One of my biggest struggles with running since quiting in college has been missing having people to run with.  In high school and college you have a group of guys (or gals) to do every workout with.  You are rarely dragging yourself out the door alone. More importantly there is always someone there to distract you from the pain.  Unfortunately once you are no longer on a competitive team these people become much harder to find.

While running groups seem to be cropping up everywhere these days, there are typically no people in these groups who can run anywhere near my pace.  This leads to a no win decision of running by yourself or running super slow.  I am a firm believer that we all have a natural pace.  This pace can change drastically depending on what kind of running shape one is in, but the principle remains the same.  Your natural running pace is a balance between your desire to finish any run as quickly as possible and the level of pain you experience as you run faster.  Thankfully/unfortunately my natural running pace is quite fast.  This means that running medium runs with slower groups ends up being more painful because it forces me out of my natural pace range.  As a result I end up avoiding running groups once I have determined there is no one who can run at my pace (I wonder if other runners doing the same thing is why there are none of us in these groups ….)

The one major exception to this policy is long runs.  While I have learned to distract myself with podcasts on my runs, nothing beats human company on a long run.  No matter how interesting the podcast is, it will never distract you from over an hour of running and trying to maintain a steady pace.  With that in mind I set out each Sunday to the Sunnyvale Sports Basement in hopes that someone will show up to run with.  Thankfully many weeks there is someone there who is right around my pace.  The rest of the time is a decision between running a little slower than usual with company versus at pace but alone.  I almost always choice with company and am always glad that I did.

What’s your take: at pace alone or slower with company?

My basic training philosophy is that every week should contain at least base run of medium distance, a speed/hill workout, and a long run.  The idea is that every run you do should have a purpose.  For example in my running plan for this week I did a base run, a tempo run, a speed workout, and a long run.

Simply put these elements get longer each week (except the recovery week where they scale back).  I have never lived by the 10% increase per week rule. Instead I usually build up mileage in increments of 5 miles per week (or roughly the number of days you run a week).  Furthermore I will often stay at a weekly mileage total for two weeks before increasing mileage (e.g. wk1: 30 wk2: 35 wk3: 35 wk: 40).

Finally and most importantly I try and mix up my workouts so I am not doing the exact same thing every week.  For example if my speed workout one week was 8×400m my next speed workout might be 200-300-400-500-600-500-400-300-200. That way I am staying mentally fresh and getting a breadth of speed work.

As a former collegiate runner, I spent a lot of time under the tutelage of endurance sport exercise physiologists.  Long story short I have ideas about what my training schedule should be an make up my own rather than following any one in particular.  I usually combine what I think from past experience with bits and pieces from different training programs.

My current training program is loosely based off Matt Fitzgerald’s Brain Training for Runners.  While I agree with much of Matt’s philosophy regarding running plans, I find his plans too repetitive. Who wants to run the same workout week after week and just add reps?  Without further ado this weeks running plan (here is hoping I stick to it):

My love affair with running has been rekindled! In an attempt not to jinx it I have refrained from posting (or really telling anyone).   Instead I have just been running.   At first it was haphazard, I would feel restless and just decide to go for a run.  Then I managed to string a couple runs a week for a couple of weeks in a row.  Next thing I knew I was back on the P90x bandwagon and drawing up a running schedule in between classes.

Now I have been at it for over 6 weeks straight.  I am starting to get back into shaping and spend most “rest” days wanting to get back out the door and on the road again.

a Santa at 2008 xmas relays

Yesterday I took a study break to run the annual xmas relays around Lake Merced in San Francisco.  The course is 4.5 miles and goes all the way around the lake — no cutting the bridge.

I really don’t know what to say about this race (mainly writing this post as an excuse to take a study break.) It was my third “race” in the last two months after a five month break from racing (and most running).

The first race was a charity 5k where I showed up slightly hungover and having slept 6 hours in the previous 48.  Amazingly enough I ended up running an 18:07 (5:49 pace) despite my condition and limited training.  While the race itself had been painful, hanging out with my old college teammates and friends had inspired me to keep training and get back into running shape (or at least something resembling it).

