18th Run, Grasse

Yes! It's today the competition "10kilo de Grasse" I've registered weeks ago.

The dark side is that it's a rainy and cold day and my new shirt with long sleeves that my wife bought weeks ago is not delivered yet so I have to run with my bare arms wet.

But the light side is that my friend Jerome lives there and he helped me a lot and was there supporting me together with my wife and my little Pierre. Also, the road is quite flat even though Grasse is a town in the mountain area. Also again, Grasse is a beautiful town who is famous of it's perfume. Running there shall be enjoying even in the rain.

Not a lot to say about the run, just one thing that impressed me quite a lot, it's cold with the rain, but when waiting to start, I didn't feel the cold at all, because, look at the photo below, we are packed.

Here is my number, somebody has his or her name on it, but I don't, not sure how they did it.

During the run, I kept my rhythm quite well and finally, I made it in 50'50 according to my Nike+ GPS which recorded 9.87 kilo. The official result will come soon.

Unfortunately, there is always a problem with the last part of the run which is not correctly shown on the map. I doubt there is a bug somewhere, either the Nike+ GPS, either the Google map. As it's always the last part of the run that can not be correctly shown which is about 1 kilo, I'd like to name it as "the last kilo bug". (I'm a programmer, I usually number bugs but sometimes I name bugs too. :D )

Finally, great thanks to my friend Jerome who is very hospitable and helped me a lot the whole day. Also great thanks to my wife and my little Pierre who were there supporting me in the cold rain.

17th Run, Sophia Antipolis

Fortunately it did not rain today, even though we had really thick black clouds over the head. We decided to go anyway, and this would be my last run before the Sunday's "10 kilo at Grasse".

5.6kilo non-stop in the mountain trail which was still wet and slippery. I felt good and ready for this Sunday.

16th Run, Cap d'Antibes Inversed

It has been another rainy weekend, however, fortunately, we had a short period of two hours clear day in the Sunday afternoon, which is just my run time.My plan today was to run the Cap d'Antibes, unlike usually I take counter clockwise circle, today, I'd like to do a clockwise run. Well, clockwise or counter clockwise, it does not make a lot of differences if the the route is flat, but it's not the case here so I'd like to give it a try.

Also, I'd like to test the new Nike+ GPS v2.1 functionalities. However, I had several problems in this run. First of all, the tracking data seems incomplete, I ran 11kilo and Nike+ GPS reported this correctly but the route is not correctly shown on the map which is powered by Google. Not sure where has been going wrong. In the snapshot below we can see that the kilometer marks are correctly placed but the run ends at about 7 kilos which is marked in the finish point information as 11kilos. The actual finish point is 4kilos later though.

This reminded me last time I had the similar problem, I accelerated a lot for the last 600 meters that time and Nike+ was unable to collect the right data. I did accelerated for the last part this run because it's all the way down the hill!

Conclusion, I shouldn't run too fast with my Nike+ GPS otherwise it won't be able to track my run data.

OK, now the new functionality, as claimed on the upgrade page, post to Facebook is enhanced, let's see what's that enhancement.

After I finished the run, there is alway the button lets me to share this run, and I tapped on it and now something is different, I'm able to give a summary of  the run now. Like this:

That's better, let's say, "I feel much better now!" :D Then here is what has been posted on Facebook.

Well again, I did that twice because the first time Nike+ GPS just crashed and I was brought back to the springboard, I had to restart the application and share the run again.

Anyway, I achieved my fastest 10k today, it took me 55'36. Contributed today 11+1 kilos (I ran another short 1kilo to go back home faster :D ) to the PACA, always at the third place.

Also contributed to Run Back To Beijing 12kilo, now I have achieved 130kilos in total. 

Nike+ GPS Version 2.1 Release!

There is another update from Nike+.

The version 2.1 enhanced previous one with one feature, now you can shuffle your music. Well, personally, this is not quite interesting for me because I do not listen while running, listening distracts me. But it should be interesting those who enjoy music while running.

