LSD or long slow distance runs should be considered your most important run of the week and done one half to one minute slower per kilometre slower then your race pace, so that you can easily hold up a conversation. LSD runs assist in developing stamina, build strength and pace judgement, and teach our body to burn fat effectively. LSD also it improves your cardiovascular system, strengthens the heart and increases the blood supply in the muscles; it therefore enhances the body’s capacity to deliver oxygen to your muscles (VO2 Max). Here is an overview of a a great article by Runners World on the benefits of long slow distance (LSD) runs no matter your distance goal.
Question: I never race more than 5K. Why should I do long runs?
Answer: Long runs are for every runner, not just marathoners. The runners I coach in college run a weekly 13- to 15-mile long run even though some seldom race over a mile. The long run increases aerobic base, improves running economy, and boosts confidence.
Enjoy weekly long runs provided you:
Follow your long run with a recovery day of very easy running, cross-training, or rest.
Start your long run well hydrated and consume sports drinks and gels en route. This is excellent practice for the marathon and will keep you from getting overly fatigued.
Limit your long run to 1:45 or less (unless you’re training for a marathon–see number 5, below).
Consume 3 to 4 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight daily to make sure carbo stores stay loaded.
Alternate long runs with very long runs when training for a marathon. For example: 2 hours one week, 2:45 the following week, then back down to 2 hours the week after that.
Run with someone of comparable ability. Otherwise your long run may turn into a tempo run or a Sunday stroll.
Ease back into training if you’ve missed a long run due to illness or injury. Going long as soon as you feel better can overtax an already battered immune system. Instead, do half or three-quarters of your scheduled long-run distance, then resume your normal schedule the following week.ring on the long run!
For this week’s challenge, share a photo of a landscape: a wide establishing shot of a scene in nature or an urban setting. —WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge
North end of Queensville, Ontario, Canada
I live in an area that has matured from a lakeside cottage community to a small town. I remember when the first stoplight installed in town was a big issue, not to mention McDonalds and Walmart, or when there were more seasonal residents on the street then permanent homes. From intensification to Greenfield Development, the Greater Toronto Area is a destination for people around the globe to immigrate to, and call the area home.
The picture above was taken just at the fringe of a new growth area, what is now a farmers field, will slowly become a new community. What better picture to capture for this week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge on “Landscapes”, as a reminder of what was and what is to come.
We all have a short straw in life or at least something we consider our short straw. You know, an aspect in our lives – a missed promotion, our health, a series of bad relationships, or simply nothing seemingly to go our way or how we pictured life should be at this point in our lives – those moments where we throw our hands up in the air and admit defeat as we plead “Whuzzat?! Hello, universe? It’s me, Mark! What the #$%^!” ¹. As someone with two chronic illnesses (insulin dependant Type-2 diabetes and Crohn’s disease), life can get overwhelming at times. Read how I how running helped me take control of chronic illness.
Short Straw Syndrome
So what is my short straw and do I really have any reason to be complaining? Well, I suppose that is a relative question and in the eyes of the beholders, however, for those that are new to Making You Think here is a quick rundown on me and I will let you decide.
A Recap on My Chronic Illnesses
About 10 years ago my body decided to hate me, I started with an unusual amount of canker sores in my mouth (usually a half a dozen at a time) – something I always had so why think twice, just more than usual. As if that was not enough to grab my attention, I started to experience a persistent upset tummy, the runs, blood where I would not expect it, and a fever that lasted a few weeks. Ok – I admit, by this time my internal “oh crap” meter was starting to wake up. However, truthfully I just hoped I had a really bad bug that is just could not shake. My family doctor tried me on antibiotics, which didn’t change the situation, changed my diet too much the same effect. The last straw was when my body decided to go into overdrive and hit me with debilitating arthritis that presented itself similar to rheumatoid arthritis. Literally, seniors pushing their walkers were passing me in the hallways. I was eventually referred to the emergency room, which ended in a barrage of tests and a two weeks stay in hospital and finally being diagnosed with a chronic disease “Crohn’s“.
