In Non-Running News . . .

Apparently this has pretty much turned into my running blog.  As it is how I'm spending ever increasing amounts of time at it, I guess it's fitting.  In our quest for 1 kilomile, we're now less than 40 miles behind pace, having cut the deficit about 25 miles so far this month (which is barely half over).  I'm signed up for my first 10k ever this Saturday.  As we don't exactly live in a big city, there aren't tons of near by racing opportunities.  I'm hoping for 45 minutes.  I did just over 6 miles (which is just under 10k) tonight at a 45:30 pace.

But, as my title promised, I bring non-running news!  What else do I do with my time?

Every other Thursday is Starcraft night, so that's always something to look forward to.  I've got a co-worker who is a big gamer and spends his disposable income on computers.  He's got his main computer for gaming, and then his backup computer, which is also for gaming and for watching TV.  Well, his backup computer was having trouble playing his game and running TV at the same time so he needed some upgrades.  He had a pair of nice video cards laying around, so he went to put those in.  Not enough power outlets on the power supply.  So he ordered a new power supply.  While he was at it, he got a new mother board, too.  But then the power supply didn't fit in the case he had.  Solution: buy new case.  And the CD drive doesn't have the right connection for the new mother board, so he picked up one of those, too.  So, pretty much, he built a whole new computer, and was sending his old backup to the surplus pile (the corner of his computer room).  "I've got a spare hard drive," I said.  So he was nice enough to put it in, load a copy of Windows and give me the whole thing for free.  Awesome.  So now, instead of playing SC with all settings on low, I can play with them all on ultra.  So we've got 2 computers.  But only 1 desk, 1 monitor and 1 keyboard.  So basically I've got a box that is just for playing SC once or twice a week.  I think this qualifies as a first world problem.

The other big (big, big, BIG) black whole for my time has been the Wheel of Time.  I'm 8 books in to the 14 book series.  (Book 14 isn't out yet, but it will be by the time I get there.)  The story is massive, the characters are plentiful and the author loves to describe what everyone is wearing in detail.  His motto seems to be "why use 1 character when 7 will do?".  Alternate mottos that didn't make the cut are "How many hundreds of pages can I go without mentioning certain main characters?" and "Because it's important to know the material and neckline of every outfit that every female character has ever worn." and "Editors?  What are editors?"  But, I'm not giving up.  I'm over 6,000 pages in, so I'm seeing this thing through.

Other than that, it's work, church, sleep and tickle fights with little blonde girls.  What more could a guy want?

April Self Locomotion Update

We're 4 days into May, and I haven't published the updated results of our self locomotion quest.  I'm sorry for the great impact this has had on all of your lives.  Spring is slowly working its way to Michigan.  A very warm March was followed by a cooler April with lots of wind.  45° temperatures with steady 25mph winds do not make people want to go outside and self locomote.  The month splits pretty easily into 10 days of awesome, followed by ten days of not, and finishing up with ten days of "pretty good".  The graph shows this pretty clearly.  I've been slowly lengthening my runs, but still haven't done anything over 4.4 miles, which means we're still attacking the goal with many small chunks.  April was easily the best month so far, but we expected to do better as the weather improves, and I was a bit disappointed that we didn't do better.  Through the first 3 months of the year we were on a 700 mile pace, so we need average a 1300 mpy pace through the next 3 months to hit 500 miles by July 1st.  Then, we'll just have to mirror that through the second half of the year.  I'm amazed that 4 months in, 1000 miles still looks like a very challenging yet achievable goal.  Not bad for just picking a very round number out of the air.

The numbers:
April total: 88.50 mi
Total through 4/30/12: 261.93 mi
March pace: 10800 mi/yr
Pace YTD: 792 mi/yr
Current Deficit: 68.67 mi


The chart:
This chart nicely breaks things into months.  You can see how much ground we lost in January and February, how we nearly held even through March and the modest gains in April.

