Running Notes

Category Running
Today was my 28th day of streaking! As I mentioned in a recent blog post I have been running every day. Today marked a full four weeks.

Some interesting observations:

I feel great. Yes, this is surprising to me. Like many runners, I really believed that rest days were just as important as running days. Now that I am running every day, and reading up on running every day, I am seeing that this isn’t exactly true. It might be true if I was training for a marathon and going really long distances, or if I was doing speed workouts. However, I mostly run short, easy runs. 2-4 miles at my “easy” pace. By “easy” I mean I can (and do) carry on a conversation. Only two of the runs were races, and incidentally both were PRs.

Lots of people seem more impressed with the fact that I am running every day, than the fact that I have run a half marathon. This is fascinating to me. Having experienced both, the half marathon was MUCH harder. So far, running every day has been pretty easy. Really no different than running every other day.

It’s surprisingly not that big of a deal. I sort of thought hitting four weeks, I would be ecstatic. Kind of like finishing a marathon or something. Instead, it’s become habit, and just “is”. Which is nice, but weird.

I expected to have some good runs and some bad runs in there, as is usual for me. However, they’ve been good runs and a couple of great runs. Something to be said for consistency, huh?

Since starting 28 days ago, I’ve lost 9 pounds. Granted, in addition to running, I’ve also returned to healthier eating. No more peanut M&Ms and Dr. Pepper to get through my afternoon stress. Go me!

A side note, but fitness related – I have completed week 2 of the 100 pushups program. I had to switch to the “alternative” pushups since every pushup made a weird crackling/grinding noise in my shoulder. After week 2, you are supposed to take the assesment test again. I re-read the description of good form pushups and tried the assessment doing regular pushups. I spread my hands out a bit further than before and HOORAY, no grinding noise. So I think I will continue with regular pushups. However, I will be repeating Week 2 due to my poor assessment test.

Oh, and here's the chart from my running log on RunningAHEAD. Isn't it purty?

Posted by Kathy Brown At 2:16 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (5)

Category Quickr Lotus Notes
Anyone have input for some Quickr Best Practices?

My situation: my customer is looking to implement Quickr as a document management system (among other things, but this is first priority). The current system consists of a server drive with folder and subfolders. I’m looking for input on the best Quickr implementation.

Let’s call the server “Fruit”. There are two main folders, “Apples” and “Oranges”. Within both Apples and Oranges, there are subfolders. Apples contains “McIntosh”, “Granny Smith”, “Fuji”, “Rome”, etc. There are various folders and documents within each of those. Same goes for Oranges, there are subfolders, “Navel”, “Valencia”, etc.

So my question is whether Apples and Oranges should be Quickr places, and McIntosh and Navel should be rooms within those places, or if McIntosh and Navel should be places of their own? What are considerations for either way of setting it up?

With over 300 types of apples, we’d rather get this right on the first try. I’ve done a bit of searching around (admittedly, not a lot) and not found anything regarding a Best Practice for the architecture of a Quickr server.

I realize we can use tagging and such to categorize documents, so that will eliminate some of the need for “folders”, particularly, I am thinking the subfolders within each variety (Navel) will be unnecessary.

My first instinct is to create a place for each variety. Creating more places with fewer documents, rather than a few places with loads of documents. However, I am not a Quickr expert, and so turn to the “Yellow-verse” for your opinions.

We will need to search across all Apples. I’m not entirely sure if that makes a big difference.

Don’t be too hard on me, remember I’m a dev, not a Quickr Implementation Specialist! My admins don’t have blogs, so I’m asking the question on their behalf. Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts/experiences. Or feel free to tell me I am a moron, and show me a link.

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:00 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (10)

Category Running
So I'm experimenting with daily running. I have to say, I LOVE it! The shortest run was two miles, the longest was the 10k race last weekend. Yesterday was 15 days in a row running. I feel great. I thought I would be sore, but not yet! Granted, most all of my runs are very easy, and as I said there were a couple short ones, which I'm guessing worked similarly to days off.

Daily running is a terrific motivator! There have been several days over the last two weeks, which I normally would have blown off running. Sunday is a prime example, it was 5 PM and I had a great race the day before. My arms were covered in poison ivy rashes. It was raining. Seriously, Excuse City! I would have skipped this run, except I didn't want to blow my daily running streak! So I got dressed, got out the door and ran.

I have no goals or expectations for how long I will do this. I would like to do it for as long as I can. When the streak gets broken, I want to start again and beat it. What do you think? How long can I do it?

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:00 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category Running
Today I ran the Market Square Day (MSD) 10k in Portsmouth, NH. Much like last week, I didn't have any big expectations for this race. I've only run two other 10Ks. I ran MSD last year. Last year, I had hoped to break 60 minutes and came in with 1 hour, 2 minutes and 3 seconds. My second 10k was the Saunders 10k last August. I managed to break the one hour mark with 57:48.

So, I didn't care about a PR, would have liked to come in under 60 minutes, but wouldn't be upset no matter what.

I liked this race a lot last year because there were a lot of spectators. The race starts in downtown Portsmouth at the start of a street fair/festival type thing (that's the official term). The course makes a quick loop around the downtown area and heads into nearby neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are the best part. People stand in their front yards cheering. Last year many many people had music playing loudly for the runners. Motivating music like Eye of the Tiger from Rocky and the theme from Chariots of Fire. This year the number of spectators seemed to be down from last year, and there were definitely fewer musical interludes. There were plenty of people holding out hoses to spray down hot runners, which was great because it WAS hot, despite a 9 AM start.

