July 2018 Running Challenge
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AlphaHowls wrote: »7/1 13.54 miles
7/2 20.08 miles
7/3 16.51 miles
7/4 20.38 miles
7/5 2.07 miles
7/6 15.36 miles
7/7 16.66 miles
7/8 16.03 miles
I have now been on MFP for three years. My starting weight was 223 lbs. My original goal was to lose weight, until I hit normal BMI. I passed that by and just kept right on going till I found a range I was good with. My range is 125 lbs to 135 lbs. I started walking when I first started MFP. After about nine months, someone asked me if I was a runner. I adamantly stated 'no'. After that day I thought about what the lady had asked and thought, 'why not?' I started running in spurts, no plans, just repeat in my head, 'don't stop'. Now here, I am pushing goals I never thought I would ever achieve. I ran a marathon a few months ago, now I just want to run, no destination, no alarming goal, just get up, get out and run. I thank everyone here for all the help, I have learned so much in reading about everyone. Thank you so much for the inspirations, insights and the smiles that go with my miles.
@AlphaHowls
"...I just want to run, no destination, no alarming goal, just get up, get out and run."
That's a beautiful thing.
I may have to steal that goal!
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@midwesterner85 I bet you will get a different answer from everyone you ask!
For fruit, I think apple slices and grapes are great. Anything that I can grab as I run past and then eat whole, without worrying about finding a trash bin afterwards for the leftovers if I don't finish it right away at the aid station.
No oranges for me anymore - I remember a race on a really hot day where I had a nice juicy orange slice, and the next few kilometres the stickiness from the juice on my hands drove me insane, but that' might just be me
Hard cheese cubes are awesome for long races. Sure, they contain fat (but so do potato chips), but also electrolytes and protein.
And Cereal bars cut into small squares are also good.
Pretzels and Skittles are nice too. I would put them spread out on large trays. That way people pretty much only touch what they grab. Putting them in plastic cups would produce so much unnecessary waste! Unavoidable for road races, I guess (although if trail races can be bring-your-own-cup, I don't know why it shouldn't work at least for longish road races too...), but doubling or tripling that number when it's not really necessary seems insane.
Speaking of trash: if there are bananas, the should be lots of trashcans, also a couple of hundred meters after the aid station. I saw a runner in front of me slip and bust his knee once - running at the back of the pack is no fun if it means watching out for banana peel scattered all over the road.
E.T.A.: Okay, I just read all the other replies, seems I'm the only one who doesn't like the idea of extra cups for all the sweets. Never mind me then!
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]July 1 - 10 km club run
July 2 - 22 km long run
July 3 - sick
July 4 - sick
July 5 - sick
July 6 - sick
July 7 - 10 km run
July 8 - 6 km club run / 14 km run
July 9 - 12 km city run
74 km's run with goal 350 km0 -
@midwesterner85
a few thoughts - although bear in mind that much of my experience of aid stations is from races where people are running slower than trying to BQ.
pretzels, peanuts and potato chips are good for salt.
slices of orange are the most amazing thing ever, watermelon (I'm not personally a fan) and pineapple also go down well
cake - brownies, flapjacks, millionaire shortbread
skittles, jelly beans etc.
don't know if you can get it over there but soreen malt loaf went down really well on an ultra I marshalled an aid station!!
All I wanted on my marathon was a cheese sandwich. really. I needed that savoury, rather than just sugar all the time.
small cocktail sausages
schnapps. just a measure. works a treat.
buckets of water to dip bandanas in, and sponges, although I heard a podcast that suggested sponges get used to cool off ALL areas of the body not just the head and neck........
Just a comment about putting handfuls in individual cups. No. there's enough plastic waste in the environment without making it worse. hands dipped in bowls, deal with it. (that's you and me @_nikkiwolf_ maybe a European thing?)
and yes, put a rubbish bin a couple of hundred yards from the aid station. Trail runners can spot a road runner a mile off by the discarded wrappers thrown on the ground.5 -
ContraryMaryMary wrote: »At many of the big events I've done there are people wearing gloves handing out jelly beans, snakes, fudge and the like. I hate the grab-your-own baskets of sweets, but the gloves give me the illusion of hygiene.
I think this would pretty much guarantee me a PR!2 -
@girlinahat Whew, glad I'm not the only one thinking that. I didn't want to come across as that crazy tree-hugging lady lecturing the masses...girlinahat wrote: »Just a comment about putting handfuls in individual cups. No. there's enough plastic waste in the environment without making it worse. hands dipped in bowls, deal with it. (that's you and me @_nikkiwolf_ maybe a European thing?)
