SDelete

So you're leaving your job or passing on your computer to a friend and you want to make sure the files you've deleted are truly inaccessible, non-recoverable, gone forever. SDelete to the rescue. I could try explaining how this great command line utility works but its author, Mark Russinovich of Sysinternals, does it very well here.

SDelete is also a great way to clear up free space. I was running low on disk space on C and after uninstalling a couple unnecessary programs and defragging, I ran SDelete with the -z parameter. It cleared up an additional 233 MBs of space.

Notes:
- Free space may decrease temporarily while running the utility. At one point, towards the end of the program, I received warnings about low disk space that I ignored.
- As is always the case when running programs that delete files, use caution. Once SDelete deletes them, there's no recovering them.

I've also used Sysinternals Process Explorer and Whois with great success.

Alley Dog

On September 12, 2006, I was driving down my alley and saw a beautiful dog tied up to the fence at the building next door from mine. After parking my car I went over to check the dog out. She had chewed through her leash but was still sitting in the space spot she'd been left. I coaxed her into the yard and found out she was as friendly as could be. After leaving my contact information at the spot where I found her, I introduced her to Forest to see if they'd get along, which they did swimmingly. Since she was tagless, we deciced to call her Rae Lynn after a friend from Loras who had similar colored hair.

Thinking maybe she was just lost, the following day I took her down to the Anti Cruelty Society who told me to take her to Animal Control. Animal Control said 9 of every 10 dogs they take in don't make it out alive and they couldn't assure me, that if after a few days she was still unclaimed, that they'd be able to contact me. I held out hope that I might get a call from her owner but quickly realized I was not going to get a call. So, I took her in and intended to hold her for a few days until a more permanent home could be found.

My neighbor Charles put me in touch with Sheri Berliner of Petraits who took the wonderful pictures you see below. She sent them out to her network of dog lovers, in addition to creating an adoption listing on petfinder.org. In the meantime, my upstairs neighbor started calling the new dog Allie in reference to where she was found. Allie and Forest kept each other company. They romped around outside and covered each other in slobber. She reminded him what it was like to root through the garbage. He honed her dog-wrassling skills. It was hard for me to walk both of them at the same time so I'd rotate walks or just let them have the run of the parking area in back.

A couple people called me after seeing Allie's pictures online but it was Toby and Susan who ended up adopting her. Toby was over the day I found her and she obviously left a lasting impression on him. His first reaction to the pictures below, according to google talk history, were "that is the adorablest dog ever.... she will be gone in a minute!" They've since renamed her Ginger after her beautiful coloring. She's now a part of their family and Forest and her, along with Justin and Jackie's dogs Hank and Willie have play dates every so often.

Training Week 14

Wednesday ~ 5 miles (laps between Bryn Mawr and Foster)

Training Week 13

18 miler
9 miler - home to cara fountain at diversey and back

Training Week 12

Having run 16 on Monday, I wisely opted to rest until Wednesday. I knew I wasn't going to run the suggested 8 miles so I told myself I'd run until the end of a David Gray cd I had loaded on my minidisc player. I never run with headphones but thought it would be fun to give a try. I started my run on the Lakefront Path but quickly realized it was late, dark, and I had not run through the neighborhood in a long time. I turned around at Foster, came back to Bryn Mawr, and made my way over to Clark. I ran down Clark past numerous cafes and restaurants, and zigzagged my way through the people who had just left them. It was nice to back in the old neighborhood again. Despite being just a few blocks away from where I live now, it has such a different feel from where I live, and a different feel than when I moved from there a little over three years ago. I ran p and down side streets to increase the distance but keep the area I covered compact. Although I definitely was sore from Monday's long run, I felt like I was keeping a decent pace. After doing the math, I ran this 5.5 mile route in about 55 minutes (elapsed time of A New Day at Midnight album + U2's Pride) for a 10 minute per mile pace.

