I wrote this piece on fishing with kids for NH.com and it appears on the homepage today. It includes information and links on how to get started, gear, and where to access kid-friendly shoreline fishing in New Hampshire. Also note the photo – David as a wee fisherman a few years back. Hard to believe time goes by so quickly…
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David reads a story on the Silly Bandz fad aloud to his sisters from the Sunday paper’s Parade mag. He should know. Note his arm! Boy, it may have been many years since the “friendship beads” of my own childhood, but in some ways things are very much the same.
Tags: David
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I love the marathon. The preparation for racing this distance is a rigorous test of mind, body and spirit. It requires discipline and strategy, and enduring the training eases and clears my mind to tackle the non-running challenges life presents. But as I found myself finishing up Vermont City Marathon at the end of May, just six weeks after Boston, and immediately planning a training schedule for a fall marathon, I began to wonder if I was getting carried away. And in the long run, if I was hurting my long-term running goals.
Just about the time these doubts surfaced, I got the July/August issue of Running Times in the mail and read the provocatively titled piece by Jonathan Beverly, “The Marathon: A Race Too Far? Is it time to get over the marathon?” My instinct upon reading the title was to say, “heck, no, who’s this crazy anti-marathon guy anyway?” But as I read on, I found myself agreeing with many of the points he made, especially as they related to my own running.
Basically, Beverly isn’t dissing the marathon, or suggesting people shouldn’t run them for the joy of simply finishing them, or anything like that. He’s saying that for someone interested in racing a marathon for a specific time, and who has done three or four times without making too much improvement, and who doesn’t have much more time to commit to training than he had the last time around, there’s another option. Take that 45-to-55 miles a week you were going to use to train to run a marathon at about the same level you ran the last one at, and apply it to training for a 10K instead. This could bring much bigger results. Why be a survival or mid-pack marathoner two, three or more times a year on 55-miles-a-week training, when you might become a competitive, or at least a further-toward-the-front-of-the-pack, 5K runner? During the past couple of years while I’ve focused on learning to run marathons, my 5K PR has only improved by a few seconds. That’s been bothering me… I think I could run faster than that, but marathon training precludes the kind of speed work that would allow me to test that.
How can I improve my marathon times?
And that’s where I found myself as I tried to pick a fall marathon. My last three marathon times, all run within 12 months of each other, were Bay State 3:13:20, Boston 3:12:49, and Vermont City 3:13:06. That’s about what running peak mileage of 55 miles a week gets me. Maybe I can get a bit faster without increasing that mileage, but to really make a big jump, like running a sub 3:00:00 at some point, I’ve got to really improve my turnover efficiency on the speed side, run more miles during the week, and lose some weight.
Three of the reasons I'd rather not try taking my mileage from 55 miles a week peak to 75+ this year...
This summer/fall is not a good one for going beyond 55-mile weeks. I’ve got family, including three awesome, very young children who I want to take fishing and hiking and read to and play with and teach, and lots and lots of work, and frankly, other things I care about doing in the bits and pieces of precious free time that are left. So while one mad and masochistic part of me would love to take my mileage up to 75+ a week and see what that gets me, and thinks I could do it by adding miles at night while everyone is in bed, it’s just not going to happen this year. A man’s got to sleep once in a while. (At least this guy does. I know some who manage 75 miles a week, work, family and more amazingly well, seemingly because they can get by on about three hours of sleep a night. Not me.)
Focus on speed and efficiency
So ruling out adding more miles to this summer/fall’s running schedule leaves speed and weight. I’ve concluded spending a season dedicating 45-55 miles a week to workouts designed to build speed over shorter race distances, and aiming at a fast half marathon and 10K for the fall, will bring a bigger gain in the marathon I run next year than I would see if I trudged through another marathon this fall. As for the weight, we’ll see. I’d like to drop another 10-15 pounds over the next year or so, and I’ll give it a shot, but there’s a balance to find in all things, and if I’ve got to let discipline slip once in a while, then a fine meal and a good drink is a sweet pleasure to do it for … And as a non-elite runner, the pleasure of being able to eat a slightly decadent meal once in a while without feeling guilty is one of the perks of a 2,000 calorie Saturday morning long run. I’m not sure dropping a few pounds is worth giving that perk up for.
