It's easy to do - you're running a race and things aren't going right, you get to the end and look at your GPS and see that the race was too long and feel justified for the way you feel. But don't be so hasty to email the race director, especially if you're running in a city like Chicago with long underpasses and skyscrapers.

A Bridge too Far

Last year in Chicago it turns out the Chicago Distance Classic was an extra half mile than the 13.1 so they adjusted the times accordingly to help people trying to qualify for Chicago Marathon, so this year people were anxious to see how the race measured up under the Rock n Roll brand.

The New Rock n Roll

The race starts in Grant Park, a nice open space but within a quarter mile we go underground for a quarter mile to just before the river. From there we proceeded up to Grand, down Rush to Hubbard then down State Street back into the loop. As you can see from the first WalkJogRun screenshot, this clocks in at 1.6 miles from the pedestrian bridge over Columbus around to Calhoun Place.

The second screenshot shows the points recorded by Garmin 305 GPS. It clearly shows the route up Columbus until we hit the Aon Center (the start of the underpass) and it's pretty clear the GPS is beginning to make guesses about where I'm heading ;-) You'd expect any device relying on satellites to struggle to gain line of sight in this environment! It's basically a quarter mile tunnel so it places me on the parallel street stetson and predicts I've even crossed the river! As you emerge at the other end of the tunnel by the river it quickly snaps back to Columbus as it finds the missing satellites again and we're fairly good from there but note the "wiggling" of the route. It's a small variance but I promise I wasn't drunk or weaving around my fellow race goers - just interference caused by the tall buildings of downtown.

The bottom line is that within what should have been 1.6 miles the Garmin is out by 0.69 miles reporting 2.29 miles vs actual. Fortunately the rest of the race through the loop is on wider streets so the variances decrease and by mile 4 we're heading out of the downtown area heading south on Lake Shore towards Hyde Park where the sky is mostly open (except for a few underpasses under McCormick Place). The actual Chicago Rock n Roll 2009 Half Marathon route is mapped out at WalkJogRun if you need to see the actual course without the wiggles.

Go with your gut

So what can you do? I was using this race as a training run for the Chicago Marathon so I wasn't digging for a PR and decided to listen to my breathing. If it was too labored I slowed down, if it was too easy I picked it up and continued this way until around mile 8. I looked at my time at each mile split and realized I had been maintaining my desired pace anyway - a very natural pace for me. It's a great feeling to be letting go of my reliance on my GPS and other gadgetry. I even ditched my iPod this year and it's been very liberating. After mile 8 my GPS was giving good readings and I felt so good I picked up the pace for the last 5.2 miles of the race to finish just 2 seconds slower than last year when I was pushing hard, but I felt so much better this year.

WalkJogRun iPhone App

Given the story above I wanted to turn back to our iPhone Application, WalkJogRun Routes. We get a lot of requests about incorporating a GPS route mapper into the iPhone application and I understand why. There are a couple of other companies who have added GPS tracking centric apps and they've sold a lot of copies. Understanding how a dedicated device struggles to track your route and your pace, it's obvious that a device with an embedded GPS would be useful but not accurate. If you're a slave to the data you get out of your GPS or iPhone you'll be disappointed by the accuracy. If you're the kind of person who is just curious, you'll be happier but very few will be satisfied.

We held off on our GPS embedding for this reason - accuracy on the website is a big priority and hence the iPhone app strives to maintain that integrity. We believe that if we can show you a route wherever you are and give you an accurate distance, you have everything you need to run. We also got a lot of feedback that tap to zoom on a route wasn't what people expected but the truth is, we tried pinch to zoom and it just wasn't as easy to accurately zoom in on the point of the map you need versus a single tap, so we made that choice. Another factor was the responsiveness of using static maps, which was our only option for the first release. We're working on using the embedded google maps so once that is done, we'll have a better option, but again - accuracy for us is key.

How do you train? Obsessive about your gadgets or a natural born runner happy to follow your gut?

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

I ran the Chicago Distance Classic yesterday as part 2 of my 3 race season with Team in Training. After my Indy Mini PR of 1:58:20 I had a good head start on my training with 14 weeks between races to see how much faster I could get. The Team in Training Summer program features speedwork, stretching and ab work on Wednesday nights and so I pushed those sessions pretty hard.

Over the last 14 weeks we've done hill repeats, yasso 800s, strides, intervals and pickups around one of Chicago Lakefront's only hills at Montrose harbor. My pace had gradually been increasing while my heart rate was dropping over the same easy runs week to week and I felt really strong.

