Runnersworld Update

If you had a site with 185k topics in your forums and more than 3.13M posts, you might feel pretty good. You would feel especially good if those thousands of regular users have figured out how to update their avatars and append signature lines to their posts, despite a hopelessly non-intuitive interface with limited possibilities, meaning that they were reasonably tech savvy crowd. Add to this that the site adds tremendous value to your print magazine, increases loyalty to that brand, and provides a prime platform for additional advertising revenues. In planning an update, what would you do?

If you are Runnersworld.com, not much. Don't get me wrong, on the surface they seem to have been busy: rebranding the community as 'the loop' and claiming that "The world's best running web site now has the world's best online community." Apparently the world's best online community includes user blogs, photo sharing, enhanced profiles, internal messaging. On the surface, they seem ready to have jumped into web 2.0 with this update; instead, they seem to have stumbled backwards into web 1.0.

No time tonight to run through a comprehensive strategy for Runnersworld but here are a couple thoughts:

First, take a look at profiles on Facebook, My Space, Linkedin or even Blogger. The new RW interface is better than it was, but what an opportunity lost. You have a community looking for friends, running partners, competitors---many of these folks would abandon their Facebook sites if they could do similar things on RW with people who share their hobbies. Look at some of the forum users---I have seen people with upwards of 30k posts! These people are living on the site.

That said, if you don't want to be in the profile business, that's cool too. Use Facebook Connect or OpenID. Or keep the same profile setup you have, but include places for your community members to link to their other profiles so that they can connect on that level. Or make it simple but relevant: shoe model and size, favorite running gear, link to a 'favorite route' map. Never create another vanilla profile page—we all have enough of those already.

Second, if you are going to add blogs to your community site, plan to consolidate your industry. There are thousands of runners' blogs out there, a good portion of those bloggers are RW community members. If you are going to run blogs on the community site, you want to create a situation where people are likely to move their blogs over. You might want to think about an import function that works with the major blog engines, you might want to ensure that people can skin the blogs, add links, the whole works. We are not talking about a group trying to monetize here---almost every one of the running blogs I read are just enhanced training logs (like this one). You have most of the interface already, but you need a little something to get us to move off of blogger.

Again, you may not want to be in the blog business, but then why add it? Go back to point one and give us places to connect to our blogs. A better use of resources would be to let us add feeds from our external blogs to the site so that the community discussions are informed by the broader realm of discussions.

Third, do we really need another email substitute? Better to do status updates (ala twitter/facebook) or wall posts (facebook). Look at how your people are using the forums…there are whole topics devoted to people updating their status before and after their workouts.

Finally, INTEGRATE. RW's training log is not the best on the market, but it is pretty good and many of the people in your community are also using it. Why integrate the training log into the community so that people could easily follow each other. Even better, add a calendaring function that integrates so that people can post planned workouts and report what they actually did. Here you simply need to take advantage of what your community is using and pull it together into a cohesive product.

I am a Runnersworld.com user and a happy one, but it is precisely my fondness for the site and the community of runners that makes me feel that this was an opportunity squandered by poor planning, lack of vision, and criminal lack of input from users. When you have a huge community that clearly wants to connect with each other, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, if you build a site that lets your users connect to each other and to the other places that do social media well, you win by not having to carry the overhead but serving as a portal where these multiple links connect.

 

 

Road to St Marks

I always feel like I should hit something of the confessional when I update this periodic blog. The gaps between posts have been large enough that I should provide a broader update---and in the context of a race report, perhaps that is appropriate. But not today. Looking at a short post, not a long confession.

Ran a simple six-mile out-and-back with my 15-year-younger nephew (a runner at DePauw) who barely broke a sweat while I pushed it in the heat. Getting a little wiser with age, I just ran my pace (avg 8:04/mile) without trying to prove anything. That said, I was probably feeling a bit more like a 8:15 pace so having a partner kept me close to the top of my game. My right hamstring has been bugging me for the past couple months and I had some of that on this run, no doubt exasperated by a 14-hour ride from Carbondale to Tallahassee the day before. It has been a long time since I ran with someone and I was surprised at how much more energy it takes to talk while running. Little things were also surprising, like the sound of the shorts swishing which I never hear because I am either listening to music or because little sounds.

