Author: mwiniski

Sustainable Packaging?

~ mwiniski ~ 4 Comments

I know it’s been a long time, but I’m hoping to get back in the blogging groove. I have a list of blog topics in a google doc that I’m hoping will sustain a more regular blog presence. I’ve moved my site over to a new host.  I’m redirecting automatically for now, but please update your bookmarks.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that we’ve been exploring clicker technology in class to promote class discussion (especially around controversial topics), predicting the results of a demo, etc. . We recently received a shipment of 60 clickers, and I was distraught over the packaging. Check it out. Each clicker was individually wrapped in the kind of packaging that leaves one’s fingers bruised and bloodied, and the amount of waste is pretty striking. Below is a pic of the packaging vs. what was inside.

packagingclickers

We’re in conversations now with the vendor now to check into alternatives. They may be under the assumption that we’re like many schools where clickers are sold in the bookstore. Instead, we’ve purchased several departmental sets for sharing. The six teacher clickers came with a more reasonable amount of packaging, so it has to be possible to scale back on the waste. We’ve been very pleased with the iClicker brand, but if you decide to go this route, please join in and ask about alternative packaging before they ship.

Some things the iClickers don’t do that we’re trying to find solutions for:

1. Data Formatting – We have a couple of professors interested in analyzing data gathered in class with statistical packages like SPSS. The session data is stored in spreadsheets, but there’s a lot of manual cleanup needed before the stats are run. It shouldn’t be too hard to automate the clean-up process.

2. Limited Choices – A-E works fine for many questions, but if you’re asking students about presidential candidates, important political issues, etc.., 5 choices can be very limiting. We knew that going in, but it would be great if there were a simple alternative. I asked the tech guy at iClicker if they’ve explored hooking into devices with more buttons or allowing a double click to expand choices (like AA, BB, etc.). They haven’t done anything with this yet, but the code is open source, so I’m going to poke around and see what it would take to add this expanded choice mode.

3. Mapping Choices – The flexibility of the software is great. You can pose questions / scenarios in presentation software, ChemDraw, Google Earth, etc.. Because the question is captured as an image, you have to go back and map choice A to Obama, B to Clinton, C to Edwards, etc.. It’s okay if you’re just using the questions as a discussion starter but makes looking at trends in student opinions more difficult.

Paris Mountain 20k 2007

~ mwiniski ~ 3 Comments

Took 2 minutes off of last year’s time. Yeah!  Andy lead the way, and I tried to follow.  Man, he’s fast – especially downhill.

Congrats Andy and Calhoun on a great race, and thanks for making me run faster than I wanted to – especially up the mountain.

Splits below:

2006 time (first) vs. 2007 time (red)

  • Mile 1 – 7:33 (right before you make the turn up Paris Mtn.) 7.24
  • Mile 2 and 3 – 17:56/ 25:30 (I never saw the 2 mile marker. This is going up the mountain, so essentially 9 minute miles on the way up) 17.10/24.34
  • Mile 4 – 8:17 / 33:46 – 7.59/32.34
  • Mile 5 – 8:05 / 41:51 – 6.57 / 39.31
  • Mile 6 – 6:01 / 47:53 (No way! It was downhill, but I can’t run that fast. I think the markers must have been off a little) – 6.50 / 46.21
  • Mile 7 – 6:36 / 54:30 – 6.36 / 52.57
  • Mile 8 – 6:50 / 1:01:19 – 6.40/ 59.38
  • Mile 9 – 7:04 / 1:08:23 – 7.06 / 1:06:44
  • Mile 10 – 7:27 / 1:15:51 – 7.12 / 1:13:56
  • Mile 11 – 7:01 / 1:22:52 – 7.10 / 1:21:07
  • Mile 12 – 7:07 / 1:29:59 – 7.00 / 1:28:08
  • Finish – 3:41 (last .4) / 1:33:40 – 3.35 / 1:31:42
  • Overall Average – 7:33 – 7:24

Shut-In and moving forward

~ mwiniski ~ Leave a comment

After a long few months of slowly recovering from  nagging knew injury, I’ve been slowly working my distance back up.  I’ve refrained from all speedwork, and my knee feels better, but it’s still not 100%.  I ran Shut-In this year with a lot less training, but had my best time ever (3.25.44).  I was able to run the entire section before the dreaded 151 crossing (and managed to fall pretty hard once), and I think that was the difference in picking up an extra 5 minutes.  The last part was pretty brutal as always, but I went up with a pretty brisk pace.  Well, it felt brisk anyway.  On the last downhill, the guy behind me was barreling down the hill, really out of control, so I let him pass.  Better to drop a spot than be taken out from behind with .2 miles to go.

