How do I cool thee? Let me count the ways…
As I have mentioned several times on this blog, I detest the Florida heat. There are portable fans all over my house directed at the spots I normally stand or sit. My desire to stay cool was confirmed recently when I became ecstatic when the wife gave me a small (but powerful!) industrial fan as a gift. Now I can somewhat enjoy those hot, humid evenings out back on the porch. Well, until a swarm of mosquitoes tap a vein or a hurricane blows through…
Every time my sister, who currently resides in Fairbanks, Alaska, sends me photos of buildings made of ice or videos of her husband throwing hot tap water into the air outside where it instantly becomes snow, I become envious.
Soon the Florida heat will be pushing the mercury into the 90’s and I’ll start devising ways to stay cool. Summer is when our electric bill sky-rockets because I super-glue the A/C dial to 30°. Let me put it this way… If my A/C unit could handle it I would make it so cold in the house that if someone accidentally left the refrigerator open all night I wouldn’t have to worry about the food spoiling. 
But I can’t stay inside 24/7 so my search for various cooling technologies begins. The first thing I found was a USB/Battery/Car Adapter powered shirt that has a built-in fan! As you can see in the image the fan has enough power to inflate the shirt. The only problem here is that I would have to buy an entirely new wardrobe of fan-powered t-shirts and shorts. Although I am a little hesitant to have any device with quickly rotating components hovering around the private parts. And if this thing is activated by body temperature than I definitely won’t be wearing it to the beach. How do you think the wife would feel if my clothes started inflating every time a bikini-clad woman walked by?
ME: (reading a book)
WIFE: What are you reading?(Group of half-naked women walk by)
ME: whiiiiiiiiiRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
WIFE: WTF? (SMACK!)
That wouldn’t end well… Now here is the funniest “cool” thing I found.
I present to you… CoolCop! Air Conditioning for the body armor wearing Law Enforcement Officers out there. From the site:
On a hot day there’s nothing more uncomfortable than having to wear a T-shirt soaked with sweat. Add a bullet proof vest over it and no amount of air conditioning coming from your car vent is going to keep you cool & dry. CoolCop™ gives you relief!
CoolCop™ attaches to your vehicle’s A/C and directs cool, dry air behind your vest where you need it most. You stay comfortable, dry, energized, and ready to face the heat on the street.
You too can be COOL and COMFORTABLE in your bullet-proof vest for only $49.95!! I would actually wear one of those if it could attach to a hat. And yes, they do have a K-9 version.
But, this solution is not very practical and I’m sure I would forget that I was “connected” and nearly decapitate myself like a hyper dog running to the end of his leash.
There were a bunch of “cooling” solutions out there and a quick Google Image Search (GIS) revealed some pretty ingenious ideas. But the one that wins the “MacGyver” award is a photo I found titled “The Poor Man’s Air Conditioning”
Is that AWESOME or what!? Of course whoever drives “shotgun” will have a block of ice for a head when they reach their destination, but you can get cool while the car is “off” with this setup!
But alas, this is not a practical solution either… So I dug deeper and found a nanotechnology solution that doesn’t require electricity! You simply apply a special lotion to your skin and it enhances your body’s natural heat transfer process. From the site:
The design employs 300 nanometer copper film plaques affixed with an electrochemically assisted growth of high density copper nanorods. Each exchanger has 50 times the surface area of its base. Applied to the skin in a lotion, the top epidermal layer of the skin becomes populated with millions of nano heat exchangers. The base of the tiny heat exchangers are coated with a lipophilic polymer promoting their sticking to the surface of the skin base-side down.
-SNIP-
The human body cools mostly by means of radiative heat and secondarily by evaporative cooling (perspiration). It radiates heat away by dilating capillary blood vessels below the skin’s surface. Then the heat transfers to the outer skin (epidermis) and away from the body through the air. However, above 35 degrees C the body switches to almost all evaporative cooling via perspiration. This nano design attempts to improve radiative cooling by improving the efficiency of heat exchange before resorting to evaporative cooling.
(source)
SWEET! Basically, after applying this lotion the it becomes a “heat sink” that dissipates your body heat faster than you could naturally! WOO-HOO!! This means I can get cooler while running!
OK now where can I buy a bucket of this stuff so I can… Wait a minute… SOB! It’s a theoretical product. (SIGH)
My search continues…
My new old treadmill…
Yesterday a friend of ours GAVE me their treadmill. They were happy to pass it along as it was “taking up space” and that the only problem on the machine was that the display didn’t work. Well, without display how would I know my distance or pace? I thought I’ll just check it out and see if there was any way to fix the display.
