For the third January in a row, my wife and I paid a visit to Mickey and friends down at Walt Disney World. This year, we went down specifically to run the Goofy Challenge, but I already wrote about that. While our trip was shorter than in past years, I still managed to take a lot of photos. With this being our third trip, I already had a ton of photos of the parks so I knew I could skip a lot and just focus on things I either haven’t photographed or that I knew I could photograph differently.
Photo 365 – Week 3
Week three had some ups and downs for me. On some days, I had a few great photos to choose from, but there were a couple days where I struggled to find a good photo. This week, I also put my phone to good use, four of the seven photos were taken with it.
Photo 365 – Week 2
The first part of week two was spent in Disney World. I thought that would make getting tons of great photos easy, but we took a short trip and felt very rushed to do everything we wanted to do. Sadly, that didn’t leave a lot of time to set up and compose many photos. I came home with a lot of snapshots, but not a lot of actual photos. I also found myself scrambling at night to dump my photos to our iPad so I could go through them and pick a photo. I have a few photo editing apps that are decent, even for RAW files, but sometimes it’s still a little hard to get the photo just right on there. Still, despite all that, when I did have a minute or two to stop and take photos, I found myself trying to do different things than I would normally.
The last photo is of my sister-in-law who hates when I take photos of her. Naturally, this means I try to take as many as possible. This one was at a big family dinner at my wife’s parents’ house. They were sitting on stools next to each other and she put her head on my wife’s shoulder for moment. I happened to have my camera in my hand already and snapped the shot real quickly.
Disney World Goofy Challenge
One half marathon, one marathon, two days, four Disney parks, 39.3 miles, three medals, three shirts. It’s called the Goofy Challenge. It’s not for everyone and it’s certainly not for people who don’t like running.
If you had asked me a year and a few days ago if I thought I’d ever run a marathon and a half marathon in the same weekend, there’s no way you would have gotten a yes out of me. No way. I wouldn’t have even giving you a yes for running a marathon by itself. But, last year, my wife and I ran the Disney World Half Marathon and spent the rest of our trip in Disney seeing plenty of other people walking around with three medals around their necks, I call them “clankers.” It was at that point that we realized if they could do it, we could do it. It took months and some going back and forth before we finally committed and signed up for the Goofy Challenge, but we went for it.
Now, my wife and I aren’t always the smartest people in the world. We hadn’t run a full marathon at the time and were currently beginning our training for the Philadelphia Marathon, which fell just a month and a half before the Goofy Challenge. That’s not a lot of time to recover from your first marathon and then up the training for an even bigger challenge. But we signed up and booked a trip to Disney, we had to do it…or at least try.
Training didn’t go as well as it could of, in fact, between Philly and Disney, the longest run either of us did was 16 miles. Things could have been worse, but I really didn’t feel like either of us had built up enough stamina for the challenge. Time was hard to come by and the tendinitis that used to be in my left ankle had moved over to my right one, not to mention the fact that my knees hadn’t felt right since Philly. And to top off the fact that we had signed up to run 39.3 miles in one weekend, we also had to have enough left in our legs to walk around Disney for a few days and enjoy a “vacation.”
However, for as stupid as we were in signing up for this thing in the first place, we were smart in setting our goals. This was just for the sake of doing it. We weren’t going to try to run for time and we were going to run both races together. My wife and I don’t normally run races together, so this was going to be new for both of us, but we figured we could help each other through.
Half Marathon
The plan for the half marathon was to take things super slow and just get to the finish without working our legs too much. By this point, we’ve had a few half marathons under our belts and having just spent the last six months training for a marathon, 13.1 miles wasn’t worrisome at all. Plus, we knew the course from last year. Our biggest worry was just trying to keep ourselves slow. Very slow.
We woke up at 2:45am and got ourselves ready and out the door to catch the bus over to the start area. The weather was chilly, and still getting colder, but we knew it would be like this from last year. As we made our way over to our starting corral, we tried to prepare ourselves mentally for what we were about to start. We had no idea how our bodies were going to respond to such a goofy challenge.
The race kicked off with a blast of fireworks and we were on our way, trying to keep a slow pace. The start was very crowded and trying to find our own space to run wasn’t easy. On top of that, I had to pee right off the bat. I stopped at a porta potty and told my wife to continue without me, I’d catch up. This seemed like the longest pee of my life as I stood there thinking about how much extra energy I was going to burn trying to catch up to my wife. As soon as I was done, I sprinted down the course to catch up to my wife. The people around must have thought I was an idiot running that fast that early in the race, but since I’m used to running a half marathon at a pace three or four minutes per mile faster than we were planning on doing, it wasn’t a problem for me to run at my normal pace to catch up. In fact, my legs loved it, they wanted to keep it up, but I didn’t give in. I caught up to my wife and we continued on our way.
From there, we spent most of the race just trying to slow ourselves down. No matter how much we tried, our pace kept creeping faster and we’d have to make a strong effort to slow ourselves. down. The worst area of the course for this, without a doubt, was Magic Kingdom. This is the most exciting part of the course. There’s a ton of energy as you come down Main Street, through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, and through Cinderella’s Castle. We picked up a little speed, but for the most part we were able to keep it under control.
After Magic Kingdom, the half marathon course gets pretty boring for a while. You run down a back street and a highway for a while as you make your way back to Epcot. We lost a few minutes when my wife needed to take a quick bathroom break in one of the porta potties, but she was quick. As we made our way into Epcot for the last mile, things felt pretty good. Once the finish line was in site, we grabbed hands and crossed together at 2:15:54. Almost a minute per mile slower than my wife’s slowest time, so we were both feeling pretty good and knew we hadn’t burned up too much energy or stamina.
Marathon
The marathon, the biggie. With just one marathon under our belts, we didn’t know how we were going to hold up through 26.2 miles after having put 13.1 miles on our legs just 24 hours prior. Again, we got up around 3am to make our way over to the starting area. The temperature was a little bit warmer feeling, but not by much. We sat for a few minutes in the corral to rest our legs while other runners were stretching and warming up. Saving the energy seemed more important than anything else at this point. Since I moved back to start in the C corral (there were eight total corrals) with my wife, we had a bit of a walk anyway when it was time for our corral to move up to starting line so that served as our warm up.
This time when the race started, we tried to take it even easier. We were on the other side of the road this time which had a little more room on it. I, again, had to stop and pee within the first mile, but this time I didn’t use a porta potty, I just ran off into the woods. Unlike for the half marathon, I didn’t burn energy sprinting back up to my wife. I picked up my pace a little and just slowly and steadily caught back up to her.
The marathon course quickly differentiates itself from the half marathon by taking runners right into Epcot after just a couple miles. At this point, my wife needed to make her first bathroom stop. There was a bit of a line this time, but again, she was quick in there and we were on our way having only lost a few minutes.
We entered the park at the front and ran around Spaceship Earth with the course separating into two halves, allowing runners to go down either side. From there, the course makes a left turn into the World Showcase and exits down a back road just after passing Mexico. After exiting around the back, the course loops back around near the starting line, which was already halfway broken down, and heads towards Magic Kingdom on the same roads the half marathon comes back on. Instead of going to the right of the Speedyway, though, the full marathon took us along the left. This section, between Epcot and Magic Kingdom, is a bit boring, but Disney tries to keep an ample amount of entertainment going on the sides of the course.
At this point, we had hit the halfway point for the Goofy Challenge. All downhill from here, or so I tried to reason.
As we made our way towards Magic Kingdom, we were feeling okay, but weary about the big distance between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. But for now, we had a good pace going and were just a bit faster than we wanted to be. I feared that coming down Main Street in Magic Kingdom would pick us up a bit more than we wanted, but that was still a couple miles away.
