bought any of the music-based games yet because I’ve been having fun with the skiing and bowling. In fact I’m very intrigued by the way that Wii Fit is forcing a rethinking of the potential gaming audience and the possibilities for games. For instance, senior centers all over the country are holding Wii bowling tournaments, as well as classes on how to use your Wii for fitness. A study is under way in Scotland to study whether the balance board can be used in helping elderly people improve their balance and prevent falls.

It occurred to me that some clever programmers, working with doctors and researchers, could design specially tailored rehabilitation programs to run on the Wii. The best design would involve a series of modules that could be enabled and configured specifically for the patient’s needs. Information from the patient’s sessions could be stored and transmitted to the supervising medical professional for review. I imagine this would be most useful in orthopedic and cardio rehab (some extra telemetry could be added for that one for even better monitoring). And there’s no reason it couldn’t be as fun as bowling or skiing or Zelda or Mario.

Gotta go. It’s my turn at bowling. My Wii Mii has a habit of tapping her foot if I take too long.

Spring fever!

There's nothing like a 50+ degree day or two in Massachusetts in March to make me get a wicked case of spring fever. I'm heading out to do my run in shorts and can't wait. Other people start cleaning their houses...I start counting my short-sleeved running shirts!

Album Cover Art

Downloading music from sites like iTunes and Rhapsody means album cover art is nearly a dying art. I remember spending hours browsing through album covers in record stores, decoding images on albums I owned, and trying to see something of the musicians' personalities in the artwork and photographs. In all my time spent with the covers, though, I don't think I ever encountered ones like these.

Gulp

I'm organizing a run/walk to commemorate the 1-year anniversary since my event. I've been reluctant to bring any more attention to me, but at the same time I want to celebrate living, thank my friends and family, and encourage people to get out and exercise. I finally sent the email today inviting people to join me in this celebratory run/walk after thinking about it for months. If only one person makes a lifestyle change and gets out there walking, then whatever discomfort I feel will be worth it. That's always been my mantra working with kids in music and theater--if it makes a difference for just one kid, then my work is worth it. And I would probably go running that day anyway so having at least one or two people join me will make it more fun.

Crestor Update

It's been one month since I quite taking Crestor. I think I might be sleeping better since dropping the Crestor from my drug regimen, but it has not been an astounding difference. I wake up less during the night and my dreams are less vivid and disturbing. When I do wake up, I generally fall back to sleep within a few minutes rather than laying awake for up to an hour twitching my foot. In fact, the foot thing got so bad I was beginning to consider asking my doctor about restless leg syndrome. It would be much better to solve that problem by eliminating drugs rather than by adding them.

The jury is still out. I'll wait another month and see how things are. If anyone has experience with statins and wants to weigh in here, I'm listening.

I Love a Challenge

Last month I signed up for a challenge on Map My Run. The goal was to run 100 miles in 30 days. It sounds easy enough--that's just an average of 3.3 miles per day. My regular route is 3.4 miles and I usually run 4 miles on the treadmill if go to the Y. When I started running again after my big event, I was running every day unless something very drastic occurred. Finally late this fall, I cut back to 5 or 6 out of 7 days because I was starting to see signs of overtraining. So I thought this challenge would be a piece of cake.

Snow and ice cut into my outdoor running time so I had to go to the Y to run more than I liked. I hate the treadmill. I get bored, even with my headphones on. So I started trying to get the ones that were turned towards to the TV. That helped, but I still find myself watching the display on the treadmill, wondering why it takes so longer to run a mile on the 'mill than it does on the road, even though I have the speed set for a pace that is a full minute faster than I run when outside. Mind tricks. In spite of my grousing, though, there have been some positives. After enough time, I finally got kind of used to it. In the past I always allowed myself to quit running on the treadmill, but this time the challenge pushed me on and finally entered a kind spiritual agreement with the treadmill and my body. Just do it. Get it over with. Set the pace even higher so it's over with sooner. I also met a woman who runs with the local running club and finally got hooked up with them.

Which leads me to the next desperate measure I took in this challenge. Running 4 miles 5 days a week just won't get you to 100 miles in 30 days. Six days a week won't either. So I had to add some longer runs in. The running club goes out on Saturdays and Sundays. Most of them are training for the Boston Marathon, but some members do run shorter distances. So first I went out and ran 5.6 miles by myself to make sure I could do that distance. Then I ran 7 miles. Finally I joined the group and ran 8 miles. And then I started wildly thinking about training for a half marathon.

I made the 100 miles (in fact, I ran 105 miles). Without that challenge in front of me, I never would have tried that. I also wouldn't have pushed myself to run more than 4 miles (or I would have always come up with excuses not to). And I certainly never would have thought about a half marathon.

I signed up again for the 100 mile challenge, but it doesn't seem as daunting right now. I've also challenged my running partner to run every road in our little town. We're working on the logistics of it. There are only 90 miles of town-owned roads here (the rest are owned by the state) so it won't take us a long to complete, but it will take us places we've never been. Can't wait!