What do you think, short straw? A few years later my pancreas decided to take it easy and retire – now I can add type-2 diabetes to the mix; seriously, hello, universe? Two chronic diseases? Short Straw?
As I suggested, the idea of a short straw, like many situations in life is relative to everything else that is going on around us, and I admit having a chronic disease, such as Crohn’s, really is shitty. Seriously — we all know we will get sick from time to time, heck, we may even end up in the hospital sometime in our lives, however as soon as you are tagged with that word “chronic” should your life change from normal to victim? Is chronic an automatic entrance to the Short Straw Cub?
So what is chronic – the Centre for Managing Chronic Disease at the University of Michigan defined a chronic disease as “a long-lasting condition that can be controlled but not cured.” Long-lasting, controlled, but not cured – again, short straw? The Centers for Disease Control cites that chronic disease is the leading cause of death and disability in the United States and accounts for 70% of all deaths. Data from the World Health Organization shows that chronic disease is also the major cause of premature death around the world even in places where infectious disease are rampant. Admittedly these figures include all chronic diseases which range from diabetes, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, and heart disease to name a few, so a bit closer to home, a report commissioned by the Crohn’s and Colitis Canada in 2012, estimates that one in every 150 Canadians has irritable bowel disease (IBD) and that are approximately 233,000 Canadians living with IBD (129,000 with Crohn’s Disease and 104,000 with Ulcerative Colitis). Is my Crohn’s and diabetes really a short straw if I am in such good company?
Putting Life in Perspective
Looking on the brighter side of life – is my Crohn’s disease or diabetes going to kill me? I would say, no? So, in other words, life could be worse, and truthfully, how many people typically have their blood tested a minimum of six times a year, have colonoscopies every 18 to 24 months (colon cancer and Crohn’s checkup in one visit), and have a few medical specialists and a family doctor to watch over them – if anything else is about to go wrong, I have one heck of an early warning systems going. At the same time, as I peer over to my dresser, I can easily count six medicine containers that are a part of my typical day and have two others in the refrigerator that I take every week to 10 days. The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation estimates that the total costs from IBD in Canada are conservatively at $2.8 billion per year in 2012 (over $11,900 per person with IBD every year). In 2014 I spent $25,660.45 on medications, and close to $27,000 this year with six weeks to go (for those that are curious – 20% is not covered by my primary insurance company (employer), all I can say is thank goodness for third-party insurance programs offered by the various pharmaceutical companies). Again – short straw? What is interesting is that as I look i the mirror, this is who I am. I am not confined to a wheelchair, nor do I need to drag a portable oxygen container around with me. I have the benefit of both my sight (ok, that one is questionable), my hearing, and all four of my limbs.
Taking the Bull by the Horn, using Running to Balance Chronic Illness
10K run at CFB Borden, September 2015
Like anyone that has a chronic disease (diabetes, being able to control their weight, heart disease) we have two choices – we can roll over, and let our short straw dictate how we live our lives, or we can use our short straw to motivate us. I admit I am very fortunate – I have a great career and have the benefit of amazing medications (Humira and Methotrexate mix) which for the time being, my body is playing nicely with. I wonder what “normal” feels like, however, maybe that is as subjective as anything else in the world. For me, normal is simply being able to live my life without having my diseases control my life. For a few years, I was on Remicade® (infliximab) which is administered through an intravenous injection – aside from being a great medication, it was interesting sitting in the infusion clinic with a handful of people who could relate to my illness. It made for a bit of a community and heard many stories from people whose illness has kept them at home for months or years, have not been able to work, been too afraid to travel, to go to the store as they could not trust their bodies.