So that’s my plan. Curious to see how it pans out. Half-marathon, 5K and 10K race times this summer and fall and next spring’s marathon time will either bear out my thinking or prove it wrong. Interested to hear from others who split years into seasons to train for very different distances, and how that’s worked out…
Tags: marathon, Running, training
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It’s inevitable that at some point during a camping trip, I begin to do math. The math goes like this: tent site $25 a night, firewood, $4 a bundle, $x ice, $x propane for the stove, $x food, $x gear that needed to be replaced, gas, quarters for the showers, etc., etc. all of which lead to an equals sign on the other side of which is the cost of staying in a cheap roadside motel. At some point shortly thereafter, it usually begins to rain.
So why do we do it? I reflected on this during three nights of camping with Kris and our three kids in Franconia Notch last week (today’s my last official day of a week’s vacation). The reflection was especially potent as the first night of camping coincided with my 40th birthday, a milestone at which questions like “Why do I do X?” become especially significant. There’s a sense here of time beginning to tumble a bit more wildly, of the slope getting steeper, and the bottom coming on up a bit faster than it ever has before. Given that, it seems more important than ever to know why you do the things you do, and whether they are really things that you want or have to do.
So given that camping’s not a heck of a lot cheaper than a cheap motel, and it’s about a hundred times the work, and it requires a degree of abandonment to dirt and discomfort, to being too cold, or too warm, etc. what’s the point? I think part of it is the work itself. The rhythm that you begin to pick up around the camp site as you attend to the business of cooking, of cleaning, of setting up and taking down, of splitting wood and building fires and hiking off to the bathrooms or the showers or the camp store for some forgotten implement. The work connects you with the place and lets you become a part of it in a way you don’t if you just get out of a car and look at it. It connects the way a long run down a stretch of back road connects you in a way that a drive does not. It connects you intensely with the people you camp with, and provides countless opportunities for instructing the children, not only in the skills of outdoor survival, which are useful, but also in patience, fortitude, courtesy and active detachment from the blobs of data that cable lines stream into televisions and computer screens back home.
In any case, we had a lovely, if at times challenging, trip to Franconia Notch, at it was eerily beautiful to feel the kids laying up memories in their own skulls that must have so many common images of stark mountains and blue skies with my own, hardly faded, childhood recollections. The White Mountains are one of most beautiful places in the whole country, and I swear the hair on my arms raises up a bit in an almost numinous sort of awe whenever I pass that spot around Plymouth, where the land really begins to change. One of the great pleasures of parenthood is sharing the things you love with your children, and an even greater pleasure is when they respond to them the same way you do. At one point we were walking up a path and I heard Sofia stop behind me, and then gasp. I thought she’d been stung by a bee, or walked into a clump of nettles. I turned and saw her staring up at the great, sheer faces of the mountains around us as though she’d just noticed them for the first time. ”Look,” she said. ”Look at the mountains.” And that’s why we camp.
Worth noting that we stayed at Lafayette Campground, which I highly recommend for those looking for a less commercial-feeling, more rustic-style camping experience. No arcade or tennis courts on site, no RVs set-up for the whole summer with little gardens and outdoor lighting, etc. The sites are in the woods. Only downside might be the unpredictable weather in the Notch. Of course that provides its own share of opportunities as well.
More pictures from the trip here.
Tags: camping, Franconia Notch, hiking
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So I’ve had my Droid Incredible since Friday when I got home from work and found the FedEx truck had left it (a just-barely early 40th birthday present from Kristen; I hit my upgrade date this month).
