In search of technological aid and the reading of books.

I’ve noticed that I’m really bad at keeping a solid pace while running. I tend to fluctuate between 5:40 min/km and 4:30 min/km and that really won’t cut it. I’d love to get myself some gadget that would beep or vibrate if I run slower or faster than a set interval. Say 5:20 and 5:00 min/km. That way I’d be able to run further and my training would be more efficient.

My question is. Do anyone of you know about any technological aid for my problem? Any tips and tricks are welcome. I’ll gladly try a non-technological method as well.

One though is to get a Garmin 405 or similar and keep track of my pace as a function of my pulse. Any tips on a good pulse clock and reading material on pulse based training for runners is appriciated.

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I’ve chosen to start to read books on software engineering to hone my abilities in that field. Anything that will put me a little bit further on my path to programming excellence is a good step. I’ve wanted to read Code Complete for a few years, but I’ve never got around to do it. Now it’s time to get some reading done.

My newfound interest in books on programming stems from the new programming project that I’m participating in. I got approached by a friend a little while back who had an idea of making a project together. A project that might get some comercial success in the future. I was excited about the opportunity to hone my programming skills. As well as getting some much needed experience under my belt. I’m even more excited about being mentored (of sorts) by a close friend who is a successful programmer.

My friend handed me “Large-Scale C++ Software Design” today. I’ve started reading it and I feel like it’s something I really need to read and get my head around. Developing small projects at KTH is very different from working on a large project where the amount of code is so much larger that it’s almost silly to compare the two.

The books on my reading list are:

• Large-Scale C++ Software Design (currently reading)
• Code Complete
• The Pragmatic Programmer
• Effective C++
• More Effective C++

I’ll happily look into any other suggestions that any of you may have.

The Lonelyness of the Long Distance Runner

A bit of an update regarding the morning runs vs breakfast. I get up at 5:30 without any problems at all. I just bounce out of bed and get my training clothes on. I then eat a banana and drink a glass of orange juice, just to have something in my stomach. After that I go out and run. It’s great!

Currently the air is very crisp and cool in the morning and the temperature is usually around 0ºC. I don’t really mind the temperature much since I get sweaty quite fast. Being able to run next to Drevviken during sunrise is more than enough to compensate for the temperature.

When I’m home again I do some streching and then it’s time for a shower (or a long warm bath if I have the time) and after that some real breakfast.

In other news; I’m spreading the love that is ubuntu to my friends and family. So far I’ve installed it on one of my brothers’ laptop and yesterday I installed it on Malin’s sisters’ computer. I encourage all of you to spread it to all your loved ones who don’t depend on Windows specific software. Surfing the web in Firefox and writing stuff in OpenOffice is the same on both platforms and I have had less problems with drivers on ubuntu than on windows. Everything generally just work out of the box in ubuntu.

You can get a download an image from here. One of the great things with the ubuntu is that when you boot from the live cd you get the option to try ubuntu without installing it. This feature is really neat if you’re not sure if you want to get rid of your windows installation or not. The installer can resize your current partition as well, that way you keep your old OS and can choose which one to boot when you start your computer.

Another great thing with the Linux community is that there is almost always someone who’s had the same problem that you do and you have the solution is just a search away. Otherwise you just ask at ubuntuforums.org or similar forum.

Physical development

After getting some inspiration from the Lonely Savage I got around to take my measurements today. It’ll be another of the metrics I’ll use to keep track of my progress. Currently I keep track of training time at funbeat.se, I weigh myself at least once a week and I’ll check my measurements once a month. I measure the circumference of the biceps, lower arms, chest, waist (just above the hip bone), hip (at the widest point), thigh and calf as well as measuring my shoulder width.

While browsing my training history at funbeat.se I saw that when was exercising the most (summer 2006). At that time I weighed 88,4kg and thus I felt like getting down to that weight again. I’m currently at 94kg and while not being overweight at all I feel like that with 6kg less and a lot more exercise will do me good. It will also make my body look better and I might even feel like getting a tattoo when my arms are less skinny. Jozze felt like loosing the same amount, so we’re going to get this done together.

Malin used viktklubb.se a while back to loose about 6kg to great success. I decided that I should give it a try. It’s mainly an food diary with a lot of nifty information thrown in. You get an individual plan for how much you should eat (in kcal) per day divided into breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. You can enter your exercise and see how much extra kcal you can eat that day to compensate for some or all the extra energy you’ve burned.  You can also see diagrams for how much fat, protein and carbohydrates you should eat per day. As well as one with the same categories, but with data taken from what you’ve eaten that day.

I’m really amazed about how much I should eat. I’m going to eat 2530 kcal per day. Divided into 633, 759, 380 and 759kcal for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner as well as all the extras I’m going to earn myself from my exercise. I really doubt that I’ll eat all the kcal I earn from exercise though. It feels like 2530kcal is enough by a wide margin.

I’m going to try to build some more muscle on my upper body and especially my arms, due to the fact that I tire extremly fast when climbing and I’m sick and tired of that. I’m going to combine my running with some strength training. I’m going to use body as resistance and as warm-up I’m going to use the jump rope I got myself today. I have some learning to do since I never was good with the jump rope in school. ;)

I also challenge the Lonely Savage to gain 6kg in the same time that I loose mine.

A new start.

I’ve felt like starting to blog for a while, but I haven’t got anything interesting to blog about. My recent discovery of Steve Pavlina (author of great articles like How to get up right away when your alarm goes off) has gotten me interested in self-betterment in various ways. Starting today, I’m reshaping my life a bit so that I feel that I have control of my time. Rather than wasting hours on surfing random sites on the web, I’ll spend more time on studying, programming, playing my guitar and the like.

Today I got up at 05:30 and spent some time eating breakfast and reading the paper. I also spent some time reading up on the pros and cons of running before or after breakfast and decided that running after breakfast is probably the formula for me. At 6:45 I got out and ran 4km. It felt awesome; especially when I was running along the shoreline with the sun just rising above Drevviken.

My plan is to get up at 5:30 every day for a while and then to push it back to 5:00. The goal is that I’ll go out and run at least every other day. I want to be able to eat breakfast, run and take a shower and still be able to get to lectures/work that start at 8:00. I think that it’s easily doable if I manage to get out around 5:30 at the latest and then run for one hour maximum.

I have a few other major goals for this year.

• Get started with the last stretch of my studies at KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm) so that I can start with my degree thesis quite soon.
• Start and complete at least two programming projects.
• Spend at least one hour playing guitar each day.
• Get fit enough to run 10km under 60 minutes a few times every week.

The path to meet these goals are bordered with several sub goals, such as improving my self-discipline to higher levels (without this I will fail horribly, since I’m the master of starting projects, but not following through). I will also keep track of certain metrics that’ll make sure that I stay on track. One of these is funbeat.se where I’ve been a member for quite some time and it clearly show how sporadic I am in my exercise regime. I haven’t bothered to register my exercise for quite some time though so it’s a bit missleading, but not much (I haven’t registered my climbing earlier, but I’ll start with that today).

This summer I’ll probably have the following exercise regime:

• Running every other day.
• Football at least once a week.
• Climbing once a week.

The running will be focused on mornings and the climbing and football will take place in the evening.

The last goal that I have with this blogging project is to improve my written English. I’d like to get it as close to perfect as possible and I’ve enlisted one of my closest friends (the Lonely Savage) as proof reader for that purpose.