I want to have music in my upcoming marathon without fear of being disqualified for having headphones. Doing a google search, I found these Safe Sound Personal Speakers (SSPS-1) made by Safe Sound Sports. They only cost $19.95 and had free shipping. They arrive very fast, like only two days later. I was excited to try them out.
First, the speakers are powered by the mp3. I hooked them up to my iPod Shuffle and turned it on. I could barely hear anything. I turned up the volume to the max, and I could hear a little better, but they were still really quiet. I had planned to wear them on a lanyard, but I think that I would barely be able to hear them.
Speaking of lanyard…The website says “Safe Sound Personal Speakers can be worn as a lanyard, hanging around the neck which is great for guys who like to exercise with their shirt off.” There was no lanyard in the package. No problem. I looked for someway to attach a lanyard to the speakers, but didn’t see any. I finally figured out that you are supposed to use the speaker wires themselves as the lanyard. I don’t like this design as the wires would be too easy to rip out of the speakers if they snagged something. I do liek the way the speaker snap together though. I just wish they had a small hole or something to attached a regular adjustable lanyard. But then wearing them on a lanyard, I don’t think there would be very audible.
Okay, next I tried attaching them to the collar of my running shirt. I don’t have singlet with strap to attach them to like the cute girl in the picture on the website. The speakers wear pointing outward and looked kind of goofy attached to my collar. But they were a little more easy to hear placed here. Another location I tried attaching them was on the band of my running hat. I actually liked this location best. The speakers were a little closer to my ears. What I might try to do is see if I can secure the ipod shuffle to my hat, and the speakers as well. So if I take off my hat, everything will still be attached.
The clips on the back of the speakers are plastic and will attach securely to fabric. The clips are pretty tight, and might break is you try to attach them to anything too thick. The clips will also detach from the back of the speakers if they are to be use in a lanyard more.
I trying hooping up the speakers to my 1gig Sandisk Sansa. It has a little more wattage than the Ipod shuffle. So the music coming out of the speakers was a little louder. So they may work better with a louder mp3 player.
I was just playing with them in the house. I will trying hooking them up to something, and trying them during a short run.
I have also been researching bone-conduction systems. I found one made in Japan called the VONIA Bone Conduction Sports Headband made by Thanko. But it isn’t supposed to be released to the US till maybe late March. I will keep looking.
I love running 800m intervals. And 400m intervals are even better. Intervals also known as repeats are simply running very fast for a short distance, then resting, then do it again. A set of intervals may include 4 to 12 or more repeats. I run them on my treadmill. Yeah, the treadmill doesn’t have meters. Actually I could switch it of the metric, but then the speed and everthing would be in metric too. But 800 meters is about 1/2 a mile. And 400m is about 1/4 of a mile. So it is pretty easy to run on a treadmill.
800 meters is a decent distance to run fast. These days I am running these shorter intervals at slight faster than 6:00 minute/mile pace. This means that I really only have to hold that pace for about 3 minutes. Of for 1/4 mile (400m) intervals about a minute and a half. When I start the 800m repeat, I am generally feeling pretty good. The feeling of the speed really doesn’t kick in until around .15 or .20 miles. So when I hit .20 miles, I only have .30 miles left. As I hit .25 I think about how I am half done. Usually around here, by brain is asking for a walk break. My breathing is going much faster, and my heart pounding. But I force myself to keep going. When I hit .30 miles, I note to myself only .20 to go. Now it is either here or at .35 that I start counting down the distance. .15, .14, .13, .12, … .03, .02, .01, done. As soon as the treadmill shows that I have hit the .50 mark, I jump my feet off to the sides of the belt, and slap the stop button. I don’t particullar want to hang around running of the belt as the treadmill gradually slows to a stop.
Last night I did my intervals which were 800m repeats. I did 2 easy miles @ 10:00 pace. Then I did 6 x 1/2 mile intervals @ 5:56 pace. That was followed by another easy mile @ 10:00 pace. Today my legs feel like they got a good workout!
1/4 mile (400m) are even better since around the time the interval is starting to get hard, I can stop.
