Wk of Nov 6--2006 Disney Half-Full Marathon Info/Training

[chimera]

Hello everyone!

For those new to us, we're a group of people who are planning to participate in the 2006 and/or 2007 Disney Half or Full marathons. We range from non-running beginners to triathletes. Come join us!

Here's the Marathon FAQ, a great place to answer your marathon questions:
Disney Marathon FAQ
And some websites for further running/walking info:
http://www.runnersworld.com
http://www.coolrunning.com
http://www.halhigdon.com
http://www.running4women.com/
http://www.runnergirl.com/index.shtml
http://www.katherineswitzer.com/fitness.html
http://www.irongirl.com
http://www.marathonguide.com
The John Bingham site:
http://www.waddleon.com/
Jeff Galloway's site:
http://www.jeffgalloway.com/

Pacing Calculator

Just back from WDW so I'll be brief. It was hot for Nov!
I retired my Nike Shox from training so wore them for all day at AK yesterday. They were fabulous! No Disney feet or cranky ankle at the end of the day

Erin...glad to see you back!

Nancy...I think you'll be with us in 2007. I've seen your determination firsthand Definitely think about Minnie. You've got about 7 months to train and you're already at 16!

New rule...never sit next to the leftover Halloween candy while posting!

How is everyone training now that it's getting dark earlier? Indoors or in the dark?

 

[chimera]

BTW...only 2 months til marathon weekend

 

[plutosmyfav]

Lisa-- Too funny! I'm glad I'm not the only one with multiple personalities and talking body parts!

Cam-- Awsome splits. You are soooo far ahead of the sweeper. Way to Go!

Lilly, Awsome!!!!! I've never heard the WISH cheer before. I love it!

Lynne-- Yikes, if I saw a snake I would just die!!!! I'm terrified of snakes, whether its a gardner or python makes no difference!

Chimera-- way to use the good shoes at Disney Glad you had a blast.

OK, now onto my saga. I'm dying a million deaths of embarrassment. Read on.

Today's 5K: Well I set out to PR and I did by 4 seconds. Next time I'll have to be more specific with my goals. I came in 9/21 for my division, 89/181 overall, and 1st for the fillies. I was all happy until I discovered I was the only one that signed up as a filly. Sigh. (I even called my mom to boast of my great news. ugh.) My time was 25:53 (8:21). There was a person there from my work. If he congratulates me on my "first place" tomorrow I'll die again. Plus, this was Lexington, my home town. Not only my home town, but a town that way overdoes all of its "news" worthy events. I'm sure my results will be in the paper (hopefully without a photo). Ugh. I'm dying. If I didn't sign up as a Filly I would have had the respectable placement of 9/21 for my division. Ugh. I'm dying. So I have this beautiful blue ribbon medal hanging in my house to taunt me. ugh ugh ugh. I just can't bring myself to tell my family. Not out of pride but out of the pain I would see of them feeling bad for me for being disappointed. Ugh I don't think any of them know how to check Cool Runnings!

Onto a technical note;

I have serious issues with my Garmin. This is the second race where Garmin reported a much better pace. My half it said 9:19 and my chip pace was 9:28. This time it said 7:48 and my chip time was 8:21. Now I can see it having a slightly different distance/time because of when I start/stop it, but it should be consistent with the chip for pace. Now I am seriously rethinking the pace I think I've been training at. I understand the logic behind believing it will overestimate (underestimate distance) if anything, but the data doesn't support the theory. You'd think I'd have a better understanding of the technology since I work with satellites for a living. I'm going to ask around at work and see if I can get some info. From now on I think I will multiply my Garmin pace by 1.1 (a 10% adjustment). This is really important to me because if its wrong and I sign up for a 4:15 pace team but really am only ready for a 4:30 I could be spent by mile 18. I'm not happy with this discrepancy. A 10% adjustment should be overkill based on my race results (first race was off by 1.6%, second was off 7.0%). I'm sure the chip time/distance isn't absolute, but Disney won't be either. I'm going to have to do some more analysis on the bike path with the mile markers. Grrr. I want my technology to be perfect!

