Funky Week

Yesterday, the forecast for this weekend (up to +11C) still sounded rather like a bad joke.

Today, it seems like the return of winter was only just a farewell, to remind us of what it was like and would have been supposed to be like, and how nice it is to see the snow disappearing quickly.

For today's run, I could finally make do with just my Insulator tights and top, and a Buff as headwear. No gloves, no Windstopper shirt.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm without my garden this year, or because I am an ecologist, after all, but I've been noticing the first (willow's) flowers, how tree buds have been getting bigger, all those signs of spring, pretty intensely.

Recently, I got spare parts for the Boa lacing of my older shoes using that system. With the hiking shoes, it was surprisingly simple to install; the running shoes required some "surgery" (cutting, sewing, gluing…) to replace the laces.

I went running with those older shoes again. There were no problems, so I guess it worked out all right. It's rather uplifting; I would have hated having to throw away those shoes while they are still good enough, even if I already have new ones.

3/27/2008 - 01:01.47,0 - 9.94 km - 6'13 min/km - 157 HR avg. - TE 4.1,
sloughing through lots of snow
3/28/2008 - 00:58.58,9 - 9.77 km - 6'02 min/km - 150 HR avg. - TE 3.4
comparatively little snow left, very nice conditions

Work-wise, I finally put up (and have, therefore) the first results of the survey (via questionnaire) of traceurs I did, and I also put up a figure with results of the discourse analysis into media reporting and traceurs' definitions of parkour and freerunning.

Seasons? What seasons?

At least it's like that over much of Europe. (Sometimes, the weather news I hear on Austrian radio - via web stream - fit the conditions here exactly.)

Still, February was not at all like it's supposed to be, recently it seemed to be getting spring, and now this...

Anyways, I'm sitting in my room, wondering if I should continue paying for the whole room or take in a roommate, and working on the analysis of the parkour survey I had made, the writing related to it, and quite a bit more. As always.

At least I wented to Spanish class again yesterday, and intend to go to classes today and tomorrow, too. Hardly anything that should be worth telling... but I still have no idea how things will go on, only my own Plans A through whatever.

Yesterday's run:

03/25/2008 - 00:57.47,0 - 9.69 km - 5'58 min/km - 155 HR avg. - TE 3.9

Pretty beat up psychologically, with too much running through my head, and therefore going hard...

Well, another mark: 100 Days to the Bergmarathon!

Runs-in-the-Snow

View It in/as Google Map(s)

Still not sure about the FootPOD on the new shoes, but it says 30 km, Google Maps says the track drawn in is 29. So, it sounds rather trustworthy to me.
Once I've been out more, it gets better since I'm more interested in being able to compare my training on different days than in getting exact numbers.

In a similar - "how do I use Training Effect, EPOC, HR best?"-way - I keep on getting the EPOC peak during the first about 45 min, when I'm still going rather faster than is good. Hence, my short runs wind up having the same training effect, according to Suunto Training Manager, than such long ones. Which shows again, that you still have to think yourself while using the data you get as guideline. - Which is actually how I hope that it stays, for I don't want a computer program telling me how it thinks I should design my training (even if the way I am doing it does not conform to standard advice).

Well, with today's run I have broken through the 3-hour (and the 30 km) mark:
03/23/2008 - 03:03.01,0 - 30.57 km - 5'59 min/km - 152 HR avg. - TE 3.4

Certainly something I don't want to do every Sunday (yet ;-)
Nice to see that it has become possible with relatively few problems (some itching and kvetching here and there), and in conditions which were rather interesting... I got some rays of sun, but mainly it was like running in a blizzard (though the wind wasn’t too strong, at least not compared to what I'm used to from back home).

In the morning (when it was still sunny and didn't have snow), I hadn't felt like going out because of all the work that still needs to get done.

I got some more of my work to advance a little, too - especially the analysis of basic data from my survey of traceurs (people who practice parkour).

