Channeling my inner grocery cashier.

A belated happy holidays, readers! I know that you are all eagerly anticipating my "2011: year in review" post. One of the bigger events of my 2011- starting a new job- has taken a major chunk of out my blogging time. Fear not, though- I promise to get it done before 2012!

In the meantime, I want to take a minute to tell you about a cool new app from Weight Watchers: the "WW Scanner" app. This app is free and available for Android and Iphone (and maybe some other smartphones too), but you have to be a WW online or E-tools subscriber in order to use it.  It turns your phone into a barcode scanner for grocery items. You pick up something in your grocery store or pantry, use your phone's camera to scan the barcode, and then the app calculates the WW points for that item. Then, you can save the item to a list of favorites, or zap the points total right into your daily tracker (on the website or the WW Mobile app). Amazing!

I downloaded this app a couple nights ago and then spent a good half-hour going through my refrigerator and pantry zapping things. The app did not recognize about 25% of the items I scanned, but I imagine that it will get better over time. Even with a 25% failure rate, this app still has the potential to save serious time. Calculating the Points for a new food can happen in a second, and the process of putting that food in your tracker is faster too. Just one or two clicks and you're done. (Of course, you still have to pay attention to the serving size of the food to avoid low-or-highballing the points.)

I am excited about this app because tracking has always been the key to my success or failure on Weight Watchers. When I track, I lose or maintain. When I don't track, I gain. Case in point: I tracked religiously last winter and lost close to 15 pounds. Then, over the summer, I stopped tracking and gained it all back. My reasons for not tracking are always the same: I'm busy and it feels like too much work. Fortunately, the combo of the old WW Mobile app and the new WW Scanner app elminate a lot of the effort involved in tracking. So long, excuses!

#20 of 2011!

Sometime between now and the end of the year, I will write up my 2011 running year in review. In the meantime, I offer a quick recap of my 20th and final race of this year: the Celtic Solstice 5-miler.

I'll admit, I ran this race for the shirt. Every winter, I see a ton of local runners in great running jackets or vests or half-zip shirts, all featuring a cool Celtic Solstice logo (see below), and I wish I had one.

The Celtic Solstice race is put on by Falls Road Running Store in Baltimore, which is known for great race premiums. They were the sponsors of the Dreaded Druid Hills 10K, which I ran in June. That race lived up to its name in terms of difficulty, but it was worth it for this awesome shirt that I wore for the rest of the summer:

In addition to the promise of the great shirt, I also heard from tons of local runners that Celtic Solstice is a great race and a nice way to end the running year. So, I had high hopes all around.

I'm sorry to say that I was a bit disappointed. For starters, this year's shirt is nothing special. The logo is cool, but (based on previous premiums) I was expecting a jacket or half-zip and got just a plain long-sleeve shirt. So, the premium was just okay, and I think I would say the same about the race itself. The atmosphere was fun and festive, but the course was nothing exciting. It was just a basic loop around the park. In several places, it was too narrow to accommodate the 3,000+ runners, leading to frustrating bottlenecks. As masochistic as it sounds, I preferred the Dreaded Druid Hills course. Those hills were intense, but at least they kept things interesting and took us through the most scenic areas of the park.

My final motivation for doing this race was the opportunity to attempt an official 5-mile PR. I ran this year's Down's Park 5-miler in 48:35, but I ran that race as a worker's run, so my time is unofficial. Prior to Saturday's race, my fastest official 5-mile time was about 52 minutes. I was sure I could beat that official time, and I hoped I might be able to beat the unofficial time too.

As it turned out, I underestimated the Baltimore hills, the crowded course, and the accumulated fatigue of 19 previous races. This was a tough race. I ran mile 1 in about 10:29, which was well off my goal of sub 10-minute miles. I made up a little time in mile 2, coming in about 10:15. So, an improvement, but still off my goal pace. At that point, I started to doubt that I could beat even my 52-minute time. In mile 3, I really picked up the pace and finished in about 9:30. Going into mile 4, I knew that I could not beat 48:35, but that I could come in under 50 minutes if I really pushed it. The last two miles were painful, but I ran them in just over 9 minutes each and finished the race in 49:28. So, not my fastest 5-miler ever, but still an official PR.

In all fairness to the Celtic Solstice organizers, I should mention that the post-race food was excellent, including hot mulled wine and some delicious Christmas cookies. Those treats were made even sweeter when I thought over my race year and realized that I set official PRs in every race distance I ran in 2011!

I look forward to sharing my victorious year-end review soon!

The 3rd time for the 1st time.

Today was a first for me: I ran a race for the third time. I ran the Annapolis Striders' Anniversary 15K in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Going into this morning's race, my expectations were fairly low, as I'm still recovering from some pain in my upper right quad. Had this race not been part of the Champ Series, I probably would not have run at all. To my surprise though, it went pretty well.

My first stroke of good fortune was the weather. I expected it to be brutally cold, but the temps were a bit higher than the forecast predicted and there was a lot of sun to warm things up. My second stroke of good fortune was falling into pace with a very friendly fellow runner. She introduced herself early in the race and kept me entertained and on-pace for almost 6 miles.

My new friend and I separated in mile 6, when I had only 5K to go. My quad was hurting a little, but I remembered to bring some Advil, which kept most of the pain at bay. I definitely had to push myself for the final three miles (and especially for the hilly final mile), but I kept up the pace and finished in 1:37. That's 7 minutes faster than 2010 (1:44) and a full 16 minutes faster than 2009 (1:53)! Even better, I finished 218 of 277 runners. They doesn't sound all that great, until you consider that I finished 240/246 in 2009. So, 2009: 6 people behind me. 2011: 59 people behind me.

Speaking of improvements, I can now officially say that I improved in every single race of the Champ Series compared to 2010. I'll tally exactly how much after my last race of the year (next weekend) when I write my 2011 year in review. Today's race also earned me my second Ironman award!  At least when it comes to this race, the third time is the charm!

Its that time of year...

I am not great at sending Christmas cards. Much like the Olympics, it tends to happen once every four years. This year, though, I had a photo opportunity too good to pass up:

Happy Holidays!