It is easy for any of us to make excuses – I am too tired, I am not feeling 100%, I am sad, leaving the comfort to home scares me. I have been there – in University I had a route of public washroom mapped out between campus and my apartment as you never quite knew when you needed to race to one. However, putting my arms up in defeat has never been an option. Today I bike, I race after my two boys, I run, and training for my first 1/2 marathon (21.1 km / 13.1 miles). I am attentive to my body and have taken the time to learn when it is warning me it wants to misbehave, however, I have found that balance. Don’t get me wrong – I have bad days, and scary periods where I start to think to myself, here we go again, however, I push on.
Yes, that guy to the left is me — looks pretty normal doesn’t he? Honestly, looking around your circle of friends, family, co-workers, how many people can you pull out of the mix that can say, hey – 5, 10, 15-kilometer run, been there, done that, let’s do it again next Sunday? Life is about baby steps – at times we need to proceed with caution and my running is a great example – I have Crohn’s and diabetes neither of which go well with managing energy and blood sugars – that is a reality I should not ignore; however it has not stopped me from taking that next stride. As yourself, what are your limits, and even more significantly what is your comfort level and start from there. In my running it was shorter distances and more frequent walk brakes (3 and 1’s to start – run three minutes, walk a minute for a 3 km or 2 miles). How did my body feel, how were my sugars holding up? 3 and 1’s turned to 5 and 1, and then 10 and 1’s — again, baby steps. My distance grew at the same time, 3 to 5 km, to 6 and 8 and 20km. My comfort blanket is no longer that route of public washrooms, but my Sport Beans and Boom Nutritions power gels tucked away in my running belt – simply knowing that I have the tools, the training, and the confidence to make it to the end of the run is a huge mental boost.
I concede I did draw a short straw in life – the “omg” and concerned tones when people hear my stories are hard to deny, however, with any short straw we have two decisions in life – use that short straw as a ticket to victim mentality or use it to drive us and push our limits whatever they may be.
¹ from the Douglas Coupland novel, “Worst. Person. Ever.” A hilariously funny novel, that made me an instant fan of Coupland. Read the first five pages and you to will be hooked.
The great staff at Henry’s published a helpful article on photographing sunsets that I had to share. Take a look at the following 5 tips on how to photograph sunsets before your next photoshoot.
18.0 mm ƒ/9.0, Shutter: 1/100 ISO: 100
Tip One – Underexposure
Your colours will be vivid and defined by underexposing the sunset. You will add drama to your image using this technique. There are two ways to accomplish underexposure. The first way to shoot is in aperture priority using exposure compensation for as long as the sun remains in the sky. When the sun goes down switch to the second method by using manual mode to get a better exposure because the less light you have, the more inaccurate your exposure meter will be. Using these two methods makes a significant difference in the depth of your colours, and that is why “they” are the first tip.
Tip Two – The Foreground
Your sunset will be more interesting if there is a subject matter in the foreground. A tree, bird, rock, bench, person, or animal can make your sunset pop as it encloses the object in the foreground. Mount your camera on a tripod and use off-camera flash to add a touch of light to faces. Using a fast shutter speed with off-camera flash will create richer and deeper.
Tip Three – The Horizon
60 mm ƒ/13.0, Shutter:1/200 ISO: 100
Under no circumstances should the horizon cut your picture in half. It should preferably be located in the lower third of the image, especially when the sunset is beautiful. Another option is to place the horizon in the top third of the image when the sunset is less vibrant.
Tip Four – Silhouettes
You need a fast shutter speed to capture a silhouette and place your subject above the horizon, and that’s almost all there is to it. Have your object in front of your sunset light source, and be sure it is recognizable in silhouette form. An ideal subject can be almost anything including a bird in flight, bridge, pier, drifting boat, animals, people in action, buildings, and steeples. You will think of many more, including the romantic couple kiss.
Tip Five – Shoot in Raw
A sunset image contains a wealth of light information that is simply tossed out if you shoot JPEG, and so much of the colour’s vibrancy will be lost. Use a remote shutter to ensure there is no blur.
