GPS Trainer Done Right



lance wrote:
> I want one of these things, never have bought one, but this.....this
> looks cool and strikes as several magnitudes of order better than
> anything else I've seen.

How so? I watched the video and can't guess what facet(s) of this
thing excite you - unless it's as an investor.
 
lance wrote:
> It's unfortunate that you are unable to see all the apps and directions
> in which model can flow...the justification for the excitement....how
> it can be leveraged privately and commercially, but they are there.

You may well be right. I'll freely admit, I'm a total business dummy.
By which I think I largely mean: I usually don't have a good idea what
most of my fellow humans want, what they'll buy, why they get excited
about all the things I don't and vice versa.

To me, for my running, I can think of exactly one thing I'd want from
this category of gizmo: instantaneous pace, to help me do
speedwork/tempo/MP workouts anywhere without needing a track or
measured course, or relying strictly on my own perception of effort, or
measured HR. This thing ain't got that.

There's one thing I wouldn't be inclined to tolerate from a doodad: a
monthly fee. I'd rather buy something and be done with it. This thing
got that.

Plus I don't own a cell phone and have no interest in either acquiring
one or borrowing the wife's.

This might turn out to be the hottest thing ever but I'd have zero
interest, myself.
 
On 9 Feb 2006 07:56:59 -0800, "Charlie Pendejo" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>By which I think I largely mean: I usually don't have a good idea what
>most of my fellow humans want

This tends to carry over into your sex life too.
 
no donnie...you're not looking at this right. look at the big picture
model.

It's "Epinions + Google Earth + a Runner's Board". You have to vision
a populated website, their site, and it will be in time with the
collective data over time of hundreds of people.

You spent 3-4 weeks in Australia last Feb/March? With this tool,
after every training run you did in Austraila, Bob Glover here in NYC
or your teammates could go to your blog site and monitor/view your
continued training in great detail including knowing the weather
conditions, training run difficulty, they could see your pace over an
uphill climb, and if they wanted to, they could from above see the
actual uphill climb (with the Google Earth-like App). If you trained
in a popular area where other runner trained...they could possibly see
reviews of the course you trained on etc. It's all consolidated at one
place and date there in near real time. That's new & different.

Not everyone is as self-knowledge & running-training savvy as you and
many people could use the feedback of their coach/teammates.
Marathonguide.com now has opinions of marathons. But they are based on
recall and don't really communicate the areas of challenge or than in a
few words...and does not have a GoogleEarth like mapping of them and
you cannot go there and examine the racing data of the person
expressing the opinion. You donnie might have a teammate that's for
whateve reason is away for a month.....well you can efficiently be of
help to your teammate by examining their blog (data)...etc..

Doug's freaking race. Well right now we should be able to GoogleEarth
it. However it would be great if we could see the details of the
runners per the course to appreciate why it's so tough and taxes a
runner to their marathon time + 1 hour even though it's 30K, not 42K.
It's one thing to read about it...it's an entirely different thing to
see a 3 hour marathoner take 4 hours to complete that race.

It's about consolidating at a central site all this GPS Data, not just
of the runner, but of the course. The only way we can score/grade
course difficulty is it's charted and placed on the site...and I am
sure they have a forumula not based on the runner but the topology.

And this is just the public application....private use is a whole other
thing...
 
>I can think of exactly one thing I'd want from
this category of gizmo: instantaneous pace,
__

you're traveling to race in the boilermaker 15K. wouldn't it be kind a
cool to assimilate the course locally....or craft a run that mirrors a
similar course, topology as specific areas and all..course difficulty
and all? well, with this you can do that. and if you live in a large
running community, perhaps someone has already done it for you.

the "grading" angle is going to be a much needed feature to running in
general. it's ridiculous that the Chicago & Big Sur Marathons have the
same BQ standards. as long as it's done evenly across the
board...that is what's going to be interesting.

I would like to see all these race courses graded (Bolder Boulder,
Crescent City, Peachtree, etc.) in degree of difficulty...as well as
the popular running areas of cities everywhere.
 
<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> . Doug F might be able to be a personal
> professional coach to a dozen or ten dozen trail runners all over the
> world.

Thanks but no thanks. With very few exceptions I stay local and all
information is exchanged verbally by phone or during a run. I prefer
dialog not charts and graphs. Many times it's what isn't said or charted
that gives the best information.


> Ya know how Doug told me in detail how I will fail miserably at his
> race unless I train specifically for that event in a certain way (i.e.
> prep my quads, etc.)...well that notion & expertise can be marketed
> Pendejo.

There are quite a few people out there playing coach - some good and
some bad. Call me old fashioned but I see a tool providing only minimal
help.