This is the first time in a VERY long time that I have gone out for a run with someone. In my work life I spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve and foster collaborations---and pointing out that collaborative science produces BETTER science. I had a better workout and a more satisfying workout today running with someone---even doubling up on the amount that I got 'done'. Why am I such a soloist then on the trail? I think it is first a matter of laziness: I don't have a current running partner and I don't want to spend the time to recruit one. Oh, I have asked around a bit, but none of my immediate circle of friends is running seriously these days. Collaborative running would also require flexibility in my routine. With kids, my wife and I live on a pretty strict schedule that gets them fed and to bed but also gets us out to the gym. Having a 'collaborator' would require me to accommodate yet another person's schedule. And then there is the pace negotiation---because no two people actually run the same speed on the same day and it takes some skill to be able to admit your own pace needs and negotiate them with the other person. In the end, even though I know I am not getting as much out of my workouts as I could, the lazy factor takes over. The same is true in science. This requires some further thought, but I think it illuminates the difficulties of getting collaborative scientific teams off the ground.

I am only doing this to stay at the top of my game

In one of those lovely intersections between my day job and my hobby, a couple studies have appeared indicating that exercise improves brain function. Nice to know that all of this exercise might keep my limited brain function intact.

clipped from www.medicalnewstoday.com According to research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, brain power decline can be prevented and possibly even reversed by engaging in regular aerobic exercise. Leading cognitive neuroscientists Art Kramer (US Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois) and Kirk Erickson (University of Pittsburgh) offer a critical evaluation of the large number of studies that show how aerobic exercise and physical activity can be beneficial to the aging brain. Cognitive decline with aging has been linked to white and grey matter deterioration in certain parts of the brain. The greatest effects of cognitive decline are usually seen in activities such as task coordination, planning, goal maintenance, working memory, and the ability to switch tasks - a group of activities termed "executive control." Exercise effects on cognitive and neural plasticity in older adults British Journal of Sports Medicine

Hot Chocolate 15k

Anna Lisa shot me a line several months ago about the Hot Chocolate 15k, mentioning that the swag was pretty extraordinary. I admit that a fleece and hat certainly made it worth considering, but more than anything the relatively unusual 15k distance and the chance to run an inaugural event made it compelling. Like most civilized folk, I had been planning to take some time off after the Chicago Marathon and a 15k three weeks later was hardly a break.

A couple of things made this seem pretty doable. First, for the month prior to the Marathon, my training pace had been pretty steadily around 8 min miles which is up about a minute over the past year. As I mentioned, I went into the Marathon thinking that this could be my M pace (it was not). Although I had trouble going down stairs for about three days after the marathon, I was back to 2500 yd swim workout by Tuesday at noon and I managed to get some good miles in that week. Last weekend I went out for a 12 miler at an 'easy' pace and when I looked at my splits at home, I had averaged a 7:35 mile for the whole run. The Marathon had been a bit of a disaster, but left me at a higher level of conditioning and not as fatigued as expected.

Add to this that I have been really pumped about my performance at the Athens Sister City 5k where I ran a 20:40 5k the day after a 22-mile training run. I did not expect the Marathon to tell me much about what my performance could have been, so I have been wanting to have a reasonably well-rested race to find out where things stood. Based on some calculations from McMillan and others, I figured that with a little mental toughness, I could manage a 7:02 mile for the whole race and maybe find a little extra in the tank at the end. Still, when the email before the race indicated that we could switch events if we wanted to, I very nearly opted for the 5k just to make sure I could run the race I wanted.

OK, too-long preamble; here is the race report.

