Jure Cuhalev » Running

My simple running resolution for 2010

Jure Cuhalev — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:38:46 +0000

Running becomes an addiction after a while (some call it a state of mind). It’s very hard to sit still at home while knowing that you could be out – running. In my experience, it takes about two weeks of non-running to get rid of this feeling. After it is gone, you need about 2 runs to get back into the game.

So with this in my mind, my New Year’s resolution for 2010 is:

Go running at least once in the first half of the month.

It’s a realistic goal that should allow me to get back into running every time I stop for whatever reason.

How to achieve complete focus to listen to a podcast

Jure Cuhalev — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:24:44 +0000

There are two ways to read your RSS feeds. You can skim through the text and the titles, getting general idea on the topic, or you can sit down, take a sip of the coffee and contemplate what you are reading. The problem with the second approach is that it takes real-time and dedication as those long posts often include videos that are several minutes long. A lifetime in terms of real-time web!

Somehow a video from Merlin Mann caught my eye yesterday. In the video (embedded below, that I highly recommend), he talks about play and how we have to give our bodies something to distract them while we think and come up with creative solutions. Like playing with pans, balls, etc.

Makebelieve Help, Old Butchers, and Figuring Out Who You Are (For Now) from Merlin Mann on Vimeo.

The second interesting post I came about, and that I really wanted to talk about was from Dave Winer, where he wrote about Bruce Sterling’s talk at Reboot (mp3 of the talk).

He recommends the talk with the words:

Anyway, most of the time most of us are not in position to do anything about the mess in our lives. But listen to Sterling’s talk. It’s only 43 minutes. It might be the best 43 minutes you’ve ever spent.

So how do you go about listening such an important talk (and I’ve heard Bruce talk before, so I knew it’s good), without being distracted by everything around me?

Simple: put the running shoes on, load the talk on an iPod and go running. Since it’s a rather long talk, a 10km run is just about right.

What you’ll experience is a full submersion in the talk. Since your whole body is preocuppied with breathing and moving the muscles, and your ears are hearing interesting talk that your brain has to process, there is no time for wandering thoughts.

The only problem with this approach is that you have to pick up really stimulating talks that interest you as otherwise you’ll just suffer. But luckily our trusted gatekeepers keep posting links to them all the time, so it’s rather easy to find them.

No related posts.

A year of running

Jure Cuhalev — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:20:50 +0000

About a year ago I first put on my Nike running shoes with Nike+ adapter for iPod and went running. While this was not my first run of the summer, I can say right now that buying proper running shoes and that 30 dollar gadget was probably the biggest reason why I managed to properly start and continue running thought the year.

The way I remember starting to run it’s pretty simple: it hurts. A lot. You run a bit, you walk and you wonder why are even doing this. But with every day, you can run a bit farther and soon you can run 3km at slow pace, yet without stopping! And the feeling is incredible enough that you keep returning to that field and you continue running.

After a while, I figured out that I actually feel refreshed and full of energy after a good run. So as the summer ended, I did more night runs on the street and in the light rain and it still felt great. With it, came also the many benefits of regular running, which was that I felt much better and that I kept a better look at the way I eat as I couldn’t compensate heavy food with coffee anymore. No matter how much you try, you can’t go running for hours after a pizza and if you do, it’s a really bad experience.

Being able to run, I noticed two interesting things on totally different levels:

There are runners everywhere and they love to talk about running, go to running events and even organize them. If after saying that you work “with teh Internets”, you get a blank look or one of the “oh, yet another geek”, just mention that you’re also a runner and you’ve probably made a new friend. Arrange a running date you’re all set.
It really takes a few months for the body to change to accommodate for the running. When you read all those training guides that start with “only try this after 6+ months of running”, they actually mean it. Body does change and it gets easier with every month.

On the topic of running community. I’ve been lucky to be accepted into the Koornk running group from my beginnings, and even though I’m not a very active member, they’re are a great support group and I really enjoyed the times I actually went to events with them. Big thanks guys and girls!

Funny enough, my strongest month was November

There are a couple of lessons I learned in the process:

Having a regular rhythm that has a time slot for running is the easiest way to ensure that you go running. Having said that, just traveling around with your running shoes in the suitcase, is also rewarding enough.
While the distance and speed are important, it’s mostly about going out, enjoying your run and having some quality time for yourself.
Running is the best place to discover new things in your neighborhood and get a feeling for the place as you move somewhere.