First impressions? Incredible. The touch screen is sensitive in just the right way, easy to type and correct, select and copy text, etc., text-to-speech and speech-to-text (say a phrase into Google translator, play it back in the language of your choice), navigation, blazing fast processor and Web connection, very cool body design, feels awesome to hold, takes stellar pictures, tons of great apps. I also love the contacts integration features … sucked in all my backed up Verizon Wireless contacts and merged them with my email contacts, the contact info from my Facebook account, and then matched up my friend’s Facebook profile pics with their address cards, and they update dynamically. I don’t know why, but this pleases me a lot. I also like the WordPress app, though it’s a bit buggy. Uploaded a post a minute ago with it, along with pictures and links. Would I use it to wrong a long think piece? No. But for a quick picture with a caption? Not bad. Nice for traveling.
Downsides? This thing devours battery. You need to go find the App Killer app to shut off apps you’re not using, since they will just run in the background otherwise. And even so, you’re going to want a car charger. And maybe a spare battery…
Overall? Overall, I’ve hardly begun to scratch the surface of what this phone can do, and I’m hooked already. Glad I waited to upgrade…the early reviews from Engadget and CNET didn’t steer me wrong.
ONE WEEK LATER: Who knows how you really feel about something while you’re still in the brand new fun phase of it? Here after owning the thing for a week, I’ll add a few more quick observations that though they may be tempered by time nonetheless remain first-blush enthusiastic. The battery life issue is not as big a deal as I originally thought. It’s pretty decent for a smart phone this smart, and the Advanced Task Killer app (free) helps to minimize the drain. Going from home to work, with a charger in the car, I have no real issue with the battery. We’ll see how it does on our upcoming camping trip, though… Overall, I remain deeply impressed with the phone, but it’s no one thing about it, rather the whole package. Everything seems so cleanly and speedily to integrate, from managing multiple email accounts, Web, Google analytics for work and for my personal sites, social media accounts, contacts, files (check out the Dropbox App), photos, videos and blogging. There are some things I’d swear this phone does better and faster (maybe because it streamlines processes so much and leaves out the non-essential) than my desktop or laptop. On the other hand, there are plenty of things it still doesn’t, like making for pleasant long form reading or writing experiences. (I’m typing this update on a full sized keyboard in front of a widescreen Dell monitor. I love the phone, but not that much…)
Tags: cell phones, droid incredible
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Volunteered at the Mount Washington Road Race yesterday… Incredible 50th anniversary race. I worked water before the race and beer after. Hard to emphasize how happy you make people when you hand them a free Tuckerman’s after they’ve just run up the tallest peak in the northeast.
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Even as I awaited (and still await) the arrival of my back-ordered Droid Incredible (I am such geek; I can’t wait), the battery began to fail on my two-year-old LG Dare. One minute, full charge, the next minute, one bar. Then three. Then one. Then shutdown. Very annoying. Max call time shrank to about 10 minutes. The last thing I wanted to do was buy a new $40 battery from the cell phone provider, when I’m only going to have the phone a few more weeks. On the other hand, it’s been a great phone/camera/Web browser, and I was going to sell it to a friend, and didn’t want to pass it along with a trash battery. Long story short, I checked Amazon, and what was a $40 battery via the cell phone company was selling for something like $2.50 plus $5 shipping and handling. The product was OEM (original equipment manufacturer), had almost all good reviews, etc., so I figured why not give it a shot. It arrived quickly and the phone is now holding a charge the way it did back when I got it (days, even with talking, photos, video shooting, Web browsing, texting, etc.). Later talking with visiting friends, I learned they’d had a similar experience with the very expensive cables that come with A/V systems…
Tags: Amazon, battery, deals, LG Dare
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- Open your Firefox Web browser. Open the window all the way. Go to the page you want a screenshot of.
- Hit F11 on your keyboard. This will remove all the extra file and address bar material at the top of the page so you’re just seeing the browser window.
- Hold down the “Ctrl” key on your keyboard.
- Draw the scroll wheel on your mouse toward you to shrink the overall view of the screen in your browser window until everything you want in your screenshot is visible.
- Hit the “PrntScrn” button on your keyboard.
- Paste or move your image into the graphics program of your choice.
Tags: advertising, firefox, screen capture, tools, Web browser
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