Just back from a great Barefoot Running class run by John Woodward and Janet Dutton. The highlight of the class was a beautiful run across the sands and tidal channels of the Duddon Estuary. It was Nelly's first time swimming! Tom Urry filmed us all running on pavement in running shoes and barefoot on the grass. (clearly the photo's not of me, but a better runner!)

A great group of people attended the class and we debated the conspiracy theories re shoe design, Vibram 5-fingers and the book "Born to Run" by Chris McDougall. Tales of incredible ultra-marathons from "Loony" Tom. In lectures, proto-bondage sessions with neoprene cuffs and bungee cords, we all practiced the movements that should have resulted in the perfect stride - with arched toes, landing softly on the forefoot, stroking the ground....Ahh, I know what I should do now... just have to do it!

The comparison of my normal heel strike with tense shoulders to the upright fluid form I had running barefoot. Click on the box and then triangle to see a 3 sec video.

I'm not sure I'm ready to throw away my trainers for my run on concrete across London every day, but I will work to try to land on my forefoot instead of my heels and hopefully avoid the Achilles pain that has been troubling me.

Billy, Nelly and I went on to have a glorious week walking in the Lake District despite occasional rain (a great excuse to explore new pubs...)

Tutorial - How to upload a route to a Garmin 405 to use it for navigation.

This is pretty straightforward in the USA where topo maps are easily viewed in google maps and all the web-based applications that use them (e.g. MapMyRun.com).

But here in the UK, the Ordnance Survey topo maps are not accessible in Googlemaps. See the map on the left is the googlemap and the image in the middle is the OS topo map, and the right is the satellite image for the same area. Clearly, its hopeless to try to find a route to run on just the Googlemap or satellite maps - you need the right-of-way footpath info that is only found on the Ordnance Survey maps. The two images on the right are taken from a fantastic free (but donations accepted) web application Where's the path?

In this web accessed application, you just click on the little icon in the bottom left (next to the route length) and a route is marked on BOTH the OS topo and the sattellite image. When you're done just click on the import/export button and export the route GPX > File. Then you have to open another free site, GPSies Tracks for Vagabonds, and convert the GPX file to a Garmin Training Center TCX file format.

Once you have this file, you upload it on the Garmin Training Center program (which you have to download to your computer) and then you can then push the upload button to sync it to your 405. Its pretty useless that you can't upload routes to the web-based Garmin Connect site, but you can't. You can take a route that you or someone else has already run and do "send to device" to load it as a route, but not one from a map.

Once you've synced, on the Garmin 405, go to Menu/Training/Courses and select the one you uploaded and then "Do Course". Page through the displays until it has "to Course" and a compass rose on the screen and it will point the way to the start. Once you start, its a good idea to navigate back to this compass rose and lock the bezel. Then as you go along, it will show "dist to finish" when you're on course, and "dist to course" when you've strayed off - just follow the arrow (when you're moving). If you go seriously off course there's an alarm, and another beep when you find it again, and when you finish the course.

It really works! Here's the result of my navigating a path I picked to run between train stations near home seen in Garmin Connect and you can see under the "Map" tag, that I started going in the wrong direction, but backtracked until I found the route again. So for the continually lost-in-the-woods sort of person, this is a godsend!

100 Thing Challenge

"Stuff starts to overwhelm you," says Dave Bruno, 37, an online entrepreneur who looked around his San Diego home one day last summer and realized how much his family's belongings were weighing him down. Thus began what he calls the 100 Thing Challenge. (Apparently, Bruno is so averse to excess he can't refer to 100 things in the plural.) Bruno's online musings about his slow and steady purge have developed something of a cult following online, inspiring others to launch their own countdown to clutter-free living.

Well, I passed the time in a boring meeting by starting a list, topped my by ipod and Garmin405, but as I got farther down the list, I realized it was just stuff - all replaceable for a bit of cash, and I quit the list.

Then started the "what do I take from burning building?" list - kid's photos, some family jewelry, an old diary. OK , a favorite bathrobe maybe. But that's it - really. As long as the family and pets are safe, I'm fine and that realization was like a breath of fresh air.

So a bit of cheat. I've avoided throwing away any of the stuff or even really examining how much of it I'd need to replace to maintain my consumptive lifestyle. But I know now its just that - stuff.

(Swiss wood stack)
AA Gill, the columnist for the Sunday Times, is a guy I love to hate. He's just too smug to live, but I have to admit that he's often funny and clever, and Billy reads his restaurant review before anything else in the Sunday papers. This week he wrote:

"I've often thought that Europe is a allegory for the ages of man. You're born Italian. They're relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed. In childhood, we're English; chronically shy, tongue-tied, cliquey, and only happy kicking balls, pulling the legs off things, or sending someone to Coventry. Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic and insincere. Then, in middle age, we become either Swiss or Irish. Old age is German: ponderous, pompous and pedantic. What Germans have instead of sex and laughter are word games and complaining about grammar. Then finally we regress into being Belgian with no idea who we are at all."