Friday night I went out with a bunch of guys from work to German Fest. I knew from the very first sip of the Moscow Mule (vodka cut with ginger beer) Jeremy poured that I might not be able to get up early for the 12 miler Liz and I had planned for the next morning. The massive mugs of beer at the fest confirmed that though. I texted her around 1:30am that my vote was to run in the afternoon to allow myself some time to sleep in. She liked the idea as well. We met at my place around 4 and ran our 12 miles just fine despite not having the comforts of Fleet Feet's hydration stops along our route. They usually pack up by 10am so we missed them by plenty.

Training Week 11

I'm a little behind on updates so most of this is gonna be a bit less detail oriented than usual. Work had it twice yearly disaster recovery drill on Tuesday. I was in the recovery center from around 5 until around midnight, so that kind of screwed up my whole week. Running has a good way of getting me back to normal again. I got in a decent 8 miler on Wednesday. I got another Forest run in on Sunday - running 2 miles, then run walking/dragging him the rest of the way home. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I was in Mt. Carmel, IL for Justin and Jackie's wedding. It was a blast and great to watch a close friend get married.

I had to put off the 16-miler until the following Monday, which was Labor Day. It was a bit overcast and the normally crowded beaches were empty. The weather, and the fact that it was a Monday not a Saturday morning, kept the lakefront path sparsely populated as well. I felt good during the run, although the goo packet I had started leaking its sticky contents about 2 miles in. The run took me from my house down to Olive Park. I'm guessing I kept somewhere around a 9 minute pace, but still being watchless I'm not sure, and I'm not sure I really care. Getting the miles in is the point of training for me these days, not how fast I run them.

I finished off the holiday weekend with a early showing of Little Miss Sunshine at the Davis Theater with my dad and sister. Hilarious and serious, I laughed and shed a few tears as well. What a fantastic movie. Highly recommended.

Training Week 10

Last spring when training for Nashville's Country Music 1/2 Marathon with Team in Training, we had a training run in some nasty weather. It was spitting rain and the wind was blowing something fierce. Running north felt like I was pushing against a wall. Running south felt like I was flying. My run this past Wednesday was a bit like this, but not quite as bad. There was a crosswind out of the east that was pretty relentless. The 7-miler was the longest mid-week run to date. It went well even though I was confused because the mile marker were all shifted about 1/8 mile further south than they have been for as long as I can remember. I ran without a watch again so who knows how fast I was going. Got a slight scare when I heard a number of sirens heading towards Foster beach. When I got to the pier, there were 4 fire engines, a search helicopter and a number of police cars. With the waves as bad as they were, I feared someone had been swept into the water. By the time I arrived, onlookers informed me it was just a false alarm.

Thursday's run was supposed to be a 4-miler. I took Forest out with me. Like he has the past couple times I've taken him out, as soon as I make my turnaround, he decides he's done running. He'd rather sniff the grass, pee on trees, anything else but run. I'll coax him to start running again, and 50 feet later he stops in the middle of the path and then sits down. So stubborn. I finally got him to run for an extended period of time for the last 1/2 mile. He's such a punk some time.

The 15-miler on Saturday turned into a 14-miler. Liz wanted to cut it short so we decided to shave a mile off. We stopped to talk so many times that it became laughable. Combined with the water stops and stretching caused our ellapsed time to be 30 minutes longer than our watch time. I felt pretty strong until the last 2 miles or so when I started noticing my knees. Nothing too aweful and no lingering pains on Sunday either. Quick list of people we "ran into" - Erin Tobin, my Mom, Jeanine, Dorothea, Chris Vas, Kristin, and the Penguin, who may be referring to me as the "young man" he came across at the end of his run in this post.

Since the stap on my old watch broke, I'm debating whether or not to spend the $70 on a nice new heart rate monitor. Keith had a fancy one that he bought some software for to track all of his workouts on his computer. I was impressed by the charts he had of each of his workouts from the past months. With property taxes due at the end of the month, a new watch band may have to be the solution for now.