At the Paris marathon they introduced specific bin types for banana/orange skins and plastic bottles (which they use instead of cups), in a really well-organised way (see here). The food waste is turned into compost, the bottles are recycled (into car seats for the BMW i3). I didn't run the race, but I read about it in a running magazine last year, and I thought it was awesome. I wish more race organisers would do things like that.
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6 miles this morning. Nothing notable, except I am halfway to my July goal.
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_nikkiwolf_ wrote: »
@girlinahat Whew, glad I'm not the only one thinking that. I didn't want to come across as that crazy tree-hugging lady lecturing the masses...girlinahat wrote: »Just a comment about putting handfuls in individual cups. No. there's enough plastic waste in the environment without making it worse. hands dipped in bowls, deal with it. (that's you and me @_nikkiwolf_ maybe a European thing?)
At the Paris marathon they introduced specific bin types for banana/orange skins and plastic bottles (which they use instead of cups), in a really well-organised way (see here). The food waste is turned into compost, the bottles are recycled (into car seats for the BMW i3). I didn't run the race, but I read about it in a running magazine last year, and I thought it was awesome. I wish more race organisers would do things like that.
Paper cups would be far more sanitary and could be composted. Just an option.
If I saw 100s of sweaty people dipping hands in a blow of candy, I would pass it by and think bad thoughts. No thanks.
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7/1 = 8 miles
7/2 = 3 dreadmill miles and 30 minutes strength training
7/3 = 6 miles
7/4 = 5 miles
7/5 = 3 miles
7/6 = 12 miles
7/7 = rest day
7/8 = 7 miles
7/9 = 3 miles & 30 minutes ST
Re: race food
I can’t do candy during a race. I tried jelly beans once and I immediately hurled. Then again, I have a delicate runner stomach. Orange slices are amazing.
49/125 goal July miles0 -
also the cups thing. I've been a volunteer at an aid station, and at the final stop of a 10k where all the water was (there was none out on the course). For the 10k race, it took me the ENTIRE length of time folks were running to fill the cups with water. Setting up an aid station probably takes at least an hour (also if you need gazebos, tables etc.). There's fruit to cut and prep, and packet to open etc.
Top tip for water - fill JUGS. Easy for people to refill their packs if they want, and easier for you to refill cups. And what's with runners drinking one cup of water and then grabbing a fresh cup? I don't care if it's plastic or paper, just refill.
Bottles aren't great on some races, as runners sip from them and then throw them down maybe one or two miles down the route. Again, what's with the chucking your waste and expecting people to clear it up? Be like the Japanese. Tiny bits of gel wrapper dropped mid-trail/route I can accept by accident, everything else, be kind to the environment.
rant over.4 -
yeah, but it won't be 100s of people touching your candy before you eat it. If everyone just grabs something from the top , it will be a handful of peole (no pun intendedPastorVincent wrote: »Paper cups would be far more sanitary and could be composted. Just an option.
If I saw 100s of sweaty people dipping hands in a blow of candy, I would pass it by and think bad thoughts. No thanks. ) whose hands might brush the candy piece you get for a fraction of a second. (( and how much is anyone actually sweating on the -hands- while running?) Wouldn't bother me at all.
Spread it out on a tray rather than in a bowl, even less problems.
What about the fact that the hands of one or more people touched the orange slice that you grab, is that also an issue?
I'd rather worry about touching the locking mechanism of the porta-potty doors if I wanted to start freaking out about unsanitary things in a race
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_nikkiwolf_ wrote: »
yeah, but it won't be 100s of people touching your candy before you eat it. If everyone just grabs something from the top , it will be a handful of peole (no pun intendedPastorVincent wrote: »Paper cups would be far more sanitary and could be composted. Just an option.
If I saw 100s of sweaty people dipping hands in a blow of candy, I would pass it by and think bad thoughts. No thanks. ) whose hands might brush the candy piece you get for a fraction of a second. (( and how much is anyone actually sweating on the -hands- while running?) Wouldn't bother me at all.
Spread it out on a tray rather than in a bowl, even less problems.
What about the fact that the hands of one or more people touched the orange slice that you grab, is that also an issue?
I'd rather worry about touching the locking mechanism of the porta-potty doors if I wanted to start freaking out about unsanitary things in a race
Your hands do not sweat? Odd. Mine get so bad I can not use the phone screen after a while. Dripping wet. Would not want to be the poor shmuck that came after me.
