My Kryptonite

This seems kind of strange to say since I'm not Superman and I certainly don't have any super powers (though that would be cool). Truth is I'm a below average runner who struggles with running as much as everyone else. A more appropriate title would be "What makes a slow guy go slower?"

The answer, heat and humidity. I run year round in Michigan and we get a wide range of weather. I've run in wind, rain, sleet, blizzards, and sub zero weather. (The last one was cool because by the time I finished my eyelashes were starting to freeze together.) But I would rather run in any of those instead of heat.

There is something about the heat that totally drains me. I know some people love the heat, which doesn't make sense, but most people feel the same way I do. I'm told it is good to practice in heat so I can become used it, but I still avoid heat as much as possible.

One thing I have learned the past couple weeks when dealing with the heat is I need to slow down my goal pace. Running in heat is much more difficult than cooler temps and is a bigger strain on your body. So I'm learning to slow down for 2 reasons.

1) If you hit your goal pace in the heat, especially on longer runs, it will take your body longer to recover. This could really wipe you out for the next couple weeks causing your runs during this time to be slower.

2) Not reaching my goal pace is very defeating for me. Hitting my goal pace is invigorating and energizes me for my next run. While I know I won't hit my goal pace every time when I repeatedly miss my pace it is very discouraging. Running is very much a mental sport and requires a belief in yourself. When I miss my pace doubts start creeping in.

I realized when the heat/humidity is high I need to adjust my goal pace. There isn't a scientific number, it's just a guess. You have you know your body and make adjustments that seem to fit you best.

For example. Thursday I had a 6 mile run, 2 miles at 9:35 pace, 3 miles at 8:00 pace, 1 mile at 9:35. When I walked outside I immediately knew it would be tough. The air was thick and it didn't take long for breathing to become difficult. The first 2 miles were fine. But when I started the 8:00 minute pace (the first 1/2 mile uphill) I quickly ran out of steam. I had to walk several times and I ended up doing those 3 miles at a 9:07 pace. If I had reduced my goal pace to 8:25-8:30 I think I could have made it without walking and still hit my adjusted goal pace. The effort would have been about equal to the 8:00 pace under normal conditions.

When it's hot don't be too hard on yourself if you are having trouble. Just do your best and dream of cooler days.

No Shame in Walking

I remember the day when I ran 2 miles for the first time without taking a break to walk. It was quite an accomplishment for me. I can't remember how much training it took for me to get there but I was proud of myself.

Since then, whenever I increased the length of my runs it was always a challenge. Sometimes I would have to walk to finish. Other times I would complete it nonstop.

Until recently I was always ashamed when I had to walk. It drove me nuts when I couldn't run all the way through. I felt like I had failed.

Yesterday I ran 20 miles for the first time. For me that is a long run. I'm not ashamed to say I had to walk some of that distance. I had to walk quite a bit the last 2 miles.

When we increase the distance of our runs, whether it is 2, 5, 7, 10, or 20 miles, we are pushing our bodies past the normal limits and our body doesn't like it. We are apprehensive before we start, hoping we can make it. We are exhilarated when we finish because we have reached a new goal and did something a short time ago we may have thought was impossible. Reaching those new distances is a huge challenge and something to be proud of.

Yesterday when I was running, sometimes walking, I knew I wasn't doing this for anyone else, only myself. So it didn't matter what others thought, even when they passed me while I was walking and drinking some water. I was running to prove to myself that I could do it. When I finished 20 miles I was tired, sweaty, and my feet hurt, but I finished and I was proud of myself.

This isn't about not pushing yourself. Just by going out and running and trying to reach new goals you are already pushing yourself. I'm just saying, sometimes we need to walk. Don't give up. Don't be too hard on yourself. There is no shame in walking. I know there will come a day when I can run 20 miles without walking. Someday you will also reach that "impossible" distance nonstop. Just keep running.

When Buying a Camera-Part 2

On my previous post about buying a camera I discussed the importance of choosing the features you are looking for before going into a store. Today I want to discuss doing research so you can get the best camera. Proper research will show you which is the best model and could maybe save you hundreds of dollars.

There are a couple websites I like to look at when I'm researching. The first one is http://www.bestinclass.com/digital-cameras. This is a great website which allows you to choose what kind of shooting you will do and the price you are willing to pay. For example, young children and pets for a price under $300. After you give the parameters it will present to you the 5 best options. Then you can narrow it down further by choosing more options, or choose a specific manufacturer or even a color.

