Archives: Runs

I’d nev­er gone for a run on sand before. I’ve heard some advo­cates of bare­foot run­ning claim that run­ning bare­foot on sand encour­ages good form, improves ground feel, and so on. Since now I live so near to a stretch of beach it seems that I have a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to get some vari­ety in my work­outs, even more so because I’m not in a posi­tion yet to be work­ing on get­ting fast. Keep­ing it inter­est­ing while pos­si­bly help­ing to … Read the rest

It’s been a bit too long since I’ve been out for a run. There’s real­ly no excuse. Alame­da is very flat so I don’t have to con­tend with hills, and the weath­er has been fan­tas­tic. I have a great neigh­bor­hood for run­ning, being sur­round­ed by beau­ti­ful hous­es and just a few blocks from the beach. Also, I’m new in town and explor­ing by foot is the best way to find my way around. 

So of course get­ting start­ed was the … Read the rest

This is one of my old routes from before my motor­cy­cle acci­dent in 2007. This was before I had a GPS so I mea­sured out dis­tances using my bicy­cle and then stuck to routes I’d mea­sured. I mea­sured enough seg­ments to give myself a rea­son­able amount of vari­ety when run­ning, but it still felt very mod­u­lar: if I want to add a half mile, go to the end of the Munic­i­pal Pier and back. If I want to add … Read the rest

Today San Fran­cis­cans made their choic­es for May­or, Dis­trict Attor­ney, and Sher­iff, as well as a num­ber of City bal­lot ini­tia­tives, most­ly about bor­row­ing mon­ey (alleged­ly) for street repairs and changes to the con­tri­bu­tions City employ­ees make to their pensions.

The may­oral race was on sched­ule; Lt Gov­er­nor Gavin New­som left his post as May­or when he was elect­ed to Sacra­men­to, but he would have termed out this year any­way so he would­n’t have been run­ning any­way. Instead the «incum­bent» … Read the rest

I start­ed out going just for some cat food. Being made of meat and liv­ing with car­ni­vores I find it pru­dent to make sure there is always an alter­na­tive food sup­ply for gato y gati­ta. I want­ed to at least get some walk­ing in. With a race com­ing up on Sun­day, espe­cial­ly one that is beyond my cur­rent fit­ness lev­els, I want to be sure that my legs are as fresh as they can be. When Mon­day’s run proved … Read the rest

I read recent­ly that it was a good idea to run with­out first eat­ing. It made sense at the time; some­thing about glyco­gen and fat stores. It made sense at the time, though now the googling I’ve done on the sub­ject is con­fus­ing at best. I’m start­ing to think that tak­ing it seri­ous­ly was a mistake.

Sat­ur­day’s 9.6‑miler was run with­out ben­e­fit of fuel­ing, though I ran that fair­ly ear­ly in the day. Today’s 5.7… Read the rest

There’s an excel­lent train­ing pro­gram for begin­ning run­ners called Couch-to-5K. It takes peo­ple from zero to run­ning a 5K race in nine weeks. It builds con­fi­dence and form with­out much risk of injury and count­less peo­ple have used it or some vari­ant to get their run­ning legs. I’ve been on the couch for some time, but as I’ve pre­vi­ous­ly described, 5K and short­er dis­tances are drea­ry for me. It’s the time I need to get … Read the rest

I start­ed off with calves that still hurt from Sun­day’s run. I start­ed by going uphill instead of down. I only got about three blocks before I had to drop down to a walk to make the top of the hill I was on. By all indi­ca­tions at the start, this should have been a very short run — maybe two miles — with a dec­la­ra­tion of vic­to­ry just for get­ting out on the road and doing a lit­tle hillclimbing.… Read the rest

Prob­a­bly the piz­za off­sets any ben­e­fit from the two miles of walk­ing, but who cares?

I used to get cof­fee at the Pic­ci­no Café back when I lived in Dog­patch. They make a mean lat­té. But I nev­er tried eat­ing there. Since those days they have expand­ed to a new loca­tion one block away from the old loca­tion with pret­ty much the same menu but with a full din­ing room and the cof­fee bar around the corner.

Their piz­zas are super-thin … Read the rest