C25k Graduate - Woo hoo!!!

Guys, I can't believe it Week 9 has been a rush. All 3 runs in Week 9 were set for 30 min runs with no breaks. Wk9R1 was hard. I don't know what happened but from the start until the end I just felt like quitting. There wasn't any stage where my breathing came together and I could relax and enjoy. Maybe it was the drop in temperature or Laura/Claire only giving 10 min warnings or a combination of the two! Wk9R2 was tremendous. The guys over on the HealthUnlocked C25K forum lifted my spirits and to be honest the run couldn't be worse or as bad as Wk9R1, could it?! Wk9R3: well, this is what it was all about, eh, and finally got there. Instead of waiting for the 9am Bedford Park Run as I initially planned, I started just after 8am. The run felt tremendous. My Garmin watch was helping where Laura/Claire was giving minimal notifications. When I hit 30 mins I decided to carry on and try and hit the 5k. Result: did it just under 40 mins. Elated! That was Saturday and 2 days later I feel good and ready to start a new programme. Active 5k to 10k looks like a go-er. B210K had some fairly bad reviews. 10k Pink looked like a starting programme for people who haven't done anything like C25K. Onwards and upwards. 9 weeks ago I could barely run for a minute, now 30+ is the standard!

Couch25K Week 7 Run 1

Man, if you thought Week 7 would be a return to small runs, think AGAIN! Run 1 is 25 mins no-break running with 5 mins either side, warm-up and warm down! A repeat of Week 6 Run 3. As it happened, I enjoyed it yesterday (Tuesday). It was hard work and unlike Wk6R3, I was aware of each of Claire's 5-minute warnings so that's what made it harder. I've learned to breathe independently of my stride. This is a huge improvement from Week 1 when I tried to match my breathing to my stride. Maybe it works for some but not me. Bedford Park is beautiful and as I was a little late starting at about 0620hrs, I saw a few more folk. There are the folk that say hello/acknowledge you and there are those that don't. This used to bother me before but not any more. Either I say hello first or they say hello ... if they respond to my greeting, all well and good ... if they don't then they were preoccupied or just loners. No skin of my nose. This running thing is so addictive and I want more data. I've had a look at the Polar Personal Trainer website but I feel a little short-changed on the data from my Polar FT7. And after all the shenanigans with Polar Support, I'm going to try out the Garmin Forerunner 410, recently discontinued GPS watch available at lovely prices, and have a look at what the Garmin website offers. Meantime roll on tomorrow morning and Run 2!

Couch25K Week 6 Run 3

On Saturday morning I was keen to get Run 3 done. This consisted of 25 mins non-stop running. My only target is to do the time and not concern myself with distance. I've got into the habit of running in Bedford Park. Nice environment and not as busy as the streets. Just after 6 am, the park is quiet bar the occasional visitor. Most noise comes from the squirrels who I discovered are accomplished scavengers. They scramble out of bins disturbed by my approach. My pace is slow and Claire's voice (Get Running Android app) is there to give me encouragement. The 1st 5 mins is reasonable. I concentrate on breathing naturally, in through the nose and out through the mouth. With all the warnings from my brother and brother-in-law about the risk of running at my age and weight (which was circa 248lbs at the start of the programme) I opt to mostly run on the grass at the side of the tar path. It's a little uneven and probably worse for me, in hindsight. Each 5 minute notification from Claire urges me on but this was a bit harder that Week 5 Run 3. From the start of that run I felt tremendous and after 5 mins I felt this was easy. Not so this time around, I don't feel as comfortable, it's hard work. I keep control of the breathing and keep to the pace. My worry is that there is no room to slow the pace if push come to shove, I am at the slowest pace I can go without stopping. Thankfully the 20 minute marker comes and I gain encouragement to keep going. I actually think about mindful meditation and if it's possible to meditate whilst running ... like walking meditation. I'm still contemplating that. Then the final minute comes ... 24 minutes done. I can actually increase my pace, not by much but enough to feel I am coming to the finish line. Yes, it's great to meet the target. I didn't feel as elated as on Week 5 Run 3, that 1st 20 mins complete was a major breakthrough... but I do feel good! 5 mins walking and then I do a bit of stretching. I need to spend some time learning what stretches I should do. I use the stretches from the Insanity programme, good old Sean T! I must start and finish that insane programme, one thing at a time, though! On Tuesday I'll start Week 7 Run 1. C'mon!

