Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Christmas seemed to come and go so fast last month and I completely forgot to post about some great running gifts I received.

It all started with the Daily Mile Secret Santa when I received a very cool and reversible New Balance skull cap.

It turns out that Daily Mile co-founder Kelly Korevec drew my name. I put my new cap to use the very next day and have already worn it several times.

On Christmas morning I posted a fuzzy photo to Twitter with a pile of my running-related gifts.

Pictured below are Swiftwick arm sleeves, Brooks shorts, Brooks Nightlift Arm/Leg Bands and Brooks gloves from my mom; and a Brooks Nightlife Infiniti jacket from my mother-in-law:

In addition to some great family time and my son being disappointed that Santa was not sitting in the living room that morning, Christmas was topped off with a nice, quiet 4-mile run. I believe that Christmas Day is the perfect day to run — it’s a great gift to give myself a simple run with no pressure on time, distance or pace.

Only 356 days until the next Christmas!

Earlier this summer I was introduced to Tommie Copper compression gear via Twitter. I was asked if I would be interested in testing the product out for a review. I’ve been curious about compression gear for a long time, but never invested in anything — I choose the word investment because as with many things with running, spending money on something can often be a win/lose situation.

I had the calf sleeves for a couple of weeks before putting them to the full test. After I experienced some calf soreness on a couple of runs in my neutral shoes (Ghost 3), I tried out two calf sleeves after a few runs. On a couple of double days, I wore the sleeves between runs and after the second run. And after every long run since late July, I’ve worn the sleeves for at least an hour or so.

I have been very impressed with how refreshed my legs feel after wearing them. After most every race and long run, I feel like I am having less and less soreness. While some of that might be attributed to being in better overall shape, I have to give credit to Tommie Copper.

In addition to the calf sleeves, I also have been wearing the knee compression sleeve for my left knee — the one I injured — after long runs for at least an hour. After this past weekend’s 20-miler, I wore it about an hour prior to going to bed as well. The next day, and now two days later, those 20 miles are already a good memory. While I haven’t had problems with my ITB, it’s nice to have the knee compression. It just feels like it’s giving me a boost to my recovery.

I have given these the full test — in addition to wearing them a few times a week, I have also washed them twice. Besides a small hole in one of the calf sleeves — due to my own hard pulling — they have held up well with a similar fit after washing.

The only drawback I have found is that the calf sleeve does not come in pairs — at a retail of $24.95 for one sleeve, the price doesn’t set Tommie Copper apart in the compression market. With this being my first pair of compression sleeves, I don’t have a solid comparison to other brands as far as comfort and recovery go, so when it comes to cost I won’t pass judgment as to whether it’s worth the investment.

I will, however, recommend them. You can’t go wrong with a 100 percent money-back guarantee.

For more information on Tommie Copper, visit their website, “like” them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter. You can also check out some videos on YouTube, including an endorsement from Montel Williams. 

With respect to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I wanted to move today’s 11 things post up a day. It didn’t feel right to do a silly post for tomorrow. I also am going out of the norm of my 11 things concept and making it a post about running. Today’s 20-mile run was full of observations and thoughts, some serious, some not so serious. Without further delay, here is this month’s 11 things a day early.

1. To all my friends who made the obvious statement about it being dark at 5:30 a.m. when I started my run, guess what? It was, in fact, very dark. The sun came up as scheduled.

2. I saw a deer poop for the first time ever. (It was still dark then. And she had the audacity to do this in front of her two kids, me and Duke.)

3. Two families were setting up their yard sales before 6 a.m. (In the dark.)

4. Someone in the middle of Bedford has a rooster. It was confused because it was doing its wake-up call before the sun was even thinking about coming up.

5. This may have been the most even-split long run ever — the second half was just 57 seconds faster than the first (dark) half. I wasn’t out there for speed today, but I’m happy with the (slow) consistency. Plus in the second half I walked a few hills, so I’ll take whatever negative split I can get.