A few things I’d like to work on in my next year of running:

Being more social in running. Learning how to run in pairs and groups and going to more events. While I truly enjoy running alone, I’m sure there’s an additional perspective to running in a group.
Extend my regular running distance to ~10km per run. I’m at about 5-6km at the moment and I feel I can make some progress in this regard.
Get some proper running training, to see if I’m running correctly and to ensure I don’t get hurt in the future.

There’s also an idea of running a half-marathon and a full marathon sometime in the future, but it’s not an important goal as I’d much rather just enjoy running for now.

Runners log: July 2009

Jure Cuhalev — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 07:21:36 +0000

It took me about two weeks of living in San Francisco to realize that as much as I love roller skating, it just won’t work. I don’t mind going up the hills, but going down just didn’t seem that much fun or even safe for that matter. So I slowly started running again and learned to love all the hills around me.

As always, there were a few interesting lessons that I learned from exploring the new area:

Google Earth is useless at telling you the height difference. You can plot a perfect running path and discover mid-way that there is a significant hill in-between.
Memorizing possible paths prior to running is all great in theory, but once you’ve ran for 45 minutes you realize that all streets have similar names here: “San Something” or they sound Spanish and that you don’t know how to get home via your preferred route.
This leads to doing stupid things like running 15km, which to my surprise wasn’t that hard. I did take a few days off after that, just to make sure I fully regenerate.
Getting back to 100km/month wasn’t that hard and it took me only 3 runs/week. I’m hoping to raise it to 4 runs/week in next month.

That’s about it. This was my 11 month of running since I started last year and I can’t wait to see how my “last” month will go and to tally up the whole first year of running.

I’m also not sure about how I should proceed with my runs. I’m comfortable with my current pace and distance, but I’m not sure how much I can safely add into my training in terms of distance and number of runs.

Running in San Francisco

Jure Cuhalev — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:13:53 +0000

Running in San Francisco is very much fun. I’d say much more than back in Ljubljana, because of all the hills that make the whole experience much more vibrant.

In one aspect it’s exactly like in intro from the TV show Weeds:

Lots of houses that look similar and pavement all around. You just need to add a bit of hills into the mix:

: Image by hao$ via Flickr

It’s then up to the runner to decide how far you want to get. Personally I quite enjoy climbing up and then slowly descending over the longer route.

The other I noticed is that people are much friendlier to runners around here. Lots of them give you a positive smile or greet you while you run by them and you get similar response from other runners. Maybe it’s just my neighborhood like that, but I’m not used to such welcome feeling at home.

The best part of running here is probably the weather. Pretty constant 12-16C makes it enjoyable while not too hot and light breeze from the ocean makes it even better.

For now, running is a much bigger win over here than roller skating.

My 5th and 6th month of running

Jure Cuhalev — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:51:08 +0000

I missed updates for February (5th month) and March (6th month) and I’ve been hearing from you. It’s a proof that keeping a public log of these action is indeed motivational as your friends can keep tabs on you and can poke you if you aren’t keeping track or not exercising.

February was mostly a failure for me as I was both sick and it was freezing cold so I didn’t dare go running as I was afraid I’m going to slip and hurt myself. Here’s the calendar nonetheless:

Lucky for me March was a great sucess in a way. I still didn’t manage to get to my old distance (100km+ per month), but I’m getting closer to that.

I’m especially happy about it is becuase the running was done mostly while I was travelling. I managed to get a couple of runs in Austin and a run in Las Vegas and another one in San Francisco. This answers my big question – can I run while traveling?

How is it? It’s a phenomenal feeling. Because of conference and afternoon activities I actually had to wake up early in the morning and go for a run before breakfast. It turned out to be a great way to take some personal time with just myself, running and my thoughts as well as a way to calibrate my biorhythm so I didn’t have problems with jetlag.

I could also finally test my original reason for running – to have more energy when traveling. I can say it works great! I had so much energy to walk around the conference, scheme new ideas and party with everyone that it was simply amazing. I can only recommend lots of running to others that have such hectic lifestyle.

Now lets see if I can get closer to 100km/month for April.

What I learned in my 3d month of running + FAQ

Jure Cuhalev — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:04:27 +0000

December 2008 finally ended and I can proudly say that I’m still running. More determined and for longer then before. This month’s total sum is 97.8 km (~60 miles). The reason for lower number of kilometers is because I dropped one running day. I’m now running only four times a week instead of five.