After studying my runners world training diary and pouring over the Garmin workout logs I decided to start with the 8 minute mile Chicago Endurance Sports pace group for a finish time of 1:45. I started in the first wave as a consequence and left with the first batch of runners. I stuck it out for the first four laps with splits of 7:46, 7:55, 7:46 and 8:02 but realized I was out of my league when I peaked at my Garmin to see a Heart Rate of 175 bpm, a rate typical towards the end of my workouts so I slowed down to 8:13, 8:01, 8:05 and 8:06 for the next four. At that point I hit the gusting wind from the north and was pegged back to 8:17, 8:54, 8:02 and 8:17 for the next four miles. The last mile and change to the finish I had nothing left in the tank and slugged through at 8:54 to finish with an overall chip time of 1:48:38 - another PR!

I'm really excited because it's one day later and I don't feel like I've been hit by a bus and ready for the next 9 weeks of training to take me to the Chicago marathon where, through my time in this race, I have secured a corral start! I'll throw it out there now so I can remember it but the Greg McMillan Running Calculator predicts that based on my half marathon time, my current level of fitness would indicate a 3:49 marathon. That would be 17 minutes faster than my 2006 San Francisco marathon finish and a PR so I hope it works!

Anyone else run it? What did you think of the course, the weather and the organization?

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

Two updates this week of note. The biggest announcement is that after meeting John Bingham and Coach Jenny to discuss the site last week, they asked WalkJogRun to be the official map provider for the Chicago Distance Classic Half Marathon! I took the map provided by the route certifier and created the 13.1 mile route. There will be updates to come including aid stations, sponsored water stops and bathrooms but for now it's live at WalkJogRun.net/cdc. I'm running it again this year and looking to beat my Indy Mini time of 1:58:20...

The other announcement is a bug fix. When creating routes you may have noticed that if you clicked to add a turn marker on top of one of the blue route marker lines, it wouldn't register. Last night I changed some code to make it possible to click on the lines to add turn markers.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

We're back home and getting ready to head out to Brunch to celebrate Melissa completing her first half marathon! We ran together all the way and even got some pics taken along the way holding our hands in the air to celebrate! We finished in 2:12:40 for an average pace of 10:08 per mile. We woke up at 4:30 am to get breakfast started and left the house just after an hour to drive down for the 6:30 start. There was plenty of parking at the Millennium Park lot but the walk to the gear check and the bathroom line left us hustling over to start in time. The humidity appeared to have cleared over night with the storms hitting early so there was a pleasant breeze when we weren't running underground.

The first 4 miles flew by as we ducked and weaved our way through downtown Chicago keeping a steady pace for every mile. At 4 we took our first water stop and then carried on. The next 4 miles were harder as the course turned East on Roosevelt over the bridge and then down the entrance ramp to the highway South. Mile 8 was the turning point one exit past McCormick place with what seemed like a careless place for a water/gatorade stop.

We hit mile 10 and it was a great psychological boost. Our pace had been rock solid all the way through and with 3.1 miles left to the finish we found a spring in our step. The view heading North is great with the Chicago skyline ahead of you and the lake on your right. Past Soldier Field towards the Shedd Aquarium and then a hard right towards the Adler Planetarium. At the end we double back down the other side of the road and then under the bridges towards Grant park. The last mile was weird as they have you snake in an S-shape before you see the finish sign in the last 400 meters or so. We held off in the last few strides to make sure the photographer could get a clear shot of Melissa and I hand in hand crossing the finish with big smiles.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

Yesterday was the last run of our training for the half so now it's all about hydration, carb loading and preparing mentally for Sunday. We had an easy tapered schedule this week dropping from 4 to 3 to 2 miles over the last 3 days. The only issue we've had this week has been the crazy humidity! It looks Sunday's high will be 92 but since we run at 6.30am that shouldn't be a big factor. The problem will be the humidity again since there are thunderstorms later that day. We're shooting for a 10 min mile pace in line with our average throughout training.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

We romped home in 1:42 for our 10 mile run today wrapping up the long runs required for our training! We were both a little under the weather on Thursday so we missed the 5 mile run we were supposed to do but in some ways it was great to take the extra rest. This week we just have 4 miles, 3 miles then 2 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday respectively before the big race next Sunday.

Melissa did great today, especially considering it was the first time she has ever run 10 miles. I got a little frustrated at the end because we missed the "400 meters to go" announcement on our iPods and because we were running a slightly different route it bugged me that I couldn't visualize the finish. It was a nice surprise though when Melissa turned to say "oh, I guess that's it!", even if my reaction wasn't the best. One bottle of gatorade and a handful of pretzels later we're going to shower and head out for a nice panini to reward ourselves.

I think next time I'll use WalkJogRun to make sure I know exactly where the finish line is!

