What a lovely day for a marathon. Good luck all you #VLM2013 runners.
Paris Marathon to Harvest Runners’ Energy With Pavegen Tiles ⚓
Check out what they're doing at the Paris marathon this weekend...
Paris Marathon organizers will lay energy-harvesting tiles across the course on Sunday to ensure not all the effort expended by the race’s 40,000 runners goes to waste.
The flexible tiles made from recycled truck tires will span a portion of the Champs Elysees for about 25 meters (82 feet) of the 42.2-kilometer course, according to Pavegen Systems Ltd., the U.K. maker of the tiles. Each footstep generates as much as 8 watts of kinetic energy, which is fed back to batteries that can charge display screens and electronic signs along the route, the company said.
— Paris Marathon to Harvest Runners’ Energy With Pavegen Tiles - Businessweek
What a brilliant idea and definitely something I think should be deployed more often, and not just in road races, everyday life too. Anywhere you have moving traffic of any source is potentially a location to harvest energy.
Home and showered after a great Maidenhead 10 Mile race. It was lovely and dry and sunny, though still cold. Good watch time too: 1:01:18. Not bad considering the stage I'm at in my marathon training. Next week will be my last 100k+ week before my marathon. Think I may need to start considering an alternate shoe to race in too... the Vibram Seeyas keep giving me blisters between my some of my toes, but not all the time. I'm reluctant to change shoes as I love running in the Seeyas. Might tape my toes for my marathon and then keep my eyes peeled for something just a light and minimal, but without the toe pockets.
Grizedale Duathlon
On Sunday 10 March I took part in my first offroad duathlon, the Grizedale duathlon in the Grizedale Forest in the Lake District, and what an event it was.
Going to The Lakes just before Easter has become a bit of a habit for my wife and me. It's normally a nice time to go as things are starting to get warmer, the signs of spring are starting to appear, all the sheep are starting to lamb and best of all, it's before the school holidays so it's cheaper and quieter. One of the things we always do is go for a walk round Grizedale forest. There are loads of different paths and routes of varying technicality so there's always a walk or two to keep us entertained for a few hours. The last few times we've been we've noticed the remnants of the duathlon that would have taken place on the Sunday we arrived and each time I say that it would be nice to take part. So this year that's precisely what we did. We made sure we went up at the same time as the duathlon, which also happened to coincide with the Hawkshead Brewery spring beer festival, and I entered the duathlon.
It looks a tad colder at the world cross-country champs in Poland than it was on my long run this morning.
Becoming the All-Terrain Human ⚓
How's this for an introduction for an ultrarunner?
Kilian Jornet Burgada is the most dominating endurance athlete of his generation. In just eight years, Jornet has won more than 80 races, claimed some 16 titles and set at least a dozen speed records, many of them in distances that would require the rest of us to purchase an airplane ticket. He has run across entire landmasses (Corsica) and mountain ranges (the Pyrenees), nearly without pause. He regularly runs all day eating only wild berries and drinking only from streams. On summer mornings he will set off from his apartment door at the foot of Mont Blanc and run nearly two and a half vertical miles up to Europe’s roof — over cracked glaciers, past Gore-Tex’d climbers, into the thin air at 15,781 feet — and back home again in less than seven hours, a trip that mountaineers can spend days to complete. A few years ago Jornet ran the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail and stopped just twice to sleep on the ground for a total of about 90 minutes. In the middle of the night he took a wrong turn, which added perhaps six miles to his run. He still finished in 38 hours 32 minutes, beating the record of Tim Twietmeyer, a legend in the world of ultrarunning, by more than seven hours. When he reached the finish line, he looked as if he’d just won the local turkey trot.
— Becoming the All-Terrain Human - NYTimes.com
Very good, and long article about a very impressive runner.
My wife took her first step towards becoming a runner today by buying a pair of Merrell Pace Glove minimalist running shoes.
I got some strange looks on my run today (for my Vibrams) from a man running with a brick in his hands.
Moonboots
Check out these bad boys...
Lightweight Moonboots?
I thought these were a spoof when I first saw the image, but it appears they're a genuine product and the pair in the picture is trail shoe!?
The technology
Nothing to report this week other than to say I'm having a well deserved week off running and enjoying a few beers in the Lake district. Back on the tarmac next week.