As we made our way towards Magic Kingdom, the course eventually merged back with where the half marathon had taken us through the park. We entered down Main Street and did our best to keep things steady and find our space to run in the massive crowd of runners that bottleneck coming through the park. After following through Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Cinderella’s Castle, Liberty Square, and Frontierland, we made our way out of the park to the left of Splash Mountain. We escaped without picking up our pace and burning excess energy.
This was the part we dreaded, probably even more than the part of the race after mile 20. This was the start of the roughly six mile trek to Animal Kingdom. This portion of the course doesn’t have much to see other than the few characters Disney had out to take photos with. By the time we hit the marathon halfway point, I was feeling good, but my wife was starting to fatigue. I tried encouraging her as much as I could, but as we kept getting closer to Animal Kingdom, she kept getting more and more worried. As we came along miles 14 and 15, I started to feel some fatigue in my legs, but things were still manageable.
As we started to get closer to Animal Kingdom, some of the animals were out on the side of the course and this started off the boost that we needed from the park. Once we made our way into the park, the energy grew and carried us through Asia and DinoLand USA to the front of the park.
Three parks done and I was actually feeling pretty monster now.
We just had a few miles to go until Hollywood Studios. As we curved around the Animal Kingdom bus stops, we hit mile 17 and then 18 came quickly. By this time in Philly, I was fatiguing hard and working out my strategy to make it to the finish line. I was weighing the best time to drop off from the pacer I was running with and that time happened by mile 18.5. But things were different this time, my legs felt great and I had energy, lots of it. I knew we were approaching the point in the race where things can fall apart in the blink of an eye, but I knew I was feeling good now and that was all that mattered. I don’t know what the time was at this point, but I’m pretty sure by now I had been running for longer (time-wise) than I ever had in my life.
Unfortunately, my wife was not in the same kind of shape I was in. Since running with her is already a much slower pace for me, I wasn’t putting my body through as much, but we were only running a little slower than she’s used to for a long race like this so it was much harder on her body. These were dark times for her. She had a blister on her toe pop that nearly took her down. She screamed in pain and seemed like she was about to throw in the towel. I’ve never seen her in pain like that before, but she soldiered on as I did my best to reassure her that she could and would make it. Still, I could tell that she was tiring quickly. I had been gulping down energy gels and sport beans for the last five miles, but she didn’t want them. By now, I knew she needed something so I convinced her to eat the chocolate gel she had in her SPI belt. With eight more miles to go, I knew it would kick in when she really needed it.
Unfortunately, the temperature was rising quickly now. We had been taking water at almost every stop since the halfway point so we were hydrated enough, but we were starting to feel the effect of the sun on us.
Mile 21 got a bit rough for my wife and she started feeling the need for another bathroom stop. We, luckily, weren’t far from a porta potty and she was able to stop. Now, she was really fighting to keep things going, but once she was able to hit the bathroom, things started to pick up a little for her.
As we turned into Hollywood Studios, we hit the 22nd mile marker, which pretty much marked the homestretch. From now on, the rest of the course was lined with people, no more dead zones.
There was a huge burst of energy as we entered into the park. Both of us sucked this energy in and picked things up massively. We dropped from around an 11:10 mile to closer to an 8:30-9 minute mile. The combination of the bathroom break, the energy gel finally kicking in, and all the energy from the park transformed my wife from struggling to keep it going all to a running machine. She looked fresh, like she had just started the race. As we made our way through Hollywood Studios, we started passing other runners like nobody’s business. Runners that had been near us all race or had passed us a while back quickly ended up behind us.
We both were feeling great and reaping the reward for keeping things so slow in the 35 miles behind us. Hollywood Studios was over in a flash. We entered in the back of the park and ran through part of the Backlot Tour, down Streets of America, up Commissary Lane, and turned right onto Hollywood Boulevard towards the front of the park. After exiting the park, we made the sharp left to head down along the river to the Boardwalk Resort. Again, tons of people lining the side of the course. Things got tight here, but we squeezed our way through.
As we made our way onto the Boardwalk, we had tons of momentum and we were flying as we passed the marker for mile 24. We were almost there and nothing was going to stop us now.
We followed the course back into Epcot by the UK pavilion. All that was left was a lap around the World Showcase and then to make our way to the front of the park. The counties were flying by us and it felt like we were running on fresh legs. By the time we exited into Future World, we’d passed hundreds of runners since marker for mile 22. It was like we were fast-forwarding the end of the race.
Finally, after wrapping around Spaceship Earth again, we could see the finish line. We stopped passing people, grabbed hands, and made our way across the line at 4:58:16. We were only 21 minutes slower than my wife’s time in Philly and considering we had run a half marathon the day before and stopped for two bathroom breaks, that’s not bad.
Overall stuff
The Goofy Challenge sounds intense. And it is, it’s a lot of miles, but what I learned this weekend is that if you take it easy, really easy, you can do it. And you can still enjoy a vacation after doing it. Of all the long races I’ve done (1 marathon and 3 half marathons before this), I felt the best after this. My legs weren’t very sore and my ankles didn’t hurt. I could walk pretty well. My biggest issue after finishing was just that my feet were sore (that continued for two days). Other than that, I really felt great. Even my ankles, which have been constant problems for me for almost a year and a half now, were completely fine. I did some preemptive icing on them right after finishing, but they never started to hurt.
Throughout the course of the rest of the day and trip, I really didn’t feel like I had just run a marathon and a half. I was impressed with us.
For me, the biggest change from any other races I’ve run is just the difference in running at a slower pace. It’s a really different experience. At a 10-11 minute mile, the course is much more crowded. Things only cleared out so much for us throughout the entire 39.3 miles. At any given point, there were always a few people within a 10 foot radius. At a 7-8 minute pace, races are much different, they clear out. Unless you have someone running with you, you’re much more alone, with the nearest people 15-20 feet away from you. There’s also a lot more conversation from the people around when you’re running slower. Maybe it’s because more people run with friends at that pace, but there were groups of people all over the place that seemed to be running together. At this pace, water stops are a complete mess, there are people and cups everywhere.
Additionally, running at a slower pace gives you time to enjoy the course. I’m used to flying through courses as fast as I can while focusing on breathing properly, keeping an eye on the condition of my body, and keeping myself right at the upper limit of a sustainable pace. I don’t normally notice much going on around me aside from what I need to in order to protect my safety. At an 11-minute mile, I was taking in all the things Disney had on the sides of the course. There were dozens of characters out, marching bands, etc. I even got to enjoy the parks in a different way.
I find the Marathon Weekend events to be a great experience from beginning to end. The races are fun and the courses are unlike any other courses you’ll ever run. Not to mention the fact that, despite the races starting at 5:40am, they’re very well organized. The Goofy Challenge is definitely something I want to do again, but I think I’d also throw in the 5k as well. I don’t know if my wife and I want to make a trip down next year for our fourth January Disney trip in a row, but it’s the 20th anniversary of the marathon, so I’d really like to. If she does both races again, I think I’d do them with her again, but if she decides not to do Goofy again, I might try running for a time. Maybe both races in under five hours combined.
The biggest downside to doing something like Goofy is if you’re trying to also do a full trip to the parks as well. You lose a lot of time because of the races. You have to get to bed before the parks even close on both nights and by the time you’re showered and ready to hit the parks after each race, you’ve lost a good portion of your day, especially after the marathon. We thought we could do four days in the parks, including the race days, but we really felt pressed for time. In the end, we did all the highlights and the things we wanted, but adding an extra day would have made the trip more enjoyable as a whole.
