So much for my "Run long on the weekends and you can skip the days in-between" theory. As this article points out, you quickly lose conditioning without regular runs. Some more eye openers from the article:

• . . . training is exquisitely specific: you can acquire and maintain cardiovascular fitness with many activities, but if you want to keep your ability to row, or run, or swim, you have to do that exact activity.
• . . . people who work out sporadically, running on weekends, for instance, will never reach their potential. [this we all knew but I hate to see it validated]
• 'When training time is limited, Dr. Coyle said, “you have to decide where you will get the biggest performance bang for the hour you spend.” The key, he found in his research, is to substitute intensity of effort for time. “A runner who’s been running doesn’t need much time to maintain his performance,” Dr. Coyle said. “But the training needs to be almost like racing.”'

• But the good news is that it takes much less time to regain fitness for a specific sport than it did to become fit in the first place. Even exercise physiologists are surprised at how quickly the body can readapt when training resumes. Almost immediately, blood volume goes up, heartbeats become more powerful, and muscle mitochondria come back.

The Personal Best column in The New York Times is a favorite of mine. Lots of articles about improving your fitness for a particular sport, often focused on running. Here's a timely one on starting out too fast in the marathon: Keeping the Gauge Off 'E'.

. . .

The Houston Marathon, one of the two marathons I've run, is well organized, has great crowd support, and starts and finishes downtown. It's popular and this January's race is capped at 17,000 runners, 2,000 more than last year. On Friday's All Things Considered, NPR ran a story [listen here] about scalpers selling their Houston Marathon slots. You know it's a good race when people are selling their bibs on eBay.

Ripping off the headline and everything—but here's five choices that are relatively painless ways to improve the percentage of organics in your diet. Straight from the article in the New York Times (which is based on the work of Dr. Alan Greene and his book Raising Baby Green)"

1. Milk: “When you choose a glass of conventional milk, you are buying into a whole chemical system of agriculture,'’ says Dr. Greene. People who switch to organic milk typically do so because they are concerned about the antibiotics, artificial hormones and pesticides used in the commercial dairy industry.
2. Potatoes: Potatoes are a staple of the American diet — one survey found they account for 30 percent of our overall vegetable consumption. A simple switch to organic potatoes has the potential to have a big impact because commercially-farmed potatoes are some of the most pesticide-contaminated vegetables.
3. Peanut butter: More acres are devoted to growing peanuts than any other fruits, vegetable or nut, according to the U.S.D.A.
4. Ketchup: For some families, ketchup accounts for a large part of the household vegetable intake.
5. Apples: Apples are the second most commonly eaten fresh fruit, after bananas, and they are also used in the second most popular juice, after oranges, according to Dr. Greene. But apples are also one of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables.

I'd been waiting for bottled Accelerade last year during my training and kept hearing it would be available soon. It's now been out for several months and I picked up a couple bottles today at my local supermarket. I'm not running far enough to justify it but I figured having it ready when I needed it would be a good idea. At $2 per bottle it's not cheap but it tastes much better than the powder mix version.

A handy comparison chart here.

I packed up the Polar RS800sd and am shipping it back to RoadRunner Sports. The red button is too sensitive for daily wear and requires me to mash it down several times when I am running. Yes, it's has some nice features but for $460 I need it to be much better than it is. Too bad, because they now have a GPS sensor for the RS800 (instead of the W.I.N.D. sensor) and I'm sure they'll have other add-ons, too. But it was becoming more trouble than it was worth so I'll wait for the next version.

. . .

Yes, anyone can be a distance runner, but should they?

The advantages of running partners.

Finally, save yourself some money on a watch that measures distance and use this instead. Read the instructions, once you do it's a snap.

How's the RS800sd working? Not all that great:

• The OK button, the big red button you use to start/stop the exercise session, doesn't work very well. I have to mash it several times for it to acknowledge the start/stop. But at the same time the button is really sensitive to accidental presses--just brushing the face of the watch as I get into the car will often start an exercise. This happens at least three times per day. I've had three other Polar models and this is the worst in terms of usability because of the button design.
• I cannot get the watch to transfer data with Windows Vista X64. I don't blame Polar for this entirely, but it's still a bummer that I can't use my primary PC and have to use Wifey's which still runs XP.
• Calibrating the watch to the sensor is difficult--much more difficult than the S625X. Plus, the W.I.N.D. sensor wasn't easy to pair up with the watch. I finally figured it out, you need to delete all existing sensors before adding it, never mind the fact that the watch is new and had no existing sensor pairing.
• No temperature reading. My S625X provides temperature data as part of the exercise. Not a deal breaker but with the RS800sd being almost $100 more than the S625X, I don't expect to lose any features.

I'm giving it another week but right now it looks like it's going back and I'll spend the $60 for another WearLink transmitter for my S625X. Too bad because I really want to like this watch but it's too much of a hassle right now. I won't be the only one returning, either, according to the Amazon reviews . . .