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is the Rule of Thirds. I admit I am not usually one that follows the rule of thirds, then again maybe that is the amateur in much rushing to the surface. To jump to this weeks picture CLICK HERE.
What is the rule of thirds for those that are still going, hmmm ….
Rule of Thirds – Digital Photography School
Darren Rowse of the Digital Photography School has a great visual description of the rule of thirds, however, in brief, Darren describes the rules as “The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the centre of the shot – using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it.”
Below are a series of three pictures as I played around with this weeks assignment on the rule of thirds.
The Original Photo
This picture was taken from the bank of the pond pushing the limits of my 300 mm lens. This is a raw of a photo as they come.
My Original Picture (300 mm; ƒ/5.6; 1/125; ISO 100
My Final Edits
The second was my original published photo (as you can see, I originally ignored the rule and placed the most important point of interest (the White-Tailed Deer) dead centre in the photo.
Considering the Rule of Thirds
My final image is an attempt to recompose the picture to capture the rule of thirds from this weeks assignment.
The topic of this week’s Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge is Symmetry. As I look around my desk, the elements of symmetry are profound, something as simple as the game controller in its shape, and distance between controllers, the two matching desks in each corner of the room, to architecture that surrounds my neighbourhood. However, can nature by symmetrical?
The lighting in the following picture is not the best (I am looking forward to seeing how my f/2.8 will compare when I have a chance). However, I love the calm of the water and a nice capture for this weeks challenge.
Morning sunrise on Little Hawk Lake, Ontario, Canada
The same morning as a time-lapse video on my iPhone 6.
[flickr video=15384809985 w=640 h=360]
Time-lapse video of a morning sunrise on Little Hawk Lake, Ontario, Canada
In response to this weeks Daily Post Photo Challenge – Scale, I wanted to find an image that represented my community. Without the towering sky scrapers or majestic mountain views my automatic response was to reach for my macro lens. Try as I may, I could not capture a single snowflake (not sure if it would even be possible) however, I wandered out on what turned out to be a rather cold day (-17 C with windchill -32 C).
Each winter, hundreds,of cozy huts are dragged out onto the Lake Simcoe ice for a season of fishing. Sitting alone, or clustered in groups of a few dozen, avid fishermen enjoy the protection for the harsh wind and cold in their homes away from home. The scale of these ice hits over the vastness of the lakes frozen tundra can be staggering, particularly when you find yourself in the middle of a snow storm.
Here is a zoomed in picture of the hut in the middle of the image.
My little niece has a bit of a personality and rightfully so as the last out of six grandchildren she needs to make herself known (now she figured out that trick at less than a year is a different story). Her dynamic personality always makes for some interesting candid shots. What better shot to represent the weekly Daily Post photo challenge of “Expressing Yourself”.
One of my favourite pictures of late. In the midst of early winter, there is still colour to be found along with the grey and white. Today’s photo challenge – Capture colour in the absence of colour?
I recently migrated my blog from a self-hosted site to wordless.com and I have to admit, I miss the control and flexibility I had highlighting my Flickr Photos. This page was as much a test as it was to give everyone a taste of winter. If anyone has some suggestion on how best to embed Flickr Photos into WordPress.Com sites please share, particularly a way to show all or part of my PhotoStream.
A review of two solutions to configure WordPress Pretty Permalinks on Windows IIS Server. This post will help resolve Web.Config errors.
Background
I was working with a client who has his self-hosted WordPress website running on a GoDaddy Windows IIS Hosting Account and encountered some issues with Pretty Permanent Links that I thought were worth sharing. In brief, the client was having troubles configuring Pretty Permalinks on both his primary WordPress install (root folder) and a second WordPress install under a sub-directory i.e. http://www.example.com/blog on his IIS account.
Why the two installations?
The customer wanted to be able to maintain two separate WordPress templates, one for his primary site at www.johnzada.com and a second template for his blog entries. As he did not allow users on the site maintaining a single user database was not an issue so to reduce server overhead, we decided against a multi-site installation and choose two individual WordPress installations. As an aside note, both are hosted within the same MySQL Database so that sharing content i.e. users is possible over time.
