8 days to go. The first weather forecast predictions provide indications for the Rotterdam weather on the race day, April 5th. It looks good, way too good. Let’s monitor it at weather.com
With officially 13 degrees Celsius, we’d have 16 - 18 degrees in the sun. This is best marathon weather one could think of. It’ll be really interesting to see, what difference this will make to running compared to sub-zero, cloudy, gravel and ice on roads and walkways. With the race starting at 11am, the sun will be high up by then. Drinking right from the first pit stops will be important.
today’s training: 40 minutes at relaxed pace through a snow storm, approx 9 km.
Tags: rotterdam marathon
The Swiss running shoe manufacturer GnL AG showed it’s product on the ISPO exhibition earlier this year (we covered it earlier), where this pair of shoes spurred quite some interest. Now the intention is to introduce the shoe and its technology to a wider audience and 400days got send a test sample pair.
So what’s the deal with these shoes? Quite striking on a first sight is the lower part of the shoe, the sole. It looks almost a bit like someone glued black liquorice pieces to it and walked on them so that they’d become oval instead of their otherwise round shape. But those funny looking buffers are the whole point. GnL, an abbreviation for Glide’n Lock, calls this 3D technology. The idea here is that those oval buffers, nine in the front, four a bit more robust in the back reduce both vertical and horizontal forces that apply when the foot lands on the ground and pushes off again. According to GnL’s own measurements their system is superior to other running shoes, thus better protects the runners joints and provides faster regeneration for the muscles. Even runners which have been told to give up running by their doctors could continue with their passion using this shoe. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: GNL Running System, new shoes
This raffle is closed now. But no worries, we’re gonna have other ones. Just stay tuned and come around on 400days every now and then to have a look.
The Glide’n Lock system is the first running shoe with 3-dimensional cushioning. It provides better protection to your joints and faster regeneration of your muscles after harder runs (see the review here). Now you can win a pair of GnL shoes here at 400days! (worth about EUR 160)
Answer the following question in an email to gnl@400days.net (place the answer directly in the subject field)
Deadline is April 7th 2009, 16:00 CET. The winner will be determined through a lottery among all right answers and will be contacted by email, most probably still on the same day in the evening. We’ll sort out shoe size, women or men model and mailing address afterwards. The winner will get sent the pair of GnL shoes directly from GnL headquarters in Switzerland. If it’s ok for the winner, he/she would be mentioned here on 400days.
The question
The GnL running shoe…
- reduces mainly vertical forces during the landing phase better than competitor running shoes
- reduces mainly horizontal forces during both landing and push-off phases better than competitor running shoes
- reduces both vertical and horizontal forces during landing and push-off phases better than competitor running shoes
Hints for answering can be found on GnL’s website, look for the technology description!
Good luck!
Tags: GNL Running System, new shoes, raffle
9 days to go. Was running with the racing shoes today that arrived yesterday. Good feeling. Tried to go hard and pushed the pace to 3:45 min/km several times. It’s tough, it feels like a distant wish to go that pace the whole marathon distance. But of course it’s -4 degrees out there right now, there’s a lot of gravel all over the streets of Helsinki, jada, jada, jada…
Need more rest. Fortunatly it’s the weekend coming up now, that means more sleep (hopefully). In the evening we prepared a nice pasta dinner with an anchovy - tomato sauce. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: food, pasta, rotterdam marathon
It was almost a bit like Christmas today, well more like the second day of Christmas - boxing day. Not that I would have put things back into boxes. But rather boxes with running shoes have arrived. One pair of GnL shoes, they’re special, a review will follow still this week. And then the racing flats, Adidas adizero adios, the Haile shoes! Nice and really, really yellow, I can tell you. Put them on the scales, size UK 9 weighs 213g, very lightweight, very fast. Had to wear them right away and get the race feeling, mental preparation is half the success. Damn, I felt fast on every step in the 50 square meter apartment!
Of course, while we were at it, had to try the rest of the race outfit, white jersey, black shorts, green socks and yellow shoes, quite a color combination! And all Adidas (except of the socks, but you don’t see them anyway), I should tell them, they should sponsor me. With the new haircut - army style - I look as competitive as Haile, no questions asked!