Training Week 9

I ran with Kristin over lunch on Tuesday afternoon. 30 minutes of trail running near Harms Woods. I skipped the long run on Wednesday, as I spent the day working, then traveling to Denver where I met up with Keith. Thursday morning we travelled to Rocky Mountain National Park and got in a 6 mile hike up and down Deer Mountain that evening. It has an elevation gain of over 1000 feet and provided some great views of the surrounding peaks. Friday morning I put in about 3 miles, with some full-out sprints at the end. We also did some hiking that afternoon and saw 6 elk just across the Alberta Falls fed Glacier Creek. For my long run on Saturday, I ran two laps along this route for a total of about 6.5 miles. I saw 4 white tailed deer just above the road around the second bend and a number of elk on my second lap. The entire park was gorgeous but running it is when I noticed so much more detail. The curves of the streams, the different greens in the grass, the various rocks scattered through the terrain. It was a treat and I hope I can make it out there again some time soon for some more hiking and running.

I didn't quite put in all the running miles required of this week's training, but I feel my legs got plenty of work. There isn't much flat land anywhere near the park and the air is much thinner up high, so my lungs also had to work harder than normal to keep up which is also beneficial.

Chicago Distance Classic Half Marathon

The Chicago Distance Class half marathon on August 12 went well. I stayed with Liz until she experienced some knee pain around mile 11 or so. The weather was perfect for running and the newly redesigned course was a welcome change. I ran the same race two years ago. The course started/finished near UIC and the last 2 miles or so were in the dark, asphalty, oily, exhausty, albeit cool depths of Lower Wacker Drive. This year, the course mimicked the marathon course for the first couple miles then west for about a mile, east back to downtown, south on Lake Shore drive to past 39th, then north on the running path. When you make that southernmost turnaround, you're treated to a fabulous view of Chicago with lake in the foreground, and the skyline providing a dramatic backdrop.

Since I treated it like a training run, I was happy to keep just over 9 minute miles and a time of 2:03. Liz finished just behing me at 2:05-ish. Mom, Jeanine and Dorothea bettered their best half time by about 10 minutes, despite an incident where my Mom slammed her finger in a port-o-potty door and had to wait to get a bandaid on it to slow the bleeding.

At the finish line, we were presented with our medals and ice-cold golf-towel sized towels. They were so refreshing! I hope other races in the future provide the same thing.

Training Weeks 7 - 8

My prediction about getting a run in over Justin's bachelor party weekend was correct. It didn't happen. I did get some "cross-training" in if playing paintball for 3.5 hours in 90 degree heat on 3 hours sleep qualifies.
Week 7 was hot, with temps in the upper 90's/low 100's most of the week. My car read 103 on consecutive commutes. Because of the heat, I limited the running to a short 3 mile loop on Tuesday, and played volleyball and softball. Not sure I was ready for the 12 miler on Saturday, but it went off well. I felt pretty strong throughout. Liz struggled a bit but finished. The inside of her knee was giving he problems. We stayed together until the last 2+ miles, although I was pulling her for the later half of the run. Some minor but expected aches and pains on Sunday. This week so far I've done one run, a 3 miler sans Forest late Tuesday night. I'll put in 3-4 today and then run the Chicago Distance Classic on Sunday. Liz has not decided yet if she wants me to run with her. If not, I may treat it more like a race than a training run, although at this stage, no need to push anything too hard. I've been happy that my knees have held up with no noticeable pain yet.

Training Week 6

Last Saturday's 10 miler was encouraging. The weather was much cooler than it was on the previous week's 9 mile run and thus Liz and I were able to keep a better pace and stop less often for water. It was great to see familiar faces on the path. Jessie and Erin Tobin, my mom and Dorothea and a number of Loras grads whose names escape me. I keep waiting for my IT band to start acting up but thankfully this hasn't happened yet. Sunday I could definitely feel the previous days run in my legs but there was a certain sense of satisfaction that the slight pain was the result of a solid 10 mile, double digit real run. Something I had not done since the Country Music half Marathon in early May, 2005.

This week is a cut back week, which only has us scheduled for 7 miles on Saturday. I'll be in Dubuque all weekend for Justin's bachelor party, with paintball early Saturday morning so I'm not quite sure when I'll get a run in. It may have to wait until Monday evening.