roadtorobusto

Best run of the year (so far) IMO. Flat course from Ballard out to Gasworks park and back — 6.5 miles in 59:46. Started with insanely high sugars (thank you, Chipotle) but I think that may have actually helped fuel me. I started out around 320 (normal human range is 80-110 or so, FWIW), and took a small bolus of insulin. By the 2.5 mile mark, I was feeling my sugars crash, so I crammed in about 25 carbs, and though my pace slowed from miles 2.5-3.5, I picked it up and burned the last 3 miles at a sub-9 pace, which is a decent clip for me. I’m sure I’m going to feel it tomorrow, but holding 9:11 over 6.5 is worth it to me; it’s nothing to brag about by runners standards, but it’s definitely a boon to my confidence.

Next week is a 3/4/3/7. I’ll probably aim for T/W/Th/Sat this time around and not skip the shorter run. Holla.

I need to start mapping my routes a bit better. With nasty weather outside and a stomach full of not-so-good running food (eggs+salsa = bad idea, even 3 hours before), we (Kate, Lindsay and I) bolted out for a 5mi run. Unfortunately the route we mapped in our heads was a bit short, and we ended up with a 4.74 miler, just a hare short (like my 4mi attempt yesterday).

Definitely a tough run as Kate and Linds are up to the 5/8/5/16 portion of their training, so while it was one of my longer runs it was one of their shorter runs. They set the pace at a steady 9:19 (44:11 for the course) despite a horrible headwind for the first 2miles and some decent hills in the latter part.

Looking outside now it looks like we finished just in time, though, as we completely avoided rain and it’s pouring and blowing about 25mph outside right now — had we tacked on another quarter mile I’d probably be soaked and chilled to the bone. I’ll take it.

After six days off, back in the saddle again. I left intending to go for a slow four mile run, but after burning the first mile (hilly route, first mile in 9:15), I decided to just exhaust myself over a slightly shorter course. Turned out to be a good decision as I don’t think I had enough food in me to run a 4 anyway.

Overall I churned out 3.65 over 34:28, which was slightly sub-9:30 overall. Not bad given the course. I’m supposed to be on for a 3/4/3/6 pace this week, but am probably going to miss one of my 3mi runs, so I’m going to run a 3.65 today, a 5 tomorrow, and a 6 one one of the weekends — probably Sunday, depending on weather. That’s not quite ideal as I really need to run the short runs to build my base over time but I knew going into this that SXSW was going to throw a small wrench into my plans.

I still feel like I’m keeping up to my overall plan to be able to finish, but I’ve got a loooooooooong way to go.

It’s just a little after 1 and I’m more or less recovered from the night before. We went out with with Flawless, Cassie, and the rest of the DC crew in Austin (@SXSW) — had some amazing steak at Lambert’s and then went out to some bar/club to drink and chill. After sleeping in (and feeling a bit guilty about it) for the first time at the conference, I’m perched next to an outlet waiting for former head Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki and Chris Anderson (The Long Tail, Free!) for the Monday keynote interview.

Despite being exhausted beyond belief, I’m still pretty pumped on the whole SXSW experience. I don’t think everyone else has had the same reaction to it that I have, but that’s probably fine; I’ve been lucky in the panels that I’ve attended and the few that weren’t the most engaging still gave me some good insight to how to respond and react to problems in business development, community management, and more. There was only one panel that was bad enough that I had to walk out of it, which based on my talks with Aaron, Jay, and Chuck, was way hotter than anyone else ran.

Most Engaging: Gary Vaynerchuck’s (winelibrarytv.com) keynote. As the twitterset has said, he’s like Tony Robbins on crack for the .com crowd. It was hilarious, entertaining, and the most eminently quotable speech of the weekend. I’ll post some links to the videos of it when I find them.

Most Inspiring: Kathy Sierra’s keynote on Changing Your Life in 50 minutes. She focused on how to make breakthroughs happen and gave great examples of tips and techniques that can facilitate big changes in your life and business; I think we’re on the right track with a lot of them, but it’s important to have some perspective on how you got where you are (being a game changer) and what you need to do to change the game again. It definitely gave me some ideas I’m looking forward to rolling out.

Most Valuable: Scott from Behance, Inc. on Making Ideas Happen. As a remote team of five, focusing on productivity can be tough when creativity is valued so highly. Takeaway message: IDEAS DON’T HAPPEN BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME. THEY HAPPEN BECAUSE YOU EXECUTE THEM. As an organization (and a person), you can’t just be creative, and you can’t just be productive; doing amazing things requires some degree of both and the ability to know when you have to focus. I’ve picked up a lot from this and have started using their tool Action Method Online to help me get more in the zone.

Beyond those talks, there were some great panels on visual thinking (Being a UX Team of One, Shift Happens) that I enjoyed tremendously, and most importantly, a lot of awesome people I met during and after the panels. I’m 1000% coming back next year. The keynote is about to begin, so I’m gonna shutdown the blog (unlike half the audience here) and soak up my remaining time at #sxsw.

Ran solo today for the first time in a long while. No pups, no sister, no wife. I think it’s a good thing as Kate normally helps me pace myself, and my pace was a little up and down over the course, so I need to continue to work on that. That said, my overall pace was good (9:30 on the dot), as I ran the 5mi course with a decent hill in the middle at a 47:32 clip.

I’m leaving for South by Southwest Interactive tomorrow at 6:50AM, but just in case, I’ve decided to bring my running shoes. I think the overall chances of getting a run in are semi-slim but I might be able to sneak in 3 or 4 miles on Sunday or Monday, which would leave me feeling like I hadn’t completely neglected myself, and would help to get in an actual 3/4/3/5 pace next week.

Overall I’m happy with my progress so far, and I’m really enjoying the runs, which is a huge benefit as well. More updates to follow.