Now what
Now, with the Goofy Challenge done and two marathons under my belt, what are my goals? First thing I’m doing is taking a couple weeks off to rest my ankles. They don’t hurt now, but I want to make sure they’re in decent shape. After that, it’s time to start training again. I’ve got the RU Unite Half Marathon at Rutgers in April, but as long as training goes well, I’ll be doing another marathon after that. I’m looking to qualify for Boston in the Spring so I can run next year. It’s going to mean a lot of training, but as long as my ankles feel good in two weeks, I won’t have lost much from where I am right now. If training is going well, I’m going to shoot for a time closer to 1:25:00 at the half marathon and a marathon for May or June.
Running the Boston Marathon is my main goal right now, but after I qualify for that, my next goal is to get under three hours. Since I have to run under 3:05:00 to qualify for Boston, getting under three hours, at that point, should be attainable. You’d think.
UPDATE: My wife posted her recap as well.
Photo 365 – Week 1
Week one of my photo 365 project is done already! So far, it’s been pretty fun. I can easily say that I’ve taken a lot more photos now because of it. I spend more time consciously thinking about it and looking for things to photograph. One of my goals from this project is that this process will become a bit more subconscious. I’d like to be able to just naturally take notice of things more. It’s too early for that to start to happen yet, but consciously thinking about this instead of not thinking about it at all is definitely a good start.
Already, I can see that some days will be easy and others are going to be a struggle. At least with the struggle days, I’m motivated to get my camera out and try new things. The photos of the rubber duckies and the magazines would have never happened without this project. Some days, I find that I try a bunch of things to get something cool and when I look at the photos on the computer, I have a bunch of photos I really like, in addition to the one photo I pick for the day.
The second half of this first week included a trip to Disney World so that helped make things a bit easier, but because we were making it a short trip, I didn’t have the luxury of spending a lot of time thinking about photos and setting them up. Most of them had to be snapped quickly while running from ride to ride.
Kindle Fire
The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s entry into the tablet world. To date, the “tablet world” has been more of an “iPad world,” it’s been utter domination. Tablets are the new netbook, they’re hot and every company wants a piece of the action, but the problem is, people aren’t buying tables, they’re buying iPads (on the large scale). I’m not here to talk about the reasons for that, but there are many. The Kindle Fire has now come along with hopes of changing that, at least to a degree. Amazon, who has already had a lot of success in the eReader market, thinks that with an almost impulse-buy price of $200, they can undercut the iPad and gain traction where others have been stuck in the mud.
Introducing the Kindle Fire as I just have implies that it competes with the iPad, but I would say with some level of confidence that I don’t think it does. And that’s an odd thing because the Kindle Fire does compete with other Android tablets who, in turn, do compete with the iPad. Apple’s iPad represents an end-to-end ecosystem. You buy your hardware from Apple and then Apple continues to be your one-stop shop for music, movies, books, games, magazines, and apps (they are not the only source for music, movies, books, or magazines, but they want to be and they have the ecosystem to pull it off). This is an experience very different from Android tablets where you buy the hardware from one company and get your content from a smattering of other vendors. And this is where the Kindle Fire comes in and bests other Android tablets in a way that only Amazon can pull off right now. It provides the same kind of end-to-end ecosystem that users can get from Apple. This and a $200 price tag are what will make the Amazon Kindle Fire the first truly successful Android tablet (unless you want to include the Nook Color as a true Android tablet).
So yes, on that front, it seems like the Kindle Fire is an iPad competitor, but the difference comes from company philosophy. Amazon is a retailer. They sell you the Kindle Fire very cheaply because they don’t see it as their product, they see it as a conduit through which they can sell you the content and items they already love to sell you. Apple, on the other hand, is a hardware company, they use software and content as selling points to get their hardware into your hands. These different approaches are what really set the two devices apart.
If you keep up with technology at all or read any tech blogs or sites, you already know this and have read it over and over again. But if that’s not you, then this may be the kind of thing you don’t think about. In terms of what I’m going to go on to say, I’m not sure how much it matters, but it is something that’s been in the back of my mind for the past week and a half and it creeps to the foreground almost every time I pick up the Fire.
What good is a Kindle Fire for an iPad user?
Before I go into the device further, frequent readers of this blog may wonder why I would want a Kindle Fire if I have an iPad already. It may appear that I’m an Apple fanboy, as they say. I have an iPad, iPhone, and MacBook Pro. I love these devices and right now, for my money, Apple delivers what I want from a device that I’m going to rely on day in and day out. However, I’m not an Apple fanboy, I’m just an all-around gadget-nerd. As such, I’ve been feeling, for a long time, like it’s ridiculous that there hasn’t been anything Android in my home. I’ve been keeping my eyes on Craigslist for a while, looking for something that was just right to pick up. That something had to be cheap enough that I could justify spending the money since it would be nothing more than a toy for me. The Kindle Fire has been the first good (and not generations old) Android product that has come along with a price tag reasonable enough to justify its purchase.
Additionally, my wife and I share our iPad, but usually I just hog it. She is the one that really wanted it in the first place and I justified our purchase of it by figuring we’d use it enough between the two of us. I never thought that I’d use it for a couple hours a day myself. A second iPad seems like overkill for us, but the Kindle Fire is, again, cheap enough that it makes for a nice complement to our iPad. I can use the Kindle Fire when my wife wants to read on the iPad or bring it into the kitchen with her to read recipes from.
*Note: This thing was a bitch to photograph because of its glossiness, otherwise I would have taken a lot more photos of both the hardware and software. I had to choose between just posting this with what I had or waiting until next weekend when I’d be able to photograph with natural light.
Hardware
For the most part, I like the hardware. It looks like a BlackBerry Playbook and is uninspired in design, but it’s simple all black exterior is aesthetically pleasing. The Kindle Fire feels solid, but isn’t heavy. The weight is nice for holding in one hand and your arm doesn’t tire out as quickly as it does with the iPad.
The 7″ size makes for a completely different physical experience than the 9.7″ iPad. Holding the Kindle Fire feels more like holding a big phone, you can wrap your hand around it. Sometimes, this is really nice and kind of preferred to the larger iPad. Over the last week and a half, I’ve found myself reaching for the Kindle Fire for looking things up while watching TV. It seems well suited to being used as a secondary point of focus while you’re doing something else. In other words, the 7″ size makes it much less of an immersive experience than a 10″ table can offer. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it’s not what you want.
The quality of the Kindle Fire display was surprisingly good to me. It’s decently bright and sharp enough that you shouldn’t have any problems. The colors and viewing angles are good enough that I didn’t take special notice to either one. The only knock against it is its crazy level of glossiness. You can get some serious glare coming off the screen. Plus, it’s a big fingerprint magnet.
Unfortunately, there is no physical volume control, but volume is just a single tap away so it’s tolerable.
While the hardware and design are mostly a positive, there is one insanely stupid aspect to the Kindle Fire. The power button is on the bottom of the device, right where you’ll often have a finger while you’re holding it. Or right where the weight of the device is going to fall when you’re resting it on your chest while laying in bed. I knew this going in, but I had no idea how annoying this would turn out to be. Even after a week and a half, I still find myself hitting this by accident all the time. Sometimes, my finger even holds the button down long enough that I get prompted with the device shut-down dialog. For apps that rotate a full 180°, I turn the device so the button is on the top, but not all apps rotate like that. This was such a stupid design decision that it almost feels as though the person responsible for it should be fighting to keep their job at Amazon.
Software
There are two things worth noting right off the bat before I go on about the software. One, the latest update that Amazon pushed out to fix the big complaints came down automatically for me on the first day and seems to do a decent job of fixing the complaints others have had. The second thing of note, is that I rooted my Kindle Fire two days after opening it. I installed the Android Market and GO Launcher EX. With that being said, my software experience is a little different than most would have, but I bought the Kindle Fire with every intention of rooting it and, when it becomes available in a stable form, installing CyanogenMod on it.