Barely avoiding a hernia we pulled the treadmill of their truck during our lunch break and shoved it into the garage with all the other dusty exercise gear.
After work I had to satisfy my curiosity so I plugged the treadmill in and went through some basic checks. I got the belt moving at full speed, increased and decreased the angle of the platform… Everything looked great, except the digital read-out was blank. Shoot.
After the belt came to a stop I walked around and looked underneath the panel and verfied that the wires had good connections. Looking around the rest of the panel I noticed a small section that resembled the access panel of most electronics. I popped the lid and there were three AA batteries. Wait, it couldn’t be that simple… could it?
I yanked those batteries out and quickly replaced them. BINGO! The display lit up! I turned the treadmill “on” and it immediately started registering speed and distance totals! YEAH! I was STOKED!
This is a HUGE benefit to my training if the equipment makes it through the next few months. I don’t have to worry about missing any training runs unless there is a hurricane, which typically knocks our power out for a few days.
Now I just have to get rid of all the crap (yard sale in a couple of weeks!) in the garage so I can access the rest of the exercise equipment, which I plan on using regularly during my training. Yeah, that’s a dishwasher in front of the treadmill. Nice huh?
I snagged my portable power fan (you can see it at the bottom of the first photo) and directed it to blow air right on me while I’m on the treadmill. The wife was slightly amused at my childish excitement as I just put my running gear on and told her that I was going to “test” the equipment. So, I’m going running… In the garage! Hope I like it…
UPDATE (11PM EST):
Sweet. I really like this machine. It’s basic but satisfies the need to run during bad weather days or really weird hours. I just completed 4.5 miles (10:18 min per mile pace) and felt OK. It didn’t take long for my body heat to raise the temperature in the garage considerably. Might have to put a TV in the garage for longer runs.
Three down, 25 to go…
The big news for me this past week is that I lost three more pounds. About a month ago my weight plateaued and then began dropping off at about a pound per week. This morning the LCD screen on the scale blinked an even 210 lbs so I’m just 25lbs away from my goal!
I can feel the weight loss during my running and the difference is amazing. My stride seems easy and I can push myself harder near the end of the runs. For the past two weeks my “comfort zone” has been getting a faster hovering around the 9:45 - 9:50 per minute mark.
With just two weeks left until the marathon training starts my goal is to relax and enjoy the calm before the storm. I’ll probably run in the low 20’s for mileage but, if I’m feeling good, I’ll keep the pace that I have been running.
I’m pretty sure I can reach my 185 lb weight goal before the marathon. I can’t imagine how good it will feel running so “light!” During my “prime” I was a solid 175 lbs. I wonder how it would feel to run at that weight right now. Actually, I could find out if I had one of these:
You are looking at the Alter-G. Here is a description for the manufacturer’s website:
The first-of-it’s-kind G-Trainer™ treadmill system allows individuals to train and recover with reduced effective body weight, while maintaining natural gait and controlling impact on their body.
The G-Trainer allows you to reduce your effective body weight from zero to 80 percent, in one percent increments, by using air pressure to create a uniform, upward-lifting force on the lower body. Changes can be applied quickly all while moving on the treadmill.
This revolutionary technology allows individuals having difficulty standing, walking or running due to limitations in supporting their full body weight to do so in a comfortable environment. Athletes looking to increase their performance will also find the G-Trainer an effective tool for training.
SWEET! So, I can just set the effective body weight to around 175 lbs to see how I would perform in my current condition!
Can you imagine how interesting marathons would be if the entire field was on the same physical level? In NASCAR “restrictor plates” are used for certain races which “limits the power output of the motor, hence slowing both the acceleration and the overall top speed obtainable on the tracks where the cars are so equipped.” If there were some kind of device, like a portable G-Trainer, that the average person could use to bring them up to elite marathoner level than we could all run with the Kenyans!
Or, just give them lead-weighted shoes and let the rest of us go? Or give us an hour head-start? Personally, I couldn’t do that. Even when I play chess against a superior opponent I cringe when they offer to start the game a rook down to level the playing field. I want to EARN whatever progress I make.
Tonight it’s an easy 5-6 miles and a few more ounces of fat off my slimming frame. Just 25 more pounds to go… And I’m FLYING.