I’m going to move my training log over to mapmyrun.com and see how that goes.  It looks like it will calculate mileage for me.

I found this by way of another running blog. It’s the last 1.8 miles of Shut-In (running from right to left) – see the 151 crossing just over the top to the Mt. Pisgah parking lot.

Shut-In profile

I get dizzy and nauseated just looking at the profile.

Brief Furman Tour in Google Earth from Geocoded photos

~ mwiniski ~ Leave a comment

Man, Furman campus is beautiful in the spring. I’ve been experimenting with a handheld device (ipaq 6900 series) that EES professor Suresh Muthukrishnan has been using in class. It has built-in GPS, so I went out and snapped a few pictures this morning. It was great to have an excuse to walk around campus in the cool air. The latitude and longitude are geocoded into the picture when the GPS is on, so I wanted to see how easy it would be to create a google earth file (kml or kmz) to show a virtual tour of where I’d been. It looks like Google Earth Pro can rip the geocoding information from the picture and create the file, but I can’t spring for the pro version yet.

Instead I used a program called RoboGeo to create the kml file. It looks like the program is very useful if you don’t have a GPS built into your camera as well. It did a good job creating a path from a series of photos. Check out the tour in Google Earth.

furman_tour_image

In the ‘Places’ window of Google Earth you have to open the ‘routes’ folder and click ‘path’. You can see that it just connects the dots and shows me swimming or boating out to the bell tower 🙂

The trial version throws an error into the latitude and longitude value, so I had to override those manually. That’s why the images are attached where the object is rather than where I was standing when I took the picture. The full version will geocode from the photographer’s location with no kml editing necessary.

I think you’ll also see why I did poorly in photography class.

A PR!

~ mwiniski ~ 2 Comments

That was tough!

Although I was disappointed that I didn’t hit my Boston cutoff of 3:20, I had kind of given up on it before the race based on the projected conditions.  I was excited to set a PR though (by 26 whole seconds)!  My previous PR was 6 years ago (much closer to my prime), on a flat course in Kiawah, and in ideal weather conditions (low 40s), so it was hard to be too disappointed.  This was my first time with FIRST, so I think that was key in helping me get faster.

All in all the race was pretty well run, but I thought the water stations were pretty disorganized.  It felt a bit like a scavenger hunt, and I kept having to ask what was in the cup, powerade or water (mostly water).  The last 10k was a bit frustrating.  There were a lot of walkers from the half marathon walking side-by-side and even many walkers that didn’t seem to be in the race, so there was a lot of weaving to be done to get through.

I took the first 10k pretty conservatively and then decided to at least try to get myself to mile 20 with enough cushion to give myself a long shot at Boston if I had a great last 10K, which didn’t happen.  So from 6 to 20, I ran a little harder than I probably should have.  I had a sheet with project pacing, which I abandoned at the half way point and just decided to run how I felt.

Piedmont Park (mile 18 – 20) seemed to do a lot of folks in.  Quite a few runners were walking or hurling here.  The tree cover was gone, and the heat and the sun really seemed stifling.

The last 6 were tough.  I remembered what a colleague and much better runner said and considered mile 20 to be the halfway point. Susannah and the kids were hanging out at mile 24, so just getting there was my goal from mile 20.  The kids peppered me with squirt guns, which was great.  I bonked hard at about 25.2 and really battled my brain which was telling me to stop and walk, even though I was so close.  I didn’t walk though. It may not have looked much like running to a spectator!  I’m not sure if I was cursing out loud or in my head.

Once I got to the top of the hill, you could hear the crowd and see the finish, which really helped get through the last half mile or so.

