SmarterFitter Blog Less diet, more brain

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A bit of shameless self promotion here but hopefully something useful too.

Working out with a friend is often cited as a great way to stay motivated. Perhaps you’d like to try When Should We, a small and single purpose tool I built with some friends, that makes organising a time or a day to go for a walk or a run effortless.

It’ll also help you arrange all those upcoming holiday season meet-ups.

Please check it out. There’s no log in necessary and you don’t have to give us your contact details.

Thanks,

-Tim

Link

Interesting. Merrell’s new Gatherer Jacket is a lightweight shell that you insulate yourself. From trailspace.com:

Instead of coming filled with a pre-determined amount of down or synthetic insulation, the Gatherer features several strategically-placed zippers that allow the wearer to stuff the jacket with whatever insulation material they like: dried leaves, scraps of yarn, pine needles, shredded newspaper, and any other reused, recycled, or found materials.

Not only that, but the jacket is semi-transparent so you can show off the maple leaves, wool socks, and toilet paper you’ve stuffed yourself with. Kind of a cool live-off-the-land idea for the ultra-lightweight eco-aware camper (or self-expressionist). But how warm could it be? I kind of want to find out…

The Gatherer will be available in August 2008, retailing for $99.

Link to Outdoor Retailer: Merrell Gatherer Jacket

My workmates look at me like I’m psycho when they find out I’ve been cycling to work all winter. Snow, wind, rain. It doesn’t matter - I ride anyway. The secret to my winter-riding success is awesome gear. As long as I’m warm and dry, there’s little stopping me. As a bonus, cycling is a great way to beat the flu season, whose main perpetrators are busses and tubes packed full of sniffly, feverish Londoners, paving a trail of mucus on their morning commute.

Matt Haughey’s got a great article on winter gear for cycling. He’s tried and tested the gamut of warm-weather gear and outlines the results according to the body parts were warmth is more needed: head, torso, legs, hands and feet.

• Head: Matt likes Gore’s skullcap and helmet cover; I’ve been getting away with a simple fleece headband
• Torso: Gotta be wind-proof and waterproof. Matt recommends a jacket by Gore, though I swear by my Endura Phoenix Jacket (plus a fleece base layer)
• Legs: Warm tights, like these Pearl Izumi Thermafleece tights
• Hands: Pearl Izumi Thermafleece Gloves
• Feet: I just wear Gore-Tex trailing running shoes and wool socks, but I see lots of people following Matt’s advice and wearing shoe covers.

Matt’s honest about the price: winter gear isn’t cheap, but good stuff will last for years and in the long run, you’ll save money on public transportation and cold medicine.

This winter, I’ve ridden several hundred miles in weather a lot of people don’t like to drive a car in. I’m fitter, healthier, and happier and when I have a couple hours set aside for a ride, with all this gear the weather really doesn’t matter anymore. It is expensive stuff and I’d guess it’ll cost you $500 and up to get fully outfitted but the difference is dramatic and these gear choices are the only thing making comfort possible in the freezing rain.

Link to Winter riding tips for your road bike (via Lifehacker)

Image courtesy of bunello

I’ve not run for a while and I want to get back into it so tomorrow morning I’m starting again.

Monica had great success a couple of years ago using the training technique John L. Parker Jr. describes in his book Heart Rate Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot. While I loath the title of this book (and Dummies books and anything else that makes you admit stupidity prior to buying the book) it does come highly recommended.

So, armed with this book and M’s basic heart rate monitor I’m going to start this series about my adventures in heart rate training.

The idea with HRM training is that you can use the HRM to regulate fast and slow training days, alternating hard days with slow days, using the HRM as the arbiter of what is hard and what is slow. That means all running sessions are listed with a target heart rate as a percentage of maximum heart rate.

I happen to know, from previous HRM usage, that my max heart rate is 189 and later in the series I’ll re-evaluate that using a method from the book. I didn’t know my resting heart rate.

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was strap on the heart rate monitor (HRM) and take my resting heart rate… no, I didn’t get out of bed or even sit up. The goal is to take a measurement of heart rate at its lowest or closest to perfect rest.

My resting heart rate was 60. I’ll take the measurement again tomorrow and start to get an average. Resting heart rate can vary day to day based on stress level, illness, quality of sleep or any number of other things so taking a few readings is handy to get rid of any outlier readings.

The book has a number of programs for novice through competitive athlete. I’ll be following the suggested scratch novice schedule. It is designed to get runners who haven’t run for a while up to the point where they can start one of the 12 week training programs.

I’m starting tomorrow with a 5k(3mi) run below the 70% recovery ceiling. The formula for working out what that means in beats per minute is:

(Max Heart Rate - Resting Heart Rate) x 0.7 + Resting Heart Rate

or

(189 - 60) * 0.7 + 60 = 150

So I’ll be trying to stay around or a bit under that.