As is very plain to see, Amazon has heavily skinned Android on the Kindle Fire. In fact, they’ve actually completely forked Android, from what I understand. The Amazon skin creates an experience that ties you right into Amazon’s ecosystem. You’ve got all your media front and center and purchasing new content from Amazon is right there. It’s so easy to buy new content that you can almost accidentally do it.
The Amazon skin looks decent enough, but if you want to do anything more than reading or some casual browsing, you may be left wanting more from it.
Amazon’s app store has a decent selection of apps, but I quickly found that many of the apps I immediately wanted to install weren’t there. The Kindle Fire allows sideloading of apps, but I find the process to be a pain in the ass. However, once I rooted the Fire and installed the Android Market, most of the apps I wanted were there and ready to go for me. Unfortunately though, I found some of the apps I wanted were incompatible and could not be installed through the Android Market. Annoyingly, many of them were apps that should be able to run on the Kindle Fire (i.e. they aren’t apps that require hardware the Fire doesn’t have). This was annoying. To this day, I still can’t get the Facebook app to run without crashing at login. Being a primarily iOS user, this whole experience seemed bonkers to me.
The apps themselves are mostly lacking in feel to me. There are many good apps, but it seems that for every app I’ve installed on the Kindle Fire, a better alternative exists for iOS. It may be that I need to spend more time with the Android Market to figure out how to better find the apps I need, but in reality, the big issue seems to be…
The overwhelming majority of Android apps for the Kindle Fire just feel like over-sized smartphone apps. Mainly, that’s because they are just smartphone apps since the Kindle Fire runs off Android 2.3 instead of 3.x or 4.0. This feels like a major problem to me, but again, I come at this with an iOS perspective. The extra physical size over a phone feels wasted without tablet-class apps. On the iPad, developers tailor their apps to make use of the extra screen real estate and it makes the experience substantially better. It’s more engaging and more productive. iPad apps have multiple panes and feel natural to use, these apps just blow everything up as if I’m a senior citizen with crappy eyesight. This is something you will want to keep in mind if you are thinking about a Kindle Fire, you won’t get tablet apps, you’ll get glorified smartphone apps. If that’s not okay with you, you’ll want to look elsewhere, either a Honeycomb/Ice Cream Sandwich Android tablet or the iPad.
I actually almost forgot to even mention the Silk Browser which is designed to offload the heavily lifting of web browsing onto Amazon’s servers. Ideally, this should help pages load faster. In practice, I found page loads to be painfully slow. I’m going to leave it at that.
Performance
For the most part, I’ve found that the Kindle Fire is slightly snappier than I expected. Scrolling isn’t smooth, but it keeps up with your finger and touch response is usually good. That doesn’t come without some caveats though. Zooming in the browser works, but is very jerky and jarring. I’ve also found that clicking URLs, more of than not, takes many taps before doing anything. This goes for all links, even results from a Google search or those from apps other than the browser. I don’t find this same issue when tapping buttons or other elements on the screen. What exacerbates this is that Android and its apps often provide no immediate acknowledgement of your actions. If your action is registered and quickly carried out (in say, less than .5 seconds) , you don’t really notice that much, but when the system takes longer to process what it needs to, you’re left there wondering if your tap was recognized or if the system is just taking a while to work on it. When this happens once in a while, it’s not that big of a deal, but constantly having to guess if my taps are being recognize can be maddening. Some simple indication that your interaction was registered would go a long way.
Overall, the Kindle Fire feels like a car that has plenty of horsepower, but is being slowed down by not having enough air in the tires. If the software cared more about the user experience, the Kindle Fire could be a significantly better device.
Battery life is fine. I can’t say I’ve done any scientific tests, but I’ve only had to charge it three times since I’ve gotten it. It’s not quite as good as the iPad 2, but you won’t have to worry about taking it with you for a weekend trip while leaving your charger at home.
Wrap up
As a whole, the Kindle Fire isn’t a bad gadget, especially for $200. In some ways, the device feels like a low-end product, but for the most part, the Kindle Fire feels like a steal at $200.
The Kindle Fire isn’t an iPad-killer or anything of the sort. As I mentioned in the beginning, it doesn’t really feel like it competes with the iPad. Even though I made many comparisons to the iPad throughout this review, it was mostly to drive home the point that this isn’t iPad competition.
What it comes down to is this, if you want an eReader that you can check email on and occasionally browse the web here and there or read some tweets, this is a must-buy. If you are sure that you only want to consume content, the Kindle Fire is worth a serious look. However, if you at all think you might want to use a tablet to get work done or even use it as your primary browsing/tweeting/Facebooking device, the Kindle Fire is not the right purchase for you. The end result would be a $200 purchase that talks you into a future $500 purchase of a 10″ tablet. If you have been telling yourself that you really “want an iPad,” don’t cheap out and get a Kindle Fire.
I’m happy with my Kindle Fire, but only because I have an iPad 2 for the big boy stuff.
2011, see ya!
Normally, at the end of the year, I type up some long review for the year and look forward to the upcoming year. I’m not going to do that this year. Not because it wasn’t a notable year, it was one of the biggest years of my life, if not the biggest. I got married. I ran a marathon. I ran a half marathon in 1:33:05. While they weren’t the only things of note this year, they certainly took most of my energy and time and most other things I love took a backseat because of them. Still, it was an awesome year and I’ve got a pretty good feeling about 2012. I don’t do resolutions or anything like that, but I do have some goals for the year. I’m not going to mention them now, but I’ve talked about some of them already.
That’s it! That’s all I have to say!
Happy New Year!
A Timey-Wimey Night Zombie Walks into Mordor in the Morning…
Yikes! It’s been a while since I’ve posted about t-shirts. I’ve been slacking quite a bit, some of these shirts are a couple months old already and have been sitting on my dining room table waiting to be photographed.
The first is titled “The Happiest Place in Middle Earth” and came from The Yetee. Very simply, this shirt combines two things I am a huge fan of, Disney World and Lord of the Rings.
Second, we have a Night Birds shirt from when I saw them in the beginning of this month. I didn’t have much of a choice with which design to go with if I wanted to stay with am SFW one, so I went with the plain one.
Next up, we have “Troy and Abed in the Morning,” from TeeRaiders. This is not my first Community shirt, but I couldn’t resist this one. Unfortunately, TeeRaiders prints their shirts on Gildan Heavy Cotton which kind of sucks, but at least their shirts are only $10.
Fourth, is “The Original Zombie Walk” from TeeFury. I already have a ton of zombie shirts and generally try to hold back on buying more, but a 5k inspired one (even if it’s specifically a walk and not a run) nicely set itself apart from the others out there.
Lastly, we have “Tennant’s Timepiece Repair” from ShirtPunch. I couldn’t hold back on wearing this shirt a few weeks ago so I snapped a few quick photos on my phone which is why these are of lower quality. Anyway, this is my first Doctor Who shirt, but I can already say it won’t be my last as I have another one on the way. Somehow, I’ve yet to post anything around here about Doctor Who, but it’s something I’ve gotten myself very obsessed with over the last few months. I got into it at the end of the Summer and blew through the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors pretty quickly. Now I’m working on Torchwood and then I plan to start with the First Doctor and move my way up from there. My wife hates how into this I’ve gotten. But, back to the shirt. I chose this as my first because it showcases my favorite Doctor (so far), David Tennant, plus it’s a design that keeps a good sense of humor is doesn’t scream “Doctor Who” to those who aren’t into the show.