Lined up about 10 minutes before the gun. Had all-but-one satellite in view on the Garmin and I was almost the first up which I did not want, but it was unclear who would be running 7-minute miles so I pulled back a bit before the start and probably pushed out in with the top 25. Needless to say, the pace was a bit too quick and I knew it right away. Backed off quickly and wound up hitting mile 1 at about 6:46 which I thought was completely insane. Garmin was off by 0.05 already at mile 1 which seemed crazy since I had a better first mile result in downtown Chicago. I let myself back off a bit with the intent to drop to 7:15 and recover for a mile to get my average back on. I got passed by a number of folk, including a woman in a blue shirt who I figured was running 7s. I could not quite hold her pace, but kept her within view and just ran what I thought seemed reasonable. By mile 4, Garmin was reporting that I was losing ground on my goal, running closer to 7:12s. I refocussed and decided to commit my mental energy to the 7 pace. Still getting passed in that stretch by a few folks and I could not find enough to keep up with them. At mile 5 I checked time on my watch and realized that I was closer to 7s than I had thought---I was in fact running slightly better than 7s. The stress of not hitting my own pace left and I opened up a bit. By mile 6 I was reeling in a few people that had passed me along the way. By mile 8, I realized that I was about 90 seconds under pace and still pulling in a few folk. The woman in blue was still pretty far ahead, but in sight and I decided to catch her AND see if I could open the pace up a bit to get in around the 63 mark. During Mile 8 I started picking up most of the people that had passed me along the way, including a guy that would re-pass me every time I went past until my relentlessness ultimately broke him. Finally, there was a tight turn which took us up the slightest little hill and across some grass and the bump seemed to crush the spirit of about a dozen folk in front of me while I was going to the arms and opening up. Somewhere in that mile some guy who looked like a coach hollered at me to 'just go fishing' and pull in the next group. I did and caught the woman in blue and several others by the time I hit the 9 mark. The last .3 was long but I kept it going, getting passed at the end by a woman who I had been in contention with for most of the race (she won her 45-49 F division, so no shame on my part---plus I caught her hocking a very respectable loogi around mile 6 which earned her my full respect). Hit the mat at 1:03:30.

Tired at the end, but not in the way I was after the Marathon or Accenture---which makes me think that I still had more in the tank. Moreover, I have had a busy day subsequently and I have felt shockingly fresh which further suggests that I had more to give. That's always a bit frustrating, but gotta love a great run and a pace that would have given me a PR at both 8k and 10k distances. The final average was a 6:49 mile which was 13 seconds per mile faster than planned and the same pace I ran for the Shammy six months ago---and I was totally fired up after that race. I think I have a 32:30 in me for an 8k right now and with a little speedwork I might get below the 32 mark by the 2009 Shammy.

Anyway very fun race. One gripe: so the 5k folk had pretty much all finished by the time the 15k was done and the lines to get into the food tent were ridiculous. Just a banana at the finish, that's all I ask. I ended up just grabbing three bottles of water and drinking one with some endurox powder I had brought along, skipping the chocolate ridiculousness entirely. Clearly the chocolate was a big draw for the ladies---we had 474 men out of 1515 in the 15k, meaning that women outnumbered us 2:1. Anna Lisa was clearly looking out farther than the fleece when she pointed out this race's swag.

12 miles at 7:35 pace.  

Set out thinking that I may decide to run either an 8:15 pace with a negative split or an 8:30 pace with pace descending by :10/mile ending with a 7:30. Hit the first mile in 7:10 quite by accident and re-evaluated my plan, cutting back to a 7:35 in mile 2 and then a couple 7:45s. Felt good and was busy thinking about a literacy and health study and some ideas for a Microsoft/Telligent talk. Let my body just go for the most part. At the turnaround decided to keep to the negative split plan and picked it up a bit. Not sure right now whether I did, but pushed it throughout, slowing only during the last mile due to stoplights and traffic on 53rd. Street running is a total pace-killer.

I am especially pleased with where my running has gone since the Chicago Marathon.  Had a fun and strong tempo run on Thursday and this 12-miler confirms that the Marathon left me in solid shape and that the swimming is really paying off.  Looking forward to the 15k next weekend, wondering what I can do.