6. Three GUs are better than two for this distance. That’s a very important lesson I’ve taken from previous bad runs.

7. I was really struggling in the middle miles. All of a sudden I got to mile 14 and I thought about stopping and walking home. I turned to Twitter for motivation. About a dozen tweets rolled in giving me some inspiration. I went from having my slowest mile at mile 14, to my fastest mile at mile 17.

8. 20 miles in Bedford is really hard. I know that from last year, but I was reminded of that today at nearly every turn. It’s so freakin’ hilly here that it makes it easy to drop F bombs at the sight of another hill. I think I may have offended some old ladies today.

9. I have a new favorite running song. It’s slow, but it’s easy to sing along to. And here is where I give you the parental advisory to not click on THIS LINK if you get easily offended by Ben Folds doing covers of Dr. Dre songs. This might have played when I ran my fastest mile today. And I may have hit repeat a few times. And I may have offended old ladies again.

10. Post-run I had a chocolate milk, a watered-down Gatorade and an egg and turkey burger sandwich. Good stuff. I’ve increased my protein intake this summer pre- and post-long runs and it seems to help me recover faster. Next run I’m finding that rooster and eating him for breakfast.

11. In more seriousness, though, I want to say that I had fun. And that’s what matters more than anything else. Even if it was dark.

Last week I was in the funkiest of funky moods. I refrained from talking about running as much as I could.

In addition to my mood, I wasn’t feeling all that great either. Combine those two things and I have what felt like a horrible week. Now that I’ve had a couple of days to bounce back, though, I realized that I let my mind and body settle into recovery week.

That’s not really a bad thing; I needed a cut-back week with my mileage and I needed rest. Tuesday’s post about ending my “do something” streak was only a hint at how tired I felt. Add a few nights of going to be earlier, a couple of weekend naps and considerably less running miles – and less intensity – and I’ve come to the conclusion that I was completely lacking respect for the recovery week.

Nothing I did last week was bad, but if I had a little bit of a different attitude about things, I wouldn’t have felt as miserable as I did. Yesterday’s 8.3-mile run — my longest non-long run in a while — and today’s core workout were good, but I also have felt like they took a little more effort than usual because I let myself slip into a low.

I’ve written a lot on here and on Twitter this summer about staying focused – these next few weeks are so important for that. The Baltimore Marathon is just a little more than 5 weeks away – I have my highest mileage weeks ever to go, a couple of 20-milers to knock out and I have to maintain quality runs to hit my goal.

Image: Boaz Yiftach / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s not often that I sit down for a blog post and struggle to come up with something. In the past few days, though, that’s the case. Today I turned to Twitter to get people to ask me running-related questions to spur my mind a bit. There were some great questions that I’ll answer below, a few that I can use for a future #runchat session and some that I just can’t answer (sorry @TedWeismann, I don’t know anything about maintaining glucose levels on a run).

Q: @teacherswhorun: How can you use a half marathon time to find expected full marathon time?
A: The timing of this is great since I’m going to run a half marathon this weekend. While both of my marathons haven’t produced results I was hoping for, I have found that the McMillan Running Calculator is fairly accurate with predicting times. I actually used that calculator, among other things, when coming up with my Baltimore Marathon goal a few posts ago.

Otherwise, take your pace on a comfortable long run and take anywhere between 30-60 seconds per mile off that to come up with a goal. Some say your long runs should be even slower than that — simply put, there are no simple answers out there. I’d love to hear other ideas in the comments section.

Q: @thetk42one: Socks or no socks? Discuss.
A: Socks. Preferably Injinji. How about you?

Q: @FitNotFried: I  joined a running club, but as a new runner my pacing is too slow, and I get left behind. How can I improve?
A: About 5 years ago I joined a training group for my first long-distance race and was terrified. Fortunately the group was big and was pretty much divided up into 3 groups — fast, slow and everyone else in between. My suggestion would be to talk to whoever leads the club and tell them about your concerns. My bet would be that there will be others in the group who are at or near your pace. Together you’ll all get faster and stronger.