As far as the volunteers go... you are talking about 1 or 2 people, vs 100 sweaty drippy messes. I rather take my chances with the smaller risk vector.
I care about recycling, cleaning up the mess we have made of this planet, and more. But I just think there are better solutions than communal sweat sharing 2 -
Here are my thoughts on waste and such at aid stations, and I know there are many runners who will disagree (which is a big reason why I asked):
The race I'm talking about will provide the cups and the aid station sponsors will provide trash cans / cleanup. I love to see cup-less races, but have only seen this once. At that particular race, it was a half-marathon (so no BQ's anyway) and they gave out refillable cups at packet pickup. The cups clipped onto a waistband and you squeezed it to open. You could opt out of this and save $2.00 off the race fee (I did this) and bring your own bottle. But there were no cups given out. You filled your own at the aid stations. They had quick-pour spouts (seriously, these would fill my 20 oz. in about 2 seconds, no joke). This was just outside a national park and done as a destination race. There was an important "No trash" policy. Aid stations did have snacks with wrappers and trash cans (mostly Honey Stinger as they were a sponsor). It was very clearly stated in the rules that you would be DQ'ed and banned from future races by this organization if you were caught littering. When I see pictures of cups everywhere on the street around aid stations at the big city races, I cringe because I know this can work. Yet I always get a lot of runners telling me there is just no way. At my last road race, I did what everyone else did (just threw the cups on the ground), but only because there were no trash cans provided at many of the aid stations. Of course it isn't possible then! But yea... I hate littering and waste.
This particular race is a "trail run" on a rails-to-trails trail. It gets much of the road runner crowd and not technical trails crowd, but the trail is only around maybe 10-15 feet wide and crushed limestone. They estimate 400 runners, so this is a pretty small crowd. I've run smaller (smallest had 19 total runners for the marathon and probably 3-4 times that for the half marathon race starting half-way along as both were point-to-point), but 400 is still a pretty small race.1 -
7/1-1.01mi
7/2-1.04mi
7/3-1.04mi
7/4-2.02mi
7/5-3.12mi
7/6-1.01mi(2 hours of aerial hammock and hoop)
7/7-1.01mi(2 hours of aerial yoga)
7/8-1.01mi(walked 5 miles at the renaissance faire)
i need to find commitment. teaching aerial classes, remodeling my home with my parents, renfaire season, keeping house...my time is quite tight and my body is tired but faire is too fun
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re: sweaty hands.
I have just come back from a weekend of fast swing dancing (collegiate shag). four hour workshops in non-airconditioned rooms, plus evening dances. You rotate partners a lot during classes, and dance will a variety of people during the socials. The tempo ranges from 180-220beats per minute. I take sweat from the leads arm, and put it on the next leads arm, ad infinitum. Add that to my own sweat and we are all pretty much just mixing our sweat together in one big wet dripping mess. You change shirts, you change t-shirts, but straight away you sweat into that new shirt.
Okay I'm not putting any of that sweat in my mouth, but the point is, if I cared about sweat I wouldn't do it. If you are that bothered by the hygiene of someone's hand in the bowl before you, I guess you'll have to be self-sufficient.
There's a lot of discussion from race organisers about how to deal with the plastic cup thing, and it IS pretty hard. Some will allow you to buy your own to clip on, but that takes a small amount of time to fill. Paper cups have their own environmental issues (they are never truly biodegradable as many have waxes on or plastic coatings). There are also a lot of complaints about the mess left after races (less so on trails because they tend to be smaller races AND good waste disposal is perhaps encouraged more. After the Brighton and Portsmouth marathons, the images of the bottles strewn on the ground were really depressing. These are races that are run pretty much on the beach, so the chances of littering the sea are too high not to do anything about it. More bins, and fostering a culture that it just isn't acceptable to drop litter is the way to go.
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PastorVincent wrote: »_nikkiwolf_ wrote: »
yeah, but it won't be 100s of people touching your candy before you eat it. If everyone just grabs something from the top , it will be a handful of peole (no pun intendedPastorVincent wrote: »Paper cups would be far more sanitary and could be composted. Just an option.
If I saw 100s of sweaty people dipping hands in a blow of candy, I would pass it by and think bad thoughts. No thanks. ) whose hands might brush the candy piece you get for a fraction of a second. (( and how much is anyone actually sweating on the -hands- while running?) Wouldn't bother me at all.