I had felt that I was once again (well: still) eating rather too much, especially of nuts and chocolate and such things, probably out of the sheer feeling of busy-ness, of having just too much to do. Then again, looking at how much I have been doing, especially with the running training, I am burning a lot of energy...

Play, New Shoes, and Work

White powdery snow glistening,
sun breaking through clouds,
letting snowflakes glitter…

Okay, there was some slush, too, and by the time I went out, and the time I was soon-to-be back, clouds had the TV tower on Zakusala disappear into themselves.

Still, you notice the bad sides, and focus on the great, and such a run is truly enjoyable. - Playing in the snow, again.

03/21/2008 - 02:10.42,0 - 21.62 km - 6'03 min/km - 151 HR avg. - TE 3.4

Today was particularly interesting because I was using my new The North Face Ultra 104 shoes for the first time.

And immediately, it ended up being a 20-km run - quite a sign of faith into the shoes' fit. Well, it turned out to be justified: I'll need to play around with the lacing a bit more to get the best fit, but the tread and sole construction are excellent for Riga's condition. Which is mainly roads, but quite a lot of cobblestone and just plain broken-up asphalt, so that the medium cushioning plus protection from sharp edges, and good grip on various surfaces that these shoes do provide is much called-for.

Using the Suunto FootPOD on new shoes for the first time, I thought it would provide readings which are off quite a bit.

In fact, for the first part of the run, I wanted to stop sooner because my heart rate was rather high (between 155 and 160 is something I consider quite high by now? - quite a change from how it used to be!), and the speed displayed seemed rather too high as well (and I couldn't get myself to go slower - I guess it's the new shoes fault ;-)

Well, in the end I went on, the distance seems about what it should really have been, so I guess I was going faster (and the HR average is good, nonetheless).

Where work is concerned, I still haven't managed to friggin' sit down and study languages, though I finally move towards the attitude that it's not (only, my) work, but a privilege to be in a position where I can (well: could) study languages.
My text on parkour (and data for it) are progressing, however.
And my websites are being developed further; there are good things to come...

Spring has sprung

I did see some snow fall today, although it's officially the beginning of spring. Looks to be getting rather nicer, though.


This start of spring certainly is good, for it starts with the school having spring break.
I know, I know, the only reason anybody would want to become a teacher...

I am finally asking about getting credit for language courses/classes I am now taking (and should finally go to, again - ahem) here in Latvia, for subjects I am not currently studying but thinking of taking.
Should I not make it to East Asia - and even if I did, but wanted to go on with teacher training studies as well - I'll need to decide how to go on, after all. I wouldn't want to have to sit in any more classes where I'm learning things that I'd be more qualified to teach than the lecturer..

Getting on with work

I am full of ideas for work, i.e. articles to write. I really "only" need to manage to finally make a habit and daily work (rather than a matter of inspiration and muse's kisses) out of writing. I'm getting there, and I wonder if that's the next thing I should start writing into this blog.

Anybody need a (virtual) writing partner to keep one another working? - That's something blogs, even if that is not conducive to getting a wide readership for them, are very good for, in my opinion.




With the training and trainig logs, it works rather nicely, at least.

I got both of my new pairs of running shoes recently, too. They fit, look to be good (and look good, I think), and so I can hardly wait to try them out. Probably won't do so today, nonetheless. I've not been sleeping quite enough, and don't want to overdo it.
Writing some more and sitting down for language study would be something I should rather do.

Last time, yesterday morning:
3/19/2008 - 01:13.50,0 - 10.45 km - 7'04 min/km - 147 avg. HR - TE 3.3

If you don't like the weather...

... just wait five minutes. Or maybe five days.

Anyways, it's been the warmest winter in Latvia since 1925, February saw just about no snow (relative to what it usually sees, which are snowdrifts). Plants are emerging, buds have begun opening - and now this cold front is moving in and since midday, it's snowing in big wet flakes. By now, it's enough to remain on the ground.

Maybe a good excuse not to go to lectures? Yet again? I don't yet know about that, I really shouldn't, but I really would like to. I need to be a better student again soon, though.