There are a few hills, which I of course swore at as I ran up them, but the course isn't too bad elevation-wise.

I did discover yet another running motivational tip, and that is what I dub "pre-blogging". Many athletes visualize winning races or olympic medals and they feel that helps them perform better in competitive events. I found thinking about what I would blog after the race to be my visualization. I wanted to write that I had a PR. I wanted to write that I had a great race. I wanted to write that I once again conquered hills and heat and running in general. Guess what? It worked. I finished in 57:15 (official time). A PR by more than 30 seconds!

There won't be any race reports for a little while. My next race isn't scheduled until the Saunders 10k in August. Don't worry though, I'm sure I'll post plenty of regular running post between now and then.

A post-race note: if you find yourself in a race of some sort, and you'd like to be running faster than those around you, UNLESS YOU ARE TRYING TO COME IN FIRST, don't be an a$$hole and dodge in and out of people reckelssly just to get ahead of someone by 10 feet. (And if you have any chance of coming in first, don't start at the back of the freakin pack.)

Posted by Kathy Brown At 7:41 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (4)

Category Printing Lotus Notes
I was polled on a request for ongoing printing needs of documents in a Notes application. Documents to be printed off at regular intervals and copied and bound for certain sets of users. These are all documents easily available to view in a Notes application. So that got me to wondering WHY a user would want them printed.

Several reasons occurred to me, some with easy solutions and some not. What do you think? What are your solutions?

Here are my thoughts…

Reason #1) Users go “offline” and don’t realize that the Notes app can go offline with them. They mistakenly believe if they are off to the airport, or in a cab, that the Notes app is unavailable to them, so they want a printout of materials for review.

Solution #1) This one is easy. Introduce the user to local replicas and location docs.

Reason #2) Habit. They are just used to having stuff printed off and continue to request new materials in the old way.

Solution #2) Retrain the users. This one is a little tougher to implement, although some of it is the same solution as #1. It can be difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.

Reason #3) Bad design. Maybe the UI is so bad that users either can’t find what they are looking for, or can’t read it once they find it.

Solution #3) Redesign the UI bits that people are printing. Make sure your users can find stuff and read it on screen. Take into account your user’s screens. How are they typically accessing the documents? Big screens, little screens? Web? Blackberry? Email? A view?

Reason #4) ?? Maybe they really hate trees.

So what am I missing? Why do users cling to hardcopies?

Posted by Kathy Brown At 10:25 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (15)

Category Running
Okay, maybe not by elite runner standards, but by MY standards I kicked that race's a$$.

So for a little backstory...my PR (personal record) for a 5k was 27:46 from a 5k in May. This was a GREAT time for me. I started running in September of 2007. My first 5k in November of that year was 34:40. Seven minute improvement in one and a half years isn't too bad in my book. I will never forget the 5k that I ran last year when I was THRILLED to have broken the 30-minute mark. When I first started running that had seemed impossible.

Now, I had ZERO expectations for today. I already had a PR in May. I am running a 10k next weekend. So, I figured I would just run this race and see. This course is VERY hilly. According to Big Red, 602 foot elevation increase and 556 foot decrease. Also, today was HOT. 77 degrees F with not a lot of shade on the course. You can see why my expectations for today were so low.

According to my Garmin, I ran the first mile in 8:46. WHAT?! That is crazy-fast for me. It's the hills. As I've blogged about before, I get mad. I don't slow down, and that is what worked for me here. At every hill, I just pushed myself faster. On one of the rare flat parts, I had to remind myself to pick it up a bit.

Unofficial finish time (in other words, my watch and not the official race chip time, which hasn't been posted yet) was 27:12! A 30-second PR over my last best time. WOW! That was exciting. Now top that all off with the fact that this was the Smuttynose 5k, so guess what was being served after the race? Free Smuttynose beer! W00t!

Does it get any better? Oh wait, it does! They had a live band and free pizza, chili and wings. I had a great time hanging out in the sun, drinking a beer (or two) and eating some pizza.

So while I didn't come in first or anything like that, I did completely kill my time from last year in this race (29:28, it was even hotter last year) and got a PR!!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 3:58 PM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (8)

Category Running
I just finished a run this morning. A run so great, I had to blog about it. Imagine that! So what was so magical about this run?

Well, I was eager to do it this morning, which is a change. Although I love running and how I feel AFTER a run, I don't generally look forward to them. While I was running, I was having fun. It was one of those great runs where my mind just wanders. I wasn't bored, or counting down the minutes, or constantly checking my pace or distance. I wasn't griping in my head about this pain or that. I was just running. Listening to birds chirp and watching squirrels. Okay, I did have to jump over a dead frog at the last minute, but still...

Anyway, so what caused this great run to occur you ask. I think I know. Are you ready for it?

I planned a short run. I normally run 3-5 miles. I occasionally plan LONG runs of 6+ miles. Today, I wanted to run, but I am running a race tomorrow, so I didn't want to run a lot. I planned to run 2 miles. Somehow knowing I was only running two miles made me ecstatic! I was excited to run, excited WHILE running, knowing it was only two miles.

Now by plan a short run, I really mean plan it. I don't think it works the same if you plan three and cut it short. It also isn't the same if you say you're only going to run two and then run three. Just not the same. I felt like running more, but I stuck to my plan. And KNOWING that this wasn't some mental game I play with myself to get myself to run is what made it so motivating!

So get out there, for a nice SHORT run! And enjoy yourself!

Posted by Kathy Brown At 8:45 AM Location Portsmouth, NH | Permalink | Comments (0)