Knuckle Lights review
As a runner that lives far enough north that night comes before getting home from work in the Winter, I’ve been left with a decision to make multiple times a week. Do I go to the gym and run on the treadmill, meanwhile hating my life, or do I run in the dark outside. Running outside in the dark is not only dangerous because of cars, but also because you can’t always see where you’re putting your foot down. Because of lighting around where I live, or lack-thereof, the only route I can really do at night is a two-mile loop near my house. If I want to run more than two miles, I have to do laps. For four or even six miles, it’s tolerable, but for eight, ten, or more, it’s unbearable for me. And before I go any further, I will mention that there is always the third option of waking up before work and running in the morning, but I’ve failed at actually getting myself out of bed so many times now that I don’t even try anymore.
My wife had suggested getting headlamps last year, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Unfortunately, this year, we’ve got too much training to do to ignore the problem. I spent some time trying to pick out the right headlamp for me, but the idea never seemed right to me. I can’t imagine running with something on my head like that and I couldn’t find one online that didn’t have almost as many negative reviews as it did positive ones. While much of the negativity for the better overall rated headlamps seemed to be somewhat subjective and a matter of preference for the reviewer, I couldn’t help feeling that I would run into the same issues.
Enter Knuckle Lights!
Knuckle Lights take the idea of a headlamp and run with it (pun intended), while trying to improve on the idea. Instead of having a single light on your head, they move the light to your hands. One in each hand. Knuckle Lights are specifically designed for runners, whereas most headlamps are more general purpose or more geared toward hiking.
I decided to give these a try, they seemed to be the best option for my wife and I so I bought us each a pair ($40 each). I was impressed by the free shipping which got them to us in two days (via USPS, nonetheless). When the lights showed up earlier today, I opened up the box and found that not only did we get the lights, but they also threw in two stickers, two reflector strips, and two red flashing clip-on reflector light dealies. Not bad.
Since I was scheduled for a run today anyway, I grabbed them and ran right out the door to give them a try. I purposely ran past my normal nighttime loop and down a dark road that I would normally never run down at night. I quickly found that while the Knuckle Lights didn’t provide massive amounts of light, they certainly provided enough light for comfort. The lights provided me with about ten feet of good visibility in front of me. Not a lot, but enough that you can run safely. From the perspective of an oncoming car, I’m sure they could see me quite a ways away, as well.
If you take a second to head over to their site, you’ll see that the makers of Knuckle Lights mention the wide beams over and over to try to convince you that the motion of your hands won’t cause the light to be all over the place. I have to admit, this was a small concern of mine, but they were right, you don’t see the light bouncing all over. You can see the movement of the lights in your peripheral vision, but that’s it. In front of you, the light appears steady and unmoving as long as you have both lights turned on. Completely distraction-free.
Something I didn’t think about beforehand, but I quickly realized while using the Knuckle Lights was that having two separate lights that could move independently of not only each other, but also your eyes and head is extremely useful. You don’t have to move your whole head to light in a slightly different direction. As I was running by cross-streets, I started pointing one light down the street so that any cars coming down could see me easily. I kept the other light forward so I could still see where I was going. I also found it useful sometimes to point one light down as I was running over sections of sidewalk that were in extra bad shape. This allowed me to place each step strategically to not trip while also allowing me to keep an eye on what was coming up.
The biggest issue I have with running in the dark is with the headlights of oncoming cars blinding me. Knuckle Lights can’t stop that, but I found that the effect was greatly reduced. I could look down and away from the light, but still give myself at least a little light to be able to see where I was going.
My biggest concern with the Knuckle Lights before buying them was having to have them in my hands, but in reality, I didn’t find that to be an issue for a single second. The lights are very light and they strap onto your fingers in such a way that you barely even notice them. Once you put them on, you don’t have to actually hold them, they just stay there. They’ll work over gloves or mittens as well.
All in all, I think Knuckle Lights are well worth the $40. They’re not going to light up the entire road in front of you or impress you with their brightness, but they will give you enough light to not only allow you to run at night, but also make you feel comfortable with running in the dark. They’ll also make you very visible to cars, which is important. They’re easy to use and aren’t annoying. I can’t compare them to using a headlamp because I’ve never used one before, but I have no doubt that these are a much better option.
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- Look at everything they sent!
Photo 365 in 2012
Anyone who stops by here regularly has clearly seen that, over the course of this year, my updates have slowed to a complete crawl. Some of that can be blamed on planning a wedding, some can be blamed on being much more focused on running. Truthfully, it’s mostly been a lack of motivation to take the time to find things to post about when posts weren’t finding me on their own. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been just this site that has suffered for those reasons. My time with my camera has diminished just as much and for the same reasons.
For most of us, it’s normal to shift focus to different interests and sometimes some interests take a backseat to others. For the majority of this year, running and wedding-related things have been the main focus, but with the wedding a few months past now, I want to get back to my camera.
In the past, I’ve taken photos when I’ve had things to take photos of. I want to change that and start taking photos because I want to take photos (which I do want to do). There are millions of things around to make photos out of and thinking that there is nothing shouldn’t be an excuse to not take photos.
I should have subjects because I want to take photos, I shouldn’t take photos because I have subjects.
So I’ve decided that to force myself to start looking for things to take photos of instead of waiting for them to come to me, I’m going to do a photo 365 project for 2012. I’m going to produce at least one presentable photo everyday. I’ve already got a few ideas for weekly themes, but I’m not going to limit myself or force myself to always have a theme. The photos can be of anything that strikes my interest.
This project is going to be mainly about two things. The first is developing my skills so that I can produce photos worth sharing on any given day and without having to take dozens or even hundreds of shots to get that photo. I want to teach myself to take the time to set up shots and think about what I’m trying to capture instead of just firing away. I’m looking to spend less time taking snapshots and more time making photos. The second thing I’m going for is learning to see the world around me from the eyes of a photographer. I want to get better at looking around and seeing the beautiful things that are worth photographing. I want to take notice more.
In reality, I’ll probably end up with a lot of photos of my cats and various things around my home or my desk at work. A large portion of the photos will probably be from my iPhone instead of my DSLR as well, but considering how great the iPhone 4S camera is, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
My plan, at least as I see it now, is to post my photos daily on Twitter, Flickr, Google+, and maybe Facebook or Tumblr. At least as much as I can. Then, I’ll do a weekly post here with my photos from previous week. I may also join 500px and post to Instagram as well to round it all out. We’ll see. I’m hoping that I can make pretty good use of If This Then That so I can just upload once and have the photo automatically posted everyone. Additionally, I’m planning to finally build out the photography site that I wanted to do a year ago, but that won’t be right away. I’ve been paying for the domain for over a year now, but I never got around to actually building the thing. Part of the problem was a lack of having content to start out with, but I think I’ve got enough photos of bands and such to get started.
Anyway, look for that coming on 2012. I’m hoping I actually stick with it.
Why Do We Do Things That Aren’t Fun?
This is kind of a spur of the moment post, a quick reaction. My wife emailed me an article from No Meat Athlete a little while ago (I don’t read his site, but I’m familiar with the content since my wife talks about it sometimes and even has one of his shirts) and it got me thinking. If you’re not going to take a minute to click the link and read it, the article is a response to a conversation he had with the writer of ZEN Habits regarding living life without goals and how maybe that’s a better way to live.
The point (or at least a point) from ZEN Habits is that if something isn’t enjoyable at any point, why are you doing it? Is achieving a goal what’s really important if the process of getting there isn’t enjoyable? Shouldn’t you be trying to enjoy every moment of life instead? No Meat Athlete seems to have a hard time fully agreeing with this idea and I’m with him on it. His example is ultramarathons, but for me, it’s just plain old marathons (you know, the easy stuff). These long races are painful. Doing them physically hurts. A lot. And training for them isn’t really all that fun all the time either. I enjoy running, a lot, but there comes a certain point, usually by mile 10 or 12 where I’m not really having fun anymore. Sometimes, that point comes way earlier…like say mile 4 or 6, but for the most part, I enjoy running up to a certain point.