Also the Facebook post is improved, I'll see how it is improved with this afternoon's run :)

Go to App Store and get your v2.1 quick!

15th Run, Sophia Antipolis - Carrefour

Yesterday's rain made the mountain trails extremely slip so dangerous. My colleagues were discouraged and preferred not to go, as a result, I went alone. At least, I can run on the road which is less risky.

Also I'd like to take this opportunity to buy a piece of sausage for tomorrow's small party to celebrate the 2010 Beaujolais Nouveau arrival, proposed by my French colleagues. So I went running, and on the way back, I paused my Nike+ and went into the supermarket Casino hunting some sausages. Interestingly, they put the sausages right at the entrance, how smart they are :D  Finally, I end up with one piece from Corse, hope it's a good choice.

Here are the results. One thing to mention, it seems that Nike+ managed to calculate the time and the pace correctly with the pause-continue. However, the pace shown on the map is not correctly calculated, the paused time is not subtracted.

14th Run, Golf-Juan, Juan les pins

It's late autumn here in the region. By the definition of the so called Mediterranean Climate, the winter is wet. 

It rained quite a lot last week, including the Wednesday, as a result, we didn't run that day because it's unsafe to run in the mountain area in or right after the rain.

This Sunday is not ideal neither, it rained a little the morning and it was cloudy all the afternoon. However, I felt strongly that I need to run, not only because I need keep in a ready state for the competition end November, but also because running makes me feel better. I'm addicted or what?

I set off faster than usual, and got quite exhausted soon because the last run had been seven days ago. At that moment, I realized the importance of the Wednesday's run. Then I had to slow down for all the rest until finally, I regain some energy and courage to accelerate just a little in order to finish the 10km in 1 hour.

Here comes the result:

I run a pipe :D

Registered to 10Km at Grasse, 28 Nov, 2010

I registered to the 10km at Grasse 2010!

It's little late and I missed the good price, which is 11 euros before 1 Nov, and 9 euros before 10 Oct. Now it is 13 euros :( But OK, as a payback, I have the right to run on the Avenue Thiers dedicated to the runners, and a T-shirt. 

The run is interesting also because Grasse is a beautiful town itself and it's famous for it's long history and most importantly, the perfume making. So it will be a good reason to bring my wife and my little Pierre together with me there.

Grasse is a town located in the mountain area, however the organizer managed to figure out a route that is perfectly flat.

   

This year's event is more interesting because there will be a "La Grassoise" run meaning literally Grasse women which aims at attracting more female runners. The distance is only 5.6km and requires two person, a man with a woman to register together and run together! Also all female runners will receive a surprise at the end.

13th Run, Cap d'Antibes

It was a great weekend to run. Unfortunately I went out a little late at 4:40pm and at November, the sun goes down at 5pm. As a result, I ran with the lamps by the roadside and the headlight of cars all on. A little bit annoying but never mind, I finished my 12km.

Here comes the result:

Also with this Sunday's 12km, I ran accumulated more than 100km already since I started tracking my runs with the Nike+ GPS.

I burned out 6872 Calories which, by a rough calculation, can push a car to move 8 meters :D

However, this run has not been populated to Facebook when started neither when ended for unknown reason.

Haile Gebrselassie Stops Running

Just read this in the news. A runner of miracle.

Here is the wiki of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haile_Gebrselassie

12th Run, Sophia Antipolis

This weekend was probably the worst day I've ever had here in Cote d'Azure, it had rained continuously for four days, ruined completely not only my Sunday's run but also the holiday of Toussaint which was Monday and Tuesday that I was off too.

So today it's necessary to have a good run and fortunately it's really a nice day with great sunlight and comfortable temperature. We were three today and we took the usual route. The girl took a shortcut, however, after twenty minutes and the rest of us ran without any stop and we did it in 39 minutes.

Today we took a long long lunch break and got back to work quite late, it's really the best time to sit under the sunlight eating and chatting with friends after running.