This website is a great starting point to know what you are looking for and the recommendations come from photographers not manufactures. The only downside is I found not all the recent models are listed. One model that I was looking for specifically came out in March 2011 and it wasn't even on the list of possible cameras yet. While the list may not be complete it is still a good tool to use to get an idea of what you need.

The 2nd website is http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/ They have buying guides, forums, a section for beginners, and lots of other information. It also gives reviews of hundreds of cameras. It even allows you to do a side by side comparison of 4 cameras to see which is best for you. Each camera has 18 pages of technical specs and evaluations, which I love. Going through this site and comparing several cameras can potentially save you hundreds of dollars. Let me give you an example.

My wife and I are looking at purchasing a new DSLR (big camera with interchangeable lenses). We've dreamed of getting the Canon 5D, it's a full frame camera that takes beautiful shots. It's our dream camera. But it costs $2600 just for the body. That's not realistic for us today so the next step down is the Canon 7D. Another fantastic camera, but still is $1700 for the body only, still out of our price range.

But I started doing some research and found that the Canon T3i ($800), 60D ($1100), and 7D ($1700) all had the same sensor. The sensor is the component that actually takes the shot and is responsible for the quality of the picture. Since the most important feature to us is the quality of the image that caught my attention. I jumped on the dpreview website and went to page 10. Noise & Noise Reduction. (Noise is the little specks of discoloration that can be seen in a picture. This is typically seen in shots done in lower light. Low light requires higher ISO settings which allows the sensor to see more light. higher ISO means more noise, which means lower quality. The better the camera the better the picture in low light high ISO situations. I'll explain more in another post) This page allows you to compare identical shots side by side from up to 4 cameras. Perfect for comparing quality.

In the screen shot below you can see the comparison between the 3 cameras. The ISO is at 6400 and the shots are nearly identical.

Further research shows that the main difference between the cameras are FPS (frames per second), number of continuous shots that can be taken, and the durability of the camera. So the end result is that when you look at the pictures the quality will look the same no matter which of the 3 cameras you use. More FPS and durability is nice but since those were not the features which were a high priority to us it was not worth an extra 40% or 110% increase in price. By knowing what features we want and doing the research we can save a lot of money and be confident the T3i will produce high quality pictures.

It does take some work and may be tedious for a non-geek, but I'm all about value. I think it's worth the effort. If nothing else it will help you sound more intelligent when you are shopping for your camera.

Have a great night!

Office 365 ROI for Mid-size Business

I recently read an article about the ROI for mid-size companies using Office 365. I won't bore you with all the numbers and how they gathered the data, which I always find interesting. Toward the bottom of the report it said the "study was commissioned by Microsoft and delivered by Forrester Consulting group".

Forrester is a reputable company but if Microsoft commissioned it you have to look at the methods very closely. I've seen similar studies before and I always adjust the numbers to reflect what I feel is a more accurate result. Despite my adjustments (which I can easily defend with real world evidence) the ROI and cost savings are very impressive. In fact, the savings are impressive enough that you need to justify NOT going to Office 365.

Here is the link to the Forrester report if you want to read the whole thing. Warning, it will download a PDF file from download.microsoft.com.

I will leave you with some customer testimonials that are quotes from the report. I believe they say all that needs to be said on why Office 365 is an awesome product. 

 

Have a great weekend!

-  “The cost savings that we see from a cloud-based solution are reason enough to choose Office 365. It saves the company money and allows our IT staff to work on business problems and add more value to the company.”

-  “I looked at running a basic set of servers, and at first thought, this would be the right way to go. When I took into consideration all of the hardware and licensing costs, as well as the complexity, I realized I didn’t want to manage it all myself and that Office 365 was the right solution."

- “Peace of mind is the biggest benefit for me. Knowing that someone else is taking care of everything is great.”

 

- “We had a single Exchange 2003 server that had been deployed a very long time and was not well maintained. I needed to find a way to migrate to the latest solution but manage it with limited staff"

- “I am a co-owner and also responsible for the overall management of our servers. This is a constant concern for me since we don’t have a lot of IT staff. I am tied to my servers, and for me to go on vacation is rough. When I put SharePoint in the cloud, it became easy for me to go on vacation. I could have hired a lot of staff, but that would have been a more expensive solution. It is a big win to move everything to the cloud.” 

Accidental Rest Day

The alarm went off at 5:23 this morning to wake me for my 7 mile run. I stumbled out of bed to turn off the annoying sound that woke me up and I felt it right away. The "it" was a splitting headache. Actually, it was more like a shooting pain through my right eye. The thought of running with such a bad headache didn't sound too pleasant so I hit the snooze button to think about what my next steps should be and to get 7 more minutes of sleep.

