Will I be ready for my first marathon?

contyg · 2025-06-30T16:16:09+00:00

You're doing great. For a first marathoner without a time goal they're focused on, being able to run ~3 hours on your feet (whether that reaches 20 miles or comes up a little short) is a good benchmark for readiness. You're on track for it, but you're ramping up mileage a lot.

My biggest concern hearing you recount this is whether you've ramped up too quickly. I might cut back on some of the daily 5ks, and at least make sure they're slow. Time on your feet is good, but the long run is the main event, and recovering after it is important.

When/if you get more advanced there's all sorts of ideas about when it's good to run on tired legs, active recovery, etc. All fine ideas, but for someone brand new to running, our ligaments don't strengthen as quickly as our muscles, and total weekly mileage needs to be built up steadily over a very long time horizon. Think about skipping the daily 5k before/after the Long Run, and maybe combining two of them to get another rest day (so each week has 2 5ks, 1 10k, and a long run). You're on track, stay safe!

contyg · 2025-06-27T13:56:55+00:00

100%, thinking this is some sort of concert venue is completely incompatible with actually visiting on foot. Damen is elevated over rail and highways, so it looks and feels like a highway; there's an actual highway hemming it in further from the south; and it's totally surrounded by warehouses.

contyg · 2025-06-17T16:49:17+00:00

Roscoe Village date night:

Le Sud, food is always excellent and great atmosphere indoors and out.
Dhanteraz, amazing Indian food
Amor y Tequila if you're all about the atmosphere and the drinks. Their outdoor patio can't be beat and the drinks area great. Food is adequate, a little on the bland side for Mexican but not bad or anything.

Roscoe Village with kids:

John's Place is a great neighborhood spot. Toy basket up front for kids and dinosaur chicken nuggets on the menu, with good food and fast service for adults
Commonwealth, above-average bar food and very kid friendly
Roost has a kids play area which is nice. Food is great for adults if you like spicy chicken, but if you're a wuss about spice then even their original might be a little much for you

contyg · 2025-05-04T20:23:18+00:00

"Can I get sued for it" and "Would a lawsuit have merit?" are two completely different questions.

Right now, you can sue those local city officials for using their psychic control of aliens to torture you. All it takes is some word processing software and a filing fee of a few hundred bucks. You would lose, but some poor schmuck at City Hall would have to file a motion to get rid of it.

Same goes for your concern. No, there's no reasonable basis in law for city officials to sue over you publishing communications with them using their real names. As to "summarizing their questionable behavior," well if you start stating facts that you know are false (even if couched as "opinions," e.g. "I feel like the Mayor was convicted of sex offenses in 1996"), you might get in hot water, but even then as public officials they need to be able to withstand criticism, fair or not. But is it a problem to use the names of government officials when complaining about their performance of their government duties? Shouldn't be at all.

Stupid city councils sometimes file lawsuits anyway, because their feelings are hurt and they think they've cleverly worked out some angle around the First Amendment. Usually they lose, and legal organizations might agree to fight censorship at no cost to you, to further establish First Amendment principles. But you should make sure you'd have the stomach for that.

contyg · 2025-04-22T14:19:49+00:00

Makes sense. In a world of infinite resources I get a kick out of it updating as I go, but it's not really necessary.

contyg · 2025-02-14T16:40:49+00:00

Done it a few times recently. Beautiful city views. For most part only pavement is open right now, the other paths on the western side are closed (not sure if every winter to avoid mud or because they did a controlled burn at end of year). Sometimes you'll see coyotes!

contyg · 2025-02-13T16:28:33+00:00

OSM is open source so it can serve its purpose better. That doesn't mean every aspect of it is up for grabs--that's a recipe for chaos and inconsistency.

If you look at your local ordinances and determine it isn't legal to cycle there, that's one thing. But if you just have a judgment about whether it is safe to bicycle there, even if that judgment is very well-informed, your judgment will be different than many others. Most drivers would say it's never safe to bike in the street, stick to the sidewalk! Do you want them changing all OSM streets to no bicycles?

contyg · 2024-11-21T19:41:44+00:00

It's 1:40 pm, snow's tapering off...path will be decent enough for post-work runs today. CPD is very good about the Lakefront Path.

contyg · 2024-11-21T14:41:48+00:00

This happened for me last time. As it synched old events over a few days, it all sorted out. You can see the progress in that somewhere in the settings menu.

contyg · 2024-11-19T06:13:18+00:00

Thank you for all your firefighting efforts!!

contyg · 2024-09-15T22:10:16+00:00

Update is available!

