Indie Game Guy

30+ years in the making - The ZMan (in association with Exato Games) presents GunCraft

zman — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:22:00 GMT

Almost 7 years ago I quit Microsoft mid career to go out on my own with the hope of writing games. Its been a dream of mine ever since I was a kid but once of those things that I never really got round to doing.

Since 2005 I've had many different projects - Microsoft timed the XNA release to coincide with my leaving which gave me several opportunities to work for them doing XNA Demos over the years. I've been awarded the MVP award for XNA for 7 years now and through that and the XNA forums I've just about managed to keep myself employed. There's been good years and there's been 'ok' years - I've probably averaged less $$ than I would have at Microsoft but most of my projects have been more satisfying than being a manager, writing reviews and going to meetings which is where my career was heading. I've paid my bills, I've been on vacations and life is good. But none of those projects were shipped games... and working between jobs hasn't lead to any games of my own (though many started!)... so one of my goals was still missing....

Then 18 months ago I spotted an XNA job in Seattle - XNA jobs are few and far between let alone local ones. Turns out it was a small local startup called Exato Games - who had been working for a while on a game they called Progenitor... by the time I joined them the game was about to undergo a major design change and they had decided to hire a full time experienced XNA guy to upgrade it to XNA 4, Sunburn 2 and hopefully finish it. After working on it for a solid year we have a very playable nice looking demo. Sadly the judges in several competitions and other publishers didn't seem to agree with us! We had a choice of ploughing on without additional funding and a small team or changing direction.

During a lunch time conversation last year we noted how well minecraft clones were doing and we joked about doing our own but realized that being 6 months late wouldn't add anything so we decided that clearly the game was missing one important thing - GUNS! You know how these conversations go and before long we had 100 great (ok not all great) ideas and a name - GunCraft. Then we promptly forgot about it and carried on with Progenitor

But the idea was mulling around in John's head and he decided to put Progenitor on hold and go for a much shorter project that we could do with a very small team.... I seriously went on vacation and when I came back the whole team had changed direction!

Today we have a very playable alpha that we've had a couple of 15 player games - though its still rough in places all of the basics are in place and the game crashes less than most AAA titles at release. A final release is in sight and at that point I can probably officially check off all the goals from 7 years ago - in fact it will be around 7 years since I handed in my notice and around 30 years since I told my parents I could write a video game if they bought me a computer

So today I present 2 things to you:

ONE - please visit our kick starter - the funding will help the final release process, get you some great swag and allow you to preorder the game.

TWO - check out our parody trailer - the MW3 fans will recognise it right away I am sure! A great job by our artist Stephen Scott

Running with The ZMan 2011 edition

zman — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:12:00 GMT

Its been a while since I updated you about my running shenanigans (and for the record only Mr Clingerman actual ran the 5k with me and finished - though he did look a little green at the end).

After my double marathon at the end of 2010 (hmmmmm I never did post a race report) I decided to back off the distances a little and just run half marathons this year. But just a couple wouldn't be enough. So I decided to run one a month. 12 seemed like a nice round number.

But then one month I had a chance to run 2 becuase one was free and 13 didn't seem much like a good number so I found a couple of extra to run and finished the year with 15. When I look back at my running history I discovered that up until 2011 I had run a total of 14 half marathons. So in 2011 I ran more half marathons than I had run in total in the previous 6 years.

I was hoping that I would get faster as the year went on but it turns out that as my legs tired I became prone to some annoying minor injuries that forced me to take things easy in the latter half of 2011. There was one race I probably shouldn't have run but it was crucial to my 15 total so I sucked it up and them limped for 4 days. There was another race that was so hot I walked the final 4 mile lap and fell twice.

