There's a schedule on my fridge.
I've been in what I would call Middle Distance Land for a good long while now, averaging 20 - 30 miles a week (mostly high 20's) and racing at 15K to half marathon distance. My schedule hasn't varied much in the past year or so; in fact sometimes I've wondered why I even bother to post my workouts, at the right. If it's Tuesday, I must be running and going to karate. Etc. Yawn. Hence, I really haven't had need for the old schedule on the fridge thing, since what I was doing was working, and I really didn't need a piece of paper to tell me to stick to the routine.
But it's time for me to get serious about this ultra thing, and to that end, I've come up with a training plan that is now printed up and posted. I came up with it by slightly modifying (rejiggering the days to suit my schedule) something out of some running magazine that I've had lying around since spring of 2008. I think because I have been toying with the ultra idea for such a long time, I was able to set a PR in settling on this schedule, a process that usually requires days of reviewing and comparing at least a half a dozen training plans and mapping out of multiple mock schedules. This time, I think it took me longer to type the thing out than it did to say, "Yep, that's it."
The schedule is not actually all that different from my current schedule, except that this one contains an actual rest day (well, two, theoretically, except one is Saturday, a karate day - but hey, I won't run or lift on that day!) and cuts my strength training from three to two days a week. And, of course, the mileage and particularly the long runs go up over time. For strength, I plan to continue with NROL/Abs for as long as it plays out (I'll have to talk about Phase 3 at some point - suffice it to say, I really like it so far). I may not experience much in terms of strength gains, but I wasn't really expecting to considering my running emphasis.
The race I'm shooting for is a 12 hour race to be held over Labor Day weekend. It's run on trails so I'm not really sure what I can realistically hope to do in terms of mileage. Minimally I'd like to do 50K and my goal of goals is to do 50m. We'll see, eh?
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Charlie Horse Half Marathon Race Report
When I see the words, "Charlie (or Charley) Horse," my first thought is of leg cramps. I've actually never had a charley horse, and don't associate quad cramps with running, so I wasn't sure how the name fit with the race - not that it really mattered. My goals were to get some more trail experience under my belt, and to increase my trail race distance, and the date and location of this race were perfect. Going into the race, I felt prepared for the distance but underprepared for the hills - something that will prove a challenge to overcome in my current running environs, but that I accept it for what it is for now. We also had to deal with an early season bout of the hot and humids, and on top of that I have been wrestling with a spring cold that was on the out but still left me with some congestion and the occasional coughing fit. Given the latter two, I went into the race with the goal of finishing, come what may and time be damned; if I had to walk up the steepest hills, I would.
Race morning, it took me about a minute to pack my race bag (Shoes? Check. Towel? Check. Apres-race change of clothes? Check.). The drive out was familiar and easy, and I arrived earlier than expected. The race was a point to point, so they bussed us to the start. Once loaded we got our pre-race briefing. The guy who did the briefing was pretty funny; for starters, he apologized for the weather, saying they had been shooting for more heat and humidity and that he hoped we weren't disappointed. He went on to describe the course, noted the location of the aid stations (miles 3, 6, 9, and 11), and that the course included a bit of water and "a few hills." Miles 9 - 11 would be on pavement, a mile down a steep hill and then a mile up a steep hill. After that, we entered Charlie's property, and all bets were off. We were warned we might encounter horses on the trail (Charlie? Horse? Get it??? ouch), and told to give way to them.
Had a nice chat with my seatmate on the way to the start; he was pretty new to running but had done a Tough Mudder (just what it sounds like) race in the fall and had enjoyed it. He had a Garmin Forerunner, which he loved; it was nice to see one up close. I'm not all that into gadgets and gear, but I've been thinking about getting a Forerunner lately, mainly because my tried and true method of mapping runs before I do them (and then correcting them afterwards when I reroute on the fly) is getting OLD. More and more, I just want to go out and run wherever my feet take me on a given day and stay out for time, but I'm compulsive about tracking distance, and I question my ability to recall my routes, particularly if I zone out along the way. So the Garmin, while clunky, seems an interesting idea...
But I digress. The trip to the start took for-freaking-ever, despite the fact that the bus drivers were going like 80 mph on the hilly, twisty back country roads. At the start, we were told there was but one working bathroom for last minute pit stops. More people that I expected got in line, while the rest of us sought out little girls' and boys' trees and shrubs. As we lined up, we were told that there were over 300 starters, and they expected something like 262 finishers (and they were close! there were 267 finishers); I guess that was based on data from prior races. I was surprised that they had such a high number of DNFs (did not finish), but then again, I've never really studied starter/finisher race stats, so what do I know?
After the singing of the national anthem (by us, of course), we were off! Naturally, the very first thing we did was cross a creek. Who wants to run a half marathon in dry shoes, after all? Thanks to my superior creek crossing skills and murky water piercing sonar, I managed to half step on a slippery rock and go down on my butt, so I had the added benefit of running the race in wet shorts, as well as shoes. As usual, we started into the hills almost immediately. The first one wasn't too bad, and then we came to a near stop on the down slope, thanks to a tree and several limbs lying across the path. There was no way around them, and only enough room for one person to go over and/or under at a time (I did some of both), so we came out of that fairly spaced out. From that point on, I didn't pass many people and very few people passed me. I found that pretty unusual, but I guess we'd sorted ourselves out pretty well, in terms of pace, in that first mile or so.
On the whole, the first six miles were HARD. The hills were steep and I made good on my forethought to walk up the steep parts, which frankly, was most of the uphills. Even some of the downhills were slow, thanks to lots of loose rock. I've learned that my greatest fear on the downhills is not of falling, but of having someone behind me fall and take me down with him or her. The trails were often single track, so there was effectively no passing, and hearing someone on your tail, pounding hard and breathing heavy, was - disconcerting. I suppose because of the stop at the tree and all the uphill walking, my overall pace was slower than I'd anticipated; after what seemed an unreasonably long time, I found myself at the second (six mile) aid station. I was at that point hoping they'd measured the distance wrong, and we were actually closer to or even more than halfway along the course (one can hope, right?) But no; the Garmin-wearing folk assured us all that we really were just six miles in. Fortunately this aid station had not only water and gatorade, but also M&Ms! (OK, and other junk food as well, but I only had eyes for the peanut M&Ms.)
Thus refueled, I headed out on the back side of the course. I wish I had more to say about miles 6 - 9, but I seem to have run those miles in some sort of a time warp. There were more hills (and bugs!), but the downhills were less rocky. My pace definitely picked up, and before I knew it, I was at the road section of the course. At that point I was running near a guy who had done a lot of ultra and trail running, and who had done this course many times before. Apparently, what was now a road section was just a few years ago a trail section; however a new (and fairly small) development had gone in, and the road more or less followed the old trail. Folks who lived along the road were pretty cool; quite a few came out to cheer us on. One family set up its own aid station, and more than one had sprinklers out for us to run through (yay, people!). As promised, both the downhill and uphill sections were steep; the gal I was running next to and I were joking about needing overspeed brakes or parachutes.
And then, we hit Charlie's section of the course. We had been warned, prior to the start, that there would be a mud pit later on the course, that there was no way around it, and that we'd better make sure our shoes were laced tightly because otherwise, we might lose them. What they did not tell us, perhaps because they didn't know, was that there would be many, many mudpits on that last section of the course. Perhaps Charlie, who I'm guessing is a real person, figured what with the mud run craze, he might as well follow suit. Whatever the case, we had a series of drops into water up to waist deep (on me, anyway), with entries so slick you had to slide in and exits so steep you needed a rope (thankfully provided) to get out. Then the trail actually ran IN the creek for a while, which I must say, felt really good - plus it washed off much of the mud you'd gathered by that point. No worries, though, as there was more mud to come, this time much thicker, boggier mud that there was no doin' nothin' but wading through and hoping you didn't misstep and fall.
After that, there was perhaps a mile of trail left to run, frankenstein-like in mud-caked shoes. Near the finish, they had a fire hose spraying out over the trial, but it didn't really put a dent in the filth. From there the trail popped out of the woods, then over a wooden bridge, then on to the finish. Woo!
Thankfully there was a hose available after the finish to wash off off the mud. I took off my shoes and socks (there was mud IN my shoes) and deconned them as best I could; some people were talking about tossing their shoes, which seemed a little extreme to me, but I could see why one would do that. My socks are goners, for sure. I hosed off my legs - I was muddy to around mid-thigh (sex-ay!) - and padded barefoot back to the car to change. Perhaps the only small bummer of the day was that there was no real finisher trinket. Instead, we got a pair of socks (to replace the ones we'd killed on course?) and could BUY a finisher mug if we wanted. Granted, the were cheap, but I don't carry money with me when I run races, and by the time I'd cleaned up and walked back up(hill) to the car, I wasn't in the mood to walk back down for a mug. So, aside from the race shirt and a pair of socks I managed to get dirty before I even walked out of the finish area, no souvenirs for this race.
I found out later when checking the scores that I finished 5th in my age group (they gave awards to 4th place, naturally), which just suggests to me that not many women in my age group ran on that particular day. LOL. It was a fun experience overall, and I'd be happy to do that race again. I'm grateful for every bit of training I did going into that race, from the roadwork to the gym work, and I have a much better feel overall for what kind of training I need to do if I plan to keep moving onward and upward, distance and elevation-wise, in my trail racing.
Race morning, it took me about a minute to pack my race bag (Shoes? Check. Towel? Check. Apres-race change of clothes? Check.). The drive out was familiar and easy, and I arrived earlier than expected. The race was a point to point, so they bussed us to the start. Once loaded we got our pre-race briefing. The guy who did the briefing was pretty funny; for starters, he apologized for the weather, saying they had been shooting for more heat and humidity and that he hoped we weren't disappointed. He went on to describe the course, noted the location of the aid stations (miles 3, 6, 9, and 11), and that the course included a bit of water and "a few hills." Miles 9 - 11 would be on pavement, a mile down a steep hill and then a mile up a steep hill. After that, we entered Charlie's property, and all bets were off. We were warned we might encounter horses on the trail (Charlie? Horse? Get it??? ouch), and told to give way to them.
Had a nice chat with my seatmate on the way to the start; he was pretty new to running but had done a Tough Mudder (just what it sounds like) race in the fall and had enjoyed it. He had a Garmin Forerunner, which he loved; it was nice to see one up close. I'm not all that into gadgets and gear, but I've been thinking about getting a Forerunner lately, mainly because my tried and true method of mapping runs before I do them (and then correcting them afterwards when I reroute on the fly) is getting OLD. More and more, I just want to go out and run wherever my feet take me on a given day and stay out for time, but I'm compulsive about tracking distance, and I question my ability to recall my routes, particularly if I zone out along the way. So the Garmin, while clunky, seems an interesting idea...
But I digress. The trip to the start took for-freaking-ever, despite the fact that the bus drivers were going like 80 mph on the hilly, twisty back country roads. At the start, we were told there was but one working bathroom for last minute pit stops. More people that I expected got in line, while the rest of us sought out little girls' and boys' trees and shrubs. As we lined up, we were told that there were over 300 starters, and they expected something like 262 finishers (and they were close! there were 267 finishers); I guess that was based on data from prior races. I was surprised that they had such a high number of DNFs (did not finish), but then again, I've never really studied starter/finisher race stats, so what do I know?
After the singing of the national anthem (by us, of course), we were off! Naturally, the very first thing we did was cross a creek. Who wants to run a half marathon in dry shoes, after all? Thanks to my superior creek crossing skills and murky water piercing sonar, I managed to half step on a slippery rock and go down on my butt, so I had the added benefit of running the race in wet shorts, as well as shoes. As usual, we started into the hills almost immediately. The first one wasn't too bad, and then we came to a near stop on the down slope, thanks to a tree and several limbs lying across the path. There was no way around them, and only enough room for one person to go over and/or under at a time (I did some of both), so we came out of that fairly spaced out. From that point on, I didn't pass many people and very few people passed me. I found that pretty unusual, but I guess we'd sorted ourselves out pretty well, in terms of pace, in that first mile or so.
On the whole, the first six miles were HARD. The hills were steep and I made good on my forethought to walk up the steep parts, which frankly, was most of the uphills. Even some of the downhills were slow, thanks to lots of loose rock. I've learned that my greatest fear on the downhills is not of falling, but of having someone behind me fall and take me down with him or her. The trails were often single track, so there was effectively no passing, and hearing someone on your tail, pounding hard and breathing heavy, was - disconcerting. I suppose because of the stop at the tree and all the uphill walking, my overall pace was slower than I'd anticipated; after what seemed an unreasonably long time, I found myself at the second (six mile) aid station. I was at that point hoping they'd measured the distance wrong, and we were actually closer to or even more than halfway along the course (one can hope, right?) But no; the Garmin-wearing folk assured us all that we really were just six miles in. Fortunately this aid station had not only water and gatorade, but also M&Ms! (OK, and other junk food as well, but I only had eyes for the peanut M&Ms.)
Thus refueled, I headed out on the back side of the course. I wish I had more to say about miles 6 - 9, but I seem to have run those miles in some sort of a time warp. There were more hills (and bugs!), but the downhills were less rocky. My pace definitely picked up, and before I knew it, I was at the road section of the course. At that point I was running near a guy who had done a lot of ultra and trail running, and who had done this course many times before. Apparently, what was now a road section was just a few years ago a trail section; however a new (and fairly small) development had gone in, and the road more or less followed the old trail. Folks who lived along the road were pretty cool; quite a few came out to cheer us on. One family set up its own aid station, and more than one had sprinklers out for us to run through (yay, people!). As promised, both the downhill and uphill sections were steep; the gal I was running next to and I were joking about needing overspeed brakes or parachutes.
And then, we hit Charlie's section of the course. We had been warned, prior to the start, that there would be a mud pit later on the course, that there was no way around it, and that we'd better make sure our shoes were laced tightly because otherwise, we might lose them. What they did not tell us, perhaps because they didn't know, was that there would be many, many mudpits on that last section of the course. Perhaps Charlie, who I'm guessing is a real person, figured what with the mud run craze, he might as well follow suit. Whatever the case, we had a series of drops into water up to waist deep (on me, anyway), with entries so slick you had to slide in and exits so steep you needed a rope (thankfully provided) to get out. Then the trail actually ran IN the creek for a while, which I must say, felt really good - plus it washed off much of the mud you'd gathered by that point. No worries, though, as there was more mud to come, this time much thicker, boggier mud that there was no doin' nothin' but wading through and hoping you didn't misstep and fall.
After that, there was perhaps a mile of trail left to run, frankenstein-like in mud-caked shoes. Near the finish, they had a fire hose spraying out over the trial, but it didn't really put a dent in the filth. From there the trail popped out of the woods, then over a wooden bridge, then on to the finish. Woo!
Thankfully there was a hose available after the finish to wash off off the mud. I took off my shoes and socks (there was mud IN my shoes) and deconned them as best I could; some people were talking about tossing their shoes, which seemed a little extreme to me, but I could see why one would do that. My socks are goners, for sure. I hosed off my legs - I was muddy to around mid-thigh (sex-ay!) - and padded barefoot back to the car to change. Perhaps the only small bummer of the day was that there was no real finisher trinket. Instead, we got a pair of socks (to replace the ones we'd killed on course?) and could BUY a finisher mug if we wanted. Granted, the were cheap, but I don't carry money with me when I run races, and by the time I'd cleaned up and walked back up(hill) to the car, I wasn't in the mood to walk back down for a mug. So, aside from the race shirt and a pair of socks I managed to get dirty before I even walked out of the finish area, no souvenirs for this race.
I found out later when checking the scores that I finished 5th in my age group (they gave awards to 4th place, naturally), which just suggests to me that not many women in my age group ran on that particular day. LOL. It was a fun experience overall, and I'd be happy to do that race again. I'm grateful for every bit of training I did going into that race, from the roadwork to the gym work, and I have a much better feel overall for what kind of training I need to do if I plan to keep moving onward and upward, distance and elevation-wise, in my trail racing.
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| Race shirt and finisher - socks? |
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| Post races shoes - which didn't start out white - and socks, which did. The shoes took three days to dry completely. |
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Executive Decision
I very rarely do this, but I have decided to cut Phase 2 of NROL/Abs a bit shorter than intended. The book recommends you do both workouts from each stage 6 - 8 times. I had planned to do 8, and have done 7 to date, but I find myself 4 days out from a trail half marathon with a nasty head cold, and at this point discretion seems the better part of valor. My workout Monday was far from my best and I don't know that I'd have much to gain from doing two more sub-par workouts as opposed to letting the bod spend the energy on getting healthy. I don't find this particularly satisfying, but I also don't want to keel over on the trail, so there you have it. I'll pick up with stage 3 after the half, which should take me though around 4th of July, if I keep doing it three days a week.
Which, I might not. My long runs are of necessity only going to get longer. In fact most ultra training plans I've perused include the principle of weekend doubles - longer runs both days - bracketed by rest days on Monday and Friday, days on which I now usually lift. Further complicating things is the fact that karate starts early on Saturdays - I'm usually at the dojo by 7:25 and don't get home until nearly 10 - which does not leave a lot of time for a pre-class run, and who wants to run mid-day in the heat of summer? So, I have some schedule wrasslin' to do. Yay.
Which, I might not. My long runs are of necessity only going to get longer. In fact most ultra training plans I've perused include the principle of weekend doubles - longer runs both days - bracketed by rest days on Monday and Friday, days on which I now usually lift. Further complicating things is the fact that karate starts early on Saturdays - I'm usually at the dojo by 7:25 and don't get home until nearly 10 - which does not leave a lot of time for a pre-class run, and who wants to run mid-day in the heat of summer? So, I have some schedule wrasslin' to do. Yay.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Grades
Checked online today, and found that to my complete expectation, I got A's in my classes. Woo, nonetheless! I spent a good part of today sorting through application packages, assessing where I am, and thinking I might have to take another course or two, anyway. Blah. But I have the big ones out of the way, and am still focusing now on 1) work, and 2) looking for a PT volunteer position. Thanks to a very painful but ultimately fruitful shopping expedition, I now actually have an outfit I could comfortably wear in a professional situation. I also came to the realization that my hair has got to go at some point. It's long, thick, and wavy, and frankly I just keep it long because it's easy, not so much because I like it or am attached to it. But standing in a dressing room in real grown-up clothes, I had a bit of a rude awakening; it really detracts from the overall picture. So, it's going to go, although I'm not sure when.
Today I did a run I've been wanting to do for a while - hill repeats. I went to the nastiest hill within reasonable running distance (which truly is a relative description) and did four trips up. Considered doing five, but I was dragging up the last part of the fourth trip, so I called it quits there. It's not a BAD hill; it's a good 250m of increasingly steep climb in a shaded area that seldom has much traffic. So the plan will be to do this workout every other week, and add one repeat each go. That should get me to 10 by end of summer, just prior to the 12 hour race. Right now I can't picture doing that thing 10 times, but by then, hopefully it won't kill me.
Oh yeah, and because I have happily recovered it - possibly my favorite picture of Grif:
Cutie pie often sits like that, with his head cocked to one side. He's about 8 months old in this photo.
Today I did a run I've been wanting to do for a while - hill repeats. I went to the nastiest hill within reasonable running distance (which truly is a relative description) and did four trips up. Considered doing five, but I was dragging up the last part of the fourth trip, so I called it quits there. It's not a BAD hill; it's a good 250m of increasingly steep climb in a shaded area that seldom has much traffic. So the plan will be to do this workout every other week, and add one repeat each go. That should get me to 10 by end of summer, just prior to the 12 hour race. Right now I can't picture doing that thing 10 times, but by then, hopefully it won't kill me.
Oh yeah, and because I have happily recovered it - possibly my favorite picture of Grif:
Cutie pie often sits like that, with his head cocked to one side. He's about 8 months old in this photo.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Rest
Took a rare rest day today. Yesterday's run took a pretty good chunk out of me, which isn't really surprising. I haven't run that far since I was training for Marine Corps, and I ran that in 2006. That was the end of my buildup for this next half; I'll take it easier next Sunday, then the half is the following weekend. After that it'll be about prepping for the 12 hour, and that just means the weekend long runs will get longer. I do recall usually really wanting/needing the day off after Long Run Day, and it's not something I plan to begrudge myself going forward. So I'll have to think about how I want to balance things for the last phase of NROL/Abs, which will start for me the week after the half. Might shorten it (just do six, as opposed to 8 workouts), might just do two workouts a week, might wait to install the Really Long Run until after the phase is done... although that would leave just two months of build up time, which is probably not the best idea. Not something I'm deciding today, however.
Attempted to go clothes shopping today. Now that I'm out of school for the forseeable future, I need to find full time employment. However, I haven't had the kind of job where I had to wear Real Clothes (meaning, not jeans) on a daily basis in over 10 years. Added to that, when I DID have that kind of job, I also carried 10 - 15# more weight than I do now, so the few remnants I have from that era are not only out of date, but don't fit. I don't know what kind of work I will wind up doing - frankly I don't really care what it is so long as it's not clerical work - so I'm just thinking, presentable initial interview outfit for now, and will fill in the details later. But I completely struck out today. Couldn't find a single pair of pants in my size, whatever that is, and it's not like I didn't look. I spoke with the store clerks and apparently they get in very few clothes in smaller sizes, and they are snatched up right away. I even looked in the juniors department, and had the same issue, namely the insanely long inseam. For whatever reason, I could find TONS of pants in petite length in sizes 8 - 16; do they not think smaller people come in short sizes, too? Because I had on some size 2 pants that HAD to have a 34" inseam. WTF?
I finally hit the burnout point and came home. Tomorrow is another day.
Attempted to go clothes shopping today. Now that I'm out of school for the forseeable future, I need to find full time employment. However, I haven't had the kind of job where I had to wear Real Clothes (meaning, not jeans) on a daily basis in over 10 years. Added to that, when I DID have that kind of job, I also carried 10 - 15# more weight than I do now, so the few remnants I have from that era are not only out of date, but don't fit. I don't know what kind of work I will wind up doing - frankly I don't really care what it is so long as it's not clerical work - so I'm just thinking, presentable initial interview outfit for now, and will fill in the details later. But I completely struck out today. Couldn't find a single pair of pants in my size, whatever that is, and it's not like I didn't look. I spoke with the store clerks and apparently they get in very few clothes in smaller sizes, and they are snatched up right away. I even looked in the juniors department, and had the same issue, namely the insanely long inseam. For whatever reason, I could find TONS of pants in petite length in sizes 8 - 16; do they not think smaller people come in short sizes, too? Because I had on some size 2 pants that HAD to have a 34" inseam. WTF?
I finally hit the burnout point and came home. Tomorrow is another day.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Computer saga, Le Fin (I hope)
... or, I think I finally lost some of my Mac naivete, for whatever it was worth.
When I posted yesterday, I was convinced my computer issues had been caused by an internal Mac software problem; however I was also still convinced there was some problem lurking within my external hard drive. That was because Time Machine, the built-in Mac back up system that writes to that drive, had been working flawlessly up until a couple of months ago; now that it was reinstalled, all fresh and pristine, it should be working perfectly, and yet I was still getting a very unhelpful error message when I tried to run it. So with the OS (theoretically) being clean, what else, besides the drive, could it be?
So... I started external hard drive shopping. But I had all manner of nagging thoughts. What if I was wrong, yet again? What if I shelled out for a new drive, only to find that IT didn't work, either? And why, if my current drive wouldn't work as an automatic back up, did it behave perfectly when I used it as a manual back up prior to my whitewashing the system? Did I really understand the problem? The answer to that very obviously being no, I embarked on a Quest for Understanding.
I would make a long story long, as is my wont, but I truly can't recall everything I did or learned. I can only say that I am FAR from being alone in having issues with Time Machine. I learned how to find error codes and tracked them down; found fixes for them that did nothing for me. I installed an error logger that showed me more error codes and found fixes for them that also did nothing for me. I learned how to reindex Spotlight, something I didn't even know I had. I read blogs of Mac geeks who wrestled through the same problems, found the same error codes, and tried the same fixes as I did; while a few were able to resolve their issues, many couldn't. After a good solid six hours of this (no exaggeration), I decided if a bunch of Mac brainiacs couldn't solve this, no way would I, so I did what I think was the next best thing: abandon the Time Machine ship and buy a third party backup program. The one I picked is called SuperDuper!, and gets very good ratings from totally geektastic Mac-o-philes. While it will reportedly do advanced tricks for power users, it is also completely MacIdiot friendly, with a simple, predictable interface, and to my utter relief, it works and plays happily with that external hard drive I was looking to replace. Le. Fin.
And now, to continue a tour of some of my favorite photos:
When I posted yesterday, I was convinced my computer issues had been caused by an internal Mac software problem; however I was also still convinced there was some problem lurking within my external hard drive. That was because Time Machine, the built-in Mac back up system that writes to that drive, had been working flawlessly up until a couple of months ago; now that it was reinstalled, all fresh and pristine, it should be working perfectly, and yet I was still getting a very unhelpful error message when I tried to run it. So with the OS (theoretically) being clean, what else, besides the drive, could it be?
So... I started external hard drive shopping. But I had all manner of nagging thoughts. What if I was wrong, yet again? What if I shelled out for a new drive, only to find that IT didn't work, either? And why, if my current drive wouldn't work as an automatic back up, did it behave perfectly when I used it as a manual back up prior to my whitewashing the system? Did I really understand the problem? The answer to that very obviously being no, I embarked on a Quest for Understanding.
I would make a long story long, as is my wont, but I truly can't recall everything I did or learned. I can only say that I am FAR from being alone in having issues with Time Machine. I learned how to find error codes and tracked them down; found fixes for them that did nothing for me. I installed an error logger that showed me more error codes and found fixes for them that also did nothing for me. I learned how to reindex Spotlight, something I didn't even know I had. I read blogs of Mac geeks who wrestled through the same problems, found the same error codes, and tried the same fixes as I did; while a few were able to resolve their issues, many couldn't. After a good solid six hours of this (no exaggeration), I decided if a bunch of Mac brainiacs couldn't solve this, no way would I, so I did what I think was the next best thing: abandon the Time Machine ship and buy a third party backup program. The one I picked is called SuperDuper!, and gets very good ratings from totally geektastic Mac-o-philes. While it will reportedly do advanced tricks for power users, it is also completely MacIdiot friendly, with a simple, predictable interface, and to my utter relief, it works and plays happily with that external hard drive I was looking to replace. Le. Fin.
And now, to continue a tour of some of my favorite photos:
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| Locke Ober, my bud of many years. |
Friday, May 13, 2011
My tale of woe - or, BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER! NOW, YOU FOOL!
I feel as if I've been in a blender these past ten days or so. Push for finals, lots of family activity, more pushing for finals, Acing the finals (thank you very much), and a colossal computer malfunction.
There's not much to say about the finals; I studied damned hard and although I don't officially know my grades, I came out of them knowing they went well. My grades were solid enough going in that I'd have had to have bombed the exams to have hurt my final grade, but who wants to go out on anything but a really strong note? So I went for that, and came out feeling I had it. (I did get 100% on the last lab practical, that much I know for sure.) So, school over for now.
The computer story:
I have a Mac, which I do love, but which has not been the trouble-free Machine of Paradise I expected it to be. While I tend to get curious about how natural, mechanical, and structural things work, computers are none of the above, and it is an understatement to say I'm not all that interested in them from a functional standpoint - I generally just want them to do their job without my having to get bogged down in a lot of details. To that end, I don't do a lot of funky things on them. I surf the intertubes, organize photos, do music, write, play a few simple games.... I don't download crazy shit, am wary of where I surf, and until recently always backed up my hard drive.
Until recently, because for reasons I still don't understand, the Time Machine function on this Mac ceased to function several months ago. I figured it had to be something on my external hard drive, because what goes wrong with a Mac? Right? So after trying a lot of trouble shooting and finally taking a very deep breath, I blew away my backup drive, with the expectation that THAT would cure my problem and I'd be back in the time machine business.
Not so. However, I decided that for the short term, I'd fly without that particular net. I am a poor student and shelling out for a new drive didn't seem all that critical; although I've ALWAYS had a back-up drive (my earliest one was actually a tape drive), I've never once used it. Still, better to have and not to need, than need and not to have, right? But what goes wrong with Macs?
So... Tuesday after school, I was translating a couple of files to MP3 format so I could listen to them on a much needed, post exam cooling off walk, when my computer, which had been acting crotchety for a while, just stopped. Pinweel of Death, couldn't click on a damned thing kind of stopped. I tried nice reboots, and not so nice reboots; my dock (basically, the Mac's functional menu) wouldn't pop up, and while I could get to most programs via a second route, it took for-freaking-ever for anything to load. I was absolutely not in a state of mind to deal with this at the moment, so I shut the thing down and went for a walk.
Next day I ran a diagnostic on the thing. Mac diagnostics are actually lame as hell compared to PC diagnostics. It essentially told me my computer was fucked up (no! Really?) and I should take a flier at it with the start-up disc. So I spent much of the rest of the day offloading (or so I thought) everything I could on to the drive that used to serve as my back-up (why it seems to work perfectly well that way and NOT for Time Machine is beyond me, but that's how it is), figuring this was probably, one way or another, going to come down to my having to blow everything away and reinstall the system.
And it did. I put in the start up disc, ran the diagnostic on IT, which told me I had a software problem, not a hardware problem - my first actual piece of diagnostic data. I spent several hours trying diagnostic things suggested on the Mac help page; most of them, the computer wouldn't do; I couldn't even get a Pinwheel of Death out of it, just no response. After what seemed like a baseball game's worth of strike outs, I learned what at the time seemed like a single useful thing; my OS had a feature called Archive and Reinstall, which would magically save all of my settings and personal shit whilst the OS installed itself, then reinstall them. So emboldened, and thinking I'd done a good job of backing things up Just in Case, I jumped off the Reinstall cliff.
The whole process took several hours, and to make a long story short, I could not Archive and Reinstall. I don't know why; I was just told in MacEse that my computer was too fucked up for that. So I had to do a total reinstall. Which my computer told me, in MacEse, that it could not do, because my computer was too fucked up. Would I like to try again? And again? It finally went, and when I tried to reload my personal info from my back up drive, I found that my incomplete knowledge of Mac file structure had lead me to believe I'd saved certain things - namely, ALL of my photographs and my iTunes library - when I hadn't.
At this point I literally sat down on the floor and cried. It was like a huge piece of my life was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it - and it was all my fault. That was a very, very hard pill to swallow. The iTunes, I can rebuild in time; I am such a Luddite in that area that most of what I had I've downloaded from CDs, so I can rebuild almost all of it. The pictures, though - that really hurts. To the good, I have shared enough of them over the years that I have uploaded a lot of my favorites to places like Photobucket and ImageShack, so I have those, at the very least.
So I'm rebuilding things slowly. And I'm shopping for a new back-up drive.
Lessons learned:
1) Macs are not holy things that always work as advertised.
2) No matter how trustworthy your computer, don't trust it: back up early, and often. Really.
3) If you do manual backups, make sure you understand your file structure so you're actually saving what you think your saving.
4) Have someone who's more knowledgeable than you check your work.
5) Oh yea, and back up early, and often. Srsly.
Baby Grif says so.
There's not much to say about the finals; I studied damned hard and although I don't officially know my grades, I came out of them knowing they went well. My grades were solid enough going in that I'd have had to have bombed the exams to have hurt my final grade, but who wants to go out on anything but a really strong note? So I went for that, and came out feeling I had it. (I did get 100% on the last lab practical, that much I know for sure.) So, school over for now.
The computer story:
I have a Mac, which I do love, but which has not been the trouble-free Machine of Paradise I expected it to be. While I tend to get curious about how natural, mechanical, and structural things work, computers are none of the above, and it is an understatement to say I'm not all that interested in them from a functional standpoint - I generally just want them to do their job without my having to get bogged down in a lot of details. To that end, I don't do a lot of funky things on them. I surf the intertubes, organize photos, do music, write, play a few simple games.... I don't download crazy shit, am wary of where I surf, and until recently always backed up my hard drive.
Until recently, because for reasons I still don't understand, the Time Machine function on this Mac ceased to function several months ago. I figured it had to be something on my external hard drive, because what goes wrong with a Mac? Right? So after trying a lot of trouble shooting and finally taking a very deep breath, I blew away my backup drive, with the expectation that THAT would cure my problem and I'd be back in the time machine business.
Not so. However, I decided that for the short term, I'd fly without that particular net. I am a poor student and shelling out for a new drive didn't seem all that critical; although I've ALWAYS had a back-up drive (my earliest one was actually a tape drive), I've never once used it. Still, better to have and not to need, than need and not to have, right? But what goes wrong with Macs?
So... Tuesday after school, I was translating a couple of files to MP3 format so I could listen to them on a much needed, post exam cooling off walk, when my computer, which had been acting crotchety for a while, just stopped. Pinweel of Death, couldn't click on a damned thing kind of stopped. I tried nice reboots, and not so nice reboots; my dock (basically, the Mac's functional menu) wouldn't pop up, and while I could get to most programs via a second route, it took for-freaking-ever for anything to load. I was absolutely not in a state of mind to deal with this at the moment, so I shut the thing down and went for a walk.
Next day I ran a diagnostic on the thing. Mac diagnostics are actually lame as hell compared to PC diagnostics. It essentially told me my computer was fucked up (no! Really?) and I should take a flier at it with the start-up disc. So I spent much of the rest of the day offloading (or so I thought) everything I could on to the drive that used to serve as my back-up (why it seems to work perfectly well that way and NOT for Time Machine is beyond me, but that's how it is), figuring this was probably, one way or another, going to come down to my having to blow everything away and reinstall the system.
And it did. I put in the start up disc, ran the diagnostic on IT, which told me I had a software problem, not a hardware problem - my first actual piece of diagnostic data. I spent several hours trying diagnostic things suggested on the Mac help page; most of them, the computer wouldn't do; I couldn't even get a Pinwheel of Death out of it, just no response. After what seemed like a baseball game's worth of strike outs, I learned what at the time seemed like a single useful thing; my OS had a feature called Archive and Reinstall, which would magically save all of my settings and personal shit whilst the OS installed itself, then reinstall them. So emboldened, and thinking I'd done a good job of backing things up Just in Case, I jumped off the Reinstall cliff.
The whole process took several hours, and to make a long story short, I could not Archive and Reinstall. I don't know why; I was just told in MacEse that my computer was too fucked up for that. So I had to do a total reinstall. Which my computer told me, in MacEse, that it could not do, because my computer was too fucked up. Would I like to try again? And again? It finally went, and when I tried to reload my personal info from my back up drive, I found that my incomplete knowledge of Mac file structure had lead me to believe I'd saved certain things - namely, ALL of my photographs and my iTunes library - when I hadn't.
At this point I literally sat down on the floor and cried. It was like a huge piece of my life was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it - and it was all my fault. That was a very, very hard pill to swallow. The iTunes, I can rebuild in time; I am such a Luddite in that area that most of what I had I've downloaded from CDs, so I can rebuild almost all of it. The pictures, though - that really hurts. To the good, I have shared enough of them over the years that I have uploaded a lot of my favorites to places like Photobucket and ImageShack, so I have those, at the very least.
So I'm rebuilding things slowly. And I'm shopping for a new back-up drive.
Lessons learned:
1) Macs are not holy things that always work as advertised.
2) No matter how trustworthy your computer, don't trust it: back up early, and often. Really.
3) If you do manual backups, make sure you understand your file structure so you're actually saving what you think your saving.
4) Have someone who's more knowledgeable than you check your work.
5) Oh yea, and back up early, and often. Srsly.
Baby Grif says so.
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