Love to all. Even you.

So, calibrating the sensor on a track works well, but…

Don’t be an idiot like me. If you have good sneakers, keep wearing those, and fuck the Nike+iPod system. After an x-ray, a doctor visit, and a serious-ass ultrasound to insure that I didn’t kick off a blood clot which was lung-bound, I have learned that it’s A-OK to stick with what works.

Damn. I can’t BELIEVE how much I screwed myself up, all for the sake of geek tech.

Hmm. Geek tech. Aren’t there wearable GPS/Heart Monitor sets?

Yummy.

Love to all. Even you, the hypermuscular twenty-something who didn’t know what “fast” meant… causing the nurse to yell “DID. YOU. EAT?”

Shin splints.

Way back in 2004 (which kind of feels like another life), when I first started getting myself in shape, I would get shin splints when I ran. But I found that if I ran through them, they’d go away.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I didn’t bother to think about the fact that I got shin splints for the first time in a long time, just after switching to Nike+iPod shoes from my Asics Kayanos, and I figured “What the hell. I’ll just run through them.”

13.5 miles later, I was in quite a bit of pain.

This morning, I could barely walk.

So, I’ve ordered stability inserts for my sneakers, and if they don’t work, I’ll abandon the Nike+ system and go back to my Kayanos (at least until Nike releases a + version of the Kantara… and I’ll be using my Kayanos from now until the inserts arrive. Either way, though…

Note to self: do NOT try and run through shin splints. Especially not over 13.5 miles. Unless you’re running a marathon.

In that case, go for it.

Love to all. Even you, the ex-stylist saleslady at ABC in Chelsea whose jaded front didn’t quite cover a disappointed interior.

Life overwhelms me,
tater tots and coffee beans,
bright sun on the bench.

Love to all. Even you, the guy in the BMW doing 80 in a 35.

Note: I never knew, until yesterday, that Haiku required a kigo, or a word that referenced the season in which the poem is set. Please forgive my past Haiku errors.

A short time ago, I posted an admittedly-egotistical but somewhat deservedly-excited body shot of myself which appeared as if I was actually getting in shape. Never having been in shape before, I’m pretty psyched on the whole situation.

I didn’t expect many comments from women. But there was one person who I was hoping would comment, for better or worse, Albert, aka ARG, from Obliquity.

Why? Because, in the end, it’s the gay man’s opinion that’ll really tell you how you look… and ARG is the only blogger on my blogroll who I know is gay. And if there’s any reason for straight guys to get over any homophobia they might have, knowing whether or not you actually look good should be reason enough.

When I was younger and working in NYC (I still work in NYC, I’m just older) I would get checked out by dudes with some regularity. Then, over time, nothing. It just stopped. It could have been my vibe, that I was getting older… or maybe it was because I was green and bloated from drinking 10 – 16 drinks a day. That could have been it, too.

The thing is, women can’t give semi- or unknown-men feedback. Because most dudes would incorrectly translate a “looking over” by a woman as her saying “Please have sex with me immediately.” Regardless of whether a gay man is saying that or not, there’s more of a perceived power balance between men, and the checking-out can generally happen without fear of one dude
stalking the other, etc.

Yesterday, I was walking from my morning AA meeting with some friends, one of whom is a successful interior designer (he was in Elle Decor a little while back), and this very topic came up.

He agreed with me: if gay men don’t think you look hot, then you don’t look hot. Alas.

So, I’d just like to thank God for making me appreciate the appraisals and dismissals of gay men. Homophobes just aren’t getting appropriate feedback, which is a shame.

Love to all. Even you, Ms. Knock-Over-The-Apples-And-Run-From-The-Aisle.

Calibrate, calibrate, calibrate.

After gearing up with my iPod Nano, my Nike+ AirMax Moto Shoes, and my Nike+iPod connection kit, I learned that, without calibration, the Nike+ system makes me look SLLLOW.

For those of you who don’t know, the Nike+iPod system is a combination of sneakers, ipod, a transmitter and a receiver, which collects running data from your sneakers (via the transmitter that slots into the specially designed shoe), sends it to your iPod (via the receiver that clips into the dock connector), and syncs it to nikeplus.com to track your runs. During a run, you can have the Nano give you feedback via headphones about distance, etc.

Sounds great, right? Is it, sort of.

Unless you calibrate the sensor on a track, by running a set distance and telling the sensor what that distance was (400 meters, a mile, etc), the sensor can be WAY off, which is disconcerting during a run.

During the 4-mile Run for Central Park, I would pass a mile marker, and a long time later, the Nano would say I just went that mile. When I finished the race, the Nano thought I had gone 3.49 miles. That’s a huge difference between reality.

The drag is that it synced that race to the site… so it thinks I ran MUCH slower than I did, because the clock was accurate, but the distance wasn’t. Bummer.

Anyway: I’m going to calibrate the sensor this weekend, and I’ll report back then.

Love to all. Even you, the guy driving the limo, fast and in reverse, through the train station parking lot.