Category Archives: Fitness

Detroit Turkey Trot – The rest of the story.

Posted on by

I wrote in the last post about the new technology used, the disposable RFID chip on a strip. I also noted that the “Chip Timed Start” . . . did not start!

In the last post I wrote:

UPDATE 11/30/2008:
Attn: Active.Com

I just wrote the following email to the Active.Com web site contact regarding the chip timed start issues. Will see what happens.

================= Start of eMail Sent ==================
UPDATE 11/30/2008:
Greetings,

I am writing to ask about getting my time for the Detroit Turkey Trot 10K adjusted.
It seems that my chip did not get recorded at the start of the race, and included the time from the gun to when I actually was able to cross the timing mat.

My bib number was 4683, and the time posted was 01:01:38.
My stop watch time was 00:58:02.
As confirmation I have a picture of me crossing the start line at 8:04:54
https://www.kasdorf.name/wordpress/2008/detroit-turkey-trot-10k-2008/#more-384

The difference is not the entire 4:54, since I believe a video I have also shows the race gun did not sound until about 8:01:22 (approximately, you may know the actual start time showing on the clock.)
The difference of the two is about 3:33, which when subtracted from the finish time of 1:01:38, gives a time of 58:25, much closer to my stop watch time of 58:02.

Also, if other nearby runners were recorded I have pictures showing I cross the start line next to runners with the bib numbers: 6230, 1612, 5719 and 3546

Bottom line is can my time be adjusted to reflect the true elapsed time of 58:02 (or 58:25, or if available the actual start time of the runners listed above.) so the “historical” records kept on your web site are more in line with the actual time.

Thanks for the assistance, and looking forward to a reply,

George Kasdorf
===================End of eMail sent ======================
Today I received a response from Gault Race Management.
What do you suppose they had to say about this?

Continue reading→

Detroit Turkey Trot 10K 2008

Posted on by

Another race in the books! Today was the Detroit Turkey Trot. I entered the 10K race, there was also a 5K and a mile run.
The day started off pretty good, meaning we all got up and in the car right on time for the drive into Detroit. Very little traffic at 6:30 am on all the expressways so had smooth sailing. gyümölcsös nyer?gépes játékok That is until we got to the final off ramp to Cobo Arena Parking…. It seems when 10,000 people all try to get into the same parking garage inside of maybe an hour, it just doesn’t work so well. Finally we were down to 15 minutes to race start. I am SO glad I went the day before to pick up my bib and chip!! nyer?gépes játék letöltése ingyen Really!

I was in the wrong lane to get to most of the garages, but my two copilots noticed a small sign for public parking at the GM Renaissance Center – on the right – three lanes over… so, around the u-turn, back the other side of the median, another u-turn (I never saw that sign that said “No U-Turn here”, honest.) Into the correct lane, into the garage, up a couple of floors, grab the backpack with gear, down to the street, and we all hustled over to the start line. Getting there with about 4 minutes to spare! I stripped off the warm ups and jacket, added the ear warmers and jumped into line. tippmix sportfogadás szelvény
Whew.
Continue reading→

Interesting Running Stuff – Latest Tech

Posted on by

Tomorrow is the Detroit Turkey Trot, and I have entered the 10K race. Today I went and picked up the packet of “stuff” which includes the Tee Shirt and Bib Number.

Detroit Turkey Trot 10K November 27 2008

Most races use a “hard” chip such as the Champion Chip. A disc about the size of a quarter and about .250 inch thick and has slots to run shoe laces through (or plastic ties) to secure the chip to the shoe. This works great, and you can even purchase your own chip if you like. They have only a few downsides. One is that if you lose it, or forget to remove it from your shoe they charge you $30 for it. Ouch. The other is at most races there are marshal’s right at the end of the line that stop you and remove the chip. While they remove it for you, normally I am huffing and puffing and do not really feel like standing there and waiting for them to remove and retie my shoe. It doesn’t take all that long, but when I can barely stand anyway……
Continue reading→

Turkey Day Coming Up!

Posted on by

Okay, so I want to stuff my face with a big ‘ol turkey leg, stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, and not the real berries, that gooey stuff in a can… you know, where you cut out both ends of the can and the stuff sort of “oozes” out and lays there quivering. Yum!
But I don’t want to start putting on my annual “Holiday Pounds” already so… I entered the Detroit “Turkey Trot 10K” on November 27th, just before lunch! Burn it off…. pack in on!

November 27th, 2008 Detroit Michigan

So, hopefully the snow won’t be flying, and the temps are above 0 C. (Although it may help to keep the crowd down a little.) It looks like last year there were about 5-6000 runners in the two races. (A 5K and a 10K)

Double Left click on map to enlarge, double right click to reduce.
Click and drag to move map around.

Until the last gelatinous turkey leg is consumed,
George

Software and Running = Part 4

Posted on by

Okay so I love the Garmin and it makes recording the results of training and races such as tracking mileage, time, pace, heart rate and so on so simple.

. . . but it seems I often sometimes once in a blue moon forget to hit the “stop” button at the end of the race/workout. I am usually so excited that I made it to the end without passing out that thinking about stopping the watch doesn’t occur until my brain gets oxygenated enough to think of things like that!