Now as the intervals get longer, the speed is slower. Even so, as I am running a 1 mile interval at 6:12, I am running, and it starts to get really hard, but I still have a LONG way to go. Then there are the two mile intervals. *gasp*
I am famous! Well, not quite. But I got my picture into Running Times and Runner’s World without even trying!
When I ran the Buffalo Marathon back in May of 2007, I ran a 4:21 marathon. That was a personal best for me at the time. I was tired at the end, but I still had a little bit of energy. Right before the finish line, slowed to a walk, then jumped up and clicked my heels together, then crossed the line. The race photographer did a fantastic job, and managed to get three shots of me in the air. They were right on the ball. And something that made the pictures a little better was that I was wearing my Primal Wear tuxedo cycling jersey.
I came very close to buying prints of one of the pictures and I still might.
Then back in October, a friend of mine brought it to my attention, that they used one of my photos where I was jumping at the finish line, for the Buffalo Marathon ad. My picture can be seen on page 20 of the December 2007 issue of Running Times. It was a full page ad. My picture was also used on the website.
Then my picture appeared in the January 2008 issue of Runner’s World, though this time it was only a 1/4 page ad towards to back of the magazine.
I have had a few people ask if that was me. I even heard that a friend of my niece saw a picture of me on her dorm room wall, and asked if I was the guy in the ad.
Even today I had someone ask if that was me jumping in the Buffalo Marathon ad in Runner’s World.
It is just so funny.
I did a race this last week with a friend of mine. I was trying to pace her to faster race. I think I managed to speed her up a little, but not a lot. I had her walk up the short steep hills, and occasionally take short walks. She commented afterward that she didn’t think the walk breaks worked for her. Her comment was that it was too hard to start running again, that an object at rest, stays at rest… I like walk breaks. Walking the hills I think saves a lot of energy. I have noticed that when I walk the hills, I am not going that much slower than the people who are running them. But I am using a lot less energy. I am also different muscles than I use when I run, or I am using the same muscles differently. That gives my running muscles a brief rest. All the brief rests add up and let the running muscles work just a little harder.
I use walking breaks during marathons. When I first started running, I would run four minutes, and walk one minute. Whenever the minutes on my watch hit a number divisible by 5, I would walk for one minute. I would also walk the hills. I trained like this for my second marathon. But as I got closer to the marathon, I played with only taking a walk break at the mile markers. This worked out well. I would take a one minute walk break each mile. These gave me a rest, but also served as a goal/reward. I would just run fast for 8 or 9 minutes, then I could walk for a minute. This worked very well.
When I ran my first ultramarathon, I was also training for a marathon. My marathon training schedule called for me to 19 miles at a 9:30 pace. So the solution I came up with was to run 3 minutes, and walk 2 minutes, and of course walk up the hills. This strategy worked quite well, though I ended up walking quite a bit more than I planned due to the extreme terrain of the race.
In my last few races, I have started to decrease the time I walk down to 45 seconds or even 30 seconds every mile. This has worked fairly well. But I will continue to play with walk breaks as my speed and fitness improves. I think most runners short of elite runners could probably benefit from walk breaks.
I was scheduled to run 20 miles @ 8:11 pace. I slept like crap last night. My wife snored most of the frigging night. I woke up with a headache. I had aikido class this morning. The rolling and falling didn’t help the headache. When I got home, I was planning on running, but I really didn’t feel like it. I ended up taking a nap for an hour. When I woke up, my headache had gotten worse. Ack! I didn’t feel like running at all. I procrastinated for quite a while. I finally put my running shorts on around 3pm. I think I put my running shoes on about 4pm. Somewhere around 5pm, I actually got onto the treadmill. I really didn’t feel like running. Have I ever mentioned that I really don’t like running? I ran 5 miles, then I joined my wife downstairs for a sub. Then I headed back up with plans to run another 5 miles see how I felt then. The movie I had been watching on TV had ended, so I popped in a DVD. It was movie titled 2 Seconds which has a lot of cycling. I ran the 5 miles, and actually felt a little better. I ran another 2 miles and decided to call it a day. So I ran 12 miles. I will run the remaining 8 miles first thing tomorrow morning. At least my head is feeling better. I didn’t get all mile mileage in, but at least I got a good chunk of it done, which is better than none.