Month: September 2006

Mission Accomplished!

I met my running goals for the month! This is not the first time I have met a monthly running goal, but it was the most ambitious month I have had so far. It is also the first month that I have really set out with a firm goal in mind. Then I got waylayed with some scheduling conflicts and illness.

The goal was 82 miles in the calendar month. My log says:

82.3 miles
Time: 15h 07m 26s
Avg. Pace: 11:02/mile

This makes 448 miles for the year. My new shoes have 148.5 miles on them. I guess they are not so new. At best, they are 1/4 of the way through their life expectancy, at worst, they are half way there.

I lost a few miles one week due to having to cut a few runs short. I made up for some of it by running more days in a row, but lower mileage. Then due to an infection, I had a horrificaly high fever that knocked me out almost a week. When I did get back, it was a few days of working slow and easy just to make sure the infection was really gone. Plus I did not feel 100% yet.

I ended the month with 2 great weeks. Both high mileage weeks. One was almost 30 miles and the other 23. The 23 mile week would have been my longest 7 days to date except it was eclipsed by the 29 mile week the week before. I know these are not big numbers for many runners, but they are for me and I am very excited to be at this stage. I am still a new runner and do not want to be overly ambitious too soon. I am trying to get excited about these little advances so that I will not crank the mileage up too much and get injured.

Get out and run or walk. Move! Achieve that goal!

New Printer: Epson C67

I bought a new printer today. This is my first printer that has come in a box since around 1998 or 1999. I did buy one new in 1996, then that one at the end of the decade. I have acquired a few here and there since then, but nothing new. The one bought at the end of the century is still in use at my parent’s house. I have been using a printer that they bought in 1997. The one I had did not support Linux and their’s did. So I switched printers with them and they were never the wiser. They ended up with a newer machine anyway, so it was a good deal for them.

Today I purchased an Epson Stylus C67. Epson C67 PrinterIt is sold in Latin America, not in the US. The price at Office Depot was $549 pesos. That is about $50 US Dollars. The cheapest I have seen that printer for online is $66 (USD). I feel like I got a good deal.

In the process of buying the printer the cashier asked me if I wanted to charge the printer on a 12 month interest free plan they were offering. Hmm, that would work out to less than $4.25 a month. What an idiotic program this is. It is an infection. I can see “12 months same as cash” on a $500 product, but $50? The disease of credit (which is wicked and why so many people are in financial trouble today) has infected México as badly as, or maybe worse than, the US. You can get credit to buy almost anything here. There is one store whose whole business model is selling stuff on credit.

Well, I certainly was not interested in buying a $50 printer on credit. If I cannot pay $50 for a printer, then I don’t need the printer. If it were a pressing issue and I had to do some printing, I could easily go to any one of the thousands of Internet cafés here and print my paper for a few cents. Then save my money for a few months and buy the thing with cash. That is what our grandparents used to do. They did not buy stuff if they did not have the money for it.

So, I told the cashier that I would not buy the printer on credit, but that I wanted to pay for it all at once. “And, furthermore,” I told her, “credit is an invention of the Devil” (in Spanish of course).

Then something interesting took place. She had to call a manager over. Because I was not buying with credit, the manager had to override the purchase. Huh? Why? Well, the “no interest for 12 months” is not entirely true. I found out that if you pay cash, then the printer only costs $494 pesos (about $45 US Dollars). There was nothing on the display saying that it cost less if you pay cash than if you do their credit. I saved $5 (USD), simply because I used cash and not credit. So how do they get by saying that there is not interest if you use their credit? I guess it is not interest if you charge the extra $5 up front.

Anyway, I am pleased with my purchase. This is the first time I have bought something other than food or clothing here in México where I feel like I have gotten a good deal. Normally we would pay much more for something like a printer than the equivelant in the US. The cheapest Epson printer I currently see at Office Depot in the US is $90. That is twice what I paid for my printer here. Never mind the fact that the one at the US Office Depot website has a scanner. It is still the cheapest you can buy from them.

This one works perfectly in Linux too. Or at least as much as I have tested so far.

Steak ‘n Shake cashier

Modified Steak 'n Shake logo.One time my wife and I were in Steak ‘n Shake in Orlando, Florida. We were with my younger brother and his wife. Being good brothers, I was not going to pay his bill, nor he mine. We asked the waiter to separate the bills, but he said he could not do that at the table. We had to order together and the cashier would separate the checks.

When we got to the cashier she said that she could not ring up our checks separately into the two couples. She could, however, ring us up as individuals and we could pay that way.

So, my wife told her what she ordered. The girl rang it up and we paid for that. Then I told her what was mine and paid. Then my brother gave his list of food and paid. Finally my sister-in-law did hers. The whole time we were laughing.

So she was able to ring up 4 sets of burger, fries and drink individually, but not in groups of 2 burgers, 2 fries and 2 drinks as a set. And they let her deal with their money?

Can I make it?

With almost 2 weeks lost to scheduling and illness, I might still make my monthly mileage goal. One week was not really lost, I just did not get a chance for a long run that week. That resulted in a need to run more days in a row. Then I got horribly sick two days later when I was getting ready to go for the new week. I was wiped out for 5 days. The illness was due to an infection I got in a benign cyst on my back. That will be coming out as soon as I can schedule it after the Phedippidations World Wide Half.

I have been able to make up some of the mileage with an unexpected 7.5 mile run one Sunday morning and then a 10K race the next Sunday. I lost 2 miles last Saturday in my long run because I ran out of time and had appointments to keep.

According to my training log I am at 70.3 miles so far this month. Tomorrow is a 4 mile run which may be put off till Friday due to just being tired from work. Then an 8 miler on Saturday will put me right at 82 miles. That is where I should have been this month anyway.

Then taper week getting ready for the half marathon.

I am amazed at what I have been able to make up. After the half marathon I am going to take a couple of weeks off of running and get back into my cross training which has been totally neglected for about 2 months. Then I will merge the two back together and get my strength back. I feel like I have really worked my legs well, but I am losing some of my strength in other areas.

Plodding along

I set out to do a 5K run this morning. Went well. But, I just did not feel into it. At the 3 Km. mark I walked a bit not because I could not run more, I just didn’t want to push it this morning. I moved my rest days around so that I rested yesterday after the 10K race. Then ran today instead of the normal rest. I have Wednesday and Thursday as running days. Friday will be a rest and then a long run Saturday. It will only be an 8 miler this weekend.

Run today, even with the walking figured in, was at a 10:44 per mile pace. I did not do poorly, I just needed a lighter day. After all, I ran on Saturday and Sunday what would normally be a week’s worth of running for me.