If pretty much no part of running a marathon is really fun, why do it? As No Meat Athlete points out, I don’t need to run excessively for the sake of exercising, I can run much less and supplement with other fun activities as well. So I don’t need to run long races and the fun parts of running could still exist in my life without having a goal and doing the hard stuff.
When I was running the Philly Marathon there was a spectator holding up a sign that said “it doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.” Seeing that sign was a kind of weird moment. It just kind of clicked in a way for me, I knew exactly what was meant by that. I could really feel the sentiment behind that sign. That sentiment kind of carried itself with me through most of the race, even in the last few miles. I was in crazy amounts of pain and, by most definitions, I was not having fun, but yet, what I was doing was still fun to me as a whole and I knew it would be fun after crossing the finish line.
It was fun to know that I was pulling off something a relatively small portion of the population has done. It was fun to know that after just a little more pain, I’d have this for the rest of my life. No matter what, I could say “yup, I ran a marathon.” Nothing could take that away. And it’s not in an “I’m better than anyone who hasn’t run a marathon” kind of way. It was more in the vein of how we all have something that makes us stand out or some accomplishment that we can be proud of, and this was both of those things to me.
That was my first thought as I was reading, my justification for why I put myself through something that wasn’t fun for the majority of the time I was doing it. But there was a second thought that came after that about why most of us have to have goals.
If life was reduced to doing only the things that were the most fun at the moment, I wouldn’t leave the house. Ever.
As I’ve mentioned, I truly do enjoy running, but that doesn’t mean that when I come home from work the first thing I want to do is change and head out the door to run. Really, what I want to do is plop down on the couch, have food handed to me, watch TV, and at some point have sex with my wife (hey, we’re being honest here, right?). I don’t want to go run. On the weekends, when I don’t have plans, I want to move from the bed down to the couch and just watch TV. I don’t really want to go for a run.
If you’re keeping track, I really just want to hang out on the couch and watch TV. But the thing is, I don’t want to do that! After doing just that, I hate myself. I feel like I’ve wasted my time when I could have been doing something else. But doing something else that I enjoy would be more work, at least to start. That initial work, without some other motivation, a goal, if you will, isn’t fun. If we’re trying to maximize fun and only do things that are fun from start to finish, then anything that requires me to put on pants is going to lose to plopping down on the couch.
This gets us to the poing, having fun is the goal.
Much of the time, getting to the fun part isn’t fun itself, but without it, there wouldn’t be fun at all.
Like I said, I don’t want to go for a run when I get home, but once I’m out there and a mile in and all warmed up, I’m happy. I’m having fun and I’m glad that I didn’t take the immediate fun (i.e. the lazy fun). And on top of that, the fact that I chose the delayed fun for my run means that I’m working towards being a better runner and therefore having more fun running in the future.
I know I’ve been doing a lot of running talk here, but there are other examples. I hate having to book vacations. You can just ask my wife about booking our honeymoon, it was one of the worst and least fun experiences I’ve had in the last year. But, vacations–especially, that honeymoon–are fun! If I chose to only be doing things that are fun from start to finish, I wouldn’t have chosen to plan a vacation…and I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to deal with TSA and the airport.
I have fun going to shows and seeing bands, but I generally abhor having to drive to Philly or, even worse, trek into New York City to actually get to the show.
I have fun going through my photos and discovering new favorites or realizing that a photo I didn’t think much of six months ago is actually really awesome. But I don’t have fun post-processing photos and tagging and organizing them so I can find them later. If I didn’t put in the not fun work, I wouldn’t be able to have the fun later.
I had a blast running the ZEN House and putting on shows in college, just thinking about the shows I did is fun. But doing the work to make it all happen wasn’t fun most of the time. In fact, it usually sucked.
Most of the time, you need to do things that are not fun in order to have fun. You have to choose the less fun option up front to have more fun in the end.
Having the sense of accomplishment from completing a long race or making a new personal record is fun. Getting there may not have been fun, but without doing the unfun stuff, I couldn’t have had this fun.
Having fun is the goal and to have the most fun, you must have a goal.
Night Birds at the Shore House
I went to see Night Birds last night in Philly. It was a good time. I took some photos.
Philadelphia Marathon – 3:24:09
Yesterday, I ran a marathon. A full one. 26.2 miles. It was physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And it was worth every bit of the pain that I’m currently in as I type this.
Less than a year ago, I was training for my second half marathon, the Walt Disney World Half Marathon, and I had absolutely zero interest in running a full marathon. Full marathons are crazy! 13.1 miles was tough enough. How do people do 26.2? But after that race, my feelings quickly changed and I started wanting to do a full marathon. I convinced my wife and we signed up for the Philly Marathon and instantly started worrying about what we had gotten ourselves into.
Training officially started on July 4th with the Cranford Firecracker 4-miler that we run every year and the last four and a half months have been a crazy roller coaster ride. My tendinitis still wasn’t fully healed and my wife and I were still planning our wedding (we took this into account by starting training two weeks early). Since July 4th, we had our bachelor/bachelorette parties, wedding, honeymoon, and three other weddings to attend. All of this made finding time on the weekends for our long runs very difficult at times. The training plan we had picked out was supposed to be intense, but because of injuries we were still trying to kick and lack of time, that plan got altered significantly. Training for a full marathon becomes your entire life and takes up all your time, but we didn’t always have any time to give up in the first place. I would have liked to be running five days a week and get three 20-mile runs in before the marathon, but that wasn’t a reality. I ran three to four days a week and did two 20-mile runs, neither of which were easy.
The first time you run a full marathon–and maybe subsequent times as well, I wouldn’t know yet–is insanely nerve-racking. You’re constantly doubting yourself and worrying that you can’t do it. Every minor little pain or soreness suddenly becomes this big deal as you find yourself slowly turning into a hypochondriac. In the weeks and days leading up to the race, this only gets worse. You know you trained and put in the work to do it, but you still can’t quite figure out how you’re actually going to finish this thing in once piece. A marathon sounds like an amazing idea when it’s still months away, but when it’s days, hours away, you realize it may have actually been the worst idea you’ve ever had. People will ask you if you’re ready for it, but there is not being ready for it and it doesn’t matter if you are or not. Race day comes quickly and the race isn’t going to run itself. There is not being ready, just doing.
Somehow, I actually got a good night’s sleep the night before, which was probably helped by the fact that I went to bed at 8:30. Once we got over to the starting area, I made my way over to my starting corral and tried to find a good spot within there to place myself. I saw the 3:20 pacer and placed myself right behind him. I felt like this would be a good place for me and decided I would park myself right next to the pacer for the next three and a half hours of my life. A 3:20 finish would put me at a pace just a few seconds slower than I did my last 20-mile run at so it seemed attainable, but it also seemed like it would be a good way to help keep me on track and prevent myself from starting out too fast and dying later in the race.
When the race started, there was this insane feeling, “this is happening and there’s no turning back now.” There was a lot of energy in the beginning, everyone was pumped up, but there were a lot of people all huddled close together. It was hard to find room to run, some runners ended up on the sidewalks, and I had to actively work to keep near the pacer.
By the time we got to the third mile, things started to even out a little, but it was still tight and I still had to fight to keep my own space. I heard the pacer say we were 22 seconds ahead of were we needed to be and I was feeling great so far, except for my left ankle, my tendinitis was starting to act up. I was actually a bit shocked, even though my ankle hasn’t been bothering me much for a couple months, this was still very early in the race for it to be a problem. I tried to stay focused though, my ankle was going to have to hold up now. Luckily, this pain didn’t last more than a mile or so.