Sunny

 

[TEK224]

I did a 5.5 mile wog yesterday, testing out my sore quad for the first time in a month. I was happy with the time given the circumstances. I had a cushion for the sweepers. The quad was sore, but not overbearingly so. Figured I'd do the same route today.

Well, I got up this morning and my whole body ached Not so much from the previous days workout, but I felt like I was coming down with a cold/flu. Just felt I thought - what next?

I got up and took it easy during through early afternoon. I was determined not to skip today's workout. But I did modify it. I went to the track and just walked. Got in 3 miles before it got too dark. Did them in 44:39 so I again was under the sweeper time.

I hope having to deal with these things now will make the races seem like a breeze. I think I could at least walk under sweeper pace so that I can finish, if I have to.

My sis gave me some kind of homeopathic stuff to take. It's supposed to be for people who are just starting to feel ill with cold/flu. Supposed to help prevent a full-blown sickness. Started taking it tonight, so I hope it kicks in soon.

Terri

 

[solotraveler]

Evening all!

Sunny-- The way I see it, you can be an embarassed filly or a filly who is proud of her PR and her blue ribbon. Be a Proud Filly Oh, and don't worry about the paper. After all, those people who will point it out to you? They didn't run!!

As for my race pace, I just don't know where I'll be yet. I think I need a couple more long runs to really know where I'm at. I'll let you know as we get closer.

chimera- I don't mind running in the dark, actually. I prefer early mornings to evenings, though. The cold I have more of a problem with.


I did in fact negative split my 14 miler yesterday. I went out in 1:11:09 and came back in 1:08:08 for a total of 2:19:17. I was quite consistant in my (under) performance-- 8 of my miles were between 10:00 and 10:15.

I learned a valuable lesson last night-- when you run 14 miles in the morning, you can not subsist on a single granola bar for 12 hours after your run. Really... it suprised me too. I will not get into that Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day that was last night at work, but I should have realized something was up when my staff told me at 5pm that I didn't look so good. By 8pm, I had tanked. I had a terrible headache and I got very sick. A lie down, an Alieve and a protein shake later, I felt a lot better-- but my PSA for today is: "When you run a lot, you need to eat something later."

Hope everyone did well this weekend... 2 months to go!

Happy training all!
Solotraveler

 

[TEK224]

I love the chant Lily!

So will we here all the Wishers chanting this along the race course?

Terri

 

[xterratri]

Sunny- Great job on your PB AND your first place finish. Just because you were the only one with the courage to sign up in the fillie division for this race should not detract from your accomplishment. Yes, I said the courage to sign up, since I'm willing to bet that you were not the only runner over 140 lbs in the race.

About the Garmin- land navigation is a big deal to the Army understandably, so we spent a good portion of our field time on the topic. We were tested on map and compass navigation but had a class on GPS units with a small practical component to it. We had hand held GPS units(Garmin Etrex, I think) that we programmed in a provided coordinate and then followed the unit's directions to that point. The result was that everyone ended up within about a 8 meter radius of the known point. So Garmins aren't always exact on location which was the object of the lesson(rumor used to be that the military mandated a wobble factor for civilian units but have more exact ones for themselves and our trainer did tell us about other types of GPS recievers than the commercial Garmins we used that day). In addition, the Etrex uses up to 12 satellites for positioning as opposed to the Forerunners 3. What does that mean for us? The Garmin is constantly sampling the satellite triangulation and if it can be off by a factor of 5 m for every sample, the distance discrepancies can add up. If the distance is wrong, for a given time period, the pace is going to be messed up too. I think that we just have to accept that it's not perfect but that it is coming reasonably close. It's certainly better than a pedometer or any of the other currently available tech. It will be interesting to hear what the other satellite folks have to say.