Running stats for December 08

I dropped one running day because I replaced it with a game of badminton every Monday afternoon. It seems smart to combine different activities to make sure you train different muscles as well as not to get bored of it. I also love it that @andraz is always eager to play badminton and there is no hassle in organizing this. After a month of playing badminton, I can say that I’m getting better at it as well as being in a better shape for it. Lots of quick, short distance running around the court.

Overall December was a great month, with my first running event where I’ve seen how great running in crowd is and that I really should participate in these events as spring starts.

Other notable events

I managed to run my first 10K (that’s km). It’s incredible feeling to be able to run this far in just 3 months of light training.
Running in snow during winter was a great adventure, teaching me that there is really no reason to be afraid of it. Temperatures around 0 degrees, are actually warm and really enjoyable for running.
My last run of the year was on 31. December, at 7pm in -8 degrees (17.6F). It seemed crazy but it was probably the most incredible training of the month. Streets were totally empty with just lots of fireworks going off in the distance, making it somewhat unreal. Since it was a very dry week there was just a bit of cold no ice on the streets so it was a great 7.5km run.

Random observations

Breathing while running is getting easier. Googling around reveals that the more you run, the more your body figures out the best running rhythm by itself an it took about 3 months in my case for that to develop.
Adding some Myrtl strenght routines to my training as welll as other sports probably helped me in running longer distances.

Frequently asked Questions

(people ask me all sorts of random stuff)

Q: Isn’t it too cold to run / don’t your lungs hurt after breathing this cold air / don’t you get sick?

A: Suprisingly not. While -8C was a bit interesting experience for first 2 km, it was a normal run afterwards. It’s only annoying if there’s a cold wind blowing, otherwise it’s fine. I don’t feel any pain in my lungs or having a cold (I’m very allergenic so my nose is always runny, but I’m not sick).

Q: Do you use any special winter running shoes?

A: I’ve looked into it and while they’re nice, for now my normal running shoes are giving me more then enough grip to make it work. I also like running in them and I’m afraid of buying something I won’t use.

Q: Aren’t you afraid that you’ll ruin you running shoes sooner because you’re running in rain/snow/mud.

A: Based on what I’ve read I’ll have to replace my shoes every 600 – 1000km anyway. With a running tempo of 100km per month (hopefully 200km soon) that’s about 6 months anyway. I’m comfortable with throwing shoes away 3 months earlier if that meant I had a few good winter running months.

Q: Do you wear anything special to run in this “cold”?

A: Nothing much different from 6C. I’m usually dressed in skiing underwear + training pants, with a fit dry t-shirt and long sleeved fit dry short over. Since it’s cold I add an anorak jacket. It’s really much warmer outside when you’re running then you’d expect from just walking outside or using public transportation.

Closing observations

I’m slowly changing my running into a general do sports 5 times a week goal, with running as a default fallback if other plans don’t happen. In January I’ll add ice skating to the mix, until the streets get dry enough to allow for running once again.

First running event – scaaaary!

Jure Cuhalev — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:41:11 +0000

There are many definitions of “crazy”. A year ago, I would say that running around the lake in tights in middle of December, falls under extreme sports and it’s not to be copied. Right now (week after), the whole notion of that being anything special, seems ridiculous.

What was happening? 4th St. Barbara run in Velenje. It was a Relay race in teams of 4 people. Our team was named Koornk (after infamous Twitter clone – with members: Katja, Miha and Valentin and me.

We’ve of coursed dress to the occasion:

Koornk team

End result? 25th team out of 39. Really nice for a team of recreational runners

What did I learn?

running events are like big parties, sure you have to run for a while, but there’s a lot of stuff happening afterwards
great spirit in the air with everyone playing nicely
running together with other people gives you extra boost
relay race is tricky since the whole team depends on you and there’s extra pressure
it’s much easier then it looks

Overall, I think I should start going to these events more often as it helps me to go out between fellow runners and learn a trick or two as well as give me extra boost for my solo runs.

In short: if you have a chance (and physical fitness) to do such event. Do not miss it!

Running As a Team

What I learned in my 2nd month of running

Jure Cuhalev — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:12:13 +0000

It’s the last day of November, outside temperature is about 1 degrees Celsius and it’s raining something that looks like half-frozen rain. There’s also a lot of snow on sidewalks, even though most of the roads and sidewalks are clean enough to support running. This means that I have no excuse not to go out and do my daily workout.

