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This past weekend I ran a 30k (18mi) at Pirates Cove, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge, with Pacific Coast Trail Runs. Here’s the Google Earth image of the running route (taken from my handy dandy Forerunner 305):

Unfortunately, it was really foggy out, so I didn’t get to enjoy what I’m sure were normally really spectacular views. However, I did have a good time and had a really good run (probably due to the chilly weather). I finished it in just under 3 hours, which gives me an average pace of 9:47 min/mile over the 18 miles. As you can see from the Google Earth image, it was fairly hilly.

Jessica was signed up to run the 8k, but accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up doing the 20k instead. “Accidental Half Marathon” is a new phrase around the Chacon household.

Here is an idea of the length of the run in relation to the Bay Area:

I just posted the code that I used to process TCX files from a Garmin forerunner at the Snippets website, if you’re interested in processing those Garmin TCX files.

So, as I promised, I did an 18 mile run on Sunday with my new toy. Some cool things I learned about myself and my new toy. One is that when you upload the data, MotionBased gives you a Google Earth file so you can do a flyover of your whole route, which is pretty cool. Here’s what my run looked like:

I think that’s pretty spiffy. If you click on that image, it should take you to the data page for my run, which has all sorts of cool info, including the Google Earth file.
I also learned some interesting things about me. It turns out that my heartrate tends to go down during a long run. It started out at about 160 and trended down towards the low 140’s by the end. My speed decreased a bit too, but not by too much - my first couple miles were in the 8:30/mi range and then for most of the rest of the run I kept around a 9:30/mi pace:

I also discovered that I burned about 2200 calories in the almost 3 hours it took to run (2:51). Here are my overall stats:

• Total Moving Time: 2:51:33
• Total Distance: 18.11 miles
• Avg Speed: 6.3 mph
• Avg Pace: 9:28 min/mile
• Avg Heart Rate: 149bpm
• Elevation Gain: 960ft

At any rate, it’s a fun running toy and I’d recommend it to anyone who likes to run.

Friday I got a new toy from Amazon, the Garmin Forerunner 305.

It’s one of the cooler toys I’ve been able to play with lately. I got it because I’ve been training for a marathon at the end of April and I realized I have almost no idea how I pace or what my heartrate is when I train or really how far I run except that I use Google Maps pedometers to measure rough distance. So, I got this bad boy because a couple of my runner friends seemed to like it a lot. I’ve had devices like these before, but they’ve never made the data very accessible before - serial cables or Windows only software and proprietary formats, etc. This one is different - USB cable, Mac software and a half dozen formats for everything. They even have an excellent free online resource to help with all the analytics of your workouts and such. Here is the link and one of the charts from MotionBased website for the easy bike ride Jessica and I did yesterday:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2265069

I think that’s pretty cool. I’ve got a 17-18 mile run planned for today, so maybe I can post some data on that when I get back.
Fun stuff.

Here we are, back into the Tri For Fun series of Pleasanton Sprint Triathlons. I did it last weekend, and this time Jessica did it too!

I actually made it all the way through this time without a bike dying on me, but unfortunately, Jessica did not. Her bike tire went flat a few miles into the ride and she had to turn back and do the run.

For those of you interested, here are my results (there are no rankings – I don’t think they post them for this event) :

	Distance	Rank	Pctile	Time	Pace

I’m not sure what the next Tri will be, as I think Jessica and I will both be gone for the next Tri for Fun.

I completed my second triathlon of the season a few days ago and Jessie took some pictures, so I thought I would do a quick post with how I did and a couple photos.

The first of the season for me (and for a lot of people) was the Strawberry Fields Tri in my hometown of Ventura, CA (actually, Oxnard, but it’s basically the same) – I mentioned that one in my last post. It was basically a duathlon (run and bike), since they cancelled the 400yd swim due to unbelievably strong currents.

In that race, I finished with the following time table :

	Distance	Rank	Pctile	Time	Pace

This past Sunday, I ran in the UVAS Triathlon in Morgan Hill. It was longer, though still short of Olympic distance – 3/4mi swim, 16mi bike, 5mi run.

I think I’m getting in better shape, because this one actually didn’t hurt as much as the Strawberry fields, even though a) I had to swim, b) it’s longer, c) the bike was NOT flat. Actually, there was a mile long honkin hill around mile 11 that was just killer. I saw people walking their bikes up it.

Here’s how I did in Morgan Hill :

	Distance	Rank	Pctile	Time	Pace