BTW- your pace looks great for doing the 4:15 group and you could probably handle the 4:00 group too.

Cam, Lily- yeah!! Great job.

 

[plutosmyfav]

Lynne-- The Garmin only uses three satellites? Well that is probably the cause of the one-sided error then. For four coordinates (lat, lon, alt and time) an accurate measurement requires 4 satellites. If its only tracking 3, then it is using the receiver's clock for time and that can be way off. Its true there is a coarse "civilian" code and an encrypted military code. Of course we are using the coarse, but the induced wobble would show up as errors in both directions. From my own experience and others posting here with race results it appears we always (or usually) err in one direction. Interesting. I'll keep investigating. I'm just a geek at heart!

Thanks for the positive spin on my race. I knew I could count on you guys to turn it around

A question on pace: At what point in the training schedule should we consider our pace "fixed", that is, we really aren't going to improve any more and can be fairly sure of what our race pace should be?

ETA: It just occurred to me to go got the Garmin site for info. They do indeed claim receiver clocks will add error. They also say the intentional degradation to the civilian signal was turned off in 2000. I guess my info is a bit dated! (however, there still is a civilian signal and a military signal)

Sunny

 

[princessmomma]

Lynne-- The Garmin only uses three satellites? Well that is probably the cause of the one-sided error then. For four coordinates (lat, lon, alt and time) an accurate measurement requires 4 satellites. If its only tracking 3, then it is using the receiver's clock for time and that can be way off. Its true there is a coarse "civilian" code and an encrypted military code. Of course we are using the coarse, but the induced wobble would show up as errors in both directions.

Sunny

Ah, yeah....what she said???

All I know is that my Garmin is really off somedays.

Sunny, as one Fillie to another, all I say is ...wow!.. a sub 26 minute 5 K is awesome!! You really be so proud of all you have accomplished in the past year. So some of us are bigger boned! I am proud that I am going to get this big body of mine(all 6 feet of me) across 26 miles on January 9th! Yes, it would be a lot easier if I was 5' 6" and 100 lbs, but I am not! I just say yeah, for me!

xterratri, I don't think I will be anywhere near your pace if you are hoping to finish around 4:00. Right now I am around 10:15-10:30's for my long runs, so I am hoping to finish under 4:30 and if all the stars align correctly that day, 4:20 would be awesome!! That being said, I have never done this before and don't really know the impact of miles 20-26! I have a lot of acquaintances who ran Marine Corp last weekend and some of them really tanked at the end. A few guys were running 8:30 miles and then the last 6 where 12:00's. BTW, Marine Corp Marathon's website had a feature that breaks down everyone's race results by mile and will also "map" out a certain runner's run on the course (the little dot actually moves around the course as the time elapses). Will they have something like this for Disney?

Solo..great run.

Terri, hope you are feeling better. DH (who is training for Kiawah Island Marathon) was really sick this weekend too. He ran his 18 miles on Saturday and then spent most of the day in bed today. He is hoping to make his Boston qualifying time, so he really goes out hard on this LR's.

Mel, hope you had a great time at DW!! Lucky you!

Colleen

 

[gatorphipps]

Hey everyone! Got back in town last night but did not get to look @ posts until today. I am gone for a couple of days and there are 100000000 posts. WOW! So I skimmed through them but I know I am missing SO many people.

Sunny - Be proud of yourself! I am...you held a wonderful pace and have worked very hard to get where you are. Here you go..

Melissa - congrats on your double LRs.

