King thumb

You could say human evolution started when the first brave ape came down from the trees. But scientists have long said that it was making tools that really set humans apart.

And if tools define our species, then it's our hands we have to thank...

"Everything that made us human was arguably given this big push by using stone tools," Williams says, "and so I'm trying to see what it is about our anatomy that allowed us to be good at it compared to other species that weren't good at it."

~ from NPR story, A Handy Bunch: Tools, Thumbs Helped Us Thrive 

I heard this interesting story yesterday. As the above quote indicates, scientists believe that our ability to make tools helped us excel where other species did not. And of course as everyone knows, our thumbs set us apart.

But of course apes have thumbs as well. In studying how humans succeed and apes fail at chipping flint with stones, it looks like a thumb isn't all you need. Turns out the apes thumb is a bit small, and the strength in their hand is more vertical (which allows them to support their weight hanging from branches). The human thumb is longer, and the palm of our hand has more side-to-side strength, which helps us grip the striking stone better. And oddly enough, the lowly pinky comes in to play.

This all reminded of a group camping trip some years ago. Our friend Brent was convinced it wasn't only our opposable thumb that set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Now, he has a lot of random theories and ideas, most of which are pretty out there (zero-gravity veal anyone). To prove his point, he talked most of the guys and one of the women into duct taping our thumbs down to make them unusable.

We spent a good five hours with our thumbs taped down. From what I recall, managing our zippers was one of the more difficult hurdles. But we managed to prepare our meals including cooking steaks over the campfire. We could feed, if not clothe ourselves. It was a pretty entertaining evening.

At one point, I looked around the campfire and realized that I was the only one left with duct tape around his hands. I'm not sure if that makes me more determined, resourceful, or just more easily duped into goofy experiments. I am sure if a Park Ranger walked up, my friends would have sold me out. "I don't know sir, he does these odd things from time to time." Friggin Brent.

Who's yer buddy?

Programming note:  I was telling a story up in Washington to someone who did not know my friend Sean H down here in California. When I talked about "Sean", he thought I was talking about myself in the third person. When I refer to "Sean" here in the blog, I am talking about my friend Sean H. I am not speaking in the third person. I hate when people do that.


It helps to have a running buddy. Even if they aren't running there with you, they are still part of your support system. While I was training for my second marathon, I was training alongside three other friends who were preparing to run their first. And since this was my first pass through a full marathon training program myself, we were all breaking new ground together.

We ran at different paces, but during the 16 week ramp up we still met every couple of weeks to do our training runs. We weren't necessarily running next to each other, but we were still more or less running together. We'd meet before and after to talk about how training was going, as well as catching up on everything else. When we stood together at the start line of the 2007 San Diego Marathon, we were truly a running group. We ran the first mile together before splitting off to run our own race. It was really a great experience.

Ever since that race, I haven't really gone through a training calendar with anyone. I have certainly joined friends at races, but I haven't had as much of a connection during the build up. I have mostly trained alone, and when we show up together at the start line, there is less of a sense of a shared journey.

This time it is a little different. Sean and I are both training for an October marathon. We are not running the same marathon, but since they are only two weeks apart, our training schedules are roughly aligned.

But we are actually going about it in two different ways. I described my plan in a previous post. Sean's plan was to run every day this month to develop a base, before starting in on higher speed and mileage. His July runs were not necessarily fast each day, but every day he would put in at least three miles. He would ramp things up for a long run each weekend, but July was mostly about making running an unquestionable routine, rather than a chore. It sounds like a great idea, but I think I will wait to try it out when I am not training for something specific.

Now that Sean and I are working together most days, we share our training stories after almost every run. Anytime I am tempted to postpone a training run, I remember that I have to "report" to Sean. It keeps me honest, and in waiting to hear how his training is going, it keeps me interested on another level. It is good to have a running buddy again. And I can't wait to see how our different methods pan out in October.