The second race was a 4 mile Turkey Trot.  This time I had been training fairly steady for over a month, but again raced on little sleep.  Running on a totally unknown course (Amy and I stopped to do the race in Santa Barbara on our way down to LA) I manage to run 23:19 (5:49 pace again!)  This time the pacing was a little disappointing as I had hoped/assumed that a month of training and lack of a hangover would have resulted in a better pace improvement.

The third race was yesterday xmas relays. While my training has dropped of the last week as a result of finals, I was relatively well rested for once.  This time I managed to run 25:58 (5:46 pace).  Cutting pace over the further distance seems like more an improvement considering only two weeks between races (and only a week’s worth of training).

So as this year draws to a close I am left to ponder what will my running look like next year? Will I return to racing shape, continue this sporadic training, or fall off the bandwagon completely?  Part of me wants to return to glory and test what my body is capable of before its too late. Another part of my remembers how hard and painful full time training is and wants no part of it.  My rational self believes that training will continue, but sometimes sporadically and never at full effort. I just don’t want it bad enough to train that hard  without teammates around to drag me out on those long runs in the cold and rain (or simply drag my away from wasting time watching tv on the couch).

I guess my goal is to train enough that I don’t fall out of shape and to keep running fun.

• Get on treadmill and set the speed at a nice warmup pace (think faster than job but very comfortable running pace).
• After about a mile (usually less) increase pace to my average long run pace.
• Get bored and increase the speed every few minutes to make the run end sooner
• Finish the last mile or so of my run at race pace

On the plus side this is probably a decent negative pace work out. Unfortunately doing this run multiple times a week is likely to lead to injury or burn out.

However this doesn’t even cover the worst part about treadmill running: the ability to stop at any instant. We all have crappy runs: days where your body never warms up completely, your stomach hurts, your just not mentally into it, or all of the above. On a outdoor run you might be able to cut it short by taking a different way home, but on a treadmill all that is stopping me from ending my run is a little red button with the word “STOP” on it.

This is why I hate treadmills the most. On a normal run any decision I make still requires more running to get home. I can slow down but that will just make the run last longer (usually what you are trying to avoid on one of those bad days). Since no decisions results in instant gratification (the end of the run), I am forced to stick it out. I usually get home feeling good about the run despite the momentary pain.

In contrast, on a  treadmill I am constantly taunted by that little red button. Knowing instant gratification (no more pain) is only one slight touch away makes the pain even worse.  No tv show or sporting event can ever completely distract me from this mental anguish. And that is why I hate treadmill running.

Here is hoping that what does not kill you only makes you stronger

One of the main themes of the discussion was on changing the law to protect hot news misappropriation.  As the discussion progressed it became clear to me that the focus was on protecting the business model by changing the law rather than trying to see how the business model could adjust to the technology and potentially regain profitability without changing the law.  In my opinion, changing the law should always be a last resort which is only attempted after all other business models have failed.

During the conversation I conceived a business plan which I believe has potential to increase online revenue for newspapers.  I would like to see the journalism industry try this and other ideas before lobbying to change any laws.

My plan:

Assuming search engines derive value from linking to “hot news” newspaper stories, publications will be able to incentive licensing by editing their robots.txt files according to a hot news standard.

For example, if the Chicago Tribune writes a story on hot news and marks it as un-indexable in the robots.txt file for 6 hours (at the end of which it is no longer hot news and the Tribune edits the robots.txt file to allow for indexing.)  Since search engines derive revenue from directing users to hot news (rather than users browsing directly to newspaper sites) search engines ought to be willing to pay for a license to index the content.  If the stories have commercial value this should be a win-win.

An obvious problem is that hot news travels extremely quickly online and the Boston Herald could easily undercut the Tribune’s leverage by quickly writing a similar article and not forbidding indexing.  Thus the Herald would receive most of the traffic that would have gone to the Tribune from the search engine and the search engines would continue to be a source to find hot news.

There are two potential solutions to this problem. If a highly desirable paper attempts this model and is able to license, than it will be against other newspapers financial interests to not use the same model (especially since we already know the current model isn’t working).  Conversely if search engines are unwilling to license to index so long as one paper does not implement this method then newspapers would need to collaborate to implement this business plan.  Such collaboration may or may not require an anti-trust exemption.