Well DH and I did the 18 mile LR Friday. We averaged around a 10 min mile or just a little above! We were very pushed for time so I think we ran hard the whole time. He did not even use his MP3 player. We chatted the whole time (until the end - all uphill - where I asked him if he would think less of me if I threw up ). I have had some kind of cold so I think this affected (or is it effected) me. But anyway..we got through the double LRs with good paces and we were not even sore! Tired, but not sore....I even enjoyed the womens confrence I went to help with.

to everyone's training this week. I hope everything is spelled OK...I did not go back and check.
Christa

 

[TXBelle]

Great job everyone on your LR this weekend! I did my 8 mile LR in 1:56. I made the mistake of deciding to start at run 3/walk 2 at the beginning, and I am just not ready for that. I did that 3 miles and then had to switch back to walk 3/run 2. My pace was much better at my normal training pace (walk 3/run 2). I learned that I just need to stick with the walk 3/run 2 because that works best for me. I went back to my Wave Runners and they were fine, but my hip is still killing me. So, the good news is that it's not the
Asics, the bad news is that I have serious hip pain. I took Cam's advice and took a long soak in a cold whirlpool tub after the run and that felt good. I also iced the hip but that didn't seem to make much of a difference. Tomorrow is a rest day then back to training on Tuesday.

Have a great week everyone!

 

[NYcpa]

Today was supposed to be a rest day. Since I don't think we will get many more 75 degree days in November, Erin and I walked 2 miles in 40 min at Green Lakes State Park. Here is a link to some pictures I took there today.
www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2117913318&idx=1
Green Lake is one of two meromictic lakes in the area. The other is Round Lake which is located adjacent to Green Lake. Interestingly, there is no fall and spring turnover of waters as with other lakes. Round Lake is a National Natural Landmark registered at 180 feet deep and Green Lake is measured at 195 feet deep.

The trail goes around the lake. It is very deep and the water is normally a very pretty shade of green. The wind today caused the water to ripple so it didn't show up as green as it really is.

 

[plutosmyfav]

Kathy-- those pics are great! Thanks so much for sharing them. I love seeing other people's training grounds!


Heather-- I'm so sorry to hear you are still have hip pain. I can't remember, have you had it looked at?

Colleen-- Thanks! Yes we will be very proud when we cross that finish line. During my race I envisioned the strong flanks of a clydesdale as I ran. I thought to myself "big and powerful". That kept me moving

I guess it could have been worse. I could have not seen the results on line and went ot the gym tomorrow and told everyone of my "feat"!!!!

Back to the Garmin. Colleen's post prompted me to think of the "off" days. My half was off by 1.6% and it was a beautiful sunny day, blue skies, little clouds. Today was off by 7% and it was terribly overcast and a fine mist in the air. Atmospheric conditions definitely introduce more error. So, I will take that into consideration when I "adjust" my pace. On sunny days I'll add 2%, on overcast days I'll at 8% (unless the current data gives me reason to think differently). I'm coming to grips with my Garmin I guess I won't throw it out the window just yet!!!!!! This all brings me to the little boy I ran with today. I'd guess he was about 8 or 9. He ran side-by-side with me through mile 2.0 to ~2.8. Then I got ahead of him. Near the end he rocketed past me. No equipment, no music, just the beautiful gait of a kid who hasn't "learne how to run" but just does it naturally.

Christa-- way to go on the 18, even if you didn't finish real "lady like". Ending a LR uphill is brave!

Sunny

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

Kathy, great pics!

Sunny, I'm with Solo

Sunny-- The way I see it, you can be an embarassed filly or a filly who is proud of her PR and her blue ribbon. Be a Proud Filly Oh, and don't worry about the paper. After all, those people who will point it out to you? They didn't run!!

I think you should be PROUD and not care. You were out there!

Solo, good lesson. I hope I learn from your experience and not ever experience it firsthand.

Terri, hope we'll be hearing that chant. For sure at Trails End. We did this January. It was fun!

Thanks for the info on the Garmin...I guess I need to know that it is not exact. For me, I am hoping it is close enough to keep me where I want to be...in front of the sweepers and a little time for picture ops.

Mel, so to answer your question...never me at night here. I am way to frightened of falling over something. Won't be where I can't see what I am stepping into. So it is the dreaded gym equipment for me during the week. Weekends I long for permissible weather.