Tags: race shoes, rotterdam marathon
A couple of days ago Nokia released a Sports Tracker application version for the Nokia 5800 XPress Music. We covered it here at 400days briefly. Of course only the test in real conditions tells us the real deal here. Out we went, a couple of times to see whether the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music could be a real running buddy. To take the verdict right upfront, it works ok, but the N79 Sports Tracker integration is better.
The Nokia 5800 Xpress Music is a more of a multimedia machine than a sports companion. Clearly it has optimzed access to multimedia and communication functionality and there its strongholds are things like flicking through your pictures, watching videos, listening to music, listening or watching podcasts and internet surfing. With a decent pair of stereo head phones on, you can actually enjoy also a longer video feature, such as a film.
As running companion it Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Nokia 5800, nokia sports tracker
this second part of racing flats listing consists of shoes from Puma, New Balance, Saucony and Brooks. In part I there were answers from company reps of Adidas and Asics, here we just got in some comments from Puma. Nike never really cared to answer. At least not in the last 4 weeks. Btw, I made a move and bought a pair of Adidas adizero Adios at an Internet retailer in the UK. First thought to get them from the US, since a friend was just over there. But then they were hard to find in the high street shops, there’s hip hop stuff, but race gear isn’t that hip (and even less hop). The Adidas online store had them actually for USD 77 on offer but with sales tax and shipping it was about USD 100 and you still needed an US registered credit card. The UK option was GBP 70 at Wiggle including shipping to Finland and it’s all within the EU. Now we can just hope they get really shipped. But let’s get back to the topic. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: race shoes
On the quest to reduce some kilos, it could help to put more focus to nutrition and sleep as Jason pointed out in his comment earlier. From the start of this project in August last year (2008) to the current day, I lost about 7 kg, from 81.5kg to now stable at around 74.5kg.The progress on the weight front was pretty front loaded, i.e. I lost the majority in the first several months and almost nothing in the last three months. Only this week with the flu caught on badly, another kilo went down the drain… well it literally felt that I coughed and sneezed it out. A previous blog entry covered the estimated optimal weight to a marathon runner. And according to that, there are still 4kg to go for me. This will not happen until the Rotterdam Marathon in 2 weeks, but over the spring and summer towards the project goal the Berlin Marathon.
Let’s look at food, up to now I’ve been mainly applying common sense, reduced the size of the portion at lunch in the company restaurant or left out fast food, chocolate and other fat rich foods. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: food, nutrition, optimal weight
Nokia released today the Sports Tracker application for S60 5.0. There’s right now only one device with that version, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. So what’s the big deal here? Of course, the app had to be re-done to adjust to the touch UI input paradigm. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: nokia sports tracker
The run on Monday was quite long, 33,5km, and beyond the legs the whole body felt really tired. Therefore, the replacement of the 10k active recovery run yesterday with an equally long time on the bench while a skilled masseur with healing hands would give the leg muscles a good drill didn’t require to think twice. Off we were at 4pm and on to the phone to make an appointment for later in the evening. After ten or so calls, one thing was sure, the massage studios cannot complain, there’s definitely no economic downturn there. Although some take appointments until 9pm, there was absolutely no opening anywhere, neither a slot from anyone having cancelled earlier today.
Somehow it appears, something is off here, supply and demand are far from an equilibrium (assuming that no slot at ten different service providers equals many more callers having no short term possibility to get served). Pricing for massages in the Helsinki metropolitan region is on average something like this:
- 30mins: EUR27
- 45mins: EUR33
- 60mins: EUR39
I would claim - and please don’t stone me to death, I’d prefer hot stones on my back, though - that those prices are too low. With higher prices some would not go to get a massage anymore, but since there are so many more wanting to right now, the capacity would be still fully utilized and the masseur’s would earn more. A quick comparison with Germany (Hamburg), the UK (Mancherster) and Sweden (Stockholm) reveals that the price level is 10% - 20% higher there. I wonder if there’s an equal shortage of supply.
The local paper wrote today, that in order to help fighting against the economic downturn, those who can should accelerate their consumption in homegrown food, goods and local services. We consumers are doing a good job with the latter when comes to massages, if the providers would jack up their prices, we could do an even better one - bizarre, isn’t it?
Tags: massage