November 2008 running

That’s probably the greatest lesson of this month, here in Ljubljana, there’s almost no weather condition that would prevent you from running. Sure, it’s not 18C where you can run in t-shirt, but on the other hand, there is no real excuse for not adding another layer of clothes and go running. It’s a bit terrifying at first, running in rain, after dark or even in snow, but you quickly learn that it’s not much different from run on a warm day. It’s still just you and the road and the poetic feeling of freedom and good kind of tiredness that comes afterward.

Some statistics

As you can see in the embedded image, I didn’t miss a single running day, make it a total of 22 runs, over 11 and half hours and 113 kilometers. This is twice the amout of kilometers over previous month.

Overall, I’m happy with results of running as I managed to upgrade my runs from 3-4km in the beginning to about 5km per run in the end.

I’ve also started running to top of Rožnik on weekends, which has about 150m of altitude difference. The basic idea to upgrade the mid-week runs on flat terrain.

Other random observation

I probably have most of equipment now and the whole exercise is pretty cheap. I just bought extra running pants for winter, otherwise I don’t feel any special need for winter equipment yet.
Rain is no problem for my current running shoes, you just have to watch a bit where you run. No need for special ones here also.
Running is now fully part of my daily routine. I just budget time for it on dedicated days and go for a run.
I’ve discovered a smoothie half an hour before run gives you lots of great energy.
Running in pair is not that bad actually, but it requires almost too much coordination.
I feel incredibly good. It’s like getting a bit fit totally changed my attitude towards everything.
I’m slowly growing enough confidence that I’d be willing to try a group run with a larger group of more experience runners.
Snow running is pretty fun. I’d consider getting better running shoes and make it a dedicated day for a bit more intensive exercise.

Overall, running is really fun and I’m happy that I decided to stick with it.

About Nike+, pedometers and some common questions I get

Jure Cuhalev — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 08:35:42 +0000

Running is all about gadgets and toys. Err, it really isn’t, but if you’re a true gadget geek it can become. One thing I’m often asked is how do I measure the distance and then if my music changes the faster I run.

The way I measure how far I’ve ran is by using a cool device called pedometer, in my case it’s called Nike+ and is connected to my iPod Nano. What it does is that it has a mechanical component that measures movement and it then transfers it to my iPod. This allows you to store this information in it, using your iTunes to transfer it to the world.

On to the questions:

How many parts does the thing have?

It has two parts – pedometer that goes into your shoe and a small white connector for your iPod Nano (notice I keep saying Nano, because it only works on Nano’s and 2nd gen iPod Touch).

You get both parts as a part of Nike+ iPod Sport Kit. It costs about 30 Eur/29USD (I know, Apple “exchange rate” is horrible) and you can buy it at any Apple or Nike store and most good sports stores. It’s nothing special in this regard.

Image via Wikipedia

Do I need a special shoe for this?

Depends. Nike+ shoes have a special hole for the pedometer, but you can easily build your own pouch and attach it to the shoe laces. They even sell them on Amazon for a few dollars.

Image by Garden Hoe via Flickr

What exectly does it do?

It keeps track of how fast and far you’re running. It has a number of settings where in beginning you set how many miles/kilometers you want to run or time or calories. It will then keep you updated on your progress as you run.

Example: let’s say you’re running 7 km. It will let you know for each 1km and when it’s 3.5km (half-way point). For last 400 meters, it’s going to count down by 100m, giving you extra push in the end.

During run you can press the middle button of iPod and it’s going to tell you how you are doing and full statistics (length and time).

After the run you just connect it to your iTunes and it’s going to send the data to NikePlus web-site, where you get such screenshot:

NikePlus (click for bigger image)

The page allows you to keep progress, create running paths, has widgets for your blog and many more things. For the ones that are not happy with iTunes or Nike page, the XML file of your run is freely accessible on your iPod and there are a number of utilities and alternative webpages out there that you can use.

Does it change music while I run, depending on my speed?

Surprisingly – no. I believe that this is urban myth, since I haven’t yet discovered this feature. I’m also of opinion that it’s not needed as you usually have your own playlist or one of the Nike Original Run mixes that are long enough that you don’t need to change songs while running.

How accurate is it?

It’s about +/- 10% accurate. This means that you won’t know exactly how much you ran, but it’s still accurate enough that you can compare your different runs, which is actually functionality that you want.

Is it worth it?

Definitely. For people who are just starting to run, having something to keep you motivated while you run is really incredible. It’s like having a running partner that keeps telling you “we’re almost there, just a little bit more”. In addition to that, having an online profile keeps you fair and allows you to compare your runs with peers and is one more motivator to go out.

You can ask any additional questions in the comments, and I’ll try to answer them.