Q: @trumpdabeast: What has been your favorite race that you ran, and what is your dream race to run?
A:  I LOVE the Shamrock Half Marathon in Virginia Beach in March. I’ve done this race 4 times, but unfortunately missed it this year coming back from my injury. Oddly enough, I don’t have a dream race. I just want to get through a marathon uninjured.

Running the Shamrock at Virginia Beach will produce scenes like this.

Q: @notdiyheather: When wanting to increase mileage, is it better to run longer or run more often?
A: I think some of this is a personal preference and it depends on what you’re training for. I like to gradually increase my mileage by some sort of combination of running longer and more often. Honestly, I think the answer to this question is one I’m constantly seeking — both approaches have worked at various times for me in my running. I’d love to hear some advice in the comments section.

Q: @TheHeldawg: How do you effectively use BodyGlide? How much? When?
A:  I use BodyGlide or Mission whenever I’m going to be running for more than an hour or for races 10k or longer. The more humid it is, the more I put on.  Put it in between your legs if they rub, your nipples, your feet and, yes, even your butt. It’s probably impossible to put on too much.

Q: @runforsushi: What are your rules for running when sick? 
A: If you have a fever, DON’T RUN. It’ll only make you worse. If I have a cold, I’ll run — in fact, I think it helps clear me out. Otherwise, if I feel bad — fever or not — I opt not to run and rest up. This question reminds me of one of my second ever blog entry when I woke up with a fever on race day. Check it out here.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my tweet this afternoon. This was a lot of fun. If you have any answers to these questions that you’d like to share, please leave a comment! I hope you’ll join me and Scott for #runchat at 8 p.m. ET this Sunday!

I had a bad run today. I don’t say that often, but it was just bad. That, though, doesn’t matter. The fact that I put it in my head before the run that it was going to be a bad run made it even worse.

I’m not going to use the excuse of not feeling well this week, but when has the first run after being under the weather been good? Never.

I could dwell on today’s run, but I’m not. The only reason I’m writing about it is to have documentation of a bad run turned even worse by my own thoughts.

My Twitter pal Steena, now blogging at Finding my happy pace, asked me today, “Is it possible to will all runs good runs?”

I wish it was that easy, but I’m beginning to realize that it’s very easy to think your way into a bad run. When I think about the few bad runs I’ve had, it all starts with thoughts about how bad the run is going.

The best thing to do is get the hell over it and move on to the next run. And that’s what I’m ready to do.

* * *

To follow up from yesterday’s post about my new commenting system, here is something you can do if you log in to your WordPress account for your name and website to show up. Head to intensedebate.com and click on “Log in Here” in the upper right hand corner. Then click “Log in with your WordPress account.”

After you log in, click on the “Profile” link on the left hand side of the page. From there you can change your display name to how you want it appear on comments. You can also put your website on this page. If you want to add additional information about yourself, such as a Twitter account, click on “Services.”

If you click on someone’s photos in the comments section, it will then show the website. If you click on a name, you can then find the other links they’ve added.

I may be missing a detail or two about this, but it’s a learning process. Thanks to everyone who has pointed a few things out to me. Please let me know if you have questions or problems! I am liking this system so far and like being able to respond to comments more directly.

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I don’t listen to music much when I run, but when I do I like my headphones to stay in my ear. I generally go a cheap route, getting a pair of headphones that wrap around my ear and go on my way. They usually last about 6 months.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Zippearz to try their earbuds. The claim on their website is they don’t fall out and they “zip up” for less tangling.

To put it simply, these are great earbuds. They come with three different sized ear covers to essentially fit any type of ear. I’ve had about 10 runs in them and never had any issues — for me, they don’t fall out, nor do they come loose. I found that the adjustable ear piece that comes with them to be annoying, but not necessary at all.