And of course having a buddy helps in other journeys as well. I have a friend that has been using Weight Watchers for a few months (quite successfully I might add). She has a friend who has been through the program who has been of great help. At the beginning, they were talking on the phone daily, discussing points, meal plans, etc. I think having someone who understood exactly what she was going through helped tremendously to get through the first week or two.

So many of our struggles for improvement end up being all too solitary. It helps to have a buddy. Find one if you can.

Never say die

This was originally my grandmother's, and it now hangs on a wall at my parent's house.

Never say die, say damn.

The mix tape

I am about two-thirds of the way through Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time. The book is a memoir about the author's love of music, the courtship and marriage to his wife Renee, and her all-too-sudden death after five years of marriage. He uses these mix tapes created by he and his wife to place himself at certain times in his life. The mix tapes serve as both a launching pad and a soundtrack to the story.

The author's passion for music has reminded me how much it is missing in my life these days. I listen to much less music since I started listening to podcasts. The podcast list keeps growing, and I follow almost 30 on a regular basis, so it leaves little time for music. The soundtrack of driving, exercise, and odd chores is now filled up with talk instead of music. I love listening to podcasts, but I miss the music.

I dragged all my CDs down to San Diego, two large boxes in all. A few people asked "why?" since I only had so much room in the truck, and music is largely digital now. But I have only loaded a portion of my music onto the computer, and my Nano can only hold some fraction of what I own.

CD sales have been dropping for years. Originally it was a illegal downloads that were cutting into sales. The music industry did its best to fight it, with some success. Now of course there are many legal ways to downloads individual songs (iTunes, Amazon, etc.), but by making it so easy to purchase individual songs, few people are buying the whole album these days.

Like others, the iPod has also pushed me towards listening to individual songs, rather than full albums. And I miss this too. When I do chose music these days, I typically listen to a few playlists I have created, or just hit shuffle and see what comes up. But there is a real appeal to listening to an album. Some albums are structured to rise and fall, each song building on the one before. And there are the hidden jewels buried on side B (when there was a side B), songs you never hear on the radio. And if all you do is buy individual songs, you never have a chance to make those discoveries.

So it is time to turn off the podcasts for a while to make time for music in my life. Less talk, more rock. The author had much more indy taste in music than I did, but there are some albums he mentioned that I have still buried in those boxes I dragged down. Time to dig through those boxes and put the CDs back in the car stereo where they belong.

And like the author, I made a ton of mix tapes when I was younger. I still have them in my storage unit in Seattle, and even just looking them over will take me back to when I made them. Now I kind of wish I had them down here with me. Of course I don't know what I would play them on.

Quote of the day

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

~ George Bernard Shaw

Random thoughts from the road

You know how the air smells after the first rain in weeks. I love it! - so fresh and clean. I heard recently that the smell is different depending on where you live. When the rain falls, it hits the local soil and plants and releases a smell specific to the location. I was out for a run this morning, and it was drizzling. It may be the first time it has rained during a run down here. A scent was in the air, and I was having a tough time placing it. I finally figured it out. It smelled like Round Up weed killer. Bleh.

On my long run last Saturday, I ran through Ocean Beach. It was pretty warm last week, so I tried to stay relatively close to the ocean to get some onshore breeze. As I passed by Dog Beach and the volleyball courts, I passed a gal heading toward the beach, clad in neoprene, carrying a surf board. Every time I run near the beach or Sunset Cliffs, I see lots of people bobbing in the water, astride a surf board, waiting for the next wave. Not the first time I have thought, "I'm in the wrong sport".

Notes from camp

"Camp kids explain how their non-camp friends and their non-camp loved ones have no idea why camp is the most important thing in their lives."

---
"David Himmel is a college sophomore and a former camper who's now a counselor. He says all the best experiences of his life have been at camp or with camp people."

~ Descriptions of the first two sections of "Notes on Camp" by This American Life.