Also really happy looking back over the past year.  Ran a 12-miler around Christmas last year and while I was not especially suffering, it was a major effort.  Also thinking that I ran that 8-miler run in early August at 7:30 pace and really had to work to hold it.  Today, I just ran it and let it go where it went---and it went fast.  Last year at this point I was getting back into shape and working up to an 8-miler in anticipation of the Turkey Trot. It seems like such a long time ago.

Reading Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running yesterday and today and I am blown away.  I have been so down on almost every novelist writing in the past 20-30 years that I had completely ignored Murakami.  No more, probably running out to get one of his novels as soon as I have consumed and annotated this one.  I will put up a post eventually with some of the best aphorisms.

Race Report: 2008 Chicago Marathon

A little history: Back in May, I was seriously considering trying to run a Boston qualifier at this year's marathon. After the 1/2-mary in June, I lost about six weeks to an MCL injury and that caused me to revisit my plans. It was a good thing too, I realized over the summer months that I just don't train well in the heat. Add to that the need to keep the swim-bike-run thing flowing and my marathon-specific training dropped significantly. I went into the 2008 Chicago pretty confident I could run a 3:30 and figured I might even be able to pick up a minute over the last 10k if I stayed solid on 8-min miles for the first 20.

The race was hot. Nate convinced me that carrying my own drink for the first six miles would make life easier---and it really did. I found a great little 20oz Evian bottle (narrow with a squirt lid) and filled it with Accelerade. It held through mile 9, meaning no water stops and better quality drinking (e.g., I am certain I got all 20 oz, where I can never be certain how much I get from a cup). Don't love carrying a bottle, but getting to skip the aid stations was perfect and I
felt fantastic.

The crowds were fantastic--Chicago really comes out for the event and all along the course people were screaming encouragement and there was music and entertainment. I feel sorry for anyone who chose to wear an ipod since they would have missed out on the incredible fan support.

Held a pretty solid 7:51 to 7:56 through mile14 feeling great. At mile 14, I started to feel the effects of the heat and dropped to 8:15 then 8:30 then 8:45 and down it went. By mile 18 my quads felt like lead. I was fading but determined not to walk and so I pushed through Pilsen and then Chinatown (again, unbelievable crowds), but the post-Chinatown hill hit hard and I broke down to walk for a few steps along Wentworth. My quads were so sore already that walking was actually less comfortable than running, so after 30 steps or so I picked it back up and kept running. From there I kept the legs plugging away, walking only through aid stations until abotu mile 24. I was telling myself that I could walk a bit after the 40k mark, but just couldn't make it and ended up taking about 400m down Michigan, just trying to replenish the legs a bit.

Amy and the kids were on the corner of Michigan and 35th---and I couldn't believe how much that helped. Melissa was on the North side, but I never saw her because the crowds were so thick. Having friendly cheers at that Mile 24 mark was so critical especially after being clobbered by the heat. Zofie was busy doing something else, so she only saw my back, but Linus was looking right at me.

Found a little be extra at Mile 25 and determined to run it in, albeit slowly. The 'hill' on Roosevelt is just as much of a killer as everyone says.

Ended up at 3:51:51, 4843 overall --- so easily top 20% but much slower than hoped for. I was pretty sure that Chicago Marathon was a one-shot deal for me, but despite the pain (during the race AND as I write this!), I loved the experience and will almost certainly do it again next year. As the pain got worse, I kept telling myself that this is how the marathon at the end of the Ironman must feel and that kept me moving. Now that I am no longer a marathon virgin, I can get moving on toward a Boston goal and then the Ironman. Definitely planning on a 70.3 next year---and I may opt out of Chicago next year to run Indy and/or I may look for a cold-weather marathon in the winter when I can really get some speed.

Accenture Chicago Triathlon

I'm the one limping in at 0:19-ish with the terrible leg cramps.