Everyone, glad to hear of your progress.

Looking for the rest of the group. Where is everyone else?

 

[MelRhoads]

Sunny - I'll have to let you in on a really embarassing story from April. I went to run a race w/ my SIL about 4hrs away from here. I looked up last yrs. results and decided that I should enter the 10k instead of the 5k because not many people entered it the previous year and I might actually place in my age category. As you know from my paces, I'm a slow runner, and I figured it would be worth trying. I entered and ended up winning 2nd in my age division. Well, the boy (who had just celebrated his 3rd b'day) saw his 10yo cousin win a trophy, so naturally, he wanted one. I let him go get mine. He was so excited. He didn't like the fact that it had a girl on top, but he got over it. The embarassing part is that he carried it EVERYWHERE he went for the rest of the weekend! He carried it into restaurants, where he would leave to go to the bathroom with his dad and leave me sitting at the table with a 2nd place trophy with a woman running on top. I know people though that I was so proud that I brought it in with me and sat it on the table. He would of course, forget to carry it out of wherever he took it in, and that left me with it again!!!!! FOR ALL TO SEE. My favorite part of the weekend was when the housekeeper at the hotel asked him about it and he said "I got it running in a race!" Anyway, I guess I got my dose of humility that weekend for sure!!!! Oh, and by the way, I think it is great that you signed up for and won the filly cat.!!!!!

Lilly - WTG!!!!! You did great!

OK - I have been out of town on a romantic weekend. We just picked up the boy and after 8hrs in the car are back home! I'm going to sleep!

 

[TEK224]

Sunny - be proud of your Filly status! At least you were out there participating.

I'm a filly (make that a Philly?) person too. Although I have about 100 pounds on you. But I'll be out there. As long as I finish I'll be happy. PR's will have to wait until after the first race has been completed.

Terri

 

[plutosmyfav]

MelR-- that is tooo funny! Kids and races have a way of keeping us humble!!!

Terri-- Your first race is your PR, in fact, your training is your current PR. Way to go! Thanks for the pep talk

Lilly-- I don't want to alarm anyone with my anal Garmin calculations, but I think it is a good idea to not count too drastically on the exact pace it gives you.

ug:

(DS asked me to put all those clippies in) He's singing "banana, banana, pink head..."

Sunny

 

[wtpclc]

OK, bear with me, a lot to say today.

Congrats to Heather for the 8- miler. A little advice on the hip. Ice, rest adn Advil.

COngrats ti Lily, solo and Lynne on the 14-milers!!! Woo hoo!

Solo - Tsk Tsk. You know better. On the bright side, you didn't have to stay 'til the end of teh game in that nasty weather. BTW - who won?

Congrats to CHrista on the 18-miler!!!!

Congrats to cam and crzy4 pooh on your LR's! WOo hoo!

Sunny - A new PR is a new PR. Way to go!!!!

Kathy - Hang in there! You will get your strength back, but it will take time. Kepp up the good work! Cool pic!

Erin - So good to see you!!!!! SOrry about your knee. I hope you can at least do the half with your mom. Good that you have each other to train with!

Lisa - Sorry about your being side-lied. With your determination, it won't be for long!

OK. Here's my deal. Thursday and Friday the hip felt great and I was really excited to run Saturday (somebbody please take my temperature.)

Well, the word was slowwwwww. In teh beginnin git was for rpecautionary sake, I was afraid after not running for a weeka dn a half. At the end, turtle was all I could manage. Funny sory:

So, around mile 11, we are running gthrough tthis neighborhood and a guy has just gotten out of his truck in his driveway. He yells up to us, "You two training fora marathon?"

"Well, yes we are."

"I thought so, 'cause I passed you guys about an hour ago. You going about 15 today?" (What is the main a genius who caluculated time and pace?)

"Well 14."

"That's great! You're looking good."

"Thanks."

