Funky Dung

Sorry for the lack of updates (or interaction with anyone else's challenges). Life got really busy. Here's how I did during the second half of the challenge: Here's how I did over the whole challenge: How did I do on my goals? very close Remains to be seen. I've been unable to train due to illness for most of the last four weeks. Oh yeah. Down to 164.

I ran the Run Around the Square on Saturday. I didn't finish in less than 25 min as I'd hoped. However, I did beat my previous personal course record by 16 sec with a time of 25:42. Here's my weight update:

It's in intelligent systems. The tentative title is Contextual Outlier Detection in Sets of Protein Structure Models Derived from X-Ray Crystallography. It's taken a long-ass time to get this close to finishing. So long, in fact, that I had to get an extension from the dean's office. After taking far too long to defend my topic, I now have the pleasure of getting everything finished in 18 months. Joy. So, don't be jealous.

My fitness goals for this challenge are simple. Finish the Run Around the Square 5K in less than 25min on 08/25. Train to finish Great Race 10K in less than 50min on 09/30. Lose 3 pounds to get down to 168 pounds. My life goal is the same as in my previous challenges: Stay on schedule for finishing my dissertation. Here's my weight loss progress from the start of May through July:

start weight: 174.8 07/09 weight: 174.0 07/16 weight: 173.4 week loss: 0.6 I guess I'm back on track. At least I hope so.

Somehow I only just now found your reply. If there's a knowledge base for asthmatic runners, I don't know about it. What's I've learned has come from lots of trial and error.

I'm pretty sure I've only experienced asthmatic bronchitis as the result of bronchitis that originated from a viral infection. In fact, that's how I was diagnosed. I had a nasty chest cold, and the cough just wouldn't go away. I went to the doc, who gave me Advair. That got rid of the cough, and I've been treated for asthma since. These days I take Flovent 250ug morning and night, and I take 2 puffs of albuterol 15-30min before running. I also take a puff during long runs as needed. tl;dr version: The intervals shouldn't caused asthmatic bronchitis, so perhaps going to your doc might not be a bad idea.

start weight: 174.8 06/25 weight: 173.0 07/02 weight: 175.0 week gain: 2.0 07/09 weight: 174.0 week loss: 1.0 2-week gain: 1.0 Two factors combined to set me back to where I was three weeks ago. First, I took two weeks off from running to rest my joints and whatnot. Second, I spent a week on vacation with my in-laws. The second factors seems to have been worse for me, since I wasn't walking to/from work daily. *sigh*

Well, there are always more variables one could account for. I don't have the time or inclination to record meteorological or dietary details. In fact, a key inspiration for this regression was a strong suspicion that the vast majority of variance in the data could be attributed to weight, once distance was accounted for. I'm able to abstract away a lot of environmental variation, though, because I have multiple instances of the same races. Each race takes place at a different time of year, and the weather for each varies from year to year. If knew the meteorological details for each race instance, I'm sure I could make a more precise prediction. However, the accuracy seems to be good enough that suboptimal precision is acceptable. tl;dr version: Meh. It's good enough for government work.

Thanks

start weight: 174.8 06/25 weight: 173.0 week loss: 1.8 # situp workouts: 1 # pushup workouts: 2 dissertation status: on schedule (barely)

Sorry for the confusion. Hopefully the edits I've made provide the clarification you needed.

Having used RunKeeper, Endomondo, and MapMyRun, both with and without assistance from Tracker Booster, I can confidently state that the accuracy of MapMyRun is dreadful. Someone did a thorough and well-controlled comparison of RunKeeper and several GPS watches and found RunKeeper to be surprisingly accurate; Endomondo wasn't studied.

I recently compared the GPS accuracy of RunKeeper, Endomondo, and MayMyRun. RunKeeper and Endomondo seem to both be pretty good. MapMyRun stinks on ice. Given the functionality of RunKeeper described by someone else in this thread (intervals coach, etc), that's the one I've decided to use regularly. BTW, if you don't mind using more battery, Tracker Booster is good for improving accuracy, though it couldn't do much to help the awful inaccuracy of MapMyRun. Hope that helps!

I'm an asthmatic runner (albeit not a fast one, by athletic standards). Two things I've done have helped me tremendously: Breathe-Right strips and intervals. The Breathe-Right strips are fairly self-explanatory; greater potential for air flow is important when your air passageways tend to swell shut. Intervals have helped me increase my speed, strength, and stride efficiency more than I can describe. I've turned every training run into intervals. It's a great way to push one's body without too much risk of an attack. Below are the interval routines I use for different route distance. Times are in mm:ss. < ~ 4mi 5:00 warm-up while (not done): 2:00 fast 1:00 slow 1:00 fast 0:30 slow 0:30 fast 0:30 slow end while > ~4.5, < ~10 mi 5:00 warm-up (10:00 for 8+ miles) while (not done): 3:00 medium 2:00 fast 1:00 slow end while > 10.5 mi I let you know when I start training at those distances again.