The aspect of zipping up the earbuds after a run works well too. While I think it’s impossible to make things with cords not tangle, these definitely are a big improvement over any other pair I’ve ever worn.

Zippearz are sold for $24.95 on their website — while I received this for review, I would definitely pay that price for these.

Zippearz is sponsoring this week’s #runchat on Twitter. Just by participating in #runchat you’ll be entered to win a pair of Zippearz earbuds.

If you’re unfamiliar with #runchat, please visit my #runchat page and come join the fun at 8 p.m. ET this Sunday. It’s very easy to take part — just look for questions from me (@RunningBecause) and Scott (@iRunnerBlog) and then answer, retweet responses and have fun!

You can also have three extra entries by leaving a comment on this blog stating you’ve done the following things:

• “Like” #runchat on Facebook.
• “Like” Zippearz on Facebook.
• Follow Zippearz on Twitter.

Note: You do not need to leave separate comments for the above extra entries. You can leave a comment with 1-4 extra sentences in one comment.

Another fun round of #runchat is planned for 8 p.m. ET Sunday on Twitter with me and Scott. This week’s #runchat is sponsored by Zephyr Technology, a global leader in real-time physiological and biomechanical monitoring or “Physiological Status Monitoring” (PSM) solutions for Connected Health, Fitness and the Academic Research markets. We’ll be giving away a ZephyrFit.  Read more about this product at www.zephyrfit.com.

For full details about this week’s awesome giveaway, check out Scott’s blog entry. To be entered all you have to do is take part in #runchat. His blog details even more ways to enter.

If you’ve never taken part in #runchat, here are a few pointers:

• #runchat is simply a chat about running. Questions will come from me (@RunningBecause) and Scott (@iRunnerBlog). You then answer the questions, respond to other questions, retweet answers you like, etc. It’s really that easy.
• The fun gets under way at 8 p.m. ET with introductions for about 5 minutes. We then ask questions every 5-10 minutes depending on the nature of the conversation. We’ll often ask follow-up questions depending on answers.
• The easiest way to follow along is to use third-party Twitter clients such as TweetDeck, HootSuite or Seesmic. Create a #runchat column and then follow along. If you have trouble finding the question, you can follow the #runchat moderator list HERE and then add us as a separate column.
• ALL runners are welcome. Whether you’re just starting out or just run for fun or you enter every community race or whether you’re a seasoned marathoner, everyone is invited. Fast or slow, it doesn’t matter. There’s a wealth of information that everyone can learn from in that hour. If you’re curious and want to watch the conversation, you’re welcome to do that, too.
• For additional information visit my #runchat page. As always, we’re looking for question suggestions. Feel free to leave them in the comments below!

It’s funny how a new job can be so draining — there’s so much newness that mentally I’m just drained. I opted not to run this morning because I was just flat-out tired. I can’t let it slip up too much or else I’ll be back to talking about needing to run in the morning. It’s also left me with not much to say about running this week. It’s not really a bad thing — maybe I need that brief break anyway.

Anyway, Scott and I have some exciting news about this week’s #runchat on Twitter. EverStride is back as a sponsor with another great giveaway, their runners kit that includes essentials for runners: Foot Cream, Fungus Defense and the Chafe Stick. We’ll also be giving away a #runchat T-shirt.

If you’ve never taken part in #runchat, you can find the details here. It’s really simple to join in — create a #runchat tag to follow along in HootSuite, TweetDeck, Seesmic, or whatever you use on Twitter. Scott and I ask running-related questions 5-10 minutes and you answer, respond to other answers, retweet answers you like, etc. It’s really that easy. The fun gets under way at 8 p.m. ET Sunday.

For details on the giveaways, go HERE to read more on Scott’s blog. If you have any questions you’d like to see on #runchat this week or in future #runchat sessions, leave a comment below.