I’ve had my Polar S625X for almost three years—most of them happy ones and I’ve really enjoyed having the near-real time pace information. It was a bit big and had its idiosyncrasies but it did what I wanted it to—gave me speed, distance, pace, and heart rate.

 The WearLink transmitter, the strap that you wear across your chest that provides heart rate info also was the first one from Polar to have a user-changeable battery. Basically a camera battery, it sure beat the previous models that required you to send the strap to Polar for a simple battery change.

I had to replace the battery for my WearLink transmitter about a year ago and I knew it was going to be trouble. The case cover requires a coin or a really large flat-head screwdriver to twist open the cover. The problem is that the plastic that the cover is made of is pretty soft and you need to exert a considerable amount of force to open it. In the process of this battery change I managed to strip the slot. I was able to put a fresh battery in and close it but I knew I’d never be able to open it again—the cover was stripped and no coin or screwdriver was going to be able to get a bite on it.

I hate being right. A few weeks ago I needed to replace the battery again and it was no use—the cover is completely stripped and nothing gets a decent enough bite on it to open it.

And how much is an entirely new WearLink strap? $60. This is probably part of Polar’s plan because when I went to Fleet Feet to buy the new strap I saw this new model—the RS800sd.  This one is purely a running watch—it doesn’t offer the cycling features that the S625x do but I haven’t been riding in a cricket’s age.

Well, I need a new strap, that’s $60 right there (plus tax so let’s call it $65). Then, the S625X does not have a user-replace battery on the wrist unit—opening it up and replacing it by anyone but Polar voids the warranty. And since my S625x is 3 years old the battery is likely to need replacing soon. Shipping, time, hassle, and the fee that Polar charges to replace this—let’s call this $25. And while the RS800sd is $422 at RoadRunner Sports (if you belong to the VIP club), there’s no shipping or tax. And both batteries are user-replaceable—wrist unit and WearLink transmitter (although I’ve already talked about the transmitter and that scam).

I was always bad at math but sometimes that can be a plus because in my mind the RS800sd seemed to be a wise choice. RoadRunner could have it to me in a few days and it might be the spark I need to get serious about running again. What price can you put on your health J ?

So a few days later the man in brown I love to see comes running up my sidewalk with the RoadRunner box. I drop everything I’m doing and carefully unpack it. To activate the watch (essentially turning it on for the first time) requires you to press the OK button twice. I press twice. Nothing happens. Press twice again, still blank. Again. Again. Harder. Harder. No dice. She’s DOA. Frickin’ Finns. And the Polar support line is already closed for the day. I call RoadRunner; they answer but can’t help me. Send it back they say. I elect to wait until tomorrow when I can get a hold of Polar support.

Early the next day I call Polar. Send it back they say. Thanks. Another call to RoadRunner. I explain my issue, tell them my watch is DOA and this impulse buy is quickly fading to buyer’s remorse. They say they’ll send another one without waiting for the dead one and have it shipped overnight, Saturday delivery, for free. They know how to quell a return; I have to hand it to them.

Saturday arrives, another man in brown comes running up my sidewalk, new watch in hand. Unbox it, press twice, see the entire display area go dark with liquid crystal. But then, nothing. After a few seconds it goes blank again. Repeat. Black screen, blank screen. No “Welcome to Polar” like it’s supposed to say before kicking off the configuration wizard. Frickin’ Finns.

Finally I figure out that the instructions are WRONG (they were wrong on the S625x, too) and you have to press OK twice and then DOWN. The wizard kicks off, enter age, weight, height, English, etc. But there’s another problem. The OK button doesn’t depress very well or maybe it’s not being registered properly but it doesn’t have much “travel” to it. The S610 was like this too but was improved in the S625x with that big red button. This is one of those tactile buttons that everyone hates—the kind where you’re not sure if you pressed it or not. I finally get through the config wizard but my confidence in this watch is already shaky. I’ve got a 60-day money-back guarantee with RoadRunner and I won’t be shy about returning it if this OK button ends up being an issue. I remember with the S610 I’d be rushing to get across some imaginary finish line and would try to stop the stopwatch and it wouldn’t respond—I’d be crushing the OK button to make it stop and it wouldn’t respond—you could never tell when the button was depressed.

Still early in the evaluation, however. There are some compelling features about the RS800sd and it is making me get up tomorrow for a run so I can calibrate it so maybe it’s operating exactly as it should.

Why this was in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times I don't understand but a good article about marathon programs and how they don't have to be time killers.

Some highlights:

• In last year’s New York City Marathon, 38,368 runners started and 37,869 finished — a 99 percent completion rate.
• At least half of last year’s marathoners used a minimal-mileage training plan, said Ryan Lamppa, a spokesman for Running USA.
• Contemporary marathon programs require neither twice-a-day workouts nor spouse-hauling. Indeed, the new watchwords of marathon training are moderation and specificity. Gone — for beginners, at least — are the six days a week of running routinely recommended in the 1970s. Absent, in most programs, are even consecutive days of running.

After a long hibernation from exercise and running, I'm back. A cleaner interface, an updated blog site, and a new elliptical trainer.

More to follow . . .