The following two errors were encountered with Pretty Permalinks on the Windows server:
By default, index.php was included in the sites URL. For example – a default category directory was listed as: http://www.johnzada.com/index.php/on-canada-arctic-edge/
The WordPress installation running in a subdirectory would load the home page without any troubles, however, any sub-pages or posts would return a 404 error back to the primary blog.
Solution 1 – Remove index.php from WordPress URL
Pretty Permanent links are available on all active Windows IIS servers. In our case, Microsoft IIS 7+ web server with the URL Rewrite 1.1+ module and PHP 5 running as FastCGI. By default, WordPress displays links to posts and pages as :
http://example.com/?p=N
where N is the Post ID number. It works on all server environments, but it doesn’t look as nice as some of the other options. Using mod_rewrite or lighttpd you can produce much nicer permalinks (see WordPress’s instructions on Pretty Permalinks). There are many different formats, but the most common, and most versatile looks like:
http://example.com/2012/post-name/
or in my WIndows IIS installation, “Almost Pretty” – notice the index.php embedded in the url as:
http://example.com/index.php/2012/post-name/
These settings are configured under the Permalink Settings under your WordPress installation and look something like this:
Image of Permalink Settings on WordPress website. Adjust your permalink settings to include your post name.
Pretty permanent links work on most servers including Apache, IIS, Nginx, and Hiawatha to name a few, however, in all cases require some configuration on the server-side. In most cases, WordPress will attempt to create the necessary .htaccess (in the case of Apache) automatically when you enable PermLinks however in the case of our Windows Hosting, this was not the case.
Where’s my .htaccess file?
WordPress’s index.php and .htaccess files should be together in the directory indicated by the Site address (URL) setting on your General Options page. Since the name of the file begins with a dot, the file may not be visible through an FTP client unless you change the preferences of the FTP tool to show all files, including the hidden files. The same argument holds true for Windows IIS counterpart Web.config
What is missing in Web.Config
Ruslan Yakushev a Program Manager at Microsoft published a great walkthough on how to enable Pretty Permanent Links on IIS 7 and above. His walkthrough can be found here, however in brief, you need to create a new URL rewrite rule for WordPress and include it in Web.Cofig.
This rule will try to match any requested URL. If the URL does not correspond to a file or a folder on the file system, it will rewrite the URL to the Index.php file. At that point, WordPress will determine which content to serve based on the REQUEST_URI server variable that contains the original URL before it was modified by this rule.
Solution 2 – Running WordPress under a Subdirectory
The WordPress installation running in a subdirectory would load the home page without any troubles, however, any sub-pages or posts would return a 404 error back to the primary blog. What appeared to be happening is that the URL Rewrite request in the web.config under the WordPress installation in the root folder was taking precedence over both sites.
Building on our knowledge of the Windows IIS Web.Config file, the question was how to have Web Server recognize both installations of WordPress. I admit, I played around trying to configure one Web.Config file to work with both sites, however defaulted to the easiest solution and created a second Web.Config file in the root of the subfolder i.e. http://example.com/blog.
Here are two hints to save you a bit of time:
The Rule Name has to be different then the root folder
You need to tell the Web Server to ignore the previous set of rules with : <clear />
Both are accomplished with the following web.config rule:
![Logo | Are we \](https://www.makingyouthink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/MYT_Logo_Mobile.png "Blog of Mark Hanlon who through his website, are we \"){kind=logo}
![Logo | Are we \](https://www.makingyouthink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/myt-logo-compress.png "Blog of Mark Hanlon who through his website, are we \"){kind=logo}
![Logo Footer: Are We Making You Think?](https://www.makingyouthink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Footer_Logo-e1629925359885.png "Blog of Mark Hanlon who through his website, are we \"){kind=logo}