On the other hand, I have been able to make at least a little progress with my writing, and I feel I cannot leave here without getting some of that finished (and I don't even mean because part of it is actually for a course I'm taking at university, too).

You know what they say: All work and no play makes you a dull boy. (I've actually, just as a saying, always preferred "No TV and no beer make Homer go mad.")

And, well, that's why I go running. There's my play. Which reminds me: play (i.e., run) in the snow? Great fun. Great idea, too.... hmm.

I've been finding that writing, to develop ideas and promote new insights, is great fun, too. Seeing - indeed, feeling - it as both fun and work is an attitude I think somebody who wants to have a chance at working as an academic sorely needs to develop, and something that my home university was not good at teaching us...

Sunday = Long Run

Well, I'm not yet at a point where this would really be like a logical equation, but it's getting more common.
And today, I also went out for my run relatively early in the morning. (Relative for me, for most students and even many Latvians, it's not early in the morning but in the middle of the night…)



The weather news is saying that it should be around freezing, but it certainly isn't below and didn't feel bad, although there was some of the usual Riga rain drizzle and even snow flurries.

One discovery from the path I took: If I wanted to run to "Parkour Academy" at the Olympic Sports Center, or back from there, it wouldn't be too much of a problem.
Later today, I found out that part of my route today is the track for the Riga Marathon (which makes three laps on the same route - booooooring).

The details:
03/16/2008 - 02:21.14,0 - 21.49 km - 6'34 min/km - 149 avg. HR - TE 3.3

• Interesting: I finally checked, and Google Maps says that the track I drew in there were about 23 km long - 1.5 km difference to the FootPOD; different, but not too badly.
• Even more interesting: It seems that I'm much better at pacing myself during much longer runs than I am during those more common, shorter ones. At least, if I understand correctly that the training effect calculation of Suunto Training Manager relies on heart rate, duration, and heart rate variability, and my TE is typically lower during those long runs (and it used not to be so), I'd assume that the reason must lie with heart rate variability (R-R values).

Whatever. It's just support for my training planning - or rather, not planning but going by intuition - anyways.

Training Recap, and Thoughts on Training Tech

Haven't been keeping this up-to-date, so here comes a list:

• 3/05/08 - 00:41.29,9 - 6.63 km - 6'16 min/km - 159 avg. HR - TE 3.8
  (fartlek - speed interval training)
• 3/07/08 - 00:44.41,4 - 6.77 km - 6'36 min/km - 156 avg. HR - TE 3.9
• 3/08/08 - 01:33.57,0 - 110 avg. HR - TE 2.4 (Parkour)
• 3/09/08 - 01:36.57,9 - 14.38 km - 6'45 min/km - 150 avg. HR - TE 3.6
• 3/11/08 - 00:55.54,0 - 8.57 km - 6'31 min/km - 153 avg. HR - TE 3.7
• 3/13/08 - 00:54.31,9 - 8.55 km - 6'23 min/km - 151 avg. HR - TE 3.7
• 3/14/08 - 00:56.26,0 - 8.64 km - 6'32 min/km - 151 avg. HR - TE 3.4

I set my max. HR lower than it had been before, consequently the training effect the software calculates is higher than it would have been... I'm still only using it as guideline, and happy as long as it stays below 4 ("highly improving"), let alone 5 ("overreaching"), at which point more recovery would be essential.

Read up on stretching (there was an article in the New York Times):
It's probably no good for avoiding injuries, which it's usually said to be good for.
Being stiffer, a runner is more efficient.

Two points:
So, I guess there is good reason for running tights (I've been using CW-X ones for a long time now). They provide the stiffness.
Physically, however, I'll rather be flexible and nimble. Even in running, if you misstep, it helps; for parkour, martial arts and the like it's a precondition.

Where my older/current shoes' boa lacing is concerned, I got lucky:
My order for replacement parts didn't get through, so I contacted them by e-mail...
The result: the company got some feedback, I'm getting replacement parts for free.
Very sweet.

