So a few weeks ago (6/26) I skated 10 miles, I would have gone 11 miles but my skates broke! I wasn’t exactly thrilled about this, but at the same time I wasn’t all that distraught. My skates had been hurting my feet, pretty bad actually, but I didn’t want to spend the money on new ones. My skates were K2 Radical 100s that I had purchased in May of 2007. I’ve had experience dealing with K2’s customer service in the past (circa 1995) so I shot them an email to see if they could do anything about them.

K2 took a few days to get back to me, confirming that the skates were indeed outside of the year warranty (I knew this) but suggesting that I send them in through my dealer so that they could look at them and see if they might be able to do something, even outside of warranty. So I called my dealer, an online shoe retailer, who I will fail to mention as I really don’t want to get anyone there in trouble. They couldn’t figure out why I wanted to return my skates as they were outside of the 365 day return policy, but they said they would call me back nonetheless. Well 24 hour later I got an email asking me to call in. I called, and to my surprise the dealer told me they were going to give me my money back on the skates.

Twenty-five months after purchase I had the full purchase price refunded to my credit card! Holy crap, that was cool. So this was last week some time. I knew which skates I wanted, the 2009 K2 Radical Pros, but the cheapest price I could find for them was $399, and that price wasn't from Amazon. So I decided I would just wait. Well, fast forward to this past Saturday night (after midnight), I was surfing Amazon's website and came across the 2008 K2 Radical Pro skates, not what I was hoping for, but I figured they would be way better than having a broken pair of skates. I also noticed that Size 13 was going for $269, just days earlier they were $399, so I jumped on them, even with overnight shipping (due to Amazon Prime) they were only $273.

The next day when I checked the website the skates were back up to $399, so I wondered, what if the skates were simply showing the picture for 2008, but really they would be 2009 skates, perhaps after my order someone realized that and corrected the price. Come Tuesday when I got the box at work I was rather excited, I tore into them, and sure enough, brand new 2009 K2 Radical Pros!!!! Here’s a photo

I didn’t get a chance to use them yesterday because I had made plans with Natalie to scrub down the horse trailer out a the barn. Well tonight after work I took them for a spin on Grant’s Trail, 6.38 miles in just under 40 minutes. I think I could have done it in around 35-37 minutes had I not gotten stopped by stop lights, stop signs, and a minor spill. I haven’t fallen on a pair of skates (inline hockey doesn’t count) in YEARS, probably 6 or more. Oh well, a few minor scrapes on the knees are all I have to show for the spill, fortunately I was at a stop when I ended up falling down, though it was right in front of a Suburban, thankfully she was also stopped.

I didn’t reach my goal of 50 miles in 30 days, as I was without skates for most of three weeks, though I did do roughly 30 miles in that time frame (3 sessions on Grant’s trail and the one session on the bike path down by the arch)

Once we get settled into Colorado I’ll attempt the 50 miles in 30 days goal again, though maybe if I’m lucky I’ll get it done in the next 30 days, even with the move.

What’s that? The motion based content has finally moved over to Garmin connect? And GC now accepts the Forerunner 305???

http://blog.motionbased.com/2009/05/garmin-connect-opening-to-all-garmin-fitness-devices.html

Whoooooohoooooooo now I need a dry day to go skate!

Well, it’s been almost a year and a half now since I purchased my Garmin Forerunner 305, it has performed flawlessly the whole time, I’ve had no trouble whatsoever with the hardware.

The word from Garmin the company however has been extremely lacking. Garmin has a site that you can upload content to called Garmin Connect, and while it appears to do everything I want with an online provider, it doesn’t work for the Forerunner 305. Initially it was supposed to only work for the Forerunner 405 and 50, which it does, but they were gradually supposed to add support for other devices from Garmin. Well Garmin, when will the 305 support come? I’m not buying a Forerunner 405 until the 305 is supported, once that occurs then I can get the 405 and 305, so Natalie and I both have a GPS device to use. But why waste any money on the 405 if they won’t add support for their existing devices.

Garmin, are you listening? Don’t even get me started on the “Motionbased” conversion that I doubt will ever happen.

So with my striving to win the Fit In February Developer Challenge I started back up with www.hundredpushups.com again. Day 1, week 1. Here’s my count for pushups today.

10/12/7/7/9/25

Day 1 Week 1 calls for Pushups totalling 10, 12, 7, 7 then maxing out with a Minimum of 9. Day 2 will come Tuesday!

So I’ve been a Forerunner 305 owner for almost a year now. I used it heavily in the beginning of the year, and kind of slacked off lately as I haven’t exercised much. I have however been waiting for Garmin Connect to open up to 305 users. If I recall correctly, it was supposed to be done in February of last year, then pushed out a few months, then to September, then December 08, and now they are pushing it out to February 2009.

WTF Garmin. I mean really? I understand software delays, but seriously, do you have a single developer working on this? If so, fire that guy and hire someone else.

Week 2 Day 2 went alright,  16-13-11-11-15+

I managed the match the requirements, I couldn't do any more than 15 at the end, it's fairly late and I played softball tonight, maybe I'm just worn out?

Earlier today while browsing Twitter (the INETA folks got me started on it a few weeks ago) I saw a message from Joe Brinkman about www.hundredpushups.com. Being that I was at work, I decided to read about the site (putting off work of course) (hi Rich, how's Florida? for the uninformed Rich is my boss). After reading about the site I though, wow, I should do that!

So here's the basic premise. First step, you "test" yourself, see how many pushups you can do from the get go, then, for the next 6 weeks there is a program you follow to build up your numbers, over those weeks you end up testing yourself again and adjusting the program as you go along, with the ultimate goal of being able to do 100 pushups in a row.

So I've started, today is day Zero, I did my "test" and will attempt to do Day 1 tomorrow. For my test I did 20 pushups, I should have pushed myself further, I figure I may have been able to do 2 to 3 more tops. Based on the numbers in my test I am supposed to do the following for Week1 10-10-8-6-7+ tomorrow, 12-12-10-10-10+ on day 2 and day 3 15-13-10-10-15+.

Headed off to Creve Couer park again tonight after work. I did my first mile in 4:37 or something close to that, second mine I had done by 9:00. Third mile i hit a brick wall. My shins started to get tired out, which rarely happens when I skate anymore. I think the third mile took me over 6:30 to do, the wind sure didn't help, I might have been better off doing my normal look backwards today.

I ended up doing the 4.79 mile loop in less time than I did on Wednesday, though I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, I think I was only 9-10 seconds faster due to the wind and pain! I'll plug my forerunner in later and see what the exact numbers were.

Tonight after work I headed home to grab my skates and go to Creve Couer Park. I skated my normal loop, though not in as fast a time as I have done in the past. It was quite windy, and a bit chilly, which I wasn't expecting, there were also some parts of the trail that were still wet so I had to take it easy on those sections to keep from falling. I wish they made some "wet" inline wheels, perhaps they do? I stopped and adjusted my skate once, and I think I've managed to figure out how to pad my ankle enough to keep my skate from rubbing.

I hope to go again tomorrow, but we'll see how that goes, it will depend on the weather.