At this point, we were coming down Columbus Blvd and then made a quick turn around the block to get onto Front Street. By now the group around me was thinning out a bit more, but Front Street isn’t very wide and there were still cars parked on the sides of the street. This felt like the most dangerous part of the course, but it was also right about this time that I got pulled in with a couple guys running near me, Jonathan and Doug. We started talking a bit and the three of us stuck together for a while. There was a lot of camaraderie among the three of us as well as the rest of the 3:20 group as we came around the corner onto South Street. We were all pretty pumped.
The course is only on South Street for a few blocks, but there was a ton of energy packed into those blocks. The streets were lined down both sides with people cheering. This got me into a bit of trouble. I had just finished telling Jonathan that I wanted to stick with the 3:20 pacer to help keep me from going to fast, but the energy down South Street really started pushing me forward. I wasn’t doing it consciously, but I soon noticed that the pacer, who was just off to my right for the last few blocks, wasn’t there anymore. I turned my head a bit more and didn’t see him. From this point on, I was on my own. I had lost Doug and Jonathan, and I didn’t see that pacer again for another eight miles.
From here on, I tried to keep my pace in check, but I was full of energy and focused as the course turned onto Chestnut Street for miles six and seven into University City. The course had thinned out a lot at this point and I was practically running by myself at certain points.
Now, it was time to turn onto 34th Street and begin three miles of seemingly endless climbing, with a quick flat spot near the Philadelphia Zoo (which stunk like animal crap). Just after crossing the 9th mile marker things got rough for the first time. We hit the biggest climb of the course and it was a bitch. In reality, it probably wasn’t straight up, but it certainly felt like it at the time. At nine miles in, I had plenty of energy and leg strength to tackle it, but a conscious effort needed to be made to not blow too much energy on a section of the course just barely a third of the way into the race.
Things kept pretty steady through mile eleven, but I was starting to feel my pace catching up to me. I started to fear that I wouldn’t be able to hit that 3:18 finish that I was now targeting, but I also knew I still had a bit in me before I needed to start slowing down. The next two miles along the Schuykill River remained pretty uneventful, I just kept on doing what I was doing and thinking about my strategy for the rest of the race.
As we began to approach the Art Museum at the 13th mile and where the half marathon splits off, I started to keep a look out for my family. The area around the Art Museum was filled with people and energy to propel us into the second half of the course. I saw my parents right before the 13th mile marker and that helped pump me up a bit and my pace, which had been very slowly slowing down over the previous few miles, picked back up a bit.
It was also at this point that Jonathan caught back up to me…or rather I slowed down to him. He came up along side of me and we started chatting again. I asked how far ahead of the pacer we were and, much to my disappointment, it was just a matter of feet. I looked over my shoulder and there he was, I guess I had slowed down a little more than I thought I had.
From this point on, the rest of the course was an out and back down along the opposite side of the Skuykill. Jonathan and I spent the next four miles talking about running and staying just in front of the 3:20 pacer. We passed the leaders of the race heading back down to the finish line as we were coming up on the 15th mile (they were approaching 25). As much as an out and back can suck sometimes, this was was a nice benefit of it. Those guys were flying.
These four miles were the last good ones I had. By mile 17, I knew I wasn’t going to be finishing at the current pace. I knew I didn’t need to take it down yet, but I wouldn’t be able to hold on for long. As we came up to the 18th mile marker, the pacer let us know that we had about a mile and a half to go until the final turn around of the race. This mile and a half was the longest mile and a half I’ve ever run. It felt like it was never going to end. It was definitely the longest feeling section of the race.
The 19th mile was a bit of a turning point for me. Things started getting harder faster and faster and I knew I needed to drop back a bit. I could keep the pace up for a little while, but I wasn’t making it to the finish line if I didn’t slow down a little. I decided that now had to be the time and I slowed myself a little as we started to get into Manayunk. It was tough watching the balloons on flag the pacer was running with get further and further off in front of me, but the slow down had to happen.
I was all alone again and focusing on just keeping my pace decent and not dropping off too much, but things started going to crap quickly, just as they had in my training runs at this point. As I came down Main Street in Manayunk, I tried taking in as much of the energy from the crowd as I could, but it wasn’t enough, I was starting to struggle. There were people handing out beer to runners here and that sort of blew my mind. I guess the liquid carbs could be helpful, but beer was the last thing I wanted right now.
As I was coming down Main Street, a few of my wife’s friends screamed out my name and that gave me a small boost right before the final turn around. I came back up Main Street and saw them again as I climbed the little hill I had just come down. I wasn’t feeling too good and, even though they said otherwise, I couldn’t have been looking too good either. At least I knew the rest of the course was almost entirely downhill.
I crossed the 20th mile marker and it was time to enter new territory. I’d never run more than 20.25 miles before, but it was time to change that. I knew it was still a little too early to start pushing, but I was quickly running out of stamina. I had the energy, but my legs didn’t have the ability to use that energy anymore. All my legs wanted was to just walk for a bit, but I knew that wasn’t an option. If I started walking, even for a few seconds, that would have been it. I would have never started running again. I had to just keep on going.
The next few miles progressed about the same, I just kept going as best I could and by mile 22 I started looking for my wife coming up the other side. I finally saw her around mile 24 and she was looking pretty good, but I was fading quickly (and she was just barely past mile 14 so she had a long way to go still). I had already been doing a serious countdown to the finish in my head.
Somewhere just before the 25th mile marker I caught up with Doug. He wasn’t looking too good, but I wasn’t either. He was running with a couple guys who seemed to be in great shape still. They were cheering him on as they were going and really trying their best to pump him up (he needed it). I was unaware before, but apparently it was his birthday and the guys he was running with were making sure everyone watching the race knew about it and were cheering him on. The energy around these guys is what helped me push to the finish line. The four of us stuck together for just about the rest of the race. Doug and I pushed it out as best we could while the other two guys seemed just fine.
Besides seeing Doug, the 25th mile marker also brought about the realization that at this point, if I just started walking, I could still finish by my target time. It was really tempting, but I had come too far, I had to keep going.
As we got up to the Art Museum, I started making my final push. Both sides of the road were lined with people cheering and I started throwing everything I had left at it. I was running as fast as I could after having been running for almost three and a half hours. I was passing everyone I could and using each person as extra motivation to just keep on going. By the time I got close enough to see the clock, I was starting to feel relief that I was just about done and it was over.
I didn’t even really see the clock when I finished. I had a rough idea of what was on the display, but I wasn’t looking at it. I was just focusing on getting across that finish line and staying on my feet. Doug came up right behind me and we celebrated for a minute while trying to make our way over to water and food. Before we even made it there, Jonathan, who I didn’t notice passing at any point since leaving the 3:20 group, had also finished and met us in the line. We spent a few minutes lamenting about the pain we were all feeling, but it was an insane feeling and seeing these guys at the finish was a nice way to end the race.
After I finished, I could barely walk. Everything below the waist hurt more than it ever had in my life. The pain and tightness was insane (even as I type this, it still is), but it didn’t seem to matter. I had done it. I completed a full marathon…and I did well. I couldn’t have been happier. From here on out, I spent the next hour and a half walking around trying to find my parents and then trying to find a spot at the finish line to watch for my wife. The walking was awful and slow. I must have easily walked close to another two miles after finishing while trying to find them and not a single inch of it was pretty.
I ended up finishing the race at 3:24:09 with an overall place of 1059 out of 10213 runners. Not bad at all. That time fell right into my target zone. I was looking at finishing between 3:20 and 3:30 and I nailed it.
Yay! And ouch.
*Thanks to my friend, Dan, for a few of the photos of me looking like crap around mile 22!
iPhone 4S mini-review
Just like I said I probably would, I went ahead and bought an iPhone 4S on day one. However, it did cost me quite a bit more than the $100 that I figured it would cost since I decided to go all out and get the 64GB model. That much storage can’t even come laughably close to storing all of my music, but it can store enough that I can ditch the iPod and stream the what doesn’t fit via AudioGalaxy. The music I listen to regularly will fit and everything else will stay easily accessible. It’ll be good enough and to be able to go from three gadgets to one was a pretty good proposition for me.