-DougF
 
[email protected] wrote:

> I would like to see all these race courses graded (Bolder Boulder,
> Crescent City, Peachtree, etc.) in degree of difficulty...as well as
> the popular running areas of cities everywhere.

Looks cool. Have you compared this to stuff that's already out there,
like motionbased.com?

Peachtree Road Race - http://tinyurl.com/aw5qu
Leadville 100 - http://tinyurl.com/dxswu

--
Phil M.
 
<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> no donnie...you're not looking at this right. look at the big picture
> model.
> ...
> Doug's freaking race. Well right now we should be able to GoogleEarth
> it. However it would be great if we could see the details of the
> runners per the course to appreciate why it's so tough and taxes a
> runner to their marathon time + 1 hour even though it's 30K, not 42K.
> It's one thing to read about it...it's an entirely different thing to
> see a 3 hour marathoner take 4 hours to complete that race.
>
> It's about consolidating at a central site all this GPS Data, not just
> of the runner, but of the course. The only way we can score/grade
> course difficulty is it's charted and placed on the site...and I am
> sure they have a forumula not based on the runner but the topology.
>
> And this is just the public application....private use is a whole other
> thing...

Undoubtedly you're right. If the march of technology continues unimpeded by
societal upheaval, eventually every inch of every place will be mapped in
blueprint detail to be used for purposes you've touched upon, but as yet
unimagined fully in all the potential business uses.

I used to think it would be fantastic to have a GPS
tracking/mapping/personal biofeedback monitoring device for outdoor
activities. It would revolutionize making orienteering maps for one thing.
(see http://tinyurl.com/ac3rj for an example orienteering map). As these
technologies started to become available, I lost interest in it for personal
use, though admit it's business uses are broad and compelling.

As far as remembering what the course is like, needing a device to tell me
how hard I'm going, and/or to rate a course for me - no thanks. While I do
use a simple biofeedback device (a HRM), I don't want some mega-monolith
website to collect all my data and "program" me. Time and effort and knowing
what kind of terrain I ran on will do fine thank you. Will people use them
as individuals and improve their performance? Perhaps, but IMO they will be
losing sight of what it's all about in the first place for 99.99% of us -
recreation. I'd rather get lost in the woods and have to use my wits to find
my way back than track myself with a GPS. As it is I usually use a map and
compass when I'm in unfamiliar areas, but I sometimes explore new trails
(getting lost sometimes) and memorize trail junctions and landmarks - the
way it was done before map and compass; it wakes up your senses.

-Tony
 
lance wrote:
> you're traveling to race in the boilermaker 15K. wouldn't it be kind a
> cool to assimilate the course locally

Utica's a slightly hilly road course. Nearly any roads I might choose
to run from my apartment are gonna offer broadly comparable terrain.

If I were instead trying to prepare for something with terrain
considerably different from what I'm used to here, say WS100, this
would still not help - because there's nothing in the city like that.
The website ain't gonna create a whole new local topography out of thin
air. Maybe if it interfaced with a treadmill to control the incline,
that would add some small grain of value beyond simply knowing that I
better be ready for about a 3 mile ascent at around 8-10 degrees or
whatever. Of course that would do nothing to similate the footing or
obstacles or trail width, and I don't have a treadmill and don't care
to run on one, but at least it's a tiny bit theoretically interesting.


> the "grading" angle is going to be a much needed feature to running

A silly gimmick. As has been amply discussed here, the "difficulty"
from various factors varies wildly by individual.

90F and 90% RH? Phil and Karen live through months of this and become
well-acclimated and it's no big deal beyond slowing them :xx / mile
relative to their winter weather. Fly Dot or Parker to these
conditions tomorrow, and they're gonna need medical backup to even
attempt the slowest Gallo-jogging in that soup. What's the degree of
difficulty?

Escarpment Trail? Tony's half mountain goat, half flying squirrel and
a lifetime of running on this crazy stuff means he slows a lot less
under these conditions than you do. OTOH you beat him by a wide margin
on the roads. What's the degree of difficulty?

What *I* see the value in, is actually getting oneself up to Utica or
the Escarpment Trail and running one's ass off. I'll take the robust
reality over the faint techno-shadow of a pale digital simulation,
please.

I have a reservation at the best joint in town, the Hotel Utica, Friday
- Sunday nights of Boilermaker weekend. :)

Pendejo, who really must do some work this afternoon
 
I like the Cell Phone option w/BIM....does motionbased offer that too?
I saw the forums but but BMI seems to be more focused on creating a
universal language for runners. That's what's missing, a common
currency. Does Motion score/grade running routes?

BMI's going to be doing that and imo that's very very significant. The
wine industry has a common currency...actually there are about "3"
voices of authority, grading, and scoring...but that enables
"communication" for the participants seeking to communicate.

