Perry’s weblog

I’ve gotten fed up with the shin splints when running, and fed up with the elliptical and stationary in the fitness center, so I decided to buy a bike!

The first store I went to wasn’t helpful AT ALL. The salesman basically told me to find what I like and let him know, then went back to starting off in to space.

Second store, Bicycle Garage Indy, was MUCH better. The two salesmen I talked to were friendly and knowledgeable and steered me towards a bike that will meet my needs. I ended up with a Trek 7.3 FX. There was a great difference in feel between it and the 7.2 FX that I had first set my eyes on. I could immediately feel the difference when shifting, pedaling, etc. I thought the cost difference was worth it.

I took it on a brief 5.8 mile spin tonight and had fun. I’ll try for 10 miles in the morning and see how I like it then!

Here was a quick snapshot from right before I took it in to my apartment for the first time:

I ran my first 5K race at the Fishers Freedom Festival yesterday.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect out of it, but, overall, I had fun. The start was a little rocky trying to get around the walkers that thought they should start towards the front, but once things thinned out it was pretty smooth sailing. I finished right in the middle of the pack at a time of 27:52.

My shins are still hurting me, especially my right one, even with my new shoes. Been thinking about buying a bicycle, but am apprehensive because of a) crazy drivers and b) don’t know where I’d keep it in my apartment. We’ll see.

I purchased a Belkin Sport Armband Plus with Fastfit to hold my new iPhone 3GS when I go running. Turns out, that wasn’t such a good idea. Here’s the email I just sent to Belkin explaining my complaints:

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I am typing this on my new iPhone 3GS! I am using the wordpress app for the iPhone. The device is certainly pretty cool. It was pretty easy to activate with At&t -just download iTunes, sync, and I was on my way. I think I’ll have fun with this thing.

I’ve admired the iPhone since it was first released two years ago. I feel like Apple does a bang up job on their products, and now that the platform has had two years to be hacked to mature, I think this is a good time. It seems like Apple has made some good improvements with the new platform and hardware – cut & paste, compass, better camera, MMS support, etc. Hopefully it’ll be here on Friday and I can start playing with it!

I went to my local running store, The Running Company yesterday to get fitted for some new shoes.

The gentleman that helped me out had me first run in a pair of Nike Pegasus shoes on the treadmill. He video taped me and we went over the tape in slow motion. We found that I had a pretty bad pronation problem on my right foot, and not quite as bad on my left. He had me try on three different shoes on the treadmill and I settled on the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 9.

I ran about 2.7 miles in them yesterday and about 3.3 in them tonight. The pain on Sunday wasn’t bad, but it was back in full force tonight. And it was really humid tonight, but that didn’t have anything to do with the pain. I guess I need more ice and Advil and compression and not running so far.

On Tuesday, June 2, 2009 my car received a not insignificant amount of damage from a hail storm that passed through Fishers, IN.

After the storm cleared, I went to look at my car and noticed just a couple dents on the hood. I was happy that I had escaped relatively unscathed, but I called the insurance company anyways. The next morning, when the car was dry, I almost cried. There were dents EVERYWHERE! I went to see the insurance adjuster on Thursday, June 4, 2009, and had an estimate of $2901.

I got in touch with Jim Schliebner of Jimmy Buffit about the damage. I was somewhat familiar with Jim’s work because of his posts on Autopia – I knew him to do top quality work. I went to see him on Monday, June 8, 2009, to have his Paintless Dent Repair guy do an estimate. His guy was within a few dollars of my insurance company, and was exactly the same as far as the actual dents were concerned. Whether that speaks more highly of the insurance company or his dent technician, I don’t know.

I dropped my car off with Jim after I got off work on Wednesday, June 10, and picked it up at noon today, Saturday, June 13. The car looked absolutely flawless. Obviously, all of the dents were gone, but it looked like the car was put back together perfectly. I didn’t hear a single rattle from the interior on the way home. Jim even had the car freshly washed when I picked it up!

Based on this experience, I have to recommend Jim at Jimmy Buffit without reservation. Anyone needing hail damage repaired in Indianapolis, Carmel, or Fishers, Indiana, or just to have a top notch detail done to their car, would be well advised to give Jim a call.

About two weeks ago the pain in my shins really started getting to me. Every step I was taking when running was hurting. I decided to stop running for a couple weeks. I walked and used the elliptical machine in my apartment complex’s fitness center. And a little bit of weight lifting.

Tonight I decided to try running again. I went on my normal route of 4.75 miles and ran about a mile in the middle of it. It didn’t feel bad, but I could still feel some pain. It’s in about a 3 – 4″ stretch right a long the inside part of my shin bone. Stop running, and it stops hurting. That, to me, is a short term cure. But, I’d really like to keep running. Now what?

Mom & I spent the day, Mother’s Day, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today watching some of the qualifications. The coolest part was seeing about 20 minutes of a Q&A session with Mario Andretti. It was a beautiful day to sit the stands and take in the sights and sounds. Mom enjoys seeing the cars and stars, but would not enjoy all the people on race day, so going during qualifications is a perfect time.

Comcast can’t manage to get me the Versus network (go figure, they own the network) that has the qualifications, so I may well go watch in person again next weekend. The tension on bubble day is always fun to watch on TV, maybe it’ll be good in person too?

Anyways, here is my gallery of a few pictures. A few good ones of Mario and a couple of Helio Castroneves from a distance.

Been keeping with my running and working out. I’ve completed week 1 of the Podrunner Intervals Gateway to 8K series. Each time I covered around 4 miles, including the warmup & cooldown times. Having the short rests to break up the long run helps my mental fitness too.

I think I’ll keep on with this 8k series, which will push me just shy of 5 milles. That distance has always seem insurmountable to me, so it’s nice to see it becoming a reality. Hopefully my knees and shins and the rest of my legs will let me go that far!

Today I ran two miles as a warm up to doing about 20 minutes of weight lifting. I was thinking about it, and got a kick out of saying that. In January, two miles running would have been the working, and I would have been lucky to have been able to complete it!

I’ve managed to complete a workout doing Podrunner Intervals Level 1 Week 10, which was the graduation mix. I did it on the treadmill and covered 3.85 miles in the 35 minutes of running. That’s a WHOLE lot better than I was doing the second or third week of Januar when I started all this!

I’m still having some aches in my knees, and now it almost feels like shinsplints. I feel like I need to take some time off the running to let my body heal, but at the same time I want to keep it up. Very weird. The elliptical and stationary bike just don’t seem to cut it and I almost feel guilty if I skip the running.

With the weather warming up, I need to transition to running outside. I couldn’t complete my first attempt at Week 10 when I ran it outdoors. Probably need to go back to week 4 or 5 of Podrunner for doing the outside workouts.

Throughout all this, I haven’t lost any weight. Doesn’t make sense. If I keep at it, hopefully my body will get tired of the fat and start shedding it!

Today was my third attempt at Podrunner Intervals Level 1 Week 8, and my second time to complete it. First time was outside and it went ok. Second time was outside and I had to walk a time or two because my legs were tired / sore from weight lifting. Today was on the treadmill and it made for my first time running 3 miles on the treadmill. My legs were tired afterward, but I barely got the three miles in. I’ll have to add another tenth or so to get the 5k in, but I’m already pleased with the progress I’ve made!