I ran 7 miles on Saturday, and 14 miles yesterday. Somewehere along the way I managed to get a blister on the middle toe of my left foot. I didn’t notice it till this morning. As I was putting on shoes and socks to go out and clear the snow from driveway, I felt my toe rubbign against next toe. I pulled the sock off, and saw the blister. I didn’t have anything handy to pop it with, so I put the sock back on, and then the shoe, and went and cleared the driveway.
Then a little while later as I was getting ready to take a show, I felt the toe rubbing again. I decided I needed to pop it. I could’t find a needle in the bathroom, or next to my computer where I know I had had one at one time. I deciced to use a staple. I got the stapler, and tried to eject a staple out so that I could use it to pop the blister. But the dang thing was out of staples. So now I had to hunt down the box of staples. Fortunatly, they were right where I thought they would be. Then I was having problems loading the stapler. This model loads differently than traditional models. After a couple failed attempts, I finally got it loaded correctly. I shot out a single staple into my hand. Then I used it to pop the blister on my toe. I don’t think I have ever had such an ordeal to pop a single tiny blister before!
Maybe it would have been easier just to go down to my wife’s craft room and get a needle. LOL!
Yesterday I was having a lot of problems with my Polar heart reate monitor chest strap. I started off by wetting the contacts like I always do. I put the strap on and started the watch. It seemed to be working. I started my run byt walking at an increasing pace. When I hit about 4.3 miles and my heart rate was around 115, started to jog. Instantly the watcgh had my heart rate at 151-152. I knew this was wrong. I stopped the treadmill. I thought maybe the snaps were loose, or maybe the contacts weren’t wet enough. Re-wetted the contacts, and re-did the snaps. I start walking, and things looked good, but as soon as I start jogging, bam, the HRM instant shot to 151. Crap. I stopped the treadmill again, and was getting a little frustrated. I took the strap off, undid the snaps, and resnapped them. I repositioned the strap, and got going again. After the third or fourth attempt, I finally got going successfully.
My next problem is one that I have been battling for a while now. I am in good shape, and my upper body is sort of v-shaped. And as my waist has gotten thinner, the V shape has gotten more pronounced. So the chest strap is constantly wanting to slide down, especially int he back. I am constantly re-adjusting it. I need to find a solution for this. Maybe some sort of rubber piece I can slide over the strap in the back?
I ran 10 miles in the morning, and ran another another 4 miles in the evening. My evening run seemed to be going okay. I took a briff break a couple miles into it. But then the heart rate monitor kept saying my heart rate was zero. I would undo the strap, and redo it. re-wet the contacts, etc. It would work for a bit, but then as soon as I would start to run, ir would say my heart rate was 0 again. If I held the strap close to the watch, it would sense that the strap was close, and trigger those functions, but it would still be reading zero. Again I was going frustrated. I finally shut off the watch, and turned it back on again. Then it suddenly started working again. It was driving me crazy. I did lose my calorie count on the watch though.
Maybe the battery in the strap is getting low? I don’t know. Maybe I will contact Polar, or check out theri website to see if that have any suggestions for these problems.
I ran my first marathon ever at the Las Vegas Marathon on December 10th, 2006. Not only was it my first marathon, I ran it dressed as Elvis! My wife couldn’t come to Vegas to see me as I ran. I wished she would have been able to have seen it.
But I saw that I could buy a personalized DVD (from dvdmarathon.com). Apparently they take video footage from along the course, sift through it finding clips of the individual runners, and put it onto a DVD. I agonized over whether to buy one or not. They were kind of expensive. The base price was $50 ($49.95). Then there were options such as an interview before the race, interview after the race, and finish line close up. Each of these options cost around $30. I debated about what options I might want. I thought about doing the whole package. But then I decided I would hate hearing and seeing my interview, so I decided to just get the finish line close up. Included with this option there was supposed to be a downloadable clip of this.
The dvdmarathon.com website said please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. That meant the DVD should have been delivered by February 5th. But shortly before that (January 28th), I got an email saying “DVD Marathon will begin shipping all orders from the 2006 New Las Vegas Marathon on Feb 19, 2007 via USPS.” I emailed the people at dvdmarathon.com, and they said “We had several delays in obtaining data and other information for each of the finishers.”, apparently pointing fingers elsewhere.
Interestingly February 19th was a holiday, and the post office was closed. Today was February 24th, and still no sign of the DVD. The email said only that they would BEGIN to ship the dvds on February 19th. So who knows when they will actually ship my dvd. I hope after waiting all this time, that the thing doesn’t suck!
March 1st update - I just recieved this email:
*****
2006 Las Vegas Marathon Finisher
If you have not already received your DVD order, it will be going out in our next shipment on March 12th.
The reason for the delay is because Devine (event organizer) failed to deliver the complete clock-times for all finishers.
The missing information was sent to us a few days ago and we are now able to complete the final batch of DVDs. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay. All orders are shipped via USPS media mail, which may take an additional 8-10 business days to arrive.
