Race Report; Twin Cites Marathon

This was the big one.
This was the race that I've been training for all year. The one I sacrified many of my weekend bike rides for. Last Spring I decided that, if I could run 10-12 miles by April, I would enter the marathon for the first time. Even though they let in 10,000 people, the race fills in a couple weeks starting in April. So I had to decide then. I made the decision and got in.

The basic training for a marathon is to run normally then have one long run per week that gradually increases all summer till just before the race - then tapers off. Because I still wanted to participate in triathlons I had to juggle the 3 sports and do the long run on Sundays. As the runs on Sunday got up into the 12-15 mile range I really starting to not enjoy them. Usually running is my favorite over biking and swimming but it just gets boring to run for 2-3 hours. I bought an Ipod shuffle so I could listen to a few podcasts. That helped a lot.

The week before the race I did very little per the training guides I had read online. It was very hard not to, but the experts say that by that point you are as fit as you are going to be. Any more training won't help and the rest will help you more on race day. I believe that now.

Race day started at 5:30am for me. Because Linda was at school, I had to have my neighbor Kirk take me to the race. I owe him big for getting up at 6am on a Sunday! The race started at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. There were 10,000 full marathon runners plus another 5,000 for the half marathon. It seems half of the people were lined up at the restrooms. I suppose mostly because people are excited and/or nervous about the race. Luckily, I didn't need a bathroom because I'm a cool seasoned runner - plus I made sure to go before I left.
At the starting line the weather was perfect if not slightly cool for my tastes. It was around 60 degrees with clear blue sky at 8am when the gun went off. It took me almost 5 minutes to reach the starting line because of all the people. Everyone had a electronic chip on their shoe so that when we crossed a sensor at the beginning and end, our time was recorded. In the race were official people that ran exact paces. If you stayed close to them you would know exactly when you would finish. So for example, I started right behind the 4 hour pacer then passed him then the 3 hour 50 minute pacer. As long as they were behind me I knew I would finish below 4 hours. Neat huh!

The race itself was mostly uneventful. They make the claim that it's the most beautiful urban marathon and I totally agree. We wound our way through Minneapolis, around several lakes, along the Mississippi, then into St Paul, up to St. Pauls Cathedral, then finally to the state capital. I don't think there was ever more then a block without spectators and usually the streets were packed with people. I've run for 20 years and never seen anything like that. An amazing amount of support.

As for me I had a fairly good race. My energy level was good throughout. I took my gu packs every 6 miles and at least a little water at every water station (around every 2 miles). Around 15 miles my legs started to ache and my motivation started to fall. My parents were at mile 17 which was fun and lifted my spirits a bit. Soon after that I popped a couple Advil I had for the achy legs. I had anticipated that. It made a big difference as I crossed the Mississippi at mile 19. From mile 20 to 23 was mostly uphill and is usually a big challenge for most this late in the race. Revived by the Advil I was able to keep my pace up and powered up the hill. I passed a lot of people near St Thomas University. However I paid a bit for that because at the top of the climb near Snelling Ave my legs were really starting to get heavy. But with only 3 miles to go I struggled on. Reflecting now I was more having to overcoming the mind then the legs. It was very difficult because it's easy for me to talk myself out of uncomfortable situations especially when I was already ahead of my goal. But I pushed on. Miles 24 and 25 were a blur. Linda was along the last 500 feet cheering me on. I was able to sprite the final half mile to the finish line and crossed at 3 hours and 55 minutes. A sub 4 hour first marathon!

I felt fine as I walked through the exit chute but there were other runners littered across the grass. I later learned that many people had a problem with the heat although I though it was fine. I in fact wore a jacket for the first 10 miles and was glad I did. It just shows how everyone is different and you have to adapted the training, and racing, to your own needs.
All in all I'm glad I did it however I have no interest in doing another marathon. It was an amazing experience but I would much rather do the triathlons were I can be moderately competitive. I love running but just not that far. I will probably continue to run an occasional 10 mile but no more 15-20 milers!

My REAL First Animation

In a previous post I talked about my first animation. It actually wasn't my first. The first piece we did in that class was a simple 10 second animation done the old fashion way on an animation stand. We had to draw everything then place each drawing under a camera, snap a shot, advance the camera one frame, then repeat. It was terribly boring even with just 60-70 drawings to photograph - imagine doing thousands. I think the lesson was to show us why computers are the way to go.

