Selection Sunday

Sunday 14 Mar 2010
Filed under: the long run Tags:

Selection Sunday has arrived! The great thing about the March Mile Madness tournament, though, is the fact that it’s a self-selecting group. The first round is open to 64+ runners, and anybody can join at any time up to the last day of the round (though only runs posted after joining the challenge will count.)

In honor of the tournament kick-off tomorrow I’d like to provide a little preview, profiling a few of the runners who will be participating. Read the rest of this entry »

March Mile Madness Updated Schedule

Saturday 13 Mar 2010
Filed under: sprint Tags:

To allow as many people as possible to participate, I’ve decided to push back the start of the March Mile Madness tournament’s first round until Monday, and to extend it for an entire week. The updated schedule is available here and on dailymile.

That other tournament’s “Selection Sunday” isn’t until tomorrow, but there’s no time like the present to join in on the madness!

March Mile Madness!

Friday 12 Mar 2010
Filed under: the long run Tags: ,

Update: New schedule to allow more participants to get involved!

It’s March, and that means it’s time for Madness… March Mile Madness!

I’m organizing a 6 round tournament designed to test runners’ speed and endurance, and I’d love for you to take part. Here’s how it will work:

Round of 64+: Open to everybody and anybody, this round will consist of a simple challenge: run as many miles as you can in a week: Monday March 15 to Sunday March 21. The top 32 will move on. Join now!

Round of 32: An invite-only challenge, this round is a simple 5k race. The runners of the 16 fastest 5k races on Monday March 22, Tuesday March 23, Wednesday March 24, or Thursday March 25 will move on.

Sweet Sixteen: Another invite-only challenge, this round is a four day distance competition. The 8 runners who compile the most milage between Friday March 26 and Monday March 29 will move on.

Elite Eight: It’s getting serious. The Elite Eight will be invited to run the fastest 10k race they can between Tuesday March 30 and Thursday April 1. Only four will move on.

Final Four: More distance, but less time. Runners will have two days, Friday April 2 and Saturday April 3 to run as many miles as they can. The top two will move on.

“Halftime”: The last challenge. Our final two runners have Sunday April 4 and Monday April 5 to run the fastest half-marathon they can. Best time wins the tournament!

Picking my first ultramarathon

Tuesday 9 Mar 2010
Filed under: the long run Tags: , ,

To be honest, I’m not basing my decision about which ultramarathon to make my first on many criteria. The most important thing is proximity. We need to be able to drive there. I’m already making an exception by flying to Boston (whoa, I better book a flight soon!) but that’s a special case.

So I’ve settled on the Kettle Moraine 100 in Wisconsin. Within driving distance, family lives in Wisconsin, etc, etc. I almost ran–well, almost registered to run–the North Face Endurance Challenge in Madison last year, and from the sound of it they use the same trails. Of course, the North Face Endurance Challenge would have been 50 miles, whereas for Kettle Moraine I’m looking at doing the full 100.

I’m conflicted about the distance. On the one hand, doing 50 seems like a waste of an opportunity. I’ve run 50 miles by myself. I run 50K all the time. I should push myself. But on the other hand, 100 miles is intimidating. 24+ hours is intimidating. The whole thing is intimidating.

12,000 feet of climbing is a scary thought. It’s not the 18,000 feet of the Western States 100, but it’s significantly more than, say the Lean Horse 100.

There are other considerations, too. No buckle for finishers (you get a kettle instead.) But it works schedule-wise, and travel-wise, etc. And it might provide an opportunity to meet up with Rob again. So there are lots of reasons to do it.

And so I will, barring any unforeseen circumstances. But not without trepidation.

Feature requests

Thursday 4 Mar 2010
Filed under: the long run Tags: ,

I love dailymile. And that’s why I want to see it keep getting better. With all the talk recently about support for Garmin GPS devices, I was reminded of some of the ideas I’ve had for features I’d like to see implemented at some point.

  1. More privacy options.
    This is something my wife mentioned on Run Talk Radio a little while back. When I was starting out, I was a little shy about sharing my miles. I really wanted greater granularity when it came to privacy. Ideally, I’d love to see options where posts can be made private, friends only, or public. At this point I’m not sure that I’d avoid posting publicly all that often, but the option would be nice.
  2. Sanity checks.
    I’ve almost made the mistake myself: posting a 262-mile run instead of 26.2 miles, or missing a digit while entering my time. It would be nice if the site checked to make sure what you were entering makes sense. Not that I think dailymile should prevent you from posting something that seems extreme… I just think the site should prompt you to make sure you didn’t make a mistake. So, for example, a run over 150 miles or under 3 minutes/mile might trigger a sanity check, a simple dialog asking if you possibly made a typo. Similar appropriately gauged triggers for cycling, swimming, etc. could be implemented as well.
  3. More options for challenges.
    I think that the challenges on dailymile have a lot of potential yet. Multi-sport challenges, group or team challenges, etc.
  4. Better gear management.
    I love using dailymile to keep track of how many miles my shoes have on them (and how little rubber the soles have left), but I wish the feature was a little more developed. In particular, I’d love to hide gear without retiring it–I want to keep the info on my older shoes in dailymile, but I don’t want to always see those older shoes when posting runs. Also, stats about your gear seem a little hidden right now, it would be nice if they were available from the analytics page.
  5. Exporting data.
    I’m not looking to leave, but being able to easily get my data into Excel, Numbers, or OpenOffice for custom graphs and charts would be pretty cool.

Those are just a few ideas I wanted to jot down. They’re only meant as a starting point for thinking about what dailymile can offer down the road–they are by no means a criticism. I’ve been loving the site since I joined, more and more each day, to be honest, and I’m excited to see what comes next… whether it’s Garmin-integration or something else entirely!