If you have any questions or concerns about your order, please email orders@dvdmarathon.com
or contact customer service at (888) 263-2690.
Thank you,
DVD Marathon Team
****
This was my email response:
****
Couldn’t you have simply gone to http://www.lvmarathon.com/, clicked “2006 New Las Vegas Marathon Results”, typed in the bib numbers and or names, and gotten the clock times? The clock times have been available for months.
Looking at my credit card statement, it looks like I was charged $5.95 above the cost of the dvd and the option I chose. I am assuming this was for shipping and handling. So after the long delay, and paying $5.95 for shipping, you are going to mail the DVD via media mail? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and faster to mail the DVD 1st class mail?
****
At this point I am seriously considering telling them to cancel the order. I spent over $85 for a DVD that I will likely only ever watch once or twice. If I had gotten it sooner, I might have had more excitement for watching it, and watched it several times. But at this point, it’s getting to be like who cares. And I am really getting pissed off about the unnessesary delay. So even if I got the DVD, chances are I am going to be unhappy with it, and be pissed off that I paid that much, and waited that long for it.
March 16th update:
I called DVDmarathon.com on Monday, March 12th. I left a message at their answering service saying I wanted to verify my DVD was being shipped. Today is Friday, March 16th, and I haven’t gotten a call, email, or my DVD yet. I called and left another message for them to call me.
March 18th update:
DVD still hasn’t come. Nobody I know on the Las Vegas Marathon message board has received their DVD either. And most of those people are in the Las Vegas and California area, a lot closer to where the DVDs are likely to be mailed from. So yeah, media mail may take longer to reach me in NY. But it seems that if the DVDs were mailed on 3/12, someone would have gotten theirs.
March 19th update:
Still no DVD! No reply! Nobody on the LVM message board seem o have gotten theirs either.
March 20th update:
No DVD in the mail!
I emailed them again. I sent the email to support@dvdmarathon.com, techsupport@dvdmarathon.com, and orders@dvdmarathon.com
Here is the contents of the email:
******
I ordered my DVD before the marathon. I have received several emails about delays. But the last email said it would be shipped on the March 12th. I have not gotten it yet. Other people I know who ordered their DVDs haven’t gotten theirs either. Were they shipped? When? If not, when will they be shipped?
Thank you,
Rob Jacob (LVM bib #5505)
******
I am guessing I still wont get a reply.
March 20th update:
I emailed someone at Devine (the company that ran the Las Vegas Marathon) to see if they can help.
I got a reply back, and they are looking into it.
March 21st update:
No DVD. No word from DVDMarathon.com. Nothing back from Devine. Some people on the LVM message board got a little freaked saying the DVDMarathon website was gone. But it was still there for me.
March 22nd update:
No DVD still. Have heard nothing from DVDMarathon.com. One my fellow LVM board members got an email from them trying to sell him a Perosnalized DVD for the Los Angeles Marathon. They can’t even get the Las Vegas Marathon DVDs out from months earlier, and they are trying to sell him and LA Marathon DVD!
March 23rd update:
No DVD in today’s mail. 
I spoke to the guy at Devine, and he said he talked to someone at DVDMarathon. DVDMarathon is claiming all DVD’s have been sent except for people’s who checks bounced or credit cards were declined. I know my credit card wasn’t declined because I saw the DVD listed on my statement!
John also said that DVDMarathon had all finishing times witin two weeks following the marathon.
March 27th update:
I spoke to the guy at Devine again, and he said he had forwarded my stuff to DVDMarathon. He wasn’t sure why they hadn’t responded.
Shortly after that I got an email from DVDMarathon:
********
Hi Rob,
We are not sure why you didn’t receive the first DVD, but we will ship you out a new one today.
Please verify the shipping address:
.
.
.
Once you have confirmed the address, please allow 8-10 days for USPS media mail delivery.
DVD Marathon
(888) 263-2690
********
Needless to say my mailing address was incorrect. That is interesting as I usually use Google Autofill to fill in address information. So I am not sure how my address info could be wrong. COuld it be they changed in the email to point the blame else for me not having my DVD? NOBODY I KNOW HAS GOTTEN THEIR DVD!
I replied with my correct address only to get another email:
********
More information needed.
If you have a question regarding our products and services, or you are inquiring about the status of your order please click here https://www.dvdmarathon.com/customersupport.htm
We apologize for this automatic reply to your email.
To control spam, we now allow incoming messages only from senders we have approved beforehand.
If you would like to be added to our list of approved senders, please fill out the short request form (see link below). Once we approve you, we will receive your original message in our inbox. You do not need to resend your message. We apologize for this one-time inconvenience.
Click the link below to fill out the request:
https://www.dvdmarathon.com/spam-blocker.htm
********
I went to that site, filled out the form, then heard nothing!
March 28th update:
Somebody else I know got this email:
********
Dear Customer,
We have received your inquiry. All DVDs for the 2006 Las Vegas Marathon have already been shipped.
According to our records, your DVD was shipped March 12, 2007.