Wouldn't it be great if every RD's event, every city & trail route had
a grading of difficulty? BMI seems to be going in that direction,
accruing that data..based on the topology & distance, not the
runner....with weather variables thrown in the equation (wind/humidity,
etc.)

They seem to be set on mapping out the running landscape in america
with their site and fostering competitions with runners in different
parts of the coutry...assuming everyone's running on the same graded
course & distance. At least this is what I gather from them.

Sort of like a Runner's "Zillow". Have you played with this yet? Was
released yesterday, it's in beta, plug in a street address and see the
value of your home. Check out Zillow.com I did it with some property
I in California...zoomed right down to street level and could see the
values of the house and those of every on the block. I cross ref.
checked it with some data I bought at Melissadata.com to review the
real world sales prices of 30 days ago in the area....spot checked and
had surprisingly excellent accuracy. It has some bugs to work out for
NYC....however I'm visioning a mapping along these lines....but of the
running landscape.
 
"Charlie Pendejo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> lance wrote:
>> you're traveling to race in the boilermaker 15K. wouldn't it be kind a
>> cool to assimilate the course locally
>
> Utica's a slightly hilly road course. Nearly any roads I might choose
> to run from my apartment are gonna offer broadly comparable terrain.
>
> If I were instead trying to prepare for something with terrain
> considerably different from what I'm used to here, say WS100, this
> would still not help - because there's nothing in the city like that.
> The website ain't gonna create a whole new local topography out of thin
> air. Maybe if it interfaced with a treadmill to control the incline,
> that would add some small grain of value beyond simply knowing that I
> better be ready for about a 3 mile ascent at around 8-10 degrees or
> whatever. Of course that would do nothing to similate the footing or
> obstacles or trail width, and I don't have a treadmill and don't care
> to run on one, but at least it's a tiny bit theoretically interesting.
>
>
>> the "grading" angle is going to be a much needed feature to running
>
> A silly gimmick. As has been amply discussed here, the "difficulty"
> from various factors varies wildly by individual.
>
> 90F and 90% RH? Phil and Karen live through months of this and become
> well-acclimated and it's no big deal beyond slowing them :xx / mile
> relative to their winter weather. Fly Dot or Parker to these
> conditions tomorrow, and they're gonna need medical backup to even
> attempt the slowest Gallo-jogging in that soup. What's the degree of
> difficulty?

I can actually drive to Utica but why would I want to?
I ran the race once it was in the 80s very humid and no shade.
I ran the first 10k in about 46 minutes, I finished in just under 8 mpm pace
but two other people I know who ran that day ended up needing medical
assistance.
One had a good lead on me but passed out around the 9 mile mark.
Two words, never again.
>
> Escarpment Trail? Tony's half mountain goat, half flying squirrel and
> a lifetime of running on this crazy stuff means he slows a lot less
> under these conditions than you do. OTOH you beat him by a wide margin
> on the roads. What's the degree of difficulty?
>
> What *I* see the value in, is actually getting oneself up to Utica or
> the Escarpment Trail and running one's ass off. I'll take the robust
> reality over the faint techno-shadow of a pale digital simulation,
> please.

I think it would be worth it to train on the Boston course if possible.
There are usually some long runs in March on the course that you can pay to
participate in.
Buses and water stops are provided.

>
> I have a reservation at the best joint in town, the Hotel Utica, Friday
> - Sunday nights of Boilermaker weekend. :)
>
> Pendejo, who really must do some work this afternoon
>
 
lance wrote:
> you claim "grading" is a silly gimmick?....i've got a newsflash
> for you. [...] Everything from Wines to
> Restaurants are "graded" and scored Pendejo.

You're so right. I have seen the light. From now on I'm gonna let
Robert Parker pick my runs for me. I hope he gives the Prospect Park
loop at least an 89, mmmm, a playful-verging-on-downright-naughty
bouquet of horse **** and wet chicken.

By the way, I'll be grading you from now on. This week you're a C
minus.
 
"Charlie Pendejo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> By the way, I'll be grading you from now on. This week you're a C
> minus.


You're too liberal with your grade. Another student gets undeserved
passing grades and will graduate without the ability to read, write or
run. ;)

-DF
 
This ng would be a snoozefest without me. You all should pay me for
what I do here....and you will miss me to pieces when I can run again
and am gone.....as I've said numerous times Ultra & Trails runners are
simply not competitive runners, they are feat accomplishers. Most
ultra runners agree with this characterization however this ng has a
skewed bias due to Doug and others. If you learn about Ultras and
Trails from sources outside of this ng?...you'll see all I have ever
said is agreed to by the Ultra and Trail Community. An Example?
There are lots...I'll just give you one recent on.

