Sometimes they are just hard runs

Yesterday morning I went out for a 3.5 mile tempo run. With a 1 mile warm up and a .5 mile cool down, it was going to be a nice 5 mile run. The plan was to take the first mile easy. Somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 would have been fine. Then the next 3.5 at a pace between 9:07 and 9:30.

While the first mile was on the fast side of my range at 10:30, I felt like I was slogging to get that fast. It was difficult. I sped up the second mile to 10:00 minutes, but it was hard to get that fast. The third mile was 10:07 and I was spent. I ended up doing a walk/run for almost another mile just to get home. I was well off my desired pace and even at a much slower pace I did not feel at all capable.

Since I have only had a couple of truly horrible runs in my running career, I don’t feel too bad about this. I don’t want it to happen again any time soon, but I am not letting it get me down.

Today I was supposed to do a 4 mile recovery run. Being that this week is camp and I had to be meeting people earlier than I normally even run, I ended up cutting my run short to about 3 miles today. I am supposed to run my recovery runs at 11:30 / mile, but 10:30 is what I did today and it felt easy.

Why one day the pace feels hard and the next easy, I may never know.

Tomorrow is an off day and then I am supposed to run 5.5 miles Saturday. I probably won’t be able to run so will have to shift my training around next week to still get it in, but keep all the other runs as well.

Competitive Runner

I ran across a website today that has gear reviews for runners. I was particularly interested in the shoe reviews. I have written one review and will be working on another one later.

There are many other things the site offers, but the shoe reviews interested me the most. I thought I would just point it out to other runners who read here. It was new to me.

CompetitiveRunner.com

Windows Picasa in Linux

With the recent upgrade of my main computer from Slackware 11 to Slackware 12, I have also tried to update as much individual software as I can. I was pleased to see that Google had released a newer version of Google Earth in May of this year. But was equally disappointed to find out that the 2 year old version of Picasa I had been using was the same. I was really wanting to try out the new Picasa Web Albums.

Picasa up and runningWhile I enjoy using Picasa in Linux, it is not a native Linux application. It is kluged into Linux via Wine. This got me to thinking that I might be able to install Wine and get a recent Windows version of Picasa up and running. The only thing that concerned me was that I remember there was talk that the Wine install that Google built for its software was very modified and a standard install of Wine would probably not work.

I did some surfing around and found a nice tutorial on getting the current version of Picasa (2.7 build 28.3205,0) to play nicely with the current version of Wine (0.9.43).

This info is pulled off of a mailing list. The person who posted it said it was not original to him, but he did not know where he got it. If you know the original source of this, let me know. I will gladly give credit.

Let me step you through each part of the process. These steps were originally written for Ubuntu. I will leave them intact and comment under the steps if there are any changes.

The steps with commentary

1. I installed Picasa as usual (v2.2 for linux)

I installed the original version of Picasa for Linux. This is a truly enjoyable experience since it installs (somewhat) like a Windows program. While I am a dyed in the wool Linux user, there needs to be a standard way to install software. Google has done a good job with the installers for Google Earth and Picasa.

2. I started it up and scanned some folder containing photos

Just let it do it’s thing. For me this took no time at all since I had previously had Picasa running on my system, it found all the configurations and photos.

3. Shut down picasa AND the media detector

The media detector is the little Picasa logo that sits in the tray by the clock (on KDE). Right click it to choose the option of shutting it down.

4. Installed wine (apt-get install wine)

If you are using Slackware, then don’t use apt-get. It does not work here. I grabbed the latest version of Wine for Slackware 12 (even though the site is in Italian, the package was English). Install the package just like you normally would any other Slackware software package. If you don’t know how, there are tutorials for that too.

As a side note, and something that was confusing to me, there was no Wine configuration that I needed to do. Just keep plugging through the steps and you will get there.

5. Downloaded picasa 2.5 for windows (wget http://dl.google.com/picasa/picasaweb-current-setup.exe)

Again, this is a step in Ubuntu (and other Debian based systems). Just go download the Windows .exe file from Picasa.

6. Installed it using wine (wine picasaweb-current-setup.exe)

This is done from the command line. cd to the directory where you downloaded the picasaweb-current-setup.exe file and issue this command: wine picasaweb-current-setup.exe

7. When asked if I want to run Picasa, I did so, then I shut down picasa AND the media detector (if running)

This will happen after Wine gets through with the install. The media detector ran for just a second and found only a few pictures. I became concerned at this point thinking that I was going to have to start all over getting the new Picasa set up with my pictures. But that problem is taken care of in the following steps.

7. Moved the old picasa installation (as root):
cd /opt/picasa/wine/drive_c/Program Files
mv Picasa2 Picasa22

Why this is also step 7, I don’t know. You enter the lines under step 7 into your console as root. Each line is done separately. The first line gets you into the directory where Picasa is stored and the second line moves the whole install into a different directory (so you don’t lose it). I believe this is the original Picasa install, not the one you just installed.

8. While in the same dir i copied the new installed Picasa 2.5:
cp -R home/USERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Picasa2/ .

Just run the line of code at your command prompt. You will need to substitute your username where it says USERNAME. That period on the end is important. Don’t leave that off or it won’t work.

8. Then it just worked… Good luck!
I had big troubles getting the start up logo disappearing, this is why some steps are kind of awkward.

That was exactly my experience. It worked! Except…Picasa showing a closeup

The fallout (however minor)

I was not able to start it from the newly created desktop shortcut. When I did that, it was like I was starting the new version, but with no photos (like after the first step 7 above). But going to the command line (or ALT+F2) and typing in “picasa” (without quotes) started the program just fine.

My only issue now is with getting connected to the Web Albums (the reason I wanted to upgrade to begin with). I am getting the “Failed to connect to server. Please try again later.” error. This can be caused by a few of different issues. I think mine is tied to the fact that I am outside the US and their only Web Albums server is a US one.

Let me write that up as a separate issue in a later post.

The ongoing headphone debate

Today I read an article written by Dave McGillivray, the race director for the Boston Marathon. He was talking about the use of iPods specifically, but what he meant was MP3 players in general. However, he does point out that the iPod was the biggest brand he consistently saw.

The rub is whether headphones are good and healthy for runners. As a race director of a USATF sanctioned event, he has to lay down the law and say that no headphones are allowed. This is for insurance purposes, but also has social reasons. He does a good job of pointing out the reasons why one should not wear headphones while running. I agree with many of his reasons.

However, I run almost all of my training runs with headphones. If I am fortunate enough to get someone to run with me, then I will not take my player with me at all. Or, sometimes during speed workouts I will ditch the player. Those are times that I am focusing on the event and not the podcasts. But at all other times I wear my headphones during training.

I used to wear them during races too. After my 3rd race or so, I gave up on them. I wanted to experience the atmosphere as a whole and do my best while running. I really enjoy chatting with other runners. While I am not a competitive runner, I do try to push myself at races.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about this topic at another site that I visit regularly.

MightySearch

After I did all the work to customize a search results theme page, I found a link at the original site telling of an easier way to do the same thing.

Get the mightysearch plugin and follow a couple of tutorials for getting it up and running. You can see what this plugin does for your site by doing a search in the sidebar to the left. It allows you to do Google searches but display results with your own website’s theme.

Ironically, the page that got me started on all of this does not use either method to display his search results as of this writing.