Please re-enter your shipping address and we will send you a new DVD with our next shipment going out on Monday April 2, 2007.
Your DVD will be delivered to the address you provide. Allow 8-10 business days for USPS media mail delivery.
Please use our online form to re-enter your address.
https://www.dvdmarathon.com/customersupport.htm
Thank you,
DVD Marathon
********
I never got this email. SO I went to https://www.dvdmarathon.com/customersupport.htm
and sent this message:
*********
Please send me the DVD I paid for. According to the last email you sent, you had my address wrong.
My correct address is:
.
.
.
Email me AND call me to confirm that you got this and that you are sending my DVD!
*********
We’ll see if I hear from them. I have some other potential contact info that I may try today.
NOTE: If you have not received your Las Vegas Marathon DVD from DVDMarathon, call Jeff Wilson (at Devine) at 310-444-5544 x317 to let him know.
March 29th update:
I was told by Devine that I should go ahead and file a dispute with my credit card company. I was told that I should suggest this to everyone who ordered a DVD from DVDMarathon. Chances of getting our DVDs doesn’t look good.
March 29th update:
I filed a dispute with credit card company. They (my credit card company) refunded my money. From things that I have hear, but can’t post, I don’t think ANY DVDs are going to be sent.
April 4th update:
I received this email from DVDMarathon:
**************
Dear Customer,
We have received your address confirmation.
Your DVD was shipped on Tuesday (yesterday) to the address you provided.
Please allow 8-10 business days for USPS media mail delivery.
Thank you,
DVD Marathon
**************
I am not going to hold my breath.
April 12th update:
No DVD yet. No one I know has gotten their DVDs yet either. Some of the people I know who also ordered the DVD are in Nevada and California. If the DVDs were mailed on April 3rd, it seems someone would have gotten their DVD by now.
April 18th update:
The DVD finally came yesterday. It was postmarked 4/13, not the date they said they were mailing the DVD (4/3). The DVD consisted of about 70 minutes of TV News 8 coverage (Yeah, the same stuff that was on TV). The personalized part consisted of only 30 seconds of my finished from a couple different angles. I paid over $80 for 30 seconds of video of me finishing! I thought they would have video of me at various points along the way.
I emailed the President & General Manager at KLAS TV to see if they were aware that DVDMarathon was selling DVDs that consist almost completely of their newcast.
Basically, I still feel kind of ripped off.
I train with a heart rate monitor, and have been using 149 as my target heart rate. I try to stay between 140-149 while running. This came from using a combination of philosophies. I like Phil Mafftones theories about making all of your training runs easy runs. But his 180 formula (180-age, etc) has always bothered me a bit. Because according to his formula, I should be training, and keeping my heart rate below 127 (180-age-10 {because I take blood pressure meds}). That is pretty low. Even without the medication penalty, it’s 137. All the formulas that use age leave me suspicious. According to common calcuations to estimate max heart rate, my max heart rate should be 177 or 183. But I have tested it running intervals on a hill, and had it up to 193. Anyway, I question his formula, but I like his ideas of all runs staying in the aerobic zone.
But there are many different ideas on how to find your aerobic zone. I have been using the Karvonen Fomula which uses both max heart rate and resting heart rate (mine is 45). And I have been running at 70%. So that works out to (193-45)*0.7+45=148.5 which I rounded to 149.
But I am starting to play with changing my target heart rate to 145. I want to see how this works. I have had to slow down a bit. I will try this for a while, and see if I see improvements. Who knows, maybe I will drop my target heart rate even further. Maybe to 140.
I have bought several pieces of used exercise equipment (Proform Treadmill, Proform elliptical, Precor climber), and none of them came with in owner’s manual. Recently a friend of mine bought a used Horizon treadmill. She needed to adjust the belt. Of course her treadmill didn’t come with a owners manual either.
You can generally figure out how to use the equipment without an owner’s manual. But having an owners manual is nice is something goes wrong. If the belt starts to slip, or go to one side. Sometimes there are features on the control panel that you might not know how to use unless you read the manual.
But the good news is most of these manuals are online now, and you simply have to download them and print them out.
Here is where you can download the owners manual for your unit:
Horizon Owners Manuals (treadmills, ellipticals, bicycles)
http://horizonfitness.com/horizon/customer_support/product_info/
(simply go to page for your unit, link to owners manual is on right side of page)
LifeStyler Owners Manuals
http://www.iconservice.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/manuals.d2w/report?name=X4.20&man=LIFESTYLER&lan=
NordicTrack Owners Manuals (treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, skiers, steppers)
http://www.iconservice.com/nordictrack/manuals.html
Precor Owners Manuals (climbers, cycles, ellipticals, rowers, treadmills)
http://www.precor.com/cons/en/support/owners/
Proform Owners Manuals (treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, steppers)
http://www.iconservice.com/proform/manuals.html
Weslo Owners Manuals (treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, steppers)
http://www.iconservice.com/weslo/manuals.html