AT&T versus Verizon, part one

I’ve been a cus­tomer of AT&T’s for over sev­en years. For the most part it was six good years and one real­ly bad year. When I first switched over to AT&T Wire­less their GSM cov­er­age was spot­ty, but the dead zones were con­sis­tent and I when I was­n’t in one the recep­tion was clear and strong. In 2005 when Cin­gu­lar bought AT&T the dead zones dis­ap­peared and I’ve had clear recep­tion any­where in the City limits.

So when Apple cut … Read the rest

First blister from barefooting

Today I did­n’t feel like I had much time to spare—I have a lot to get done—so I decid­ed to take a short bare­foot hill run rather than skip­ping the run alto­geth­er. Adding 1.3 miles to the log isn’t much, but zero would have brought the aver­age down much more.

I man­aged to avoid all of the obsta­cles I saw on the side­walk in front of me, includ­ing glass and nails, but still came away with a blis­ter on … Read the rest

‘Round the ballpark

I would have liked to have got­ten out the door before I start­ed my work­day, but there were things that were bro­ken and had to be fixed first thing, and I did­n’t get out the door until after 5 o’clock.

I took a basic loop out past the ball­park and back the oth­er side, very sim­i­lar to many of the ball­park runs I’ve done this year. The sun was hot and my knee does­n’t seem to be ful­ly recov­ered but … Read the rest

Another 5K and I’m slowing down

Today’s race in Gold­en Gate Park went more slow­ly than I’d have liked. Slow­ing by six­teen sec­onds in the 5K between June 20th and July 4th did­n’t both­er me, but adding an addi­tion­al minute and fif­teen sec­onds to that time is a warn­ing sign.

It’s easy to guess why I might be slow­ing. I had an entire week between races and I did­n’t get out on the road once. I know I said that I had to cut … Read the rest

2010 Alameda RACE

I could­n’t have asked for a nicer day for a race. The sun was shin­ing but it was­n’t too hot, even con­sid­er­ing the rel­a­tive­ly late race start of 9:45 am. The race course takes advan­tage of the street clo­sures for the Alame­da Inde­pen­dence Day Parade and the run­ners start fif­teen min­utes before the parade follows.

Because we fol­lowed the parade course, the race had a big audi­ence. Peo­ple lined the streets the whole way, and the streets were … Read the rest

Out for a test run

Seri­ous­ly, that’s exact­ly what today’s short run was: a test. I want­ed to know if I feel good enough to run a race tomor­row. Until yes­ter­day I’d been plan­ning on rep­re­sent­ing my neigh­bor­hood at the DSE Potrero Hill 4 Mil­er, a real­ly fun course around my neigh­bor­hood and up San Fran­cis­co’s real twisti­est (or at least most sin­u­ous) street, Ver­mont Street. It’s a course that gets run only once a year and I’ve been look­ing for­ward to run­ning it … Read the rest

A bad run always turns into a good run… eventually

It took a while to get warmed up today.

Some days are like this. I remem­ber the first time I ever ran up Twin Peaks, the first mile was all flat and then it was all uphill. By the time I’d run the flat sec­tion I was dis­cour­aged and ready to quit. Not just quit by pick­ing anoth­er route, but quit run­ning and walk back home. It was dif­fi­cult and my legs were scream­ing at me to quit. I felt like … Read the rest

Just do it. Wait, wrong shoe company.

On crankyfitness.com there is a post about good diet and exer­cise habits that stress­es that per­fec­tion­ism is the key ene­my. There’s a very amus­ing dia­logue between Crab­by and her con­science about get­ting to the gym. It’s real­ly true that the hard­est part of run­ning is (often) just get­ting out the door. That’s one of the rea­sons (per­haps the most impor­tant rea­son) for all the spe­cial­ized gear: the run­ning shoes, the Dri-Fit or Cool­Max cloth­ing, the GPS and heartrate mon­i­tor. If … Read the rest

More trouble with the knee

I think I’m about done with these Grid Omni 5s from Saucony. I’m sup­posed to ease into run­ning in the Kin­varas by run­ning with them every oth­er run or so, but I’m find­ing it uncom­fort­able to go back to the Omnis. At the very least, I’m find­ing it easy to blame a poor run on the shoes.

It’s not van­i­ty at work, but wish­ful think­ing. I’d love to believe that the pain I’m hav­ing in my knee will be mag­i­cal­ly … Read the rest

It only hurts when I walk

I think I have injured myself. Strange­ly enough, I seem to run fastest when I’m in pain.

I have top-of-the foot pain and knee pain, in my left foot and left knee. Some­times I’m walk­ing with a pro­nounced limp. This is not how it’s sup­posed to be, but here’s what I believe is the strange part: it does­n’t hurt when I run.

A few years back I ran a race—it was a 5K in Gold­en Gate Park like today’s race—where I … Read the rest