On that trail

This weekend gave some indications that my training is definitely on track. On Saturday I ran a 5k in 18:18, which is faster than I've run since high school! Sure the course was downhil, A LOT, but it was great to know the legs still had the ability to go fast. Incidentally, in my little world, sub-6:00 miles for any race qualifies as fast, sub-7:00 min miles qualifies as pretty fast, and up to 8:30 is moving pretty good. Oh, for the other side anything between 5 and 6 min/mile is smoking fast, with anything sub-5:00 qualifying as DAMN! That's not DAMN fast, that's just DAMN!! These qualifications change given distance but I think they hold true for anything from 1 mile up to a 10k, I'd probably add 30s for a half-marathon and I think I'd probably add only 1-minute for females at all distances. For the marathon I'd go with Boston's qualifying standard indicating fast. I'm only newly being introduced to ultras and aren't quite sure what fast would be because courses vary so much. Based on my limited experience, it sounds like 20-hr/100-miles would mean fast. Aside from the St. George marathon, the real test for me will be in late September when we do a local 5k cross-country course and I'll have been spending a couple weeks tapering. We also just found a half-marathon that is almost exactly the same conditions as St. George. It'll be nice to know where I stand on breaking 3 hrs. If this last weekends results were any indication and Yasso 800s hold true I should be golden.

Over the last couple weeks I've been working on coding up Darcy's law in Java. It seemed like a pretty great place to start since it's simple and provides a way for me to learn lots of little things about software development. Once I get some of these basics down I thought I'd code up as many elements of the hydrologic cycle I can think of. This gives me the double bonus of teaching me Java and refreshing myself on all the hydrology I've forgot over the years. As part of this I'll code up some GIS, statistics and maybe even some chemistry with the idea that at some point (teams of experienced programmers do this kind of thing over years) I'll have a real model I can use. I also plan to spend a lot of time on documentation so that anybody wanting to use the code could readily have a textbook style summary of what they're doing. My within code documentation should resemble that used by Jo Wood in his book "Java Programming for Spatial Sciences". It's a bit outdated, but it provides a great introduction into planning and organization.

Lastly I think I may restructure the blogs so that I have one for sport, one for science, and one for miscellaneous day-to-day thoughts. Something to think about.

Ace!

Yesterday was one of those quality days where I felt useful and productive work, had the best disc golf game ever, and finished it off with some uproarious ping pong. The highlight was the disc golf: I finished the first 3 holes at -2, which was a first and I would've been more than happy if that was the best part of the game. I was at -5 by the last hole, the 12th. To date, -5 had been my best round ever and I was pretty happy, but hopeful for something better because usually I can get the 12th hole in 2. The 12th is about 250ft and a little downhill and definitely aceable (I actually threw one right through the chains last week, but it didn't stick). I let it fly and new I'd get my two and have the best game ever. I put my head down to pick up my bag and immediately thought, "that felt really good. I should watch where it goes" It landed about 5 ft from the basket and skipped right in. YEAAAHHH! Not clean, but it all counts the same. Finished at -7 in 12 holes: not too shabby.

Training schedule is on track

Just realized I hadn't updated this in almost a month. The marathon training schedule is still on track with last week being the toughest so far. Here's how it finished: 7 mile tempo run on Friday and 14 mile long run on Saturday: brutal. The legs were still not recovered for the Monday tempo run, but I struggled through. Weds. will be the toughest speed workout with five 1200s at 6min/mile scheduled. Yikes! At least we've only got a 10er in the plan for this Saturday.

Outside of running I've been working through my Java programming coursework and am still on schedule to be a certified programmer. I'm shooting for the end of October. On almost an hourly basis I realize things that I could build programs around to make my life easier. Basically, anything I do more than once I feel I should have a program ready to go. I'm pretty set on transitioning from NetBeans to Eclipse as a development environment and think I better get used to Git for version control (course I'd have to have a version of something first!) It's tough to think about the best way to develop while teaching myself so as to optimize the time I spend. It's way too easy to think of all the possibilities rather than sitting down and actually coding. I think I just made a new goal: on a weekly basis I'm going to write some simple GUIs to help practice all the coding I do as part of the class. Some folks go to church on Sunday because they believe that by doing it they're making themselves a better person. I'll program on Sunday's because I believe making myself a better person makes me a better person. Peace!