I don't know why, but ht whole conversation was kind of cool. However, my brain went off on the looking good comment. No, actually, I'm sure I look like death, but I'm not gonna' let 3 piddly miles stop me from finishing this sucker. So, I ask you, when did 3 miles become piddly to me???? (DH said when I had already run 11. Duh.)

After a bit, dh says, "We've become that girl."

"WHat girl?"

"Remember? This spring? That girl who passed us a s we were finishing our run and did not pass by our window again until after we finished dinner."

"Oh, yeah. THAT girl. When did we become her?"

This is all kind of scary people. I think we have all become runner somewhere along the way. We took it in such little steps that we never realized how far we really are. Wow!

OK, bored you long enough. Have a GREAT week everyone!

 

[wfloyd]

With all the talk about GPS and the accuracy, here is a brief synopsis of what I have learned in classes and on the job. It may be long and somewhat boring but it covers some of the anomolies and working of GPS systems in general.

Traditional GPS is accurate to within 10's of meters. There are 28 satellites with about 6 orbits around the earth. Meaning that theoretically at least 3 should be visible from any point on the earth at any given time. To calculate a position anywhere on the earth, it needs at least 4 satellites (this gives elevation as well, 3 can be used for just position). It will take the best signals that it can find in the sky and can change between satellites at any time if it needs to. Line of sight and interference objects (trees, buildings, clouds, windows...) will effect the accuracy of measurements as well as any atmospheric anomolies (earth heating and cooling...).

There is a Differential GPS (DGPS) that is accurate to within centimeters. This measurement includes a reference signal that is fairly close to the user. The reference signal is stationary on the ground and is used to offset any errors from the satellites. Since the reference is stationary, it also receives a location from the satellites and can see how far off any one may be measuring at a given time. It will then send this error out to the users. DGPS systems are expensive ($10,000+) and generally consumers don't use them.

Some of the satellites are getting old and new ones are being sent up to replace them but it takes a while. So the older ones are probably less accurate than the newer ones, which will also add to the errors.

The government had a "Selective Availability" option to degrade the accuracy for commercial GPS use. Mainly so bad guys couldn't hit a precise spot from far away. This was turned off in May of 2000 primarly because it didn't really do any good. If the bad guys could hit within 100-1000 meters of their target, they would just use a bigger weapon to ensure their objective was hit.

Garmin is probably calculating pace by taking the stopwatch and the distance measurements and figuring out the pace. I am also guessing they use some nice adaptive filters that will help smooth the signal to keep you from jumping back and forth. If your signal keeps moving a potential 20 meters at a time, the filter will generate some odd looking results and will effect your overall pace.

From my experience, in Florida, it appears the readings are within .03 miles (~150 feet)of each other. This isn't a scientific study since starting and stopping points aren't at the exact spot but within 20 feet each time for some of my runs but fairly close to give me confidence in the measurements. I will also notice that as I run under a cover of trees, my walking pace will jump from 14min/mile to 25 min/mile. Then there are times when it will go into an auto-pause (set at 30min/mile) at odd times but quickly resume again.

 

[plutosmyfav]

Carrie-- You've crossed over!!!!! You are no longer "one of them", those sane people who think running 3 miles is a pretty long ways Glad to hear you made it through your 14 miler after your running break.

From my experience, in Florida, it appears the readings are within .03 miles (~150 feet)of each other. This isn't a scientific study since starting and stopping points aren't at the exact spot but within 20 feet each time for some of my runs but fairly close to give me confidence in the measurements. I will also notice that as I run under a cover of trees, my walking pace will jump from 14min/mile to 25 min/mile. Then there are times when it will go into an auto-pause (set at 30min/mile) at odd times but quickly resume again.

My experience has been that the distance appears very accurate, too (if I can trust the mile markers on my route). I think the error is more in the timing. When the pace jumps way up under trees its probably due to the signal bouncing around (multiple paths) before reaching the Garmin.