I am one of those non-camp friends. I love to camp, and get out to the woods as often as I can, but I have never been to "Camp!"

Most of my California friends met at camp - I have joined the group through one level of separation (Matt and I worked at a restaurant together). They love to tell stories about it, and it is clear that friendships were not only started there, but cemented there. Several of them continue to go back as counselors, and it sounds like they have as much, or even more fun as the campers.

I will probably never quite understand it, but a This American Life podcast I listened to today gave me one more glimpse behind the curtain. It is a good episode, and the first ten minutes in particular help us non-camp people understand the appeal of summer camp.

(Sun)day o' fun

After my morning bike ride, I met up with Matt, Holly and Kristy at Wine Steals. Wine Steals is this casual wine tasting room located in Liberty Station in San Diego. Liberty Station is a former Naval training station on the north end of San Diego Bay. It was closed in 1997, and the barracks and other buildings have been redeveloped as shops and restaurants.

Wine Steals is tucked away in one corner of Liberty Station, and sits just off the Sail Ho Golf course. As we pulled up a table on the patio, the morning clouds broke up and we settled in to enjoy the sun, scenery and wine. On Sundays, Wine Steals has wine flights for $10. The wine flight is six, half-glass pours of the partial bottles left over from Saturday's wine tasting. It is a great (inexpensive) way to sample a variety of new wines. The four of us split the flight, a bottle of white, and a light lunch.

Later, we wandered through the station, primarily to pick some things up at Trader Joe's, but also to walk off some of the calories. Of course we were diverted by things both shiny and sweet.

There was this random pan of brownies sitting outside one of the buildings. Without thinking, I grabbed one and took a bite. "What if they're poisoned", someone asked. Too late. I thought, 'that would be one silly obituary'. For those that didn't risk brownie poisoning, we stopped at Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream. Even with the bike ride, it was not to be a weight loss day.

Kristy had to go home, but the rest of us were still up for something. Matt and Holly said "follow me", hopped in their car and headed north. We ended up in La Jolla, a nice, semi-shwanky town along the coast. We wandered up the coastline along with the rest of the Sunday crowd. I guess there is a regular Sunday concert in the park, but we arrived a bit too late to catch it.

There is a breakwater that was built to create a sheltered beach for kids. The harbor seals found it to be a great place for their pups as well, so now kids of both species have to share the space. Matt and I walked out on the breakwater for a closer look, and then headed over to the tide pools to see what else we could find. Matt experienced it the best when he opened him self up to the surf.



A great day, start to finish.

Back in the saddle (again)

As a part of my new get-fit/training regimen, I finally dusted off my neglected bicycle. I wish that was a metaphor, but it wasn't. There was an actual layer of dust on the bike. I had only ridden it once since the move to San Diego, and that was almost five months ago. I took it out for a quick spin a week ago, only about nine miles worth, and I felt pretty rusty. Same goes for the swimming by the way, but I am getting back into my cross-training sports slowly since the nearest goal is still the marathon in October.

I went out for my second ride yesterday and it was a little longer and a little more challenging. I am still trying to figure out good routes for the bike down here. That is one big advantage with running - it is much easier to find a good place to run. You're covering much less ground, and traffic is less of a consideration. You can run almost anywhere. Some roads are definitely better than others when it comes to bikes and cars sharing the road, and of course it is nice to find routes with fewer traffic signals.

But I digress. Sunday was a great day for a ride. The 90 to 100 degree heat had finally broken, and the morning was overcast. I found some bike routes on a local triathlon site and decided to ride a 25 mile route they use for an annual ride in January. The route loops around Fiesta Island and Mission Bay, with an out and back to Cabrillo National Monument

There was enough climbing to let me know that I have a long way to go before I am ready to join in on any local group rides. Don't want to get dropped on my first time out.