I’ll let you know how it goes but I believe that these recovery ceiling runs are supposed to be embarrassingly slow.

Link to Heart Monitor Training at Amazon.com

Link to Polar monitors at Amazon.com

Link to index of all articles in the heart rate training series

The petite MSR Pocket Rocket Backpacking Stove has been my constant camping companion since I purchased it over two years ago. Why? It’s got everything to satisfy this minimalist camper’s gourmet needs.

• Small and light - It’s smaller than a flashlight, and lighter than your wallet
• Fast - Sets up in a manner of seconds and boils water in less than four minutes
• Clean and convenient fuel - Uses butane canister gas. No priming!
• Adjustable flame - From a rolling boil to a gentle simmer

Think this stove is only good for boiling water? Think again. A little practice will see you frying onion in no time.

If temperature control is your main concern, then this wee marvel isn’t right for you. True: the flame is adjustable; however, even a low setting provides burning-hot heat from the center of its element (rather than spread out across its three prongs). The result is a grilled cheese that’s burnt in the middle but soggy around the edges (I learned this the hard way). Unless you’re boiling water or heating soup, food cooked on the pocket rocket needs to be kept in constant motion to prevent it from burning.

For the ultra-light backpacker or cycle tourer, the Pocket Rocket is the perfect size and weight. For car camping, it’s a great addition to the campfire for cooking tea and porridge while the fire takes care of veggie sausages and toast. And at a fraction of the cost and size of fancier burners, the Pocket Rocket is hard to beat.

MSRP: $39.95
Weight: 3.2 oz
Size: 4.1 x 2.1 x 2 inches

More Information:

• Full specs from MSR Corp
• User reviews at REI.com
• More pictures of the Pocket Rocket in action
• Buy it on Amazon

Crossposted to spacekadet.org

Whenever I go for a run or a walk in the park I’ll pass someone or be passed by someone who is jangling loudly running with a pocketfull of keys. Both the sound and the shifting weight of the keys would drive me crazy.

Stop the madness!

I use my trusty and free wrist wallet which holds my keys and a £10 note tightly and silently to my wrist.

I got mine free from the excellent RunnersNeed in Camden. It looks like they charge about £8 now…

Link to RunnersNeed

Link to something similar at Amazon

I’m bad about stretching. I just don’t do it a lot. Between running working my hams and cycling working my quads I just don’t fold very well.

A while back I bought the Bob Anderson book simply named Stretching. I love the simple line drawings and the straight forward 20 page guide to getting started. The rest of the book is just a bunch of different routines for stretching before, during and after just about every imaginable routine.

I think I feel another chain coming on. He has a great 8 minute daily stretch and I think that shall be the target.

Link

There is nothing worse that slogging through a three day hike wearing wet boots. Besides the obvious discomfort wet boots imply the water softens up your feet and then they get torn up pretty bad. This was my experience while walking in the Lake District last year. The same boots let me down again when hiking in NZ.

Time to get some new boots.

My priority was to get waterproof boots. Boots that I could, basically, go swimming in.

I’ve now had my new Meindl Himalaya boots long enough to review them.

I love these boots.

First walk I wore them on, an 18km hike around a muddy winter route in the Chilterns, I experienced no blisters or rubbing. I attribute the comfort to the MFS system.

We just got back from Scotland where I walked 5 full days. We had 4 high level walks, over 1000m, and a low level lake circuit. The boots did not leak during the low level walk with tracks akin to small streams and a nice fording of a frisky mountain stream where I had both boots in ankle deep rushing water. I went out of my way to walk through as much water as possible to give them a good work out. Dry feet. Bliss!

The boots stayed comfy and dry all trip with only a small rub on my lower shin that I fixed with a different lacing system.

I can’t recommend these boots enough. They weren’t cheap but dry feet == heaven.

Link

Outdoor sports can be a real drag for people like me who wear glasses. It’s annoying enough when the frames slight down my sweaty face, but add the sun to that and a pleasant game of soccer can turn into an annoying game of squint and sweat.

Nike just came out with some UV contacts that could be very cool, but not as cool as I look in a pair of aviator sunglasses.

UV contacts are made to filter UV rays, but Nike Maxsight lenses take it one step further and throw a sunglasses-like tint into the lenses so you get all the benefits of wearing polarized shades but without the inconvenience of glasses that can fall off or get in the way during sports or athletic activities.

Available in two colors (grey/green for golf, running, training and amber for sports like tennis, baseball, football, and rugby), Fitsugar has some good pictures of what they look like compared to regular contacts if you’re curious. And Nike is offering a free trial so you can see how big of a difference they make before committing — I for one can’t wait to try them!

Link (via that’sfit)