She said "Yes"

Kalamazoo Meets the Big City

Just me, or does everything seem bigger in the big city? There are some very cool things in Chicago, but I don't know if I could every adjust to life there. The food, outstanding! The commutes, I think are more stressful than that dream where it's five minutes away from that important exam and you never studied. The views, beautiful! The prices, holy cow(!) I think I need two extra jobs!

The race was Chicago's Perfect 10. The name is slightly misleading though. The race was in Chicago and it was 10 miles, but it was far from perfect. They did send out emails two days before to change the time of the race, kind of last minute. Luckily, it didn't alter my plans. This is somewhat minor, but I thought it was odd to run an out and back course yet not have a timing strip down to prove anything at the turn around spot. I could have just as easily "improved" my time by turning around after 4 miles. Granted, I'm not fast enough to even have to worry about somebody winning an award because of something like this, but I'd expect to see something like this at an event you pay for. Speaking of getting what you pay for, this is where I have the biggest issues with the race. I've ran a ton of 5K's this summer, every single one had better treats when crossing the finish line. It honestly felt like crossing into a third world nation. This race was two races, a 10 mile and a 10K race. When crossing the line, I expected to get a 10 mile medal, I mean I did go over twice as far as the 10K people, nope. Exactly the same medal regardless of which race you ran. So let me get this straight, I paid $20 more to run longer...yet I easily could have turned around at any point and got the same medal and lousy choice of food? That's far from perfect. Capone's spirit is alive and well in Chicago, I think it's borderline criminal.

For the run itself, it was decent. I'm trying not to let my above experiences cloud my judgement, but it wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. In my head I thought I'd have great views of the water and skyline the whole time. That was really only true on the way back. The weather was perfect though, don't get me wrong it was chilly, but that makes running so much easier. With the amount of people at the event, I knew there wasn't any point even attempting to run hard in the hopes of winning something. The time in my head I wanted were eight minute miles. In the end, I did better than that, so I'm happy.

The one thing from the race that will stick with me was some woman that from about mile 4 to mile 6, I could not get away from her. To sum up her major malfunction, she's the person on the expressway that doesn't set cruise control. I pass her, she passes me, I pass her, she passes me. Except it was even more frustrating than that, she'd pass, then she'd slow down as if trying to intentionally block me. Once or twice, I'd write off as an accident. Three or four times, just a very inconsiderate person. Greater than five times, that deserves a good punch in the face! Okay, I'd never hit a woman, but when the thought actually crosses my mind and I find myself smiling, there's something wrong. I can't ever remember a time when I've felt stressed during a run, it's always been the opposite. Even though I was comfortable with my pace, I decided enough was enough and put the hammer down (as in the gas pedal, not my fist!) and made sure she wasn't going to catch me again. She didn't.

Besides the race, Chicago didn't disappoint. Harry Carey's still makes the best steak on the planet. Our last minute, cheapest, hotel room was gorgeous. If there were a way for me to fit the bathroom in my bag to take home, I would have. After cheese cake was sampled, an impromptu visit to the Cheesecake Factory was made, but unfortunately it was closed. We did get lucky and the huge Marilyn Monroe statue was still in town. Here's my two running partners checking out the "Big City", for the record...I didn't look up her dress.

Let it snow

It happened very early this year, but tonight was the first snow fall. Did I sit inside with a cup of hot chocolate, under a warm blanket with the fireplace going? Of course not, especially when it's a running night! Crazy.

I know it sounds foolish, but tonight was one of my favorite runs. At times it almost a full blizzard, but instead of worrying about slipping, it being cold, it's so relaxing. The snow drowns out city sounds and foot noise, it's so peaceful. With it getting dark so soon now, it's night, yet the white of the snow makes whatever ambient light seem dreamlike. While running, your body is warm, as the snow hits your face and melts, totally refreshing. I'd take every run just like tonight, it was perfect.

Five of us ran tonight and I think the runners high I experienced hit each one of us. What started out as a four mile run, became six. Afterward, not one of us made a mad dash for the warmth of the house, instead they decided to make snow angels. To anybody who thinks running in the snow is crazy, I won't even argue because it will be impossible to convince somebody who has never tried it. Let it snow!

I Ran How Many Miles For This?

Thirteen races and here's my reward, a coffee cup! Sure, there are two in the picture, but only one of them is mine. The other belongs to CT, that's her first place mug and my third place mug. The best part, I don't even drink coffee! I know it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm really not. Even though I feel like I should be entitled to a four foot trophy, I'm not sure there's a material object that can really represent my accomplishment. Going from never running to winning this award, I'd say that's a big deal just by itself, but that really only scratches the surface. I've gotten stronger, faster, ran two brutally long races, met some great new friends, oh and the love of my life, not bad. Yeah, it's only coffee cup, but it's all about what you put into it.

UP

I just spent $99 on a bracelet, for myself! File that under phrases I never thought I would say. It wasn't offered by a guy opening a long trench-coat as a "deal". I wasn't suffering from insomnia where the home shopping network suckered me. I honestly intended to purchase it. Don't you think it looks good on me? Okay, since when would I buy anything for fashion, if you guessed there's an ulterior motive, then you are correct. This bracelet is actually a tech gadget and those are hard for me to pass UP.

What exactly does Jawbone's UP do? It basically tracks everything you do, scary huh, from a fitness point of view. During the day, it collects how many steps you've taken. At night, it tracks how well you sleep. It also pays attention to what you eat, but you do have to manually tell it what food you are eating. Kind of a cool gadget to get an idea of what a typical day looks like.

As somebody who tracks every run I do, the fitness side of UP isn't a huge advantage. Between my phone and my Garmin watch, I know how many running miles I log each week. Though, only having UP for a few days now, it's amazing how little movement I do in a day without running. I knew I wasn't super active at a desk job, but wow, looking at the data it's almost depressing. No wonder America is getting fatter and lazier.

My main curiosity with UP is the ability to track sleep patterns. Here's a sample:



The dark blue bars are deep sleep, the light blue are light sleep, and the orange parts are me still awake or getting up. As to how accurate this data is, I really have no idea, but the fact that it can obviously tell when I get up without triggering it, tells me it's at least doing something. I think over time it will be interesting to see how sleep patterns look staying at a hotel, falling asleep on the couch, after a long day, etc.

I haven't had it long enough to really put UP through it's paces yet. This past week, I was doing something special with one of my running programs, so I haven't specifically used the workout tracking feature of the device. The meal tracking option seems the least useful feature. At the moment, you take pictures of the food you eat with your phone, then a few hours later UP asks you how you feel. Not extremely helpful in my opinion. Jawbone really needs to either integrate with another service or build there own to build a food database with nutrition information. Being able to see a rough estimate of steps and calories burned versus calorie intake, now that is bordering on useful information. My biggest complaint so far is all the information resides in the phone app. Currently it only works with the iPhone, which I'm sure will change, but why they didn't develop a web site to view progress and the information the device collects is a big failure. Hopefully, that will change down the road, but it really limits usability in my opinion.

Even though there's certain improvements Jawbone can make, it's still a fun little toy that I intend to play with for awhile. It's probably a good thing that I don't have my cats anymore, I'd be so tempted to track their sleep patterns! Since I can't do that, I guess I have to continue to experiment on myself....time for a nap! Hey, after all, it's science.