So whats the plan for 2012? Well I'm back to running marathons - well I have one planned for sure in May. Otherwise I don't have any goals for the year firmed up yet. You'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Count	Date	Race	Time	Comments
1	1/16/11	Arizona RnR	2:11:28
2	2/21/11	First Call Presidents	2:07:49
3	3/26/11	Lake Sammamish	2:00:51	Fastest run of the year... Soooooo close to breaking 2:00
4	4/17/11	Bainbridge Island	2:16:06	Hilliest run ever - legs very sore after this one
5	5/21/11	First Call Spring	2:08:29
6	6/5/11	Mud and Chocolate	2:32:54	Trail run
7	6/12/11	Beach to Chowder, Long Beach	3:16:11	Walked with J who had a bad back and should have done the 5k. Rained the whole way.
8	7/16/11	Windhorse, Bellingham	2:29:05	Smal but fun race. I believe I was actually the last runner in from my starting group.
9	8/21/11	Mud and Chocolate	2:59:23	Trail run. TOO HOT! Fell down twice
10	9/5/11	Labor Day Half, Woodinville	2:26:56
11	9/25/11	Black Diamond	2:15:14
12	10/16/11	Race For a Soldier, Gig Harbor	2:15:22	Lots of great supporters out on this one
13	11/6/11	Mud and Chocolate	2:52:13	Ran with bad ankle - bad idea. Walked last lap and limped for a week
14	11/27/11	Seattle	2:31:00	Would have been sub 2:25 if women could pee in less than 4 minutes each...
15	12/31/11	Yukon Do It, Port Orchard	2:23:00	Leg still stiff for 1st half but turned out to be a decent race in the end

How to use an Xbox Live Gold code if you have a family account

zman — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 04:52:00 GMT

Since I occasionally need to test XNA networking with more than 1 gold account I upgraded to a family plan last year. Worked out great! J can have her own gold account and I can have 4 'testers' if I need. All for the cost of just 2 accounts.

A couple of days ago Amazon had a great deal on 12 month gold cards. So I got one. When I converted to family you get your gold months converted 2:1 - seems fair since a family plan costs twice a single gold account. I mistakenly assumed that a 12 month code would add 6 months to my family plan.

On Xbox.com you get the error "An error has occurred during the transaction. Please try again later". A totally useless error because no matter when or how you try it always says the same thing.

On the xbox itself it says "You cannot buy this membership while your current Xbox live membership remains active"

However I found a sneaky way around this that might help if you have less than the current maximum 4 gold accounts

Make a brand new live and xbox live account using hotmail or some throwaway address
Use the code to make the new account Gold
Make sure the profile is on the same Xbox as your family plan
Add the new account to your family plan

It will tell you that you get 6 months added to the family plan!!!

I've not tried yet but I believe I can remove that person at any time... there's limits on how many you can add or remove each year and how many months the account can transfer in but it just saved me $40 so I figured I should share the tip.

Oh and happy 2012

Wednesdays in the pub with Steve

zman — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:55:00 GMT

Its Wednesday night - I should be in the pub happy with a couple of pints and laughing at how badly we've done at pub quiz. But Wednesday nights are not going to be the same any more. Instead I'm sitting and home looking at pictures of a good friend who I will never see again. So I decided it was a good time to write down some memories.

I met Steve Lacey in 1998ish - his girlfriend (now wife) had moved to the USA with the same company that imported me and I had been chatting to her in email about the move, houses and lots of other things. When we finally meet at a party - she brings along this dude with a pony tail. Before I can dismiss him as some sort of hippy I find out that he was a) a nice guy b) a smart guy and (most importantly) c) a GAME PROGRAMMER. As a lowly IT guy with 20 year dreams of making games this was wonderful. I probably bent his ear off that night - you know like when you meet a doctor at a party and everyone wants to show him the boil on their butt!

As the years ticked by we bumped into each other at events until Nabila and he bought their house and it was in the same town as me - walking distance (for Brits) even - and we hung out a little more. I found out he played guitar in a band - seriously how cool is this guy! - and went to some gigs, we watched England get kicked out of the world cup at Smokey Joe's at 2 in the morning, many good times. Soon enough he got married and started making babies but we all still managed to get together occasionally. He dog sat my dogs several times - including carrying one of them up and down a flight of stairs 3 times a day because she had surgery - I (thankfully) only had to dog sit his crazy but lovable dog once!