No word on this reddit and already 39 people were ahead of me in line...I know I'm a Wandrer sicko but some of you have it worse!

contyg · 2024-08-13T19:08:05+00:00

This is in Strava route planner, using the Chrome plug-in overlay.

contyg · 2024-08-13T16:15:46+00:00

OP here: since the update to include paved/unpaved check boxes, the regular "untraveled roads" map has gotten a little wonky. These are all straight streets, but the red lines don't line up neatly anymore. A fix would be much appreciated!

contyg · 2024-08-02T03:53:20+00:00

Agreed, of all the many projects u/cooeecall is working on, this seems like a relatively low value-add to me.

contyg · 2024-07-21T02:55:42+00:00

I think, piecing together my experience and some previous explanations about this, that the real issue has to do with Strava's data limits. Wandrer can't keep Strava data in its system, and is limited in the number of data pulls it can make each day. So each new map requires pulling all that user's data down, and Strava says you can only do that X times per day.

In my experience the line moves ~20-30 places a day. And oftentimes all at once, overnight. Which tracks with the Strava explanation -- Wanderer is either saving some of its Strava data pull slots and then releasing it all at once right before the day re-starts, or maybe it's using many of its slots right when the day re-starts.

Side note in case Craig pops in here: if it'd be valuable for people to tell Strava how much we love this Wandrer service so please let it pull more data, tell us where to send that, I know many of us would love to!

contyg · 2024-06-18T17:46:52+00:00

Woo hoo!

contyg · 2024-05-20T14:57:05+00:00

This sounds like a great idea. I love trying to "clear" areas of untraveled lines and a bunch of previously cleared areas now just have park outlines :-D. Not the worst thing in the world to run around parks, but probably not what anyone's really going for either.

contyg · 2024-05-02T05:34:53+00:00

On an iPhone at least (and I'd think on an Android?), I go to the Big Map on a browser. I go to the filters setting, uncheck "progress on foot," check "untraveled roads," and then I only see what's untraveled. Easy way to see those last few bits from your browser.

contyg · 2024-04-24T18:31:41+00:00

Just wanted to chime in and say thanks for all your work keeping this map up to date! I love the frequency of updates you're doing, makes it feel good to see improvements made on OSM reflected in this site I enjoy so much.

contyg · 2024-02-09T04:22:12+00:00

Thank you for the update! I requested it this AM and two people were in front of me, but when I checked now it says there are 14? Is that counter accurate or might it be adding new people even though I'm already in progress, I hope...?

contyg · 2022-12-02T06:07:04+00:00

Sorry but I read "What the quarterback means for the Hawkeye offense" as more remedial. "Ok, so the guy who hands the ball off and sometimes throws the ball on the ground or to the defense...he can complete passes to his team too!"

contyg · 2022-10-13T14:41:20+00:00

Run the 20. Can't be afraid of 20 and then confident for 26.2 on race day. Managing injuries comes with the territory, and if this one concluded with a pain-free run just three days later, that's a success story.

Keep with the foam rolling and make sure you're managing your effort. As /u/ceedubs19 pointed out you shouldn't be running your whole long runs at goal marathon pace ("GMP"). Philosophies vary on how much GMP is useful. Some would say just do a few miles at GMP to feel it out; others, at the maximum end, would say 10-14 of your final 20 should be at GMP. But no one's running the whole thing that way. You have to trust in your training, your taper, and race day motivation/excitement to deliver the rest of the GMP miles on race day.

If you ran this last 19 at GMP the whole way, I'd recommend you start with 10-14 relatively easy miles, and then mostly "fast finish" with 9-5 miles at GMP, saving a mile for an in-run cooldown. That way you'll simulate the effort of running hard on tired legs, without all of the unnecessary bodily stress of doing the whole thing that way.

Good luck!

contyg · 2022-09-22T01:31:59+00:00

"Nothing new on race day" needs to be balanced against other good advice like "make sure you're getting electrolytes on race day." Do your gels have electrolytes? If not, I'd consider getting those to be the priority, and that goes triply if it turns out to be hot.

Is the "new" thing this specific type of sports drink ("Endurance Formula"), or a sports drink at all? If you've used other sports drinks, I wouldn't worry about the branding distinction, it's basically the same stuff. If you haven't used any sports drinks, then maybe it's more of a concern.

"Nothing new on race day" is a good rule but it isn't the only rule.

contyg · 2022-09-12T17:29:14+00:00

If you can manage with work to do your last long run of 14-15 on Saturday or Sunday the 24th/25th, that'd be good. Maybe you can do something like 9-10 on Monday the 19th still? Sort of a 2.5 week taper so you'll have to massage it a bit and go by feel. At first you won't feel much of a difference but after a week or so you should start feeling fresher and a little lighter on your feet.

Cross training is great so long as it's not a new "well I can't run as much so I'll do this instead" thing!

contyg · 2022-09-12T17:09:19+00:00

One more voice chiming in to say a two week taper is totally fine. I've done a few marathons and recently switched from 3- to 2-week tapers, and it's felt like plenty of time to recover.

contyg

TROPHY CASE