Just before reaching the monument, the road passes by the Fort Rosecrans Cemetery. Actually the road passes through the cemetery, as it is on both sides of the road, and it stretches out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

There is something about running or riding by a cemetery that I can't quite define. It is different than just passing by in a car. More personal. I can remember running by a cemetery around mile eight of the Eugene Marathon, and my thoughts turned inward. My mind bounced between the past and the present, and I thought about friends still here and those that have passed. It naturally makes me a bit reflective I suppose, and glad to be out doing something that I enjoy. Something that may keep me around to enjoy this life a little longer.

I am heading out to Cabrillo again today, this time by car. It was all fogged in yesterday, and I would love to check out the area a bit more. I didn't stop to read any of the information on the monument, or check out the tide pools when I was there on Sunday.  There was a bit of a time crunch since I was meeting up with friends afterward, and I'll talk about the rest of Sunday in the next post.

If you get tired, pull over. If you get thirsty, drink something*

One of the more difficult aspects of training so far has been the time I get out to run. Let me start by saying, I am not a morning person. Never have been, probably never will be. I can go for years working at a job that requires me to get up at 6am every day, but it doesn't get any easier. I set an alarm every day whether I need to get up at a certain time or not, because it is supposed to help to get up at roughly the same time every day.   My body will always want 2 - 3 more hours of sleep, and given the chance, I would probably sleep in until 9 or 10.

Because of this, I much prefer to run in the afternoon or evening. I barely want to get out of bed, much less get up early to get a run in before work. But that is exactly what I am doing these days. It is just too hot to run in the afternoon, and it is only going to get warmer over the next couple of months. It does feel good to get it out of the way early in the day, because sometimes your day can go sideways and training gets postponed. But that is small motivation when the alarm is going off early in the morning.

Even with getting in my runs in the early morning, the heat is still having it's effect. It is recommended that runners calculate their sweat rate, in order to know how much water and other fluids to take in while exercising. I have never bothered to do this before, but by seeing the salt lines on my forehead after runs, I figured my rate was relatively high. Tuesday morning, I was weighing in anyway, so I decided to do the calculation.

Basically what you do is weigh yourself before and after exercising for an hour. The amount of weight you lose is basically the amount of water you lose through sweating. There is of course some calories burned, but it is generally small compared to the weight of water loss. Tuesday was an interval workout, so I would be working a bit harder than normal, but the duration was under 50 minutes so I thought it would be a decent test.

The results? After 48 minutes of exercise, I lost 2.5 pounds! Even though I was drenched with sweat, I was pretty shocked at the amount of weight loss. 2.5 pounds lost equates to 40 ounces of water lost, which means that I should be taking in about the same amount during exercise to avoid dehydration. Previously, I have not bothered to bring any fluids along for runs under 60 minutes, but I obviously need to reconsider. I should also be stopping to drink more often than I have been on any run.

Running in California is obviously warmer than running in Washington, so I am going to have to continue to make adjustments. The temperature during my run Tuesday morning was around 70 degrees, and temperatures during the day this week have been tickling 100 degrees. So it looks like I will need to get up even earlier to try to beat the heat, and bring along a canteen of water.

*Paraphrased from Best in Show

Quote of the day

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

~ Elbert Hubbard

Uninspiring Google ad of the day

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This time its serious. No really.

Marathon training programs usually run around 16 to 18 weeks. I have been basically using the same program for each of my marathons so far. The last two I ran were ones I wasn't fully trained for, but I have been maintaining a fair base of fitness over the past couple of years. That is actually the thing I am most happy with. Signing up for these runs has helped keep me working out.

The last marathon I showed up fully trained and ready to run was the Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon a year ago in June. I did every training run, rode my bike once a week, and did some swimming as well. I mixed in a little "speed" work for the first time, which mostly consisted of treadmill intervals where I would speed up and slow down about every quarter mile. This program seemed to work relatively well for me, and I cut about 21 minutes of my best time.

