CIM Training Week 3, Day 5: REST! And play...

As I mentioned on Monday, and wrote even more extensively a few weeks ago, I'm a bit of a gadget & data junkie. One advantage of this is I have run data going back to when I first bought my Garmin Forerunner 305. Some of my manual data goes back to when I first started running (diet & weight loss data even further).

Having old data makes for some fun experiments, much of which can be mildly amusing. Sometimes though, really cool things happen.

On Twitter late this afternoon, Stuart over at RunSaturday posted two links. The first was to a post he had made about some advancements to his website. The other was also mentioned in his post, a link to a run that had been animated using a Google gadget called Google Tour.

The functionality of Google Tour is what I was looking for when I first started viewing runs and hikes on Google Earth: an animated tour of a path. All it requires is access to a KML file, which not only RunSaturday will provide, but other services as well. You won't get the animation control unless it's Google Tour KML.

I exchanged a few tweets with Stuart after seeing his post, and while I was away from Twitter, he sent me a few useful URL's. The primary one was a link to the Google Tour Gadget. The second, of course, was a direct link to the Google Tour KML file on RunSaturday: "http://www.runsaturday.com/rss/activitykml.aspx?activityID=". The code to embed the gadget is generated by pasting the URL into the page, adding the Activity ID for the activity on RunSaturday.

Here's yesterday's run as an example. The only warning is that you'll need to install the Google Earth plugin. All that's necessary is to click on one of the maps, and it will lead you through the rest.



As I mentioned before, longer runs can be fun. Here's the Avenue of the Giants Marathon.


Needless to say, I'm extremely happy with it! From now on in addition to my other data, I plan on posting these animations as well.

I also need to mention, today I was thinking about my running, and how I feel about it. I'm not sure what exactly caused it, but I just feel a general peace about it. I'm not running as fast as I was, but I really don't mind. I went out too fast yesterday and ended up exhausted, but again, I really don't mind.

I think what it comes down to is I'm thankful that I can run again, and am just really looking forward to the California International Marathon. I'm expecting to have a good time, with people there to support me.

That's not the only thing, I'm also extremely happy to have my family. My wife, my children, it's just a wonderful time. Tomorrow's Halloween, I'm going to run 6 miles in the morning, then spend the day with my family doing all sorts of Halloweeny activities. Trick or treating in the evening, with a stop at the church for the Harvest Party, and lots and lots of time as a family.