FIRST seemed to give me a deeper well from which to pull and more confidence to run faster and know I’d have something left.  Thanks to the race coordinators for a great inaugural race and all the volunteers and spectators, and mostly family and friends for cheering us on.

10K        Half        20Mile    FINISH
49:37      1:41:48      2:35:42     3:26:14

The Weather Outside is Frightful

~ mwiniski ~ Leave a comment

This isn’t going to be pretty.  The forecast for marathon day is really ugly.  86°/54°.   Not being a hot weather runner, I think this puts Boston out of reach for me.  Argh!  The high temp has gone up 7 degrees in the last 4 days.  Oh well, all I can do is try my hardest.   Come on unexpected cold front from Canada!!!

3/21 – Weights.  Didn’t push it too hard.  Stretching, pushups, and other light weights.

3/20 – FIRST called for 6 x 400 with 10-20 warm up and cool down.  Having never done speedwork the week of the race, I was going to bail.  However, I see Higdon calls for 4 x 400, so I put my trust in the program and ran the 6 x 400 (1.29 – 1.33).  Feel fine the day after.  Seemed pretty easy, actually.

3/19 – Was going to swim, but the pool was packed.  Back and arms instead.

Long time

~ mwiniski ~ Leave a comment

It has been a long time since I posted. I hope I can remember it all.

3/15 – Tempo run – 2 easy, 3 fast (not sure the pace), 1 easy.  Feeling a little better.  Still leg weary though.  Come on legs, heal!

3/14 – Weights (chest, shoulders, stomach)

3/13 – Ran in the evening. Supposed to speedwork.  Decided to do 5 and push the last lap around the mall (.9 miles) in 5:57.  Felt okay.

3/12 – Presented at conference. Ate way too much.

3/11 – Ran 13 @ PMP before driving to Chattanooga. Man that was an awful run. I must be worn down. 1:37.50, so right around 7.32 / mile.  2 hours in the car before the run and 4.5 hours right after.  Argh.

3/10 – Rest. Hung out with Kevin, kids, Jamie, et al. Lots of fun!

3/9 – Rest – drove to Athens.

3/8 – 5 mile tempo. 37 – 38 mins

3/7 – Weights

3/6 – Speedwork. 8 x 800. I had some good times going (some under 3 minutes), but my knee was sore. On the sixth repeat I got a pretty sharp burn behind my knee (hammy area) and decided that was enough.

3/5 – Swimming – 40 lengths

3/4 – Weights at the gym.

Time to taper!!

~ mwiniski ~ Leave a comment

3/3 Last long run today. Lots of folks ran 3 mile out and back, so that although we had different paces, we could cheer each other on. When I first heard the plan, I thought the repeats would kill me mentally, but the camaraderie was great, and breaking the run into six mile chunks was mentally kind of nice.

Started out rough. I thought I was running faster, but I wasn’t. My legs were heavy to begin with, but once I got some miles in, things loosened up.

1st 6 miles – 47.40 (7.56s)
2nd 6 miles – 46.40 (7.46s)
2.2 mile (I didn’t want to do this last) – 16.20 (7.25s) – I estimated, and we drove it afterwards. It was 1.1 instead of 1.
Last 6 miles – 44.42 (7.27s) Yeah!! I felt really good until the very end.

If my math is correct that’s 20.2 miles in 2:35.22 (7.41s) – just five seconds off PMP

Today just reinforced that negative splits are better for me. I don’t want to crash and burn. I’d love for my last 6 miles in the marathon to go like today. With about 250 yards to go, I ran completely out of gas, after pushing it for 6 miles. That would be perfect!

Today also reminded me that a cruddy start doesn’t necessarily mean it will be bad the entire time.

Congrats Scott, Jen, and Diane on reaching the training summit!

I feel horrible now but am somewhat optimistic that with some much needed rest, I may have an outside shot at my goal.

3/2 – Rest

3/1 – Tempo run on treadmill.  7 miles @ 7.30.  Every once in a while put the incline at 1% but couldn’t hold it very long.  7.30 felt like 6.30, so not a very good run at all.

2/28 – Very short workout.  Some back, arms, and a little stomach.