I’m not going to go into a full review of the iPhone 4S since I did a full iPhone 4 review last year and this is mostly a spec bump, but after a few days with the device, I thought I’d post my thoughts.
The phone still looks the same (though I went with white this time around), but that doesn’t change the fact that there is still nothing else on the market that can touch it as far as design and build quality goes. That’s actually kind of crazy when you think about it considering that this design has been in the wild for 16 months. That being said, the phone still has two slabs of glass making up most of the surface so it remains as breakable as ever.
While there was a lot of disappointment in the iPhone 4S’s announcement, after using this thing for a few days, it seems that much of that disappointment is missing the point. The iPhone 4S is mostly just a spec bump, but its bump is just enough to finally put it over the top. Where the iPhone 4 was very good, the iPhone 4S is great.
The iPhone 4S finally reaches a point where the device and the software melt away and you’re just left with content and things you want to do. Nothing stands in your way now.
Most of the time, the added speed of the A5 processor isn’t a night and day difference, but sometimes it is. Apps open significantly faster and while the iPhone 4 was snappy and definitely no slouch, the iPhone 4S makes moving around in apps a much improved experience. There is no lag, even in places where I could always count on my iPhone 4 to hang up for a second or so. Everything is much smoother and snappier in a tangible way.
The data speeds are supposed to be faster on the iPhone 4S (for AT&T at least), but in a few rounds of Speed Test, there was no change. However, in practice, data seems to come down insanely faster. Much of it is probably due to the A5 processing things faster, but websites load tons faster (and Javascript executes much quicker). Twitter pulls the latest tweets down almost instantly. Facebook too. Every app, really. The content you’re trying to get to is put up on the screen almost as fast as you ask for it. Considering that LTE is not on board, this is impressive. Impressive enough that not having LTE (which any sane person shouldn’t have expected from Apple this year anyway) doesn’t feel like a problem right now.
All of this added speed means iOS now keeps up with you. You’re no longer waiting for it, it’s waiting for you. Simply put, where iPhone 4 was close, but the iPhone 4S is there.
The iPhone 4 camera was still the best camera you could get on a phone up until just recently. Hell, some probably still consider it to be the best. But it was just barely not enough to justify ditching a point-and-shoot altogether. More than half the time, yes, it was enough, but I always kept my point-and-shoot near the door. The iPhone 4S changes that. It is sharper, has better dynamic range, better color, more pixels, and significantly better low-light performance. My DSLR won’t see any decrease in usage, but my point-and-shoot is going in the desk drawer upstairs and may never come out again. The photos and videos that iPhone 4S can take are stunning. Unless you need a superzoom, you won’t need a point-and-shoot while you have an iPhone 4S in your pocket.
I’ve posted some very quick sample shots at the bottom of the post. These were taken quickly without any attention paid to composition, but they should give you an idea of what the camera is capable of. None of them have been processed in any way except to reduce their size.
Siri has been the most talked about feature of the iPhone 4S since it was announced and for good reason. Before using it or seeing a demo, it’s easy to dismiss it as another voice control feature that you’ll never use. I almost did myself. But when you actually use this, you realize it’s so much more. This is the start of the future. This is the point where we’ll look back and pinpoint as the beginning of being able to truly have conversations with your technology and have it do things for you.
If you’ve been on the internet at all since Friday, you’ve probably already seen much of the fun people have been having with Siri. I’ve had a lot of fun testing her out and seeing how she’ll respond to things. She’s fun, but I’m not going to add another post on the internet about how if you keep bugging her about the meaning of life, she’ll say “42, are you happy now?” She’s full of countless snark and provides a lot of fun. She has an attitude and that’s important. She responds almost like a person would and that makes it feel real. It makes it feel like she’s a real person and that she can truly understand you. It’s unlike anything else you’ve ever used because it’s unlike anything else that has ever existed. This is the real thing.
That attitude is coupled with the fact that she can hold a conversation. She is smart enough to understand what you say even if you say it differently. She gets context. I can say “remind me to email John Smith about the concert this weekend when I get home” and she will create a reminder that will go off as soon as I get to my house. The reminder will say “Email John Smith about the concert this weekend” because she understands that that was what I wanted the reminder to say. I can say “tell my wife that I’ll be late” and she’ll text my wife telling her that I’m going to be late. “Take me to the mall” gets me the same thing as if I say “I need directions to the mall.” She just gets it.
You can tell her to do things the way you would tell a real person. And that’s why she works. That’s why Siri will actually get used. Because she can understand you so well, she can actually do things faster than you can on your own. It’s not a gimmick. You probably won’t use her too much in public, but thanks to the ability to have her automatically kick on when you put your phone up to your ear, you might actually use her while walking down the street or in the store. It’ll look just like you’re having a conversation with someone on the phone.
I’ve noticed that because she has to send everything to Apple’s servers, sometimes she takes a few seconds to respond, but it’s generally not bad. Everything going to Apple’s servers is a good thing though. Apple says she’ll learn from you and from the user base as a whole. With Apple knowing how people are using it, they can adapt it even more to the real world. This is the beginning, but she will get so much better. It won’t be long before you can say “how are the Eagles doing” and she’ll give you the score of the game.
Is Siri enough to justify buying an iPhone 4S if you already have an iPhone 4? I don’t know, that’s tough, maybe not. But if you’re on the fence already, she should push you over.
That about covers the big changes from that the iPhone 4S brings to the table. There are smaller ones like a better antenna design which seems to work as advertised, but I never had much of a problem with my iPhone 4 in most places. There’s also a new vibration motor which sounds like a silly thing to mention, but you can feel (and hear) the difference. This one is smoother and actually feels a little more luxurious. It’s an added thing that helps to make the device feel high-end.
The iPhone 4S isn’t perfect for what it is though. The battery life is noticeably worse than my iPhone 4. It’s not terrible, I can still get close to two days from a charge, but it is less. However, the battery life feels similar to what I was getting from my iPhone 4 after upgrading to iOS 5, so that may be part of it. I have the notifications set to display my email on the lockscreen so every email I receive turns on the display for a few seconds. That probably accounts for a large chunk of it. It also seems like the battery depletes faster when using Siri. Either way, the battery life is still good enough that it won’t be a problem. That’s the major complaint though, I still have some issues with iOS and I’m hoping that iOS 6 will fix much of them, but we’ll see. For now, the iPhone 4S doesn’t fix them, but Siri does actually make a few of them easier to live with. Any other hardware complaints would simply be highlighting choices that Apple made (e.g. not doing a larger screen), not design flaws.
As you’ll hear everywhere else, if you have an iPhone 3G or 3GS, upgrade now. Just do it. If you have an iPhone 4, it’s tough, but this device is good enough to reduce three gadgets you may already use down to one and the speed will save you a lot of time throughout the day. If those things mean something to you, upgrade. If not, hold out another year. If you aren’t currently an iPhone user and are thinking about becoming one, this is the phone to get. And if you don’t have a smartphone at all yet and are looking to get one, I’d recommend this over anything else. I’m not going to say iOS is better than Android, I think they are both great in their own ways, but if you don’t already have a smartphone at this point, you’re likely to fall into the camp of people who will enjoy iOS’s way of doing things more.
For me personally, I’m finding the iPhone 4S to be a worthy upgrade. I’m happy with my decision so far.
Shellac
These are a week and a half old, but I’m finally getting around to posting these photos from Shellac’s show at Union Transfer in Philly. The show was awesome, the venue is brand new and pretty cool.
