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Virtual Trainer is out to get me
One of the features of my Garmin Forerunner is a virtual training partner that gives you something to try to keep up with during training. I tried it out yesterday and set it to a 9 minute mile which is about what I've been averaging. When I was ahead of the pace, the lower half of the display was black text on a "white" background, but when I was behind, it was a black background with white text. It shows how far ahead or behind you are relative to the training partner. The problem with the training partner is that he never has to stop for stoplights, is never out of breath, and just keeps running. When I was behind, I could just hear him say (not literally) "you wimp, speed up". There are parts of my run that I can easily beat the partner and other parts where it is hard (going uphill). Luckily, I managed to beat my virtual training partner by a few hundred feet on my 5 mile run. While it is a nice concept, I can't say that I like that kind of competition even if it really is all in my head.
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Another stupid hack attempt
I was checking the statistics on my server this evening and saw a constant CPU and bandwidth spike from 6 am to 10 am. After some research, I discovered some bozo trying to break in via SSH. Hello, if you can't guess the username/password in the first 10 minutes, why not give up? Someone has obviously attempted to secure the system. So, I found a script called SSHBlack and then easy instructions that will blacklist an IP address after a few failed SSH attempts. I guess I'll know soon if it all works. Geez, don't people have better things to do with their time?
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First run with Forerunner 305
Today was my first run with my Garmin Forerunner 305. I had already plotted my course using Google Earth because I didn't expect to get the unit so soon. So I went ahead and ran that run around Mission Bay and then along the ocean. I was extremely pleased with the unit; I've never had anything like this before (I do have a GPS unit, but nothing I can wear). It was easy to setup and easy to read while running. The other day, MotionBased released a Mac plugin for their service. It worked great and uploaded my data without a problem. The analysis it does is great for anyone that likes statistics and such. It will prove to be more useful as I keep up my training. Next I'll have to decide if I want to upgrade from the free service. I'm not the fastest runner in the world and have only one goal for the marathon I'm going to run; finish. You can check out my run and laugh at my results; I need to work on trying to get my heart rate down a bit. (MotionBased lets you set events to be public if you want, so that anyone can view them.)
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Who designs receipts?
Yesterday, I went to RoadRunner Sports to pick up some stuff for running (in case you haven't guessed, I'm in training for a marathon; my first marathon to prove to myself that I can do it). I had a coupon for $10 and after checking out, I walked outside, looked at the receipt and scratched my head. Normally receipts have several columns including description, quantity, unit price and extended price. In my experience they also take discounts off at the end. Not here. They had description, quantity and unit price. So if you add up the price column, it will only be correct if you bought one of each item, which I didn't. To confuse matters, my $10 discount wasn't taken off at the end, it was taken off the first item. My first item was PowerBar Gel stuff with a price listed as -$2.10. I had to go back in and get this explained to me. What the computer did is take the total cost of the item (3 @ $1.23) and then subtract off $10 and divide by quantity to give -$2.10 each.