Suunto - their t6 is the training analysis system I've been using, where the TE (training effect) numbers come from... - is still up to the game, after all:

We have known for a while now that an updated model (t6c) will be coming out this spring. (In the current lineup, the t6 is still presented as the top model, but it does not include the real-time calculation of training effect that the supposed next-best, the t4, can do.)
So far, it sounded as if you would have to get the new model if you wanted the new, real top model.

Now, however, Suunto Helpdesk came through and said that there will also be a firmware update for the old model t6, to effectively turn it into a t6c.

So, there's just the Wearlink-like HR belt to buy, if wanted (and that truly is a replacement part). I wonder how they'll implement the new functions, which they are not saying yet, but it sounds good....

Yeah, sports technology is a strange thing:

On the one hand, I don't like being quite such a geek, especially when it comes to outdoor sports I do (and promote) in part as being active instead of consumptive lifestyles, where you do something for yourself, get to know your immediate environment better, and at the same time reduce your impact on the world.

On the other hand, collecting a decent range of data on what you are doing and how you are doing is motivational and helpful for getting the most out of the training without overdoing it.

In fact, I think that the "internal" data - heart rate, especially - and the possible "external" data - especially geographical, with GPS and the like - can be very supportive of our understanding of where we live, how we are a part of our environment...

Now, let's see...

Teaching's still one of the strangest activities I've ever undertaken.

Maybe I should compare it to parkour, like an academic compared the discipline studying the effects of the Bible to this activity: In both, and also in teaching, you need to work with what you are given, dealing creatively but not going over the top.
Trouble is that in science and studies, as in parkour, we want to get new places, and we also enjoy the ride. Both are, also, solitary activities at heart, in which you develop your thoughts and your body mainly through your own doing.
Teaching, however, is also like the nature-nurture issue: Overall, about 50% is nature, about 50% is nurture. If you also count peers, then it's 33% each, or thereabouts.
So, you do have to work with the material, in creative ways, but it's only about 50% your own (the teacher's) understanding, creativity, and motivation, and about 50% the students' (pupils') behavior and motivation. If you also add social circumstances, make that 33% each…

Motivation? What motivation? - Learning myself

At least, I felt like not going to Russian class (which was finally taking place again after the teacher had been sick for three classes), but then went anyways.

I understand - therefore - when my pupils don't usually do homework, even when they rarely get any, but I cannot at all understand why they would sabotage their own classes… Well, it's an interesting experience, seeing how things work here (and with that documentary I mentioned yesterday, how they seem to be in China) I'd rather like to know what teaching is like in Austria, and it's only two-and-a-half more months, anyway. Plus, I think that the kids are learning something…
I still want to get into academic and research work. Now more than ever, although I could see myself (still? again?) wanting to go teach once I have been in there for a longer time.

I didn't just go to Russian, I also finally got the evaluation of my teaching from my mentor (and a good one at that). Now, once I finish the lesson plans and self-evaluation I've been working on, I can finally wrap up last semester's "Teaching Practice" course.

Campus Europae, and other plans

It's still not totally clear whether I'll eventually get enough credits for Campus Europae, but looking rather likely again. Should I "only" have to be in Austria, I at least have a number of ideas I would rather like to continue with - this is the first year of this millennium that it's a spring and I am not planting chile peppers, just to mention that - so it would be good. Should I manage to finally make it to East Asia, it would be at least as good. No, in fact, better, but working on those other ideas I probably could also make it there, so it wouldn't be bad, either…

I really wonder, if anybody but my parents is even reading this, if I sound like somebody who knows what he wants to do - which really is the case, the problem is just that I have not been able to make it come true and therefore look not only for the great vision, but for Plans A as well as B (and maybe also C) for putting that vision into practice - or if I come across as a wack job.

Some things also have changed - I obviously have made it abroad, I am more decided on what I want to do than ever before - especially with the endurance sports, it's gotten to the point where I wanted it to be for a while. There is still a ways to go, however. See you there.

Don't feel like writing...

... so I'm using the function that sends e-mails to become blog posts in
order to feel as if I were not blogging.

