Keep Moving Forward

Location:SIU Edwardsville Trail System
Distance: 50k (31 miles)
surface: single track
Elevation gain: 1860 ft
Temp at Start time: 37

Yesterday marked the first ever Tryptophan 50k. The weather was perfect for late November. The temperature topped out at 68 right around the time the final runner crossed the finish line. The trail was in good shape, not too wet to cause muddy shoes, not too dry to be dusty.

The run was supposed to start at 7:30, but apparently the RD did not have the aid station set up. Things finally got moving 7:46. It was cool out, but not cold, so I went with shorts and a long sleeved shirt. Each loop was a little over 5 miles. Since I had only been to the course one other time on a walk with my wife and the dog, I was not sure how the path flowed. It did not really matter that much since I had 31 miles to cover. I ran a few laps before I settled on a loop that would work out so that by the time I hit 31, I would be close to the car and not out in the middle of nowhere.

I felt really good for most of the day. The hills were decent. There were no huge climbs, but plenty of short climbs and descents. I think that the weights and stair climber I have been doing a few times a week over the last few months have really helped. My wife came out with Augie (our dog) to see how I was doing and to go for a walk. I was at mile 18.8 and was still feeling good, but it was nice to talk to someone for a few minutes. It broke up my run a little.

The aid station at mile 18.8 (also my transportation to the run and home)

Leaving the aid station, a little over 12 miles to go.

I was moving along pretty well. I did not have any down times yet and I was over 20 miles. I made sure to keep up on my nutrition. I used this run today as some experimentation for my diet. I used Perpetum, Hammer Gel, pretzel sticks, and bananas all which seemed to work for me without any feelings of nausea. Around mile 23, I started to feel the wall coming on. I had tripped over a root and hit the ground. No major or even minor damage, but it was enough to slow me down and take me out of "the zone." I pushed on for the next few miles until I came around.

26+ into the run (I took this on the move with my camera phone, not bad huh?)

I hit the marathon mark and was in good shape. My feet hurt, but my quads, calves, and knees were still underneath me, so I decided to pick it up a little for the last bit of the run. I hit the 31 mile mark in 6 hours, 6 minutes and 57 seconds. Not too bad. I was at the 1/2 way mark in 3 hours and was able to get close to repeating that time for the second half.

I had originally plannned on running in the "Dude, Where's the Trail?" 50k fun run in Blue Springs, MO tomorrow. My cousin who was going to run it with me had something come up and was unable to go. I decided since he was out that I was going to skip 7 hours of driving and a night in a hotel by myself. However, I will be running my planned mileage tomorrow in the "Tryptophan 50k." I'll be the lone runner in this self created run. It will take place on and around the Cross Country trail at SIUE. Its going to be roughly 5 miles per loops, so I will use my trunk as the aid station.

Results and pictures to be posted after all runners have finished. :)

If you follow this blog at all, I generally focus on the running/triathlon side of things, but occasionally I will focus on a device or technology of some sort that I use during training.

I've had several MP3 players over the years, including hard drive based (think standard Ipod) to flash based (think Ipod shuffle). Both have their strengths and weaknesses which I will outline below.

*for comparison sake, let's assume a 30GB hard drive based player (roughly..7,500 music files, 25,000 pictures, OR 100 hours of video) and a 2GB( roughly 500 songs, video and pictures may or may not be an option) flash based player. There are also a lot of variable when talking battery life and total capacity, so I am using general estimates.

• Hard drive based players hold a lot of stuff ; songs, pictures, even movies. They suffer by being bigger. Since a hard drive has moving parts, potential skipping and more damage could occur if dropped as well as generally shorter battery life, averaging about 12 hours. Once again because of moving parts and the higher power consumption to move those parts.


• Flash based players are basically the opposite. Still hold a lot of content, but you have to be more conservative with what you put in it since storage capacity is much less then hard drive based (for our example 15x less). They have no moving parts which contributes to less (or no) skipping and increased battery life of 24+ hours.
  

I've owned both types and will say that for general running, gym work, cycling, etc. that flash players fit the bill. The biggest issue I have is that I have to juggle content all the time. If my player is close to being full and I get a new CD, I have to remove some music to put on the new music. This issue exists with hard drive players, but far less often and only with users with huge collections. The other side of that is, sometimes I am going along and think "it would be good to listen to..." and I can't because I did not think to load it up before I headed out the door.

Now on to what sparked this post. I bought a Zune. Its a hard drive based player by Microsoft. I'm not looking to compare to Ipod or make arguments that is better/worse.. whatever. I really like this device. Its got a great screen, holds all my music and pictures. I even have a few videos on it. I put my podcasts on there for a change of pace from music, plug it into my car stereo. My favorite feature is the wireless piece. If someone else has a Zune, we can exchange files wirelessly. The Zune store (think Itunes) is great too.You pay a subscription fee and can download as much music as you want and transfer it to your device. If you decide you like a certain album you can opt to purchase it. Seems like you are paying for it twice right... sort of. Look at it this way. I can pay 14.99 a month for a many songs as I want to download. Lets assume I download and listen to 1000 albums but only like one albums and want to keep it forever, then I just buy that album for around 10 bucks. Think of it as an unlimited test drive as long as you pay the monthly fee. This is not mandatory, you can use your existing music that you have, buy CD's to rip to the device and do the standard "pay as you go" type service where you pay .99 a song.

Zune in brown playing my current favorite album