Couch25K Week 5 Run 3

It really seemed unlikely but this morning I ran for 20 mins. Super slowly, yes, but this Couch25K programme really works!!!

I was pretty worried about Run 3 as I struggled with the 1st 8 mins in Run 2 and then just managed to complete the 2nd 8 mins.

Anyway, today, the first 5 mins was easy and I felt so good that I thought maybe I really can do these 20 mins.

At 10 mins, Claire says "You've reached halfway and can turn back" and there I was awaiting for the 10 mins notice and then next thing I know , Claire says, "You have run for a quarter of an hour" or words to that effect! After that I knew that I was going to do it. When I got that final 60 secs warning I picked up the pace (well, a little).

It is such an awesome feeling from struggling in Week 4 to this. I think the whole of Bedford Park must have heard me shout "YES!!!" when I completed the run.

I have never run for more than 5 mins before this programme. Bring it on. Next, please!

Elated.

Mark D

Couch to 5K Week 5 Run 2

This couch potato has finally stepped up to do some exercise.

Now let's get this straight, right. I have NEVER run for any length of time beyond a 100m and that was school days which is a long, LONG time ago.

About 6 years ago I remember trying to jog with a small group of work colleagues. I don't think I lasted beyond 5-10 mins. Embarrassing but I put it down to just plain not enjoying running.

Anyway this Couch to 5K programme has got me hooked, so far so good.

I got my FitBit One going alongside my Polar FT7 heart rate monitor and using the android GetRunning app.

This had me starting in Week 1 with 8 x 1 min runs.

Week 4 finished with an introduction to a 5 minute run.

Week 5 is really exciting and very scary!

Run 1: 3 x 5 min runs ... which I managed to do!

Run 2: 2 x 8 min runs ... WOW!! Struggled with the 1st one as I over paced myself. 2nd one, slowly does it and made it. YAAAYYY!

Ok, it's the big one tomorrow.

Run 3: 1 x 20 mins ... er, sorry, what?! Ok, breathing and slow pace again. See how we go!

Report back later.

Pentaho and Designing Reports

I've spent a few weeks playing with the Pentaho Report Designer 3.5 and 3.6M2.

The idea was to replace some existing Excel pivot table 'complex' reports with web-enabled simple versions.
The Report Designer is a pretty user friendly tool.
My one issue is the regular pauses while the tool polls the query.
Actually it is a quite frustrating issue as no-one else on the forums seemed to suffer from similar.

Upon further investigation, I can see that we need to give our users more power.
I started to look at Pentaho Metadata and then Pentaho Analysis Reports/Mondrian.

Over the past week I have spent playing with the Schema Editor, Mondrian and OLAP.
This is the good stuff. Where there is always initial reluctance to use something new, Pentaho Analysis Reports is probably much better than Excel Pivot tables and should easily pacify the converted user. After all they can still export their data to many forms including Excel.

Actually, I am really impressed by and excited with Pentaho Analysis Reporting, OLAP and this sort of report design. It is fantastic stuff and I can't wait to show some analysis reports to the users.

Pentaho Reporting - Reporting heaven

A few years ago we checked out Pentaho version 2 and it was looking a pretty cool product - actually suite of products.
As things happen the real demand for a change in reporting attitude has only happened more recently. And here I am implementing Pentaho BI Server 3.5.
The more I look at this, the more I like it, if at all possible!

Pentaho has made the switch from default JBoss installation to default Tomcat.
I can understand why as Tomcat is much easier to set up basically due to less complexity.
As an out and out JBoss follower I had the fun of getting the manual installation working. Now the problem with the opensource community flavour is that you have to hunt for the documentation. No doubt the Enterprise flavour comes with it all indexed clearly in one place!

I have turned to two books to assist.

Pentaho Solutions - Roland Bouman/Jos van Dongen - Great book for an overall in-depth guide to using the Pentaho suite! Excellent installation guide. However now that I want to focus on the Reporting I find I need even more detail hence the next book I have on order:

Pentaho Reporting 3.5 for Java Developers - this one should arrive at my door tomorrow but from the glossary this will provide the detailed guide I need for using the Reporting tools. Can't wait for it to arrive.

I've also invested in the Pentaho Community Dashboard Framework (CDF) tutorial and that is looking good.
Only just started the tutorial but the CDF has much promise!

Anyway, our users are getting excited by what they see on the BI server. I better get converting some of those horrible extremely heavy Excel pivot tables!