Boo!

This makes me a sad, sad, turtle.

I’m posting this as motivation and a reminder.

Motivation: Keep training.
Reminder: Don’t be an idiot about training and injure yourself.

I’ve Moved. Again. Sorry.

Hi everyone.  I’ve moved my blog yet again.  Why? Mind your own business, that’s why!

Actually, it’s because I wanted to use some cool widgets and doodads in the sidebar, which I couldn’t do on WordPress.com.  So I decided to register my own URL.  Navigate on over to www.runturtlerun.net.  That’s where all the hot turtle-running action is going to be from now on.  (I tried to get runturtlerun.com, but inexplicably, a cyber-squatter beat me to it.)

As always, don’t forget to update your RSS feeds!

Sorry for the inconvenience, and hopefully this will be the last time!

Beer vs. Gas

I gotta find me one of these T-Shirts!

Sharing the Productivity-Geek Love: Don’t Be An Email/Voicemail Black Hole

It’s no secret to my friends that I’m a productivity nerd, meaning I like to think about productivity and productivity systems (not that I’m necessarily a very productive person). So, on the occasion of my 30th birthday last year, my friends blessed me with a book filled with their own thoughts and observations on how to get things done.

Needless to say, I was really moved by this gift, and the contributors to that book probably don’t know that I read all of their entries and that I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from them. Some of them are literally productivity tips, while others are inspiring quotes or philosophical musings.

So as my 31st birthday quickly approaches, I think I’ll share the wisdom and inspiration of my friends with everyone, in the hopes that their thoughtful gift can bring a little bit more productivity and and inspiration to others. I’m not going to disclose full names – please don’t take that to mean that I’m not trying to give credit where credit is due. I made a choice to start writing this online journal, but not everyone has made that choice, so I don’t want to inadvertently give anyone any kind of web presence they’d rather not have.

Here’s the first entry, from someone I’ll just call “D”. D is someone who can, without question, get things done, and as far as I know, she does it all without any new-fangled system that she read about in some book written by a professional consultant, so she gets major respect for her innate productivity kung-fu.

here are my top ten tips:

10. Don’t make commitments unless you know you can do it for real.
9. build other people’s capacity by delegating stuff
8. file. everything.
7. follow up.
6. pound out email before breakfast. (wake and type)
5. talk less, think more.
4. think less, do more. (this one may just apply to me)
3. sleep less
2. sleep more
1. train yourself to be disciplined in your work and the way you live your life

True words of wisdom. I don’t know if I can follow number 6; I get pretty damned hungry in the morning, especially after a morning run, and it would be tough to maintain focus. However, I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. I think many of the emails we don’t write or that we put off are actually very simple and quick 2 minute action items that we procrastinate on because we have some emotional resistance to dealing with it, whether it’s unpleasant feelings associated with the subject or the sender or guilt for not having responded already, or guilt for not having taken care of something that the email references or inquires about. So this tip is really about picking a consistent time every day to focus purely on the act of banging out those necessary emails, no matter how unpleasant or guilt-ridden the experience may be. Responding to email is kind of like brushing your teeth or bathing/showering regularly – you just gotta do it. And if you don’t at some point, the people around you will probably start to edge away. And if that happens, it becomes harder and harder to be productive (and effective), especially if being productive and effective in your life requires working with others.

In the world we live in now, we don’t have the luxury of not being responsive to emails – not if we want to maintain our integrity in the eyes of others. Nothing is more frustrating than sending an email to which a response is required and not getting one – I’ve definitely been guilty of burying particular emails or not responding in a timely way and my relationships with friends, colleagues and clients have suffered for it.

So every day I try to remind myself not to be an email black hole [all of this equally applies to voicemail]. Sometimes I fail, and some emails still slip through the cracks, but for the most part, I’m much better about it than I used to be, and I’m always striving to achieve a 100% response rate. I know it’s achievable, and it really shouldn’t be that hard – it’s really just about discipline (see number 1 above).

Thanks, D!

Reader to Turtle: “Daily run posts are boring.” Turtle: “I know!”

I was already thinking about changing the format of my running posts into a weekly summary, when I got an email from a friend who actually reads my blog who hinted that the daily run posts do not make for entertaining reading. I agree!

So from here on out, I won’t bore folks with daily run updates. I’ll still post if something interesting (something that I find interesting) happens, and I’ll still post training tips and guidelines as I learn them. And I’m going to focus more on posting about gear and gadgets and productivity tricks.

Anyone who is actually interested in keeping up with my training (perhaps other beginning/semi-serious/serious runners) shoot me an email and I’ll let you know how you can access my training log. If you don’t know my email addy already, you can reach me at [the name of this blog with no spaces or punctuation] at gmail dot com.

RUN: 6.4 Miles (Long Run)

Course: 34th Avenue Woodside to Corona Out-and-Back

I was tempted to take the subway into Manhattan to do my long run in Central Park, but then I thought it might be kind of silly to travel over an hour round trip just to run for an hour.  Maybe when I’m up to longer long runs.

I noted that my pace has increased while maintaining a given heart rate (80% of my max in this case), which is a sure sign that my cardio fitness is improving.  Seeing improvement is definitely helping to keep me motivated.

RUN: 4 Miles (Tempo Run – Central Park!)

Course: Central Park Columbus Circle to the Reservoir

Had the opportunity to run in Central Park before work this morning.  I’ve only been in Central Park a few times, and never to run, so this was a pretty nice treat.  First, there are a TON of runners and cyclists in the park in the morning.  It definitely helps to keep one motivated on the run to see so many people of all ages and from all different walks of life out there running.   Seeing all those cyclists have me thinking about cross-training and possibly even triathlon training…I’ll have to see how much it will cost to get my road bike fitted with triathlon gear.

Second, it was really beautiful, with all the trees and grass.  I was even able to run a  significant portion of my run on a dirt path around the perimeter of the reservoir in the middle of the park.  I’m not nearly sensitive enough to detect whether or not the dirt is easier on my feet and legs than the pavement and cement that I’m used to, but I don’t doubt that it’s true.  I’m definitely going to have to try to make it out to Central Park more often to run.

I had a much better tempo run this week.  I shortened the run by a mile, and managed to keep the tempo up.  Maybe it was the psychological boost I got from running in the park.

RUN: 4 Miles (Easy Run – Central Park again)

Course: Central Park

I was blessed with another morning run in Central Park again.  Nothing special to report, except that I love this park.

Google Enabling Offline Access! (Super Geeky)

This is pretty amazing. One of my major gripes about Google Calendar and Google Notebook (that you can only use them when you’re online) may be answered soon. Looks like Google is rolling out a new service called Google Gears that will allow you to store data for various Google applications (right now only Google Reader is supported) offline, on your hard drive. Then, when you get online again, you can synchronize any changes. This is great for anyone who uses Google Reader to read their RSS feeds and travels a lot (now you can read your RSS feeds while on the plane!). Eventually, if they make it work with Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Notebook… I think this could be a huge blow to Microsoft Outlook. I know that I’d probably switch from Outlook to Google Calendar/Gmail in a second if they 1) do actually implement this offline access thing well, and 2) implement better mobile device integration.

Launch: Access your Google Reader feeds offline with Google Gears [Lifehacker]

RUN: 3 Miles (Easy Run)

Course: Sunnyside Out-and-Back.

Nuthin’ special to report, except that it feels a little strange to me that 3 miles is considered a “recovery” or “easy” run for me now, and I’m still just starting out.