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

I had no idea it has been 2 weeks since my last blog entry and it isn't supposed to read like a confessional! Since my last entry we've run 7 miles, 8 miles, 10k and today we ran 9 miles as part of our half marathon training. This is in addition to the 5-3-5 midweek miles we've been doing so we've really been pounding down the lakefront path. It was nice to have the fallback long run last week where we dropped back from 8 miles to a 10k. You feel so mentally refreshed and it helps a lot.

Today we started out heading North from our place for 2.5 miles and back then 2 miles South and back to get the distance we needed. It's been great psychologically to develop a couple of northbound 3,4 and 5 mile routes and the same heading south so we can mix it up to get the distances we need but still remain on familiar paths. We're also spoiled by beautiful scenic paths along Lake Michigan although you wouldn't think it the way I get cranky with some of the other people on the path. The first mile today we were plagued by the runner who doesn't want to be passed. We were clearly about 10 seconds faster per mile as we approached a lady jogging our way so we gave her a wide birth, passed and after we were a good 5 meters clear we pulled back in front of her. As I glanced over my shoulder she had accelerated behind my wife Melissa and through her hands up in the air like we were in her way. I thought maybe she was running intervals but after she stormed past us by cutting over the grass she slowed back to the same 10 seconds per mile slower pace again. Fortunately Melissa is more patient than me and she just had us slow down until she had taken another path.

The run went great today despite the 80 degree heat. It's not as hot as some of the more humid runs we've done but it felt good today. We stopped a for water at a fountain around mile 4,6 and 8 and made it home in just over 90 minutes. I had remembered to pick up some of the Gatorade Endurance formula at the store last week and refrigerate it so that was nice to come home to. In the summer it's generally a good idea to weigh your self before your run and after to get an idea of your sweat rate and I think the guideline is to drink 16 ounces of water for every pound of weight you lose. I lost 6 pounds running today! That's 96 ounces of water to get back the lost water weight!

This was Melissa's longest run of her life so I'm really proud of how she has done. Two years ago she had just started running as we trained for the PAWS 8k together. Last year she accompanied me on some of my training runs for the San Francisco Marathon (which was exactly a year ago today). It's awesome that she is in training for her first half marathon this year and is doing so well. She's much better at getting out of bed early and running than me so it's a struggle sometime.

I heard from a running friend Todd this week that he has been suffering from the dreaded black toenail and has tendonitis in both ankles. Todd ran the San Diego half marathon in June with Team In Training when I ran the full and I'm sure his tendonitis is related to the banked highways like mine was. I told him that I had read a lot about the black toenail and that it can be caused from having shoes that are too small. They fit fine and may be your normal shoe size when you aren't running but in the heat of running and especially in the heat of summer, your feet can swell almost a size. My advice if you've got a similar problem would be to head to your nearest specialist running store and ask to be fitted. Make sure you mention the black toenail problem and take your running shoes with you.

Lastly today, if you are a Nike+ Sport Kit user and have an account at Nikeplus.com where you upload your routes, check out the the challenges. If you look, there is a 60 mile WalkJogRun challenge where the goal is to run 60 miles in 4 weeks. It's free to sign up and it's been running 6 days at this point so you aren't far behind.

Have a good running week and maybe I'll check back in during the week as we work up to our 10 mile run next Sunday. We're off to brunch as a treat to regain some of the 1000 calories we just burned this morning.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

It's been a long week and I was glad to have the extra hour in bed this morning with a rest day in the training schedule. We ran the 4.5 mile, 3 mile, 4.5 mile schedule Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but yesterday brought a different kind of stress.

I did my first newsletter mailing today to the 6,000 members who opted in over the last year to WalkJogRun for infrequent email updates and I've got to tell you - it was a blast! I wrote the content and Jeff put together a design for the format, correcting a few things here and there. At 1pm CST 6,000 WalkJogRun members emails were on their way and we had 5 mins to wait before the stats started to come in.

The first response is all the bounces from mail servers around the world declaring that users are no longer there. Next was a swarm of Out of Office replies in the reply to email address box. Some of these were "I'll be out of the office until..." but some were "I'll be out of the office - forever! I no longer work at ...". Some of these were really funny to read, others straightforward. Being obsessive about things like this, every 15 minutes I would hit refresh to see the open rate and clickthrough rate climbing. As it stands at 2pm (26 hours into the mailing) there have been 1,729 unique opens and a 486 clickthroughs to the site or the articles, 34 people have unsubscribed and 176 emails bounced. I've had some really nice notes from people saying how much the enjoy using the site and that we should even ask for forgiveness and permission from our wives to keep up the hard work adding new features!

If anyone has any questions about running topics you think I may be able to answer or questions about how to use the site, feel free to drop me a line and you may even see your question reposted here in the blog for everyone's benefit. If you didn't receive the mailing you can see it here.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App