Training is continuing, writing is progressing somewhat, but all in all I
feel rather ready to go back home. I'm just not too motivated for anything
right now, that's the simple reason.

I know very well that, should I have been in Austria, things would have been
(or felt) even worse: This way, I am continuing with teacher training
studies and have the additional money I need for it from my scholarship and
my teaching job, at least, not from some job I definitely shouldn't be doing
(the last job I had in Austria was as a security guard...). And, I am
gaining foreign experience again (after my high school year abroad when I
was 15 to 16, so it was high time).

Yet, I also see that I'd rather not teach, or rather, that I would like to,
but not in a condition like we are now having: All responsibility is put on
the teachers' doorstep, the teachers try to only hold the pupils
responsible, and there is hardly any dedication to learning and respect for
teachers.
Today, I saw part of a documentary series on school in China. - Oh my,
students who actually realize the need to learn and (therefore) want to
learn?!
In Europe, it seems that we are losing out because we stand in competition
with those countries like China and India and their students, and yet
continue social, including educational, systems and ideas which make it seem
a right to graduate, not a matter of your personal dedication and ability.

And, I know what I would like to teach, and that I want to work in my chosen
academic fields. Yet, I still can't break into it, and the longer I go
without progress, the harder it gets... but it will be a while yet before I
even know whether I'll be in Austria after the coming summer or gone to
China...

Well, I'll at least better get some sleep and see to it that I go on with my
work early tomorrow morning, as per usual. Fortunately, a little bit is
coming back of my fondness for writing and my understanding of writing as
craftsmanship, as a skill that needs to be honed and arises out of the wish
to communicate insights and findings to others...

Oh my...

If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.
That's been today's motto: sunshine and snowstorm followed one another within minutes. Temps are around freezing, but it still seems more spring-like than wintry.

While I was running, it was pretty nice.
03/04/2008 - 00:57.50,0 - 8.91 km - 6'29 min/km avg. - 156 HR avg - TE 3.7
Had HR spiking towards the end, but also coming down quite a bit, and rather quickly. Still, without that, the training effect would have been quite a bit lower (3.2, probably). Shows how strange that is, though it seems not to be anything more than strange...

My daily-wear shoes (also with the boa lacing system) have decided to empathize with my running shoes. The lacing wire of one of them has ripped.
I am getting new running shoes, as it's necessary, and am still wondering about whether to get a second pair for mountain running and parkour (I don't really want to spend - since I don't really have - the money, but then again...). So, super glue will be on again.

Advice for the traveler:
If you don't want to suddenly need new shoes, get a pair that's made in traditional, or at least less-modern ways, definitely with shoe laces, and bring a replacement pair of laces.

The new call for applications for Austria's one (yes: one) spot in the JET programme to work as Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Japan is out again, as I just discovered. It's also for working at a place I'd like to get to.

This program is at least half-responsible for my studying teacher training, because I applied before and they didn't even want to talk with me. Since then, I think I have become a much stronger candidate. I'm intent on making my way to East Asia, finally, too.
Still, I don't think I'll apply for it. I couldn't afford to go to Austria for the interview - provided I even got that far this time around - and it would set me all too strongly on a course to going on as teacher, but I finally want to publish as a researcher again, before too much time passes in which I haven't managed to get anything written and published (and actually, rather too much time has already passed like that...).
There is still another possibility for going to Japan the applications for which I'm waiting for (it should be soon), which would fit better both considering time frames and considering my plans. Or so I'm telling myself, for, then again....

Half Marathon Run

View as Google Map

03/02/2008 - 02:16.19,9 - 20.36 km - 6'42 min/km avg. - 150 HR avg. - TE 3.5
(and there, I set my max. HR lower than it had recently been, and lower than the parkour training would make it be set automatically.
Which - PK training, that is, was the day before, again: 1 hour 38 min. of it ;-)

So, I guess I will probably need 4:30 to 5 hours for a marathon, but judging by how I am feeling today, I could probably both do Riga and Stockholm Marathon... We'll see about that.