I have run two marathons now with several more on the horizon. In my first half marathon I ate Snickers bars. They were pretty good. In my first marathon I ate generic Jelly Beans. They were good but seemed to be lacking something. In my last marathon I ate M&M’s. I was pretty happy with them. But I have had it recommended to me that I try some gels, or other types of sports things. I have tried one GU, I think a strawberry/banana flavored one. But it was kind of gross. I tried a Snickers Marathon Bar and that was disgusting. I resigned myself to not liking any of the GUs, gels, etc. But I got some recommendations for some different types and flavors, so I decided to give them another shot. I visited the local sporting goods store, bought a selection. Among the stuff I bought, I bought a couple flavors of Jelly Belly Sport Beans. I bought Fruit Punch and Lemon-Lime. I really like the Fruit Punch flavored Sport Beans. I tried the Lemon Lime flavor Sports Beans, and they were good, but I prefered the Fruit Punch flavored beans. These would be doable in a marathon. They would give me some carbs as well as electrolytes. A 1 ounce bag cost $1.29, but I know I can buy a 24 bag carton for about $20 plus shipping. I might be able to find them cheaper.
At home I run on Proform treadmill that I bought used on eBay. My treadmill has a few features, but it is older, noisy, and overall pretty basic. I don’t usually workout anywhere else. But my wife and I were celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary, and were staying as the Marriott hotel in Niagara Falls on the Canada side. Even though we were out of town, I still had a running schedule to follow. The website for the hotel said they had a fitness room, but didn’t give details. So one of the first things I looked at when exploring the hotel, was the fitness room. They had two Life Fitness 95te treadmills, a Life Fitness 95xe elliptical trainer, and a couple Life Fitness exercise bikes. But since I was only interested in running, I only used the treadmill.
The Life Fitness 95te is very cool and has a lot of features my Proform doesn’t. First, the thing is pretty quiet. That was a nice change. The side of the 95te treadmill says Flex Deck Shock Adsorption System. I didn’t notice much difference than my Proform as far as how hard the deck is. It was comfortable to run on.
It has a touchscreen which was interesting. I got started by touching the screen. It asked me some questions such as my weight, and what mode I wanted to use. It also asked me whether I wanted to limit my run by time, or distance. I always chose distance, since that’s what my running schedule goes by.
I was able to watch TV on the touchscreen. I used the headphones from my mp3 player. I wish I had had some headphones with a longer cord.
The mode I mainly used was the Manual mode. But some of the other modes were Fat Burn, Cardio, Hill, Random, Fit Test, Personal Trainer, and Zone Training.
Fat Burn and Cardio work similarly to each other. You set the speed, and then it will raise or lower the incline of the treadmill to adjust the intensity of the workout to keep your heart rate near a percentage of your theoretical max heart rate. For the Fat Burn mode, the percentage is 65%, and for the cardio it is 80%.
The Hill and Random modes will raise and lower the incline of the treadmill. The Hill mode has a predefined course with 4 phases. The Random mode has randomly created hills, so the workout is different each time.
There are a bunch of sub modes for the Fit Test mode. They are Life Fitness Fit Test, Army, Gerkin (for fire fighters), Navy, PEB (for law enforcement such as FBI), Marine, and Air Force. I did the Life Fitness Fit Test, which had me walk for about a minute at 0% incline, then it raised the incline to 5%, and I walk at grade for another 4 or 5 minutes. The treadmill monitored my heart rate. I first did it at the default 2mph, but it said my heart rate was too low, and to do it again at a faster speed. So I did it again at 4.5mph. It said I was above average. I don’t know what the other potential results are, or if that is the best one. Of course, I had run 5 miles this morning, and had already been playing on the treadmill with the other modes. So who knows? I am scheduled to run 10 miles tomorrow, so I may try the fat burn, or the cardio mode.
Another neat feature of the Life Fitness 95te is that it is compatible with my Polar heart hate monitor chest strap. I had brought my watch down with me, but found my heart displaying on the screen also. So for my next workouts, I just wore the chest strap, and left the watch in my room.
I wish I had one of these Life Fitness treadmills at home.
Once A Runner by John L. Parker, Jr.
SUMMARY: Book is a classic in running fiction. But…I just didn’t get into it.
I had read raving reviews of this book. Many people listed it on the their top 5 or 10 running books. So I had to read it. The book is out of print, and kind of expensive, but if you are patient, a reasonably priced copy will show up on Amazon, or eBay. I had to wait a little bit, but I found a copy for under $20 which is a good price for this book.
When it came, I was in the middle of a few other books, but I finished them, I started Once A Runner.
I really expected to like it, but it was kind of slow. The book just didn’t grab me. I really didn’t care much about the characters. The writing style was ho hum. I am sure Mr Parker did the best he was capable of. It seems like he was trying to write a novel about running, like what Pat Conroy did with basketball in his novel The Lords Of Discipline. But unfortunately Parker just doesn’t have that level of writing skills of Pat Conroy. But just because I didn’t enjoy the book doesn’t mean you wont. As I said, many other people rated it highly. To each their own.
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I practice karate, and spar in class as well as in tournaments. I used to use on of those boil and bite type mouth guards. They worked great. There are cheap ones, but I usually used one of the better quality mouth guards made by Shock Doctor. When you boil the traditional boil-and-bite mouthguards, they become soft, then mold to your teeth when you bite down on them.
But when I got my braces put on, I couldn’t use those mouth guards anymore. The problem is that when you bite down on the softened warm plastic, they will stick your your braces. Shock Doctor makes a mouth guard for braces, which I bought at the local sporting goods store. You don’t boil it. It is this big bulky soft plastic thing. I used it for lack of anything else. It wasn’t very comfortable. It didn’t fit to the teeth, so it was difficult to talk. When I kiai’d while sparring, I have actually had it come flying out of my mouth.
So I continued searching for an alternative. I found a mouth guard for braces made by a company named Shield. It is called Extreme Braces Mouth Guard. If you do a Google search for “shield extreme braces mouth guard”, you find various places to but it. The mouth guard is made of two different types of plastic. On of the plastics gets softened when placed in boiled water, the other type doesn’t. I boiled some water in a hotel coffee maker, and placed the mouth guard into the hot water for the 35 seconds according to the directions. I pulled it out, put it into my mouth, and bit down. Then I ran it under cold water. It fit great! It fit as well as the traditional boil-and-bite mouth guards, but worked with my braces! I used it for the karate tournament. It was great!
Becoming an Ironman: First Encounters with the Ultimate Endurance Event by Kara Douglass Thom
SUMMARY: Great book! Funny! I think anyone would enjoy these stories!
I really enjoyed this book! The book is a collection of people’s stories about their first Ironman Triathlon. The stories are told in their own words. Some of the stories are serious, but many are funny. One of my favorite stories was about Bob Babbit’s first Ironman Triathlon. He showed up thinking the race was two days, and had bags loaded on his bike with tent and sleeping bag, etc. I was laughing out loud as I read his story. But as I said, many of the other stories were also funny. There were all very interesting as hey talked about what got them to try racing an Ironman Triathlon, and then how their race went. I have never really considered racing an Ironman, but I am considering trying a shorter length triathlon. I just need to improve my swimming. If you are interesting endurance events, running, swimming, biking, etc, you should check out this book!
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