A canine stalker and the new comfortable…
Yesterday evening I ran a relaxed 5.5 miles. My Mother-In-Law (MiL) lives just down the road (2 miles) and since my wife was going there for dinner I flippantly asked, “How about I just run there for dinner?”
Without hesitation my wife said, “I like that idea.” Whuh? I guess the wife no longer views my running “problem” as odd. Cool.
So she dropped me off at the house after work and told me that the MiL was making BBQ chicken sandwiches which sounded AWESOME, except that it was not a dinner option for me since I consumed a massive turkey sub from a local eatery for lunch. Oh the sacrifices I make.
I knew the distance to the MiL’s house was around two miles so I lapped the neighborhood before making the journey. The weather was perfect and I quickly settled into a comfortable pace.
After running into the MiL’s driveway I stopped the GPS watch and saw that I ran 3.44 miles. I was a little disappointed at the distance because I felt great and wanted to run longer. After walking inside and seeing my girls playing and the wife napping, I quickly decided to run back to the house.
Ten minutes after my arrival I was off again. But this time, I was being followed. There is a neighborhood dog that the kids call “Oxy” but I think the dog’s real name is “Roxy.”
Anyway, Oxy is a full-grown black Labrador Retriever and is very friendly. When I started running I noticed she was trotting beside me but then disappeared out of my peripheral vision after about 100 meters. With my ear buds blasting Rage Against The Machine I didn’t hear Oxy’s tags clanging on her collar.
About a quarter of a mile into the run I take a turn onto a sidewalk that follows a major road. As I made the turn I almost tripped over Oxy who didn’t pay attention to my change in direction and plowed into my legs. I tried yelling and “shooing” Oxy away and to stop following me. I repeated this odd routine a few times over about a mile until the dog finally got the hint. With her head lowered she turned around and went back the way we came.
Running into my driveway I glanced at the watch and noticed my pace for the run was 9:31. What surprised me was that I felt really comfortable the whole time and only “pushed” near the end. When I entered the run into RunningAhead.com I noticed that my last five sessions were sub-10 minute pace. I’m not sure what happened recently (aside from losing a few pounds) but I think I have a new “comfortable” pace!
The last time I thought about what my “comfortable” pace was I figured it to be around 10:30 per mile. Now I would say 9:50-10:00. That’s a big difference and I’m not sure why there was such a big drop recently. Weird huh?
Tonight I’m not going to look at the watch and run comfortably and see what happens. Maybe I’m actually (finally!) getting a little faster?
A few days off…
I took a few mental days off and ignored my running blog. It was hard but it had to be done. Between personal issues, a busy weekend and Mother’s Day there were barely a few moments to spare for running!
Last Friday evening the family went for a walk on the beach. The weather was breezy and cool and the kids were WIRED. Erosion created a 5ft wall of sand along the beach and the girls were climbing and jumping the entire time we were there. They slept well that night.
I pushed through a 10 miler (9.75 miles) early Saturday morning which felt REALLY good despite the 72 degrees and 100% humidity. My pace was just under 10 minutes per mile and I could have gone faster if I didn’t crash and burn during the last couple of miles.
The fastest mile (4) was 9:10 and the slowest (9) was 11:06. Even though I slowed considerably during the last couple of miles I was able to pick it up a little the last half-mile and finish strong. I was well hydrated but the legs turned into lead near the end of mile eight. Next time if the humidity is that bad I’m going to drink some Gatorade during the run instead of just water.
A good friend of mine was tearing it up that day and I just tried to keep him in sight. I was able to do this until around mile six when he picked it up and pushed hard back to the starting point.
TRAINING
Now that the marathon training begins in a couple of weeks I’m focusing on my diet and general health. I still haven’t found a masseuse but the ibuprofen stock is full and the ice packs are ready!
I created a Google calendar of my training which you can see here.
The first few weeks of the Novice II Hal Higdon program were modified. I extended the mileage during the first few weeks so that there are no runs shorter than three miles. I’m cruising along at 20+ miles per week right now and I didn’t want to take a step back during the first part of training.
The main difference this time around, aside from the increase in mileage, is that I’ll be pushing a little harder during the long runs. Last year I was really cautious because I was more concerned with avoiding injury and just getting the miles in. Of course, I’ll be cautious again… just that I’m going to push my limits just a little bit more.
Today is an easy 4-5 miler after work which I need to work of the junk I ate this weekend. Or, should I count those mini éclairs as dairy+carbs?