For a long while I only had a video tape of the whole class and the 4x6 cards I drew on as a flip book. But recently I scanned everything into the computer and used After Effects to assemble and make adjustments. Much easier then the Oxberry.
Down load Fisherman.wmv

Tokyo #14; Shinjuku Alley

This shot was taken in a narrow back alley of Shinjuku, Tokyo. There were many restaurants crammed in along the way. Roy pointed out one that is famous (or infamous) for serving all sorts of gross things. I wanted to stop in but I was overwelmingly out voted. I didn't notice at the time, but I love that the obasan (old lady) stuck her head out the door as I snapped the shot.

Wakeboarding

A nice shot of my friend Jon Freeland on a wakeboard. We were at his brother Jason's cabin this summer. I didn't make it up on the board but did manage to drink lots of beer.

Big Storm Photos

On Saturday night there was a big thunderstorm that roared through the area. A tornado destroyed part of a suburb about 40 miles away but only skirted us. However it put on quite the light show for us at about 11 pm. Linda commented that it was like the movie 'War of the Worlds'. She was right - the sky was almost constantly ablaze. I couldn't resist, I grabbed my camera and headed for the patio. I set up the camera on my gorillapod and did some 2-4 second exposures. I mostly just continually shot for about 5 minutes. I guess the most interesting thing about this particular shoot was that I was still in only my underwear!

I had to really do some tweaking to make the exposure work but I really like what came out. Out of about 50 shots there were only 6 that had any sharp lighting and these were the 2 best of the 6.

Martin Zellar photos

Friday night we went to a free concert in the back lot of a church in our town. It seems like Minnesota churches (maybe elsewhere?) have gotten onto the idea of raising funds by putting on concerts and selling beer. Obviously it's working. The band was Martin Zellar, a somewhat famous local singer know for the former band Gear Daddies. If you've ever been to a hockey arena in North America, you've heard Martin Zellar's singing on the 'Zamboni Song'.



I took the chance to try out my digital camera and telephoto in the difficult conditions of shooting with available light and using no flash. As a rule there is actually a lot of light hitting the performers despite the dark surrounding. I tried various combinations of ISO settings and F-stops. As suspected, an ISO of 800 was about right. Martin's black shirt wasn't too hard to separate from the background. Actually I had to do very little post work. I used the beta version of Adobe Lightroom to make some slight adjustments. I'm really liking Lightroom and can't wait for it to be sold. I've used it to organize and tweak my photos all Summer. My only gripe is that the adjustment values have little correlation to the numbers I know from Photoshop. But the ease of tweaking exposure, etc, makes up for it somewhat.

All the photos turned out great. It was hard to pick out the best.

VO2 Max Test

VO2 Max is the measure of the maximum amount of oxygen volume a person can use during hard effort like running, biking, etc... I guess it would apply to anything that makes you breath hard. I had a chance to be a guinea pig at work for a demonstate of the test to measure VO2 max. The lead tester is also one of the cyclist at work - a damn good one as a matter of fact - so he was the one who got me involved.



To start they had to hook me up to a 12 lead ECG to monitor my heart rate (HR). Then they placed a facemask on to measure my inhaling and exhaling as well as the amount of oxygen (O2) I used. After getting everything strapped on a got on the stationary bike and started to warm up as the got the computer set up. Everything was recorded in realtime and present on a projector in front of the class. Oh yeah, I was in front of about 15 employees in that sexy little shirt! The mesh was to hold all the electodes in place as we excersize. Believe it or not before I slide it on it was about the size of a large sock!
The test began with a light resistance on the bike then increase every 30 seconds by 40 watts. That started to get hard after about 7 -8 minutes. Since I couldn't talk, they would show me a chart and I would have to indicate how difficult it was; easy, hard, very hard, etc,... The idea was to go to my absolute limit before I quit so that I'm at maximum heart rate. BTW there was a nurse there to monitor my blood pressure just in case. With my legs barely able to turn the pedals and lungs about to busting, I finally called it quits.
The test products a bunch of graphs and charts that I only half understood. But the bottom line numbers were that when I max'ed out at 440 watts my HR was at 184 and my VO2 max was 55 ml/kg. They told me later that that is 150% of what would be predicted for a 41 year old male (about 38 ml/kg).