The Royal Parks Half Marathon was my first full-blown race, officially-timed, and my first attempt at the 21.1K distance. Never did that distance before, even during my practise runs, and my body is screaming at me not to do it again. But we’ll see.
The race was pretty comfortable for the first 10K, but when I hit 13K, my hip started to hurt and I had to drop down to a walk to recover.
The remaining race was much slower than the first half with my hip and my hamstring (both of them) hurting like hell. Even when I got to towards the finish line, people were walking. One of them had pulled muscle, so I stopped to help him out for a bit. He was concerned about my time, but as long as I finish, I’m happy.
I got over the finish line in 2:03:35 according to Endomondo, and my official time was 2:07:33. Considering this was my first half marathon, and I managed to average 6:00 min/km (I hit 20K at 2:00:00).
It was a painful journey home too. My legs hurt like hell, climbing up or down stairs made the pain spike, but it’s getting easier now.
I don’t think I’ll be running a full marathon any time soon, until I can get the Half Marathon distance down comfortably. It was really hard going at the end:
And plenty of new achievements and awards from Nike+
Just got an email from the RPHM organisers. There’s an app in the Google Play store that allows you to track the runners (including me) during the race, and also provides split times as they run over the timing mats. For runners, it also shows you where you are on the course at that time. Although I wouldn’t recommend it – you need to make sure you’re not running into the barriers :D
Eliud Kipchoge won the Berlin Marathon on Saturday. You probably didn't know this if you're American. That's fine; marathons don't make for great spectating, and the Boston Marathon is the only race that really becomes part of the national conversation stateside.
But you’re going to want to hear just how Kipchoge won the Berlin Marathon. That’s the real story here, one both inspiring and maddening at the same time.
Eventually both insoles would become so dislodged that Kipchoge was forced to run most of the race with an insole hanging out of each shoe.
Kipchoge's shoes. Imagine running like this.
IMAGE: MICHAEL SOHN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
But there was no way to stop. Fixing the problem would waste precious time, and the irritation had grown so great there was no guarantee he'd be able to commence running again once he'd stopped.
And the most important line of the article:
“I had pain in my foot, but what could I do?” he told Runner's World. “I had to finish the race.”
This seems to be a norm these days, but it is still unhygenic and disgusting. I’d love to push the spitter’s face into their own spit and order them to lick up every drop of it…. But I’d probably be violating their “human rights”….
With the final weeks ticking down before the run, I’m dropping the plan and concentrating on getting my endurance up. Today’s target was 9 km. Achieved that in 56 mins. Tomorrow, going to try 10 km, then Sunday, try to make it 12 km.
健毅 黃 was out running. He tracked 9.35 km in 56m:52s.
People who bring full sized bikes onto trains. Tolerable on rail services, as some train stations are quite far out of towns, but on underground trains where every inch of space is a premium, and valuable, a bike is worth at least three spaces…. Posted from WordPress for Android
SPOTIFY RELEASED A new privacy policy that is now in effect, and it turns out that the company wants to learn a lot more about you and there’s not much you can do about it.
We encourage everyone to read the whole privacy policy before downloading the update or checking off the “Accept” box, but in case you have better things to do, here are some highlights from it.
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“With your permission, we may collect information stored on your mobile device, such as contacts, photos, or media files. Local law may require that you seek the consent of your contacts to provide their personal information to Spotify, which may use that information for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.” – Spotify
Like a jealous ex, Spotify wants to see (and collect) your photos and see who you’re talking to. What kind of media files Spotify will collect from you is vague, and why the company needs it is unclear, but it’s doing it regardless. Also, the fact that Spotify expects you to go through your contact list and ask everyone for their consent in sharing their data with Spotify is–what’s the word? Oh yes: it’s ridiculous.
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“You may integrate your Spotify account with Third Party Applications. If you do, we may receive similar information related to your interactions with the Service on the Third Party Application, as well as information about your publicly available activity on the Third Party Application. This includes, for example, your “Like”s and posts on Facebook.” – Spotify
It shouldn’t surprise you that if you connect your Spotify account to Facebook, Spotify will be able to see the information you post there. If this bothers you, we suggest that you log into your Spotify preferences and disconnect Spotify from your Facebook account (more information on how to do this can be found here). After all, Facebook isn’t all that necessary to use Spotify (unless, of course, you want your friends to know you’re listening to Owl City).
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“If you don’t agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, then please don’t use the Service.” – Spotify
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I value my privacy, so I’ll stop using Spotify. Bye Spotify, I won’t miss you.
Plan asked for 3.2km, but I’m more eager to increase my mileage right now. The Endomondo plan isn’t training my endurance (the max distance the Endomondo plan is going to do pre-race 9.90km), so I’m going to start upping my mileage bit by bit. Yesterday, I did 5k, which was 2.5 laps round my local park, then today, I did 3.5 laps around my park (which is +2 km), tomorrow, I’m aiming to do 4.5 laps, which should get me to 9km, all being well.
I think I’ll probably pass on getting Lattes in future. The foamed milk is behaving like baked beans in my body and leading to some weird after effects :P
Source: Bet you can’t tell whether or not the girl in this picture is real