I just ran the greatest race of my (very short) running career! All the stars, moons and planets were in perfect harmony with Mother Nature and my circadian rhythm. When I crossed the finish line and saw the timer and heard the beep of the timing mat I knew I had just officially set a new PR!! Elated I get the timing chip off the shoe without falling over, I stagger over and grab a bottle of water, a banana, a handful of cookies single very small sized cookie, and start to regain focus in my eyes. Dang it all, the watch is still running, and now the pace appears to be super slow, and the GPS track looks like a drunken ant has crawled around on my computer screen. Now, what to do…. The Garmin Training Center software is useless, it will grab the data from the watch, record it and that is about all. I can download the data from the watch to SportTracks, see all the data and the map UGH!! Look at that mess! Ah HA! SportTracks will let me split an entry! So I lop off the extra data based on a careful analysis of the time or distance looking at the expanded map, delete the overage “split” and now I have my official time and the run in SportTracks looking pretty good. But that doesn’t help me in either Garmin Training Center or Runners Studio, since I can only export in Fitlog or CVS and cannot import anything other than a TCX file into Runners Studio.

TCX Converter to the rescue! I found a reference to this software on a blog and tried it out. After several false starts I got the combination of exports and imports down to where it is not all that difficult to edit and save a file.
• Import run data into SportTracks.
• Split the run at the correct point.
• Delete the extra split that shows up now.
• Export from Sport Tracks as a “fitlog” file. (Which seems to be the one that saves all the data including Heart Rate information.)
• Import the new XXX.fit file into TCX Converter.
• Save as a new TCX file.
• Import the data into Runners Studio as a new run.
(Oops problem here is right now I cannot import as a “Race” which is different than a workout, and a workout apparently cannot be converted to a race once it is in Runners Studio.) Hopefully there will be a cure for that in the next release of Runners Studio. It may just be an oversight that only CVS files can be imported as a Race, since there isn’t much difference between a workout and a race.

In the following picture I have removed the course name so it is blank, I have selected the “Export” tab and then the “Export as TCX”, which then gives me the option to select the Activity Type from a pick list.

Click on the picture to see a larger image.

Net result is that I am happy all the way around, thanks to the TCX Converter utility. Now, if they would only add the ability to trim a file right inside of TCX Converter I would have “the perfect solution”. Since it can already read the data from the Garmin FR 305 directly, it would make it a import, trim and export operation which could be used by the other programs!

You can check out TCX Converter at
Unless you read Italian use the “Convert to English” button.

UPDATE: The latest version of TCX Converter is 1.7.1, it now has the ability to cut off the excess time! It can also change the type of activity since it seemed like I was getting a default value that I did not want.
Looking at the points find the time you want to end the track at, and just right click and select the “Remove the points below this” option from the drop down.

Click on the picture to see a larger image.
Until the last time I forget is forgotten,

George

Software and Running = Part 3

Posted on by

Continuing review of the equipment I use to create, track and record my workout efforts.
Here is a review of SportTracks software.

While I really like the Runners Studio software for tracking all the workouts, races and planned races when I started it did not do quite everything I wanted, such as data import from Garmin, create maps of routes, etc. Even though many of those items are available now, I still put the data into another program, SportTracks. The approach taken with this software is a little different, it is open for the user community to create “plug-ins” much like the WordPress blog software allows. This allows the creativity of the entire user community to think up ways to enhance and improve the basic software. (Not that it is particularly lacking, just that 5,000 heads are better than one.)

The software with all its plugins (currently there is something like 42 different ones listed) makes for a lot of options! The downside to all this is, for me anyway, not as intuitive use as Runners Studio. Using a series of views, each one which can do different things requires some clicking around to get it to show what you desire it to. Then within the view there are options also. You have to pay attention to all the “triangles” which you use to open up the different options. I wrote in to the forums asking about editing an event after searching for some time, the answer, which was polite, but made me feel sort of dumb, just click on the triangle after the “Event” and make your choice. D’oh.

After months of use I still find the ability to download data from a GPS you wear on your wrist and create a map of the activity accurate to within feet of where you walk on the entire planet to be pretty amazing. ????? ?????? (maybe I am just easily impressed or amazed.)

Sport Tracks is really good, but have not found a good way to schedule future races in it. There are some plug in’s that will let you do it, but not the way I want it, and even if you get it, you have to dig down through several menus to find it. Conversely Runners Studio puts them right on the home page so you can see them quite easily. Actually there is not a good “home page” for Sport Tracks, maybe something that could be considered. ??????????? ??????? A simple overview of the major things tracked. Weekly mileage, shoe use, upcoming races, even maybe a way to check which things the user would like to see. Sort of how iGoogle page creation works.

You can check out what they have to say about Sport Tracks and download an evaluation version from https://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/.

There are several other solutions, most of which are web based. These have the advantage of access from anywhere, or any computer, the down side of not being able to access from behind a firewall (like at work) or if the site decides to go to a paid version, or worse close the doors. ????? ??? ???? Your years of data could be gone. They may be nice and allow an export of all the data, but then again . . . or even if they do would it be in a format compatible with another program.

Until the final waypoint is created,
George

Next TCX Converter.