When the alarm went off again I sat on the edge of the bed trying to decide if I should run or not. The headache was powerful and I knew it would be a rough run if I followed through. So I gave in and crawled back under the covers. I immediately feel into a coma like sleep and slept for another 1 1/2 hours.

My plan was to go for a run tonight about 8:30 after I got back from my son's swimming lessons. About 5 minutes before I left I realized my wife had plans tonight also. She told me several days ago, I just forgot. Rather than leave my kids alone while I run, which would be a bad parenting move, I decided maybe I needed a day off. No matter how important a dream is, my family is always more important and they take priority. 

The reason I adopted a morning run schedule is so there would be less conflict with family activities. This is a prime example. But I haven't missed a scheduled run in months and I know 1 missed run will not keep me from my goal.

This brings up another thought I had. When I went to bed last night I was exhausted, very tired. My wife says I was grumpy, which I was, but we won't talk about that. I had a busy weekend without enough sleep and my normal weekly schedule had not allowed me to catch up. I'm sure I needed the sleep and hopefully my long run on Saturday will reflect my extra rest.

Running is very hard on your body. It is tiring, requires a lot of energy, and mentally draining. A runner, especially a long distance runner, requires a good amount of sleep. Since I've started running I've noticed a big difference in my sleep requirements. When I first started running I felt like I could never get enough sleep. My doctor, who competes in triathlons and also does sports medicine, said that is normal and my body would adjust in a few weeks. He was right. But I learned I can't "cheat" on my sleep anymore. I used to be able to get 5-6 hours of sleep once in a while, but I can't do that anymore. I try to get 7-8 hours every night and that makes a big difference in how well I run and my ability to deal with life. My good friend Ben Eggers wrote about this topic (Stress and Rest) recently in his blog Confessions of an Average Runner.

So if you run, make sure you get adequate rest. Don't worry about the occasional missed training run, you can still hit your goal. Keep your life in balance and keep running.

When Buying a Camera-Part 1

There are so many options, features, models, and brands it can be overwhelming. There are a lot of good cameras out there, but probably only a handful that will meet your shooting needs. To help you narrow down your choices it's important to pick a couple features that are "must haves" and a few that "would be nice to have".

Some features to think about

- size/portability

- image quality

- optical zoom

- shooting conditions-low light, action, sports, stills, portraits, landscapes, travel

- waterproof/dustproof

- video-yes/no HD or standard quality

- changeable lenses (DSLR)

- manual controls

- brand-Canon, Nikon, Sony, etc.

- price

(Notice NOT in that list is megapixals (MP). I'm all for the latest cool gadget but unless you print wall size photos you will not see a difference between 10 MP and 14 MP.)

For example: Recently we bought a camera. We wanted it to have high quality pictures, because picture quality is very important to us, put it in our pocket for portability, it had to be durable so we could take it to the beach, and it needed the video feature since we don't have a regular video camera. Something nice to have would be HD video and the more optical zoom the better. So that means we need high quality, portable, waterproof, and video.

We walked into a camera shop and told them what we needed. The clerk was able to show us a couple different cameras that would meet our needs.

Another example is when we want to replace our big camera. We will need a DSLR Canon to fit the Canon lenses we already have, high quality pictures that can be taken in low light situations. At a price we can afford. This really limits what we can get. DSLR cameras allow you to control the settings more (manual controls) and also to change lenses. The price limit will allow us to purchase a T3i, 60D, or a 7D (if we are lucky) and all those cameras take great pictures.

The key is knowing a couple features want, then going to the store and intelligently explaining what you need. A camera is not just a financial investment, but an investment in your memories. So you want to make a good decision.

In a future post I will explain some more technical things to research in a camera. Have a great night.

The Run I Needed, Sort Of

Went for a 15 mile run today. I finished, which felt good after I bombed my long run last weekend. An important accomplishment to stay encouraged.

The downside is I finished at a 9:56 pace, 18 seconds slower than my goal of 9:38. I was doing fine and on pace until mile 12 then hit a wall. Not sure if the issue is the heat or my conditioning.

I've been doing really well hitting my goals in the short and medium runs during the week, but I've struggled with the long runs the last 2 weeks. Wonder if my goals are too aggressive. I will evaluate again next week after my 17 mile run. Until then, all I can do is keep running. 

You can look at my training log to check my progress. Have a great weekend!