New Shoes

Well, if I'm supposed to be self-locomoting my fair share of 1000 miles this year, I figured it was time for some new running shoes.  So, I've been running in 2 new pairs lately, with generally positive results.  You may find them a little atypical, but I like 'em:

If you're unfamiliar with Vibram Five Fingers shoes (KSOs, specifically) your first thought is: you have to get your toes into there?  Well, yes.  It takes a little practice, but after just a few weeks, I dare say I can get them on in the same amount of time it takes you to get your running shoes on; I have toe slots and velcro, you have socks, shoes and laces.  Essentially, these are a glove for your foot with about 1/8" of rubber on the bottom for traction and protection from sharp rocks and sticks.

Realistically, if you're interested in running, you're probably at least aware of people that run in shoes like these.  And if you want to know more about them, you could read books, or visit all sorts of websites.  So I won't try to write a great dissertation in running with minimalist shoes.  I will, however, tell you a bit about my experience.

I think they're great.  Shannon listened to a RadioWest podcast about barefoot running (which she has saved many months for me to listen to, and I never have, and it's only my fault, not hers) wherein the guest says something to the effect of "I don't have to make an argument for barefoot running.  Just take your shoes off and run for one block and see if you like it."  Well, I do like being barefoot.  I'd be barefoot more often if I could.  So, I got these shoes, which a much closer to being barefoot than wearing normal shoes, while still providing some protection from heat, cold and sharp things.

You do have to run a bit differently in them, though.  As there is no padding in the heel, you just can't land on your heels; instead you land toes first and then your heel.  To do this you take shorter, quicker strides, and the first time you do it for any distance, you light your calves on fire.  Yes, burning pain for the next day or two.  This is why people suggest a very long, slow transition period.  I have, to a certain degree, ignored their specific advice of starting with very short distances and only lengthening them at a painfully slow rate.  Yesterday I did 3.56 miles in them and basically feel fine.  As an added bonus, I'm significantly faster in them, too.  (Though part of that is probably the big reduction in distance.  I went from doing 4-7 miles to doing about 1 mile, so it makes sense that I was faster.)  Over the few weeks, my muscles are adjusting to the different running style.  I've got a tendon on the top of my left foot that is a bit complain-y lately.  It's not painful, just a bit uncomfortable at times.  And I can't definitively pin it on the new shoes either - it may be basketball related.  In summary, I love them, and have absolutely no desire to go back to my old shoes.  They just feel nice and light and simple.  Maybe it's all in my head, but, as I run because I like to, I don't need any reason to run in them other than that I like them.

Prayer of the Children

These days, Ella wants to do everything that her big sister does.  This was her prayer over dinner last night:

Clark: Heavenly Father

Ella: Fa

C: Thankful

E: Foo (food)

C: Bless

E: Foo

C: In the name

E: Nay

C: Jesus Christ

E: Foo

C: Jesus Christ

E: Foo

C: Amen

E: Amen

In further child-speak, tonight Julia said: "Get it on, mom and dad!"

Just so you all know, the "it" was a blanket we were supposed to be hiding under.

March Self Locomotion Update

1000 miles is a really long way, folks.  March was our best month yet, but we still didn't manage a 1000 mile pace.  (Not that January and February were all that impressive of months to beat.)  The weather was warmer, particularly the week where we had multiple days in the 80s.  Since then we've had a little snow and have cooled back off into typical 40s and 50s.  With the warmer weather, we'll be able to get out more consistently, particularly Shannon and the girls on walks.  For me, I've still been playing a lot of basketball, which helps toward our goal, but not nearly as much as 2 hours of running would.  As the year goes on, I may be forced to cut back on basketball to boost some running numbers.  I've also been doing some major work on my running stride and form.  I'll write more about that another day, but the end result is that I've had to cut my distance way down when I run.  But, when your run is only 10 minutes long, it's a lot easier to squeeze into the day!

The numbers:
March total: 73.66mi
Total through 3/31/12: 173.43mi
March pace: 870mi/yr
Pace YTD: 698mi/yr
Current Deficit: 72.47mi


The usual graph:

This graph makes it hard to tell that March really was significantly better than February.  So rather than showing progress vs the goal, here's a graph of the gap between the two lines.

This makes it much easier to see what our progress has been like.  Our first mistake was to get a quick 20 miles behind before we really got started.  Sickness and cold through the second half of February had a big impact, but then you can see that we held our ground pretty well through March.  It's amazing how far "behind" we get from just a day or two of inactivity.