OK, I'm not ready to be anything more than middle aged - but he didn't really describe the Swiss or Irish psyche. I don't want to be my stereotype Swiss (compulsively tidy and xenophobic), but I can't fit into my Irish stereotype either (care-free and engaging, but slurring my words).

So, I'll try to be the best of both - disciplined (15 weeks of half marathon training to go!) and friendly (making people smile and feel good about themselves).

With my navigating Garmin back (THANKS TO GLENN!!!), I'm exploring the trails again, and I paid up for another 3 mo at the gym, so now I can focus on the path ahead to the WWFOR Half Marathon in October, and enjoy the journey.

Meeting up with virtual friends for the White Peak Swift half was great and a bit surprising. Somehow my pre-conceived notions really didn't hold up to the brush with reality. From the podcast of his epic Hadrian's wall run, I envisioned Gary Wall as an ascetic hardcore runner - and I discovered that he was funny, genuine and a natural story-teller, really not the ultra-marathon purist I expected. Steve Chopper has such a magisterial voice on his podcasts, I expected him to be commanding... but I was surprised at how engaging and sincere he is. He's still an natural spokesman, but he's also a really good listener. Phil's un-likeness of a twitter photo and the intensity with which he talked about Runcast TV on the Runners Round Table made me expect some sort of tech-nerd, and I was surprised to meet up a gentle bear of a man, with self-deprecating modesty and a bubbly sort of warmth and laughter. It was also great to meet Mark Wheeton who I'd only exchanged emails with. Petra I'd met at the London Expo and it felt like we were old friends. She insisted on buying me a bacon sandwich (a "cobb" in Derbyshire-speak) after the race which was heavenly, and will henceforth be my gold standard of bacon sandwiches... or maybe I was just REALLY hungry.

I was really pleased with the race time 1:58:59, five minutes faster than I ran it two years ago. But nothing great compared to Boo's 14th place at 1:27!! Ali and Billy really made the logistics easy for us, and their cheers and hugs at the finish made us feel like stars. Thanks guys!!!

For the week following the race, Billy and I scouted for wild campsites as we made our way through the Peak District, to the N Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland, stopping at National Trust properties when the days were rainy. We had a memorable night in a farmers field watching lambs prance like kittens - while we worried that we'd have to be towed out after the rain. The coastal path between Ravenscar and Robin Hood's Bay claimed my new GPS watch, and the badgers must have taken it, because it was gone when we retraced our steps... oh well.

Finally Ali flew up and met us in Edinburgh and I flew home to work while she and Billy walked in the Highlands before Boo came up to run the Marathon on Sunday (in an amazing 3:20!).

I guess I feel a bit deflated now with no clear running goals until October WWFOR half. I need to practice the paper I'm giving at a conference in Amsterdam on June 8th... so I still have something to worry about!

I guess its time to re-focus on resistance training so that I can be stronger in the next cycle of training in a couple of months. I'll still keep running the 3 mi across London in the mornings - I love that!

Finally, a video Phil edited of the race! Check it out here.

Meeting Petra at the FLM expo was the highlight of the week, but then I missed her fantastic race as my husband bought a band-saw on ebay and we had to go to Norwich to get it.


But it turned out to be a spectacular weekend and I got my 11-miler in running from our campsite to Wells Next The Sea and back. That's really what is says on the maps... don't they know they are missing the preposition??


Three weeks till the White Peak Swift Half....I feel like I'm ready, I just have to get t-shirts printed with the WWFOR logos!

Nelly and I hopped on the train and took it up to the next town, Chesham, and then began exploring a new route as the rain started. The little scrap of map in my pocket started to fall apart in the rain, but finally we made it home and I was feelinq quite smug until I uploaded my track and discovered that somewhere I'd gone around in a circle and didn't even notice!!! Oh well..

9 miles in 2 hrs was not good but it was hilly and I did stop at every branching trail or stile and try to figure where I was. Billy and I will have to walk it with his Garmin or iphone and try to see where I went around twice!

6 weeks till the Swift half. I've booked camping at the Grouse & Claret campsite outside Matlock near Rowsley at Phil's recommendation - phone 01629 733233

I've lost 3 or 4 lbs since starting the Fast Weight Loss diet, but I'm ready to kill for oatmeal or bran flakes... I really miss breakfasts. Cottage cheese just doesn't do it for me, even with blueberries. And facing more salads with grilled chicken or tunafish, I keep repeating the mantra..... ONE MORE WEEK!