For Whom the Dogs Bark

May 07, 2024

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Location:

Cypress,TX,

Member Since:

Oct 10, 2009

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

5K: 24:22 (March 2010); 22:33 (October 2010); 20:47 (May 2011); 21:05 (May 2012); 21:33 (September 2012); 21:23 (November, 2013); 22:31 (September 2014)

5M: 39:22 (November, 2012); 35:54 (November, 2013); 36:03 (March, 2015)

10K: 44:08 (November, 2010); 49:20 (July, 2013); 44:07 (April, 2015)

12K: 56:03 (December, 2013); 58:58 (December, 2014)

10M: 1:11:58 (October, 2012); 1:15:24 (October, 2014)

Half Marathon: 1:53:xx (London's Run 2010); 2:05:21 (Cowtown 2010); 1:37:04 (Gusher 2011); 1:42:19 (Huntsville 2011); 1:33:47 (Baytown Jailbreak 2012); 1:33:50 (The Woodlands 2012); 1:42:52 (Texas 2015); 1:49:17 (Jailbreak 2015); 1:38:34 (The Woodlands 2015)

25K: 2:01:47 (Fifth Third River Bank, May 2014)

Marathon: 5:51:35 (Texas Marathon 2009); 6:21:36 (Ogden 2009); 4:58:29 (St. George 2009); 4:13:45 (Texas Marathon 2010); 4:04:12 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2010); 5:11:14 (Hartford ING, 2010); 3:41:43 (Richmond SunTrust, 2010); 3:39:27 (Texas Marathon 2011); 3:41:46 (Utah Valley Marathon, 2011); 3:30:35 (St. George 2011); 3:41:51 (Richmond 2012); 3:49:15 (Texas 2013); 3:46:59 (Paavo Nurmi, 2013); 3:34:04 (St. George 2013); 3:49:51 (Texas 2014); 3:31:59 (Richmond 2014); 3:28:34 (Boston 2015)

Short-Term Running Goals:

3:20, 1:30, 0:20

Long-Term Running Goals:

I'm 60, there is no long term.

Personal:

I live, work and run in Houston, Texas. I have run 17 marathons, some good ones and some others. I prefer straight, flat, cold, sea-level marathons, still waiting for my first one. I feel like there are more PRs out there. When I have them, I am told it is time to dial it back, run for healthy reasons. I'm sure that's right, and I'm sure it won't happen.

My wife and I are from the mountains of the west. We have five kids, three granddaughters and three grandsons. The kids and grandkids are native Texans but we are not -- you have to be born here.

As for my blog title: I run most of my miles before sunrise, sometimes hours before. On the back road of my neighborhood two hours before daylight, I can depend on a pack of mutts behind the boundary fence lighting up when they hear my footsteps. I have wondered what they wanted; but according to Hemingway I needn't ask.

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Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00

Thu, Oct 27, 2011

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Total Distance
14.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	14.45

65F, 100%, calm and slightly foggy (kind of like me). No dogs today, boring. Did the same run as yesterday and it measured almost the same. I knocked some more time off -- 2:22:19, average LHR pace 9:51 per mile. I had the cumulative average down to 9:43 at one point, but slowed at the end. I did manage to stay under 10 minutes all the way through mile 12, though, and the last two were below 10:10, so it was a good day. Legs definitely feeling it afterwards, but won't know until tomorrow if that means anything.

I'm going to do this same run a couple of more times to test my view that Garmins are pretty accurate. Any particular measurement might be off, but they average out or it wouldn't measure the same course the same every time. Stated differently, if the Garmin says a course is long, I think that means it is long. A few tangents don't add up to a tenth of a mile -- maybe if you are running the outside lane on a 10K at the track, but not for most of the courses we run.

Comments

From Burt on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 15:43:28 from 68.14.209.26

No dogs? Are you still in phase II?

From I Just Run on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 16:04:04 from 67.79.11.242

I like playing with the Garmin with different scenarios too :-)

From Claudio on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 20:45:23 from 173.75.177.235

When I used my Garmin on the track this summer, the mile ended up being measured very accurately at 1.00 miles. However, the 5000m were measured quite considerably short at 3.14 miles (about 2.5% short). What was way off both times was the elevation change... Garmin said 342ft up and 261ft down for the 5000m and 120ft up and 133 down for the mile!

From SlowJoe on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 10:38:22 from 132.3.53.68

Impressive mileage this week.

I don't doubt that you will get the same reading with the same garmin. Swap garmins with someone though, and I'm guessing it will be different. I always measure shorter when comparing with others on the same course, especially when there are a lot of turns (and I don't run great tangents). My theory is that they all take updates at different rates, so some cut corners while others (that update faster) measure curves better. On a track, I always measure short running in the center of lane 1.

an interesting article:

http://www.hamptonrockfest.com/hamptonhalf-GPS.html

From seeaprilrun on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 10:56:45 from 68.103.254.223

My Garmin seems to be pretty accurate. The runs I run regularly measure the same. On the track if I hug the inside lane it measures 1600 meters as a mile, but if I get into the middle of the lane it measures long.

From I Just Run on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:20:43 from 67.79.11.242

Read the article Joe...What a joke (the lawsuit threat), but I did learn something. I wasn't aware how the courses were measured. I'll be sure to be running the tangents from now on!!

From derhammer on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 12:16:09 from 192.156.110.34

Nice run, Flat. You amaze me with the amount of miles you can put in day after day.

As a side note, the most accurate my Garmin has been at a marathon was in Iowa this past June. There were only 4-5 turns during the entire course. I have never had my Garmin in sync with every mile marker before the Iowa race. It was eerie how accurate it was.

In the other marathons that I have run the Garmin starts to beep early after a while. That leads me to believe a course with many tangents does start to add extra distance to the race as it progresses. If the Garmin says you ran 26.4 at the end of a marathon, you probably did.

From flatlander on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 17:24:18 from 76.31.26.153

Burt, Step 2, not Phase II. Step 1 is "I am afraid of dogs."

IJR, it's not a toy, it's a tool.

Claudio, yeah, all GPS devices are terrible at measuring elevation. I don't even set mine, since I already know I am at 50' and staying there!

Joe, that is a great idea, I'll have to swap with Wade, his is the same model.

April, that is interesting. Did it measure St. George at 26.22 or do you recall?

David, at Utah Valley this year it measured every mile the same except one, and that one mile was off by about 0.15, which held true all the way through. I sent the race director a helpful note, but have yet to get a thank-you note back.

From seeaprilrun on Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 20:46:55 from 205.172.12.229

Flat--it measured Saint George as 26.27, which is the closest I have ever been in a marathon

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