"Ultra runners and trail runners are pretty laid back and just want to
finish,"
-Robert Boeder

Boeder is an accomplished authority on both Ultras and Trails...far
more knowledge and wisdom than Doug. His words are consistent with my
sentiments. I don't make any of this stuff up...it's simply truth.

Read up, educate yourselves....

http://www.zwire.com/site/News.cfm?BRD=1147&dept_id=483434&newsid=16038244&PAG=461&rfi=9
 
[email protected] wrote:
> This ng would be a snoozefest without me. You all should pay me for
> what I do here....

If it were the slightest bit entertaining, maybe. When it's trolling for
your own pleasure, never in a million years.

> and you will miss me to pieces when I can run again
> and am gone....

We live in hope.

> .as I've said numerous times Ultra & Trails runners are
> simply not competitive runners, they are feat accomplishers.

*Yawn*

Wake me up when you've got something new to say Lance. Even better, wake me
up when you've actually *done* something new rather than just spouted about
it.

Tim
 
[email protected] wrote:

> You all should pay me for what I do here

A paid troll...now that sounds like a fun job.

> ....and you will miss me to pieces when I can run again
> and am gone.....

You will stop posting when you start running? I seem to recall you
posting garbage regardless of your current running status.

> as I've said numerous times Ultra & Trails runners are
> simply not competitive runners, they are feat accomplishers.

Is there a problem with that? I wouldn't mind being a feat
accomplisher. Sounds like a noble endeavor.

> Most ultra runners agree with this characterization however this ng has a
> skewed bias due to Doug and others. If you learn about Ultras and
> Trails from sources outside of this ng?...you'll see all I have ever
> said is agreed to by the Ultra and Trail Community. An Example?
> There are lots...I'll just give you one recent on.
>
> "Ultra runners and trail runners are pretty laid back and just want to
> finish,"
> -Robert Boeder

The same can be said for most recreational runners. This is
rec(reational).running, is it not? Ever been in a big 10K, like the
Peachtree Road Race. I'd say that about 50,000 of the runners in that
race are feat accomplishers.

> Boeder is an accomplished authority on both Ultras and Trails...far
> more knowledge and wisdom than Doug.

What makes him more knowledgeable? After all, DF is the one that
predicted your demise before the NYCM.

> His words are consistent with my sentiments.

Oh, there's your requirement for knowledgeable. Sheesh.

> I don't make any of this stuff up...it's simply truth.

You've already made plenty of statements that are factually incorrect.
I'm sure some of the group are keeping track.

> Read up, educate yourselves....

Good idea for anyone wanting to be an authority on a topic. Start
crackin' them books Lance! Oh, and by the way, you might want to start
training smart and running some ultras. Oh wait..."Lance training
smart," isn't that an oxymoron? lol

tkb
 
>Ever been in a big 10K, like the Peachtree Road Race. I'd say that about 50,000 of the runners in that race are feat accomplishers.
_

No, I've never been in a big 10K but in that event of 55,000 you're
saying the runner that placed 5001 is not a competitive runner and a
feat accomplisher. STEPHEN A. GURA is that person with a gun time of
1:00:19 and a net of 58:47. TKB, what is it about running a time
slower than 58:47 that renders people non-competitive runners and feat
accomplishers? Who knew you were so tough with such rigorous
standards....wow. My view of ultra runners and trail runners is a
product of the statements by those within that community like the
person i quoted....not a performance time. I see your view is a
product of performance.
 
[email protected] wrote:
>> Ever been in a big 10K, like the Peachtree Road Race. I'd say that
>> about 50,000 of the runners in that race are feat accomplishers. _
>
> No, I've never been in a big 10K but in that event of 55,000 you're
> saying the runner that placed 5001 is not a competitive runner and a
> feat accomplisher. STEPHEN A. GURA is that person with a gun time of
> 1:00:19 and a net of 58:47. TKB, what is it about running a time
> slower than 58:47 that renders people non-competitive runners and
> feat
> accomplishers?

You really should learn to read before you spout (and how to quote and
provide attributions while you're at it).

Where does she say it was the *last* 50,000? You're the one jumping to
conclusions that anyone is basing "feat achievement" on finishing time.

Tim
 
>Where does she say it was the *last* 50,000?
_

she did not reference any point of foundation for her opinion. she's
saying apprx 10% are competive runners, 90% are feat accomplishers. in
the absence of her clearly defining the basis of her view, it's logical
to conclude it's on performance. sure..there will be some error due to
age grading as there are competitive runners who are 75 and 6 months
pregnant etc. that might not make TKB's "cut". There will be some
margin of error. but we're speaking in general/roughly, not
precisely.

i've never asserted an opinion of a "cut off point" like TKB has, she's
drawn a line in the sand....and that's rather elitist of her i might
add as well. but that's fine.
 
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