Has anyone told them what their design looks like or is that what they were going for? And why would I want that on my springy shoes?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Running Punishment Causes Death
Back in high school we used to laugh at the shirts that red "Our sport is your sport's punishment". The idea that people in most sports view running as punishment is somewhat amusing, but the idea of running as punishment loses all humor when it causes a death...
"Authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin died after being forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. Severely dehydrated, the girl had a seizure and died days later. Now, her grandmother and stepmother who police say meted out the punishment were taken to jail Wednesday and face murder charges. "
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2107529,00.html#ixzz1nE9p48lp
Crazy, sick people...
"Authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin died after being forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. Severely dehydrated, the girl had a seizure and died days later. Now, her grandmother and stepmother who police say meted out the punishment were taken to jail Wednesday and face murder charges. "
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2107529,00.html#ixzz1nE9p48lp
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Ancient Footprints
A one legged man "running" at 4:26 pace? Hunters faster than Olympic sprinters? Cadence around 300 steps per minute?
Scientists, with the help of expert trackers, drew some rather interesting conclusions from footprints in New South Wales, Australia thought to be over 20,000 years old.
These articles aren't new - published in 2006-2007, but still pretty interesting. Some huge leaps in some of the calculations to be sure (like using constants taken from small sampling (12) of modern day recreational distance runners). I have to be hugely skeptical of some of the numbers, especially that high of cadence or a one legged man managing that high of speed, because of a number of factors I don't understand how they could have taken into considerations (up and down motion of the runners, exaggerated stride length, ie bounding, etc.) I can make prints in the sand that look very similar but are much slower...
However, it does lead you to question if, with a different form, people could run even faster than we're seeing today. These scientists are saying they already have...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060803-footprint.html
http://playthink.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sdarticle-1.pdf
Scientists, with the help of expert trackers, drew some rather interesting conclusions from footprints in New South Wales, Australia thought to be over 20,000 years old.
These articles aren't new - published in 2006-2007, but still pretty interesting. Some huge leaps in some of the calculations to be sure (like using constants taken from small sampling (12) of modern day recreational distance runners). I have to be hugely skeptical of some of the numbers, especially that high of cadence or a one legged man managing that high of speed, because of a number of factors I don't understand how they could have taken into considerations (up and down motion of the runners, exaggerated stride length, ie bounding, etc.) I can make prints in the sand that look very similar but are much slower...
However, it does lead you to question if, with a different form, people could run even faster than we're seeing today. These scientists are saying they already have...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060803-footprint.html
http://playthink.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/sdarticle-1.pdf
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Race Report: 2012 ING Half Marathon
2012 is off to much the same start as 2011, so I decided it would be fitting to have my first post of the year (a year with hopefully more regular posting) be the ING Half marathon race report
A year ago the ING half was my first half marathon and the first time I'd ever raced over a 10k. A year later it's my 4th half (though really only my second fast competitive one) and I have a full under my belt. A year ago a strained achillies kept me from running for several weeks before the race, this year a foot stress fracture kept me out in december and a knee issue slowed me up for several weeks before the race.
I was signed up for the full marathon this year, but after being slowed up in December and January there was no way I could have run it, so I decided several weeks before the race that I would be running the half. At the expo however they told me if I switched to the half there was a good chance I wouldn't be getting a medal or an official time - so I ran under my buddy's bibe number after he decided he wasn't even going to run the half. Unfortunately this meant I was starting from the E coral rather than the C coral. It didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time, but ultimately it lead me to treat this race as a long MP run rather than full out race.
Starting from closer to the back put a lot more slow people in front of me - and I'm sure many people who shouldn't have even been up there... My first mile was painfully slow 7:10 as I walk-ran as fast as I could constantly dodging around people and weaving from one side of the street to the other. After 2 more miles of 6:40 pace dodging walkers I bagged any idea of racing and tried to settle into 6:40-6:50 pace.
Overall the race was relatively uneventful so I won't put down the details. The 6:48 pace I averaged for the race felt hard, but on the plus side, even with limited training, didn't feel all our or as hard as it did last year. (Granted I ran 5 min faster last year but I was healthier and the weather was quite a bit warmer this year.) Also, my garmin read a full quarter mile further than race distance - lots of weaving from one side of the road to the other!
The goal now is to get fully healthy and get some good 5 & 10k races in this spring before settling in for another marathon training season.
A year ago the ING half was my first half marathon and the first time I'd ever raced over a 10k. A year later it's my 4th half (though really only my second fast competitive one) and I have a full under my belt. A year ago a strained achillies kept me from running for several weeks before the race, this year a foot stress fracture kept me out in december and a knee issue slowed me up for several weeks before the race.
I was signed up for the full marathon this year, but after being slowed up in December and January there was no way I could have run it, so I decided several weeks before the race that I would be running the half. At the expo however they told me if I switched to the half there was a good chance I wouldn't be getting a medal or an official time - so I ran under my buddy's bibe number after he decided he wasn't even going to run the half. Unfortunately this meant I was starting from the E coral rather than the C coral. It didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time, but ultimately it lead me to treat this race as a long MP run rather than full out race.
Starting from closer to the back put a lot more slow people in front of me - and I'm sure many people who shouldn't have even been up there... My first mile was painfully slow 7:10 as I walk-ran as fast as I could constantly dodging around people and weaving from one side of the street to the other. After 2 more miles of 6:40 pace dodging walkers I bagged any idea of racing and tried to settle into 6:40-6:50 pace.
Overall the race was relatively uneventful so I won't put down the details. The 6:48 pace I averaged for the race felt hard, but on the plus side, even with limited training, didn't feel all our or as hard as it did last year. (Granted I ran 5 min faster last year but I was healthier and the weather was quite a bit warmer this year.) Also, my garmin read a full quarter mile further than race distance - lots of weaving from one side of the road to the other!
The goal now is to get fully healthy and get some good 5 & 10k races in this spring before settling in for another marathon training season.
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