For the whole summer I have been completely un motivated to do anything. No work, no exercise, nothing. I made up my mind to start running again and decided I would use the methods described in the Low Heart Rate Training FAQ to build my base back up. So far I've found it incredibly hard to go this slow. My body wants to push the speed up until my heart rate is in the high 140s. It's not much higher, but... It's over my limit of 134. With time I know it will get easier and faster.

At least I've found the Trans-Canada trail up on Burnaby Mountain to take my mind off of it. This is a wonderful little section that follows around Burnaby mountain near my work. I wouldn't call it real "Trail" running but it's nice to get off the sidewalks and bike paths. Even better to be surrounded by trees and away from cars.

I'll be sticking to the low heart rate training until at least January. I'll review the program again at that time. If I've seen the promised progress, I'll stick with it, but if not, I'll go back to a more traditional program. Will I run the Vancouver Marathon this year like I'd hoped? That depends on where I am come Christmas. If I've dropped 15 pounds and the pace is good I'll sign up. That will be the real test to see if I can beat my predicted time based on the results from the half marathon this year.

This is probably the most visible new feature to add to the website. Graphs! When you enter data for the current month, the summary box will become active on the right hand side of the page. If you click more... it will take you to your monthly summary page that will display all the activities that you have entered as well as a graph of your distance for the current month.

I'm frustrated.  I just spent 2 days trying to get my site back on the internet.  My host locked my account without sending me any notice on Tuesday morning.  I thought this was a simple issue, my bill was paid up, so it must be some misunderstanding.  Their forums were empty so I opened a ticket on the helpdesk and waited.  And waited and waited.  On Tuesday evening I tried calling them, but the number posted on their site is not in service?!?  Ok, I'll email their 24 hours tech support guy.  More silence.  Have they gone out of business?

Tuesday night when nothing had improved I started looking for a new hosting provider and found a few candidates at about 3x the cost.  Yesterday, I finally decided on Site5 and opened an account.  They had me hooked up within an hour.  

I'm pretty lucky.  I've been downloading backups on a regular basis and Site5 was able to restore the backup.  I managed to save all my email!  With a few changes to the settings for the new database names and I was back up and running.

It's been three days and I have yet to hear from Serverway/Plan-PC.  Not a peep, only an auto-response from their helpdesk.  WTF?!?  Sure, it's cheap.  I still expect a response to helpdesk requests within 24 hours.  At least an "I'll look into it.".  This is just dumb.  So far Site5 is great.  I haven't had to go to their helpdesk yet but I'm happy with the ease of the rollout onto their host.

I keep coming across the low heart rate training and basebuilding faq when reading the coolrunning message board.  I currently use my forerunner 301 to guide me into a target heart rate zone of 150-159 on my weekday runs and 140-150 on my long runs.  This low heart rate training faq recommends running at even lower heart rates to build a solid strong base and to raise your lactate threshold even higher.  They make a compelling argument and I think after I complete my race on June 24 I'll give this method a try. 

John Stanton is the founder of a chain of running stores in Canada called the Running Room.  These are excellent stores if you're looking for gear and are staffed with enthusiastic runners.  Join them for a free practice run every Wednesday evening or Sunday morning.  They even offer clinics for your goal race. 

 John Stanton is interviewed on careerjoy.  In this interview he discusses the origins of the running room and being satisfied in your worklife.  His criteria is simple.  True succes comes when you can't define your work and your play. 

Business travel has it's perks and penalties. Don't let your running suffer while you're away on business. If you're travelling, there are lots of resources available to you. MapMyRun and Motionbaseds' Trailnetwork both give you a google map based view of the city and any running routes in the area, but don't forget to check local running specialty stores or local clubs. They will usually list popular or scenic routes as well as any groups that meet to run. Take advantage of these groups as they can provide some conversation and local tips for the solo traveller.

On my recent trip to San Diego I used information from both Roadrunner Sports and San Diego Track Club to find some interesting and challenging local routes. These were far more satisfying than a trip around the business district where my hotel was located.

Next time you travel take the time to look up the local stores and clubs.

I purchased an Accu Measure Body Fat caliper on e-Bay for $4.49US plus shipping.  Much cheaper than one of the body fat analyzer scales.  

They get 3.5 stars over at Amazon .  A few people feel they are too simple or flimsy.  For 5 bucks it does the job.  I don't expect it to last forever.

They are pretty easy to use and as long as your consistent provide good feedback on your body composition. 

After using it for 2 months, it's provided me with some interesting information.  Knowing what my body fat percentage is keeps reminding me where I am and how my body is adapting.  On the other hand, this item changes so slowly that it does not provide daily feedback required to maintain a diet.  Using daily weigh ins and a spreadsheet similar to what's in Hackers Diet has been much better feedback for me.

I found the calipers easy to use.  The hard part is being consistent with where you pinch on your waistline.  To get around this, I make sure to measure at least twice to ensure that I am getting consistent readings.  The calipers do not feel incredibly durable.  They're made of a thin light plastic that feels like it's going to wear out in a few months.  They've held up through my 2 months of daily use, so the feeling is a little misleading.

I haven't tried the body analyzer scales that are on the market, but if you're looking for a simple inexpensive way to measure your body fat percentage, this is it.

This is an incredible deal if you can get it!  Saucony, Vector, and The Running Room are giving away a $40 technical shirt for free with the purchase of a 400g box of Vector cereal.  Apparently these are hard to pick up back east but I found a full shelf out here at my local Save On Foods.  They were even on sale at 2 for $7.  Included with this deal is a 20% off any purchase over $50 excluding electronics at The Running Room and a coupon for 20% off the clinic fee when you pick up the shirt.  I scooped up 4 boxes thinking that I might sell 2 on eBay like this auction.  My wife preferred that I keep all 4.

So far I have picked up 2 of them at The Running Room.  They're very nice shirts and caused no chafing on my long run yesterday.  They only come in 2 sizes small and large.  The first 2 I got were large and seemed a bit too large for me.  I'll grab one of the smalls next and see how it fits.  I found the t-shirts to be nice and cool yesterday in the sun despite their dark color.  They're a similar blue to the Vector colors with a Saucony logo across the front, The Running Rooms logo on the sleeve and a promotion for Vector's GetRunReady website on the back.

With most of North America extending DST by three weeks you might have noticed that the clock on your Forerunner is wrong. Garmin has already released a DST bug fix for the 205/305 but not for the older 201/301. They suggest setting the DST settings manually. Here is a short video showing how to manually change your DST settings on a Forerunner. When Garmin releases an update I'll post it here.

I still don't understand why these updates were so slow to be released by Garmin. The change to the DST rules has been public for a couple of years now.