Wild, Wild, Westwood

This morning I took part in an epic East Central Indiana running experience. I ran around the big loop at Westwood Park, near New Castle. I have heard much talk about this particular course and was finally able to take part with 2 other running buddies. We had a great time and ran it in about 93 minutes. What is the distance? That's a good question. The park brochure calls it 10.5, my friend has biked it at 11, and DINO calls it 10. We marked it down as 11 for an 8:28 pace.

That pace sounds slow but this isn't an easy run. Westwood's website calls it one of the best and most challenging bike trails in Indiana. With hundreds of switchbacks and hills of all sizes and lengths that could be true! This trail hasn't been rutted and is approximately 3 years old. But watch out there are plenty of roots and overhanging branches. I was constantly alternating between watching the ground and catching branches in the face. Unfortunately I was the only one in our group to actually hit the dirt, but another did stumble a few times as well. Another drawback of this particular course is that there is no water stops. Well, there is a picnic shelter 100 yards or so off the trail with water, but its hidden and without studying the map you might miss it. We did see that someone had dropped water bottles off for a later run!

The trail meanders through open fields, forests, pine forests, and much more. It roughly follows the contours of the 180 acre lake with bridges crossing some parts. Overall this was a great run, we took it nice and easy!

Don't be too afraid, there are other trails as well. There is approximately a 6 mile hiking trail and a 6 mile horse trail, both circumvent the lake but cut out lots of the switchbacks.

The Hoosier Mountain Bike Association (HMBA) has a great write up here. Click here for a map.

NOTE: There is a $2.50 entrance fee, even at 6:30 when we got there. The park is West of New Castle on SR 38.



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Race Results from June 9 and more!

Sorry these are so late, I've been gone all weekend and the beginning of this week. This is the first chance I've had to look up results!

While we are talking about race results, I thought I'd highlight a newer running website called Athlinks. Its a running "social networking" website, based around race results. If nothing else you should go to the site and search for your name, you might be surprised at how many results are there. You can take the next step and become a member and "claim" your results. I was actually able to find some from my year in New Jersey as well as races around Indiana. They currently have 15,000+ members with almost 9 million runners listed and almost 16 million results from 39,000+ races around the country. You can see my profile by clicking here. After I use it more I'll do a more in depth article about it.

I had trouble finding some of the results from this weekend but here is what I found:

The Brazil Habitat 5K was won by James Grounds in 17:55 (5:46) They didn't differentiate Male and Female but I think the first place female ran a 24:30 (7:53) and was Angie Katlmann. Congrats to all 21 finishers of this cross-country event to support the Clay County Habitat for Humanity. Complete results here.

The Bloomington Eastfest 5K was won by Tim Kote in 17:44 (5:42) and Brenda Taylor won the women's division in a time of 21:53 (7:02). Complete results here.

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Running with Music in My Ears

Its a growing trend to see runners of all types running with headphone or more recently "ear buds." Do you run with an iPod or other music player? On one occasion I actually saw someone listening to their cellphone (with headphones), presumably using it as a mp3 player.

This trend has caused some concern with fellow runners, race directors, and even the USATF. The USATF has actually banned the use of music players during sanctioned races. Conversely, it has caused some excitement for the folks at Nike who created the Nike+ system. I've not actually used the Nike+ but would love to hear your reviews, it seems like a neat system.

I do have experience with a few different mp3 players. I've used the Dell DJ Ditty (which is no longer being sold) and the Sansa e250, which I absolutely love. It is great to use with the armband and provides hours upon hours of entertainment. My wife uses an iPod, which is great for sedentary activity or gym workouts, but tends to freeze while she runs. Checking the Apple forums, this seems to be a pretty common experience. Suggestions included running with it in your hands instead of on your bicep. That seemed to do the trick, but isn't quite as convenient. Runner's World provides some more insights into different players here.

I tend to listen to a wide variety of podcasts when I run. My wife thinks I'm a geek and would prefer listening to upbeat music to help carry her through the run. A nice place to get music for running or working out is called Fitpod. Fitness + iPod = Fitpod You can search for your running pace, workout type, and length and get a music selection to fit your needs then download it and go for your run!!

With this fad it is still important to be safe and courteous to other runners. If someone is listening to music they can't hear you approaching or signalling that you are going to pass them, which has caused many near heart attacks I think, when I go by people. In that vain I'll close with a list of 7 safety tips from Runner's World.

1. Limit yourself to listening to music only while on the treadmill or during races (although some don't allow it).
2. If you're outdoors, run in safe, familiar, public areas with minimal (or better yet, nonexistent) traffic.
3. Whenever possible, run with a partner. Running buddies who don't listen to music may feel a bit snubbed, but there's safety in numbers, and it's always good to have at least one pair of unencumbered ears.
4. Or run with a dog. Canines love exercise even more than we do. They're great security and they don't mind being tuned-out.
5. Consider open-air, or supra-aural, headphones, which do not seal off your ear canal, allowing more ambient noise (like car horns and cycling pelotons) to remain audible.
   
6. As for volume, keep it just loud enough to hear the music but low enough that you can hear the sounds around you. It's a fine balance-but it's worth locating.
7. Finally, don't assume that the one-ear-only method is any safer. Research shows that using headphones in just one ear can confuse your brain-perhaps more dangerous than listening with both sides of your head.
   

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Chart & Map Your Favorite Course

Using Google's Gmaps Pedometer technology you can easily chart your upcoming run, or figure out how far you ran today. It seems to be fairly accurate and easy to use. Some other benefits include being able to e-mail the route to a friend, save a link to your route in any electronic format (excel, word, etc) and can view a topographic map of the area (limited areas currently). You can get the map in miles or kilometers.

The USATF has actually taken this technology one step farther with there website America's Running Routes. Another popular site with similar features and the ability to add thinks such as aid stations, points of interest, and others is Run the Planet's www.run.com Both site let you save your routes in a searchable database for other interested runners. If you travel you can use this feature to find a route in your destination city.

I would highly recommend using any of these sites, they definitely have helped on longer runs when you need to measure out some strange or different routes (to break up the monotony).

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