More sports math

With the final four starting any minute now, I'd better dash off an update on my new scoring system for basketball.  The topic was introduced, and I've given several updates since.

Most valuable games thus far:

NC State over Georgetown - 18pts (11/3, 2nd round)

Florida over Marquette - 16pts (7/3, 3rd round)

Lehigh over Duke - 14pts (15/2, 1st round)

Norfolk St. over Missouri - 14pts (15/2, 1st round)

Louisville over Michigan St - 13 pts (4/1, 3rd round)

Ohio St over Syracuse - 12pts (2/1, 4th round)

Kansas over UNC - 12pts (2/1, 4th round)

Ohio over Michigan - 10pts (13/4, 1st round)

Point values from possible outcomes:

Final Four:

   Louisville over Kentucky - 31pts (4/1, 5th round)

   All other results - 16pts

Championship game:

   Louisville win - 44pts (4/2, 6th round)

   Ohio St or Kansas over Kentucky - 38pts (2/1, 6th round)

   All other results - 32pts

We can see that despite adding the bonus points for upsets, the most valuable games are still those in the later rounds.  We have, however, greatly increased the reward for correctly picking upsets correctly.  The two 15/2 upsets in the first round this year were each about as valuable as correctly picking a 1 seed to win a final four game.  The championship game will still be the most valuable single game this year, as is probably should be.  My bracket only managed to get a single final four team this year (which is about average for me, sadly); it's easy to tell that some teams are pretty good, but not always easy to figure out which ones will win 4, 5 or 6 games in a row.  A perfect bracket up until now would be worth 247 points.

The other big question though is how this scoring system impacts bracket pools.  As my office pool used my new scoring system this year, they're my test sample.  15 brackets were filled out (I'm winning the non-paying division!).  For anonymity purposes, we'll call these people #1 through #15.  I'm also adding someone named "Chalk" which would be the result from picking every higher seeded team to win.

Person     Score     Traditional Score    Traditional Rank

1               112                 79                        3

2               108                 77                        5

3               108                 82                        1

4                98                  77                        5

5                93                  79                        4

6                88                  80                        2

7                77                  66                        8

8                73                  53                        11

9                70                  63                        9

10              70                   50                       12

Chalk         68                   68                        7

11              61                   37                       16

12              60                  54                        10

13              59                  50                        12

14              58                  50                        12

15              53                  45                        15

If the formatting isn't too terrible, we can see that changing the scoring system doesn't drastically change who did well and who didn't.  The max movement by any individual was 4 spots.  As 'Chalk' didn't pick up any bonus points, obviously he moved down, and it's nice to see that instead of being slightly above average (7th) we bumped this hypothetical individual down 4 spots.  As it turns out, the scoring system won't change who wins our competition, though it could have.

NCAA math: Round 1.25 update

Round 1 started off so boring.  Only 2 upsets on Thursday with just a 12/5 and an 11/6 upset.  Obviously that changed in a big way on Friday.  With Saturday games now half over, here's an update of the highest scoring games with my new scoring system:

Most Valuable Games:

Lehigh over Duke - 14pts (15/2, 1st round)

Norfolk St. over Missouri - 14pts (15/2, 1st round)

Ohio over Michigan - 10pts (13/4, 1st round)

Temple over USF - 8pts (12/5, 1st round)

VCU over Wichita St - 8pts (12/5, 1st round)

Colorado over UNLV - 6pts (11/6, 1st round)

NC St over SDSU - 6pts (11/6, 1st round)

98 points total were possible in the first round.  As #15 seeds were on a combined 4-104 streak, you probably didn't pick either of them, and therefore max out at 70 points, even if you got everything else, which represents about 70% of the possible points.  (Whereas with the traditional scoring, you'd only be out 2/32 points, or about 6%.)  So far 4 games are complete in the second round, with out an upset yet.  Perhaps a boring Saturday with mayhem on Sunday?

I haven't really had time to calculate lots of different brackets and look at the results.  The weather has been too nice to sit at the computer all day.  (I only sat in front of it for half the day!)