Spread it out on a tray rather than in a bowl, even less problems.
What about the fact that the hands of one or more people touched the orange slice that you grab, is that also an issue?
I'd rather worry about touching the locking mechanism of the porta-potty doors if I wanted to start freaking out about unsanitary things in a race
Your hands do not sweat? Odd. Mine get so bad I can not use the phone screen after a while. Dripping wet. Would not want to be the poor shmuck that came after me.
As far as the volunteers go... you are talking about 1 or 2 people, vs 100 sweaty drippy messes. I rather take my chances with the smaller risk vector.
I care about recycling, cleaning up the mess we have made of this planet, and more. But I just think there are better solutions than communal sweat sharing
The backs of my hands don't sweat as far as I can tell, but my palms do, especially in humid weather. I'm pretty blasé about germs and stuff but I wouldn't love the open candy grab option either - I feel like it would just turn into a sticky mess. Orange slices seem like a nice middle ground.0 -
Yeah, the waste and littering is a big issue that we should all be concerned about, I agree (as I'm sure most do). The amount of cups on the ground at the race this past weekend was staggering. For a trail race especially going towards cupless would be important.
I am rather grossed out by digging sweaty hands into a big communal bowl, but on reflection with the waste of little cups, I could probably get over it. Maybe the tray idea to spread out so you would be more likely to just touch the ones you are taking. Maybe a little scoop so people (or the volunteer) could scoop some out into their hand and not dig into the bowl?0 -
This is the ‘lovestation’ from my half marathon last years. Yes, that is alcohol in the drinks.
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midwesterner85 wrote: »Here are my thoughts on waste and such at aid stations, and I know there are many runners who will disagree (which is a big reason why I asked):
The race I'm talking about will provide the cups and the aid station sponsors will provide trash cans / cleanup. I love to see cup-less races, but have only seen this once. At that particular race, it was a half-marathon (so no BQ's anyway) and they gave out refillable cups at packet pickup. The cups clipped onto a waistband and you squeezed it to open. You could opt out of this and save $2.00 off the race fee (I did this) and bring your own bottle. But there were no cups given out. You filled your own at the aid stations. They had quick-pour spouts (seriously, these would fill my 20 oz. in about 2 seconds, no joke). This was just outside a national park and done as a destination race. There was an important "No trash" policy. Aid stations did have snacks with wrappers and trash cans (mostly Honey Stinger as they were a sponsor). It was very clearly stated in the rules that you would be DQ'ed and banned from future races by this organization if you were caught littering. When I see pictures of cups everywhere on the street around aid stations at the big city races, I cringe because I know this can work. Yet I always get a lot of runners telling me there is just no way. At my last road race, I did what everyone else did (just threw the cups on the ground), but only because there were no trash cans provided at many of the aid stations. Of course it isn't possible then! But yea... I hate littering and waste.
This particular race is a "trail run" on a rails-to-trails trail. It gets much of the road runner crowd and not technical trails crowd, but the trail is only around maybe 10-15 feet wide and crushed limestone. They estimate 400 runners, so this is a pretty small crowd. I've run smaller (smallest had 19 total runners for the marathon and probably 3-4 times that for the half marathon race starting half-way along as both were point-to-point), but 400 is still a pretty small race.
The trail series I am doing this year gave a discount if you volunteered to bring your own cup and one race swag was a reusable cup. I love this and even donated additional money (they were planting a cactus or tree for everyone that brought their own & you could donate.).
I am a huge environmentalist. That's one reason I take my vest to every race. I can stash my trash in a zip pocket and throw it away later. If I don't see a trash can, I hold on to my cup (if I need gatorade since I have water). Or I will stop by the last can, finish, and toss. I never throw it on the ground. 1) being a back of pack person I hate having to dodge or step on a million cups. 2) why should volunteers have to clean up after me?
You can find recyclable plastic cups or paper for snacks. I get the sanitize thing. People sweat. They blow snot rockets, wipe their nose. Scratch, pull, adjust sweaty parts of the body. Use porta potties and don't wash hands or use sanitizer. Volunteers are usually wearing gloves when handling the food, at least at the races I've done. One race, they just dumped the m&ms into runners hands. Which was a bit odd but worked. It may slow people down though and if they are trying to BQ won't want anything that slows down.1 -
LaDispute57 wrote: »My favorite aid station food is grilled cheese.... I also like mashed potato balls
what are these potato balls you speak of? i think i must become familiar with them
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