But I think that there is still some room for improvement. I want to qualify for Boston someday, hopefully by the time I turn 45. It gets 10 minutes easier at that point, but I would still need to run the marathon in 3:30. Though I have followed a formal training program in the past, I mostly ran whatever pace felt right that day. So I want to ramp up training for my marathon in October, to see what happens when I push myself.

I have stuck with three runs a week in the past, mostly to avoid injuries, and I think that will work best for me as I ramp things up. My new training program is based on the F.I.R.S.T. program detailed in the book Run Less, Run Faster. The program has you running three days a week, and cross training at least two days. The theory is that the two days of cross training help maintain fitness, while reducing the amount of time you're pounding the pavement. The biking and swimming will also help me build a base for a triathlon later on.

In order to run faster while running less often, the three running workouts each week are very specific. Each week, there is one day of intervals, one tempo run, and one day for your long run. The distances and paces are specifically called out for each workout over the 16 weeks. For example, today's interval workout was:

10-20 minute warm up
Intervals of 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400, 200 yards
(200 yard rest intervals between each interval)
10 minute cool down

The pace of each interval depends on your marathon goal. My paces range between a 7:00 and 7:24 per mile. The Thursday tempo runs are also at a different, specific pace each week. The long runs each weekend are also run at a pace quicker than most programs. The one tweak I made was to reduce the mileage of the weekend long runs. The program had the miles ramping up quicker than I thought was sensible with the fitness base I had going in. The long runs will be a bit longer than in the past, though.

So overall, it isn't a huge change in direction. I will be running the same number of days, but the plan is definitely more structured, and the mileage and pace are higher than before. After two weeks, I am definitely feeling more challenged. I am also feeling more sore however, and have been having some knee and ankle problems. So we'll see if the new program nets me a new PR, or sidelines me with an injury.

Different strokes for different nerds

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In years past, I would record the 4:30am Tour de France coverage every day for three weeks. Coverage of the race is repeated throughout the day, but the early morning version had the most detail and the best announcers. I would try to watch it that evening, but daily coverage was often 4 1/2 hours long, and that is a lot of tv to cram into each day. It is exhausting trying to keep up! (he says knowing he sounds like a complete nerd). You end up looking forward to the rest days almost as much as the riders so you can get some rest yourself.

This year, there is no DVR to catch the early morning coverage, and I just can't stomach getting up at 4:30am. Besides, I'd have to leave for work long before the race was over. We do get the channel though (which is kind of odd since we only get a handful), so I have been subjecting the housemates to race coverage nerdiness most nights.

Like I said, I can't cast many stones at soccer or NASCAR fans.

Goooaaaallll?

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So, the World Cup final is tomorrow. Not that I have been following it. Have you? I do see it on many more tv screens than I did four years ago, but that may have more to do by my current location than increasing overall popularity.

Soccer (or football) is like most any sport - much more fun to play than to watch. My brother and I played soccer as kids, and my Dad both played and coached. Now my niece is playing on an advanced select team, and is playing the unenviable position of goalie. As kids, we sometimes went to Seattle Sounder games and even saw them make the playoffs.

But I can no longer sit down and enjoy watching a game. A big reason of course is that there is so little scoring. The long, loud shouts of "GOAL" are probably so dramatic because they are so infrequent. They have even introduced a ball that doesn't fly true in hopes that the goalies won't be able to stop it. From what I've seen, it hasn't helped much.

So, the games are pretty boring, but the real reason is the all the dives the players take, feigning injury at the slightest touch. After writhing in (mock) pain and getting a penalty called on the other team, the bounce up and usually even forget to even limp to complete the act. If they spent as much energy trying to score as they do on their acting, they wouldn't need to make a funny-flying ball.

Ah well, the rest of the world seems to love it. And I watch plenty of stuff other people find boring. I've mostly given up watching golf, but I try to catch as much of the three weeks of Tour de France coverage. Now that is some good stuff!

But again, playing is more fun than watching. I think I'll dust off the bike tomorrow and go for a ride.