Around 2005 in the middle of a breakup I started going to the pub quiz with a group of my running friends. It was a new pub in town and apparently we started going on the 2nd time they had pub quiz. We became regulars - eventually getting our own booth, waitresses that knew our names and drinks and a good time was had by all. And at some point Steve was there. I know he wasn't there at the beginning and I don't remember how it happened but Steve liked pubs - he probably just smelled the beer, heard my voice and sat himself down. From that point on he's been a regular too. The runners all stopped coming apart from the one who decided to move in with me rather than drive to pub quiz each week. Steve started bringing along folks from his neighborhood, from Google, from his murky past at Smokey Joe's... We've been doing the same thing on Wednesdays for 6 years now and Steve's been there for over 5 of them.

All the other blog posts you will read about Steve are going to tell you quite correctly how brilliant he was. But let me tell you this - when it comes to topics such as cross stitching techniques of the native Hungarians, one legged golfers and US presidents with beards he was as dumb as the rest of us :-)

After many changes in team name we settled on "striving for mediocrity" because that’s where we placed every week. When you tell people that you do a pub quiz they always ask if you win. We place in the money (top 5-6 spots) 2-3 times a year. I don't remember the last time we won. I can tell you the last time Steve won - he deserted us for a table of ex Flight Sim people who clearly cheated! But he always came back to the fun table - it’s never been about the winning. We talked about families, what we've been up to - you know the sort of things friends do when they hang out. Steve always bought his new gadgets to show us - you didn't need to read reviews when Steve is around he was the proverbial early adopter.

Our team has, for the majority of the time been very unbalanced - mostly male computer programmers and often Brit heavy - so sports, literature and topics that we rely on our computers for are pretty weak. We got video games once in 6 years and still only managed 9 out of 10 (which pacman ghost is replaced in Ms Pacman?).

Which brings me to my first Steve story: The round was spelling - the word was truncheon and Steve disagreed with everyone. But he played his joker card with the irrefutable point that his grandfather was a policeman so we used his spelling. It was wrong and we never let him forget it!

One of the other funny moments I will always remember involved the previously mentioned pony tail. Steve often told us that having a pony tail is drug addict code for dealer. We didn't believe him until one day a very drunk guy seemed to accidentally sit at our table after the quiz was over. We tried to make small talk but it was clear that he didn't know any of us nor did he really want to talk. So we started to ignore him and then as quickly as he had arrived he was gone. When we asked Steve if he knew him he smiled and told us that as soon as we looked away he had asked for 'the stuff' and left when he didn't get any. The only drug on the table was Steve's Stella and he wasn't sharing that with anyone.

Steve - in a few weeks we'll be back at the pub. We'll miss you and your cheery 'hellooooooo' when you arrive and we'll even miss your bad spelling. We'll likely drink a Stella or 2 in your honour. We'll strive to be more than mediocre but we'll remember that pub quiz isn't about the pub or the quiz at all - it’s about good friendship, good times and good memories. Thanks for those things.

Interesting Microsoft DOES host domains on live.com

zman — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:33:00 GMT

As I investigated the various cloud service offerings from Google and Microsoft I discovered that I was wrong. Microsoft will let you host your domain stuff on live.com - see https://domains.live.com/default.aspx

Just like google you can also link subdomains and have http://mail.example.com http://calendar.example.com etc.

Google still seems to have the upper hand though with blogger and picasa which appear to be superior to Windows live spaces and Photos. Though otherwise the services seem to offer much the same. See Windows Live Services vs Google Apps

There was even something about cobranding your site login by providing branding and you can have an open site where you don't have to create accounts. I don't know if that means you can create a live enabled website trivially but it seems quite interesting.

But Microsoft - I'm still pissed at you for leaving me stuck with all my contacts in outlook so don't think this means you are winning any business without a fight. I'm moