Ginger

While ginger is a great thing for both runners and #notarunner s alike and has many benefits I’m actually referring to another ginger right now.

I’m not sure why she didn’t come up in my feed before but I came across Wild Ginger Films youtube channel while doing a search for packing for an ultra marathon.

I think she has a great perspective on running and especially ultra-running and her channel has a number of good videos, videos that I’ve found directly relevant to my training and planning for running.

Because she currently has a lower number of subs than many bigger channels this I think keeps her from showing up in suggested/recommended lists and that’s a shame.

I highly recommend you check her channel out and if there’s something there that you find useful then go ahead and sub to the channel.

Vlogging Little Rock Marathon

I knew it was going to be fewer but I was surprised at how few clips I did record on the Little Rock Marathon 2018.   Frankly it was a boring race for the most part and the last 1/3 was very painful both physically and mentally wondering just how much damage I was doing to myself.

But I’m happy to report the mic set up I used worked really well.  The sound is clear and crisp and there’s no scritchy noises and no wind noise.   I’ll work on compiling it and posting it but it’s not all that good and frankly would just be for a few people who were there or are part of my running crew that would care.

This is the mic I used and will be using.  I drilled a hole in a spare GoPro housing I picked up cheap that I feed the USB through and with the gopro on my custom self stick which has room for the mic to sit inside it’s pretty compact without a lot of snag material.

You can get the selfie stick over at my profile on thingiverse here.

Greenleaf 30K VLOG

I’ve spent my free time over the weekend cleaning up the audio of my GoPro footage during our 30K trail run at Greenleaf.  It has multiple issues, a) with the protective case on the mic can’t pick up anything and b) the 3D printed handle I made has a rough surface as does my hands so there’s bursts of screetch noise when I spin it in my hand.

But it was my first time attempting to use a GoPro so you live and learn.

To fix problem a) I’ve gotten an external mic and put a hole in the side of a spare case to attach it.  This is a 360 degree mic and since it’s not in the case it works much better.  Also since it’s separated by a wind foam guard it shouldn’t pick up scratching from my skin on the selfie stick.   I designed the selfie stick so it’s hollow and has four holes in a circle around the top so sound can hit the mic from any angle.  And the cordage fits down inside the handle making for a tidier package. To fix problem b) I think I’ll probably coat the handle in Plasti-Dip as well to reduce friction noises.

Anyway I finally got all the titles, audio, etc’s I care to add to my first running ‘vlog’ and it’s rendering now.   About an hour to render an hour of full 1080p video on my current primary rig using a Ryzen 1700 8 core CPU.

Gimbal not Gambit

After seeing the footage from our Greenleaf 30K I decided to look into ways to making that better and I settled on a Feiyu Tech G5 Gimbal.   In just some quick playing around with it it works fairly well.

I’m going to have to 3D print some shells though to use 18650 batteries as the 22650 it comes with is just super hard to find and I have a bunch of 18650’s for flashlights of various purposes.

It’s heavier than I thought but the craftsmanship is pretty good.

I picked the G5 for a few reasons, looks, it’s just a cleaner look than the other one I was looking at, it has a ‘selfie’ button that makes it easy to do a 180 of the camera, and it was $50 less than the other one I looked at.

Also DC Rainmaker has several months of use with this model and he didn’t say anything bad about it so that’s a big plus.

And a big reason to get a gimbal, a powered one anyway, is I just like toys.  All kinds of toys.   I could have 3D printed a weight based gimbal that would have helped.  But I needed a compact one that I can easily stow in my pack and this one fit the bill.

01272018 Greenleaf Run

So today we ran the Greenleaf Trail 30K.   It was a lot of fun.  At 19.5(ish) miles it was our longest distance and it took us a looong time.   At our skill levels there was just a lot of trail we couldn’t run without significant risk.  And with our first marathon in 4 weeks we chose to err on the side of caution.

This run was primarily just to have a long weekend run and to push our selves a bit.

We had a great time being outraged at the lack of flat ground, having to go miles on the side of a hill trying to walk on ground sloped at 45 degree angle which is super hard on the ankles.

Around mile 10 we got passed by a 67 year old woman, never did catch her.

Around mile 15-16 we started running into cramping problems with muscles we don’t normally use for due to road running primarily.  For me it was my inside groin muscles, the ones that run down the inside of your thighs.  For my RW it was hamstrings and assorted other places.

I used a GoPro for the first time and filmed some snippets on each mile although mile 18 and 19 got lost although I was able to do a second mile 19.  Battery failure.  That was fun and I learned some things about filming on a run.  I now have a gimbal to help with keeping video steady that I need to learn to use.

When I get around to putting the videos together I’ll post them on the Run Salty channel on Youtube primarily for friends and family to pretend to enjoy watching.  It’s really about having the memories to look back on later on down the road.

All in all it was a good run for multiple reasons, a it was just a lot of fun, b it pushed us a bit in terms of effort both mental and physical, c it was a lot of fun.

Equipment used:

Lone Peak 3.5 from Altra – Held up well, they’re servicable, not my ideal shoe but good enough

Stryd FootPod – Does not work well with a mix of run hike.  Was almost a mile and a half short of the 19.5 run.

Garmin Fenix 5X  – Best option of the watches out there for me for various reasons.

Road ID – So someone can identify the body.

Google Pixel 2 XL – Wonderful camera for taking still images and streaming music.

Saloman Skin 12 – Wonderful vest, highly recommend.  Not perfect but very close.

Ultimate Directiojn Soft Flasks with Extended Nipples – Lets you drink your fuel without having to take the flask out.

Source Hydration Bladder – The Milspec version 2L with insulated hose in Coyote Brown

EFuel – Wonderful drink mix for fueling.  Works very well for me.

EGel – Wonderful gels for fueling.  Works very well for me.

GoPro Hero 4 Silver – Audio sucks while its in it’s case.   Just be aware.  Mounted to a selfie stick of my own design and 3D printed on a MakerWorks MendelMax 3 printer in PLA.

Garmin HR Senson on Polar Chest Belt – HR monitoring sucked for some reason with a metric butt ton of drop outs and missing data.

Underarmor bike shorts, Champion shorts, REI Thin Base Layer shirt, Halo skull cap