Either way I believe this model shows promise for generating more revenue for newspapers without rewriting IP law.

A basic understanding of how the internet works will demonstrate that this is true.  For anything online to be seen or heard a copy must be sent to the end users computer (or cell phone, ipod, tv, etc.).  Typically streaming works by sending the data sequentially such that the end user can begin to view or hear the content without waiting for the entire file to be sent.  This means that all a user needs to do to “download” a stream is ensure that the sequential parts of the file are saved rather than being thrown away automatically by your browser.  Don’t just take my word for it, Cory Doctorow of the Guardian agrees:

And of course, some streaming software throws away the bits after it finishes downloading them, rather than storing them on the hard-drive.

It’s this last part that has the technologically naive excited. They assume that because a downloading client can be designed in such a way that it doesn’t save the file, no “copy” is being made. They assume that this is the technical equivalent of “showing” someone a movie instead of “giving them a copy” of it.

But the reason some download clients discards the bits is because the programmer chose not to save them. Designing a competing client that doesn’t throw away the bits – one that “makes a copy” – is trivial.

The point is that as much as streaming eliminates the demand for downloading, it actually makes it easier for downloading to occur.  Perhaps the decline in “downloading” is because people have discovered the ease of saving their streams and don’t need to “download” any more (there are a number of commercial products available for this purpose which I will not link to in fear of inducing copyright infringement).

The real surprising thing to me is that the record industry hasn’t already figured this out. For one it ignores the concept of music collection which Doctorow does a wonderful job of pointing out:

First of all, while streaming music from Last.fm is a great way to listen to music you haven’t discovered yet, there’s no reason to believe that people will lose the urge to collect music.

Indeed, the record industry seems to have forgotten the lesson of 70 years’ worth of radio: people who hear songs they like often go on to acquire those songs for their personal collections. It’s amazing to hear record industry executives deny that this will be the case, especially given that this was the dominant sales strategy for their industry for most of a century. Collecting is easier than it has ever been: you can store more music in less space and organise it more readily than ever before.

Second, cable companies have already figured this out and are trying to lock down your tv so that you can not record the digital cable that streams there. Google (or bing) Selectable Output Control (SOC) and see what comes up.

The end result? I believe streaming will lead to one of two things: more drm (which hasn’t worked so far) or realization that a drm free subscription downloadable system  may be a viable business plan for the record industry moving forward. It won’t make as much money as it did, but it is more than nothing and digital distribution is extremely cheap.

After the show, I ran a quick iTunes search for the song.  Unfortunately and unsurprisingly I came up with nothing.  So instead of giving up I turned to the “dark side” of the internet.  To my surprise/delight I found that not only was a version available for download, but Jason Mraz has given explicit permission for fans to record live shows.

Jason Mraz allows audio taping at almost every live performance. We feel that each show is unique and want to offer our fans the opportunity to recreate the live experience through the audio reproduction of our shows. At all taping authorized performances, tapers can tape from any ticketed seating location in the venue. Also, for many of these performances tapers are able to purchase tickets for a specially designated taper section, normally located immediately behind the soundboard… From time to time we may record some of our shows for a live album or DVD, and we may not allow taping at those shows or we may notify you that we are going to commercially release our tapes from the show at which time we will ask you to withdraw all of your tapes from that show(s) from further trading.

How refreshing!  An artist who actually understands that fan recordings of live shows are not competition for recorded studio albums.

An interesting copyright tidbit at the end of his taping policy

No waiver of any copyright or trademark right is intended.

Since copyright only exists after fixation it is arguable whether any artist has any copyright claim against bootleggers.  However since Jason Mraz has authorized fan fixation he may have a copyright claim in every live show.  In other words explicitly authorizing taping of the show may give Jason Mraz a copyright claim for live performances he otherwise would not have had.

Coming Tomorrow Part II: Is Jason Mraz inducing copyright infringement?

Quick thoughts: Should EMI face sanctions for filing an infringement lawsuit merely as a means of furthering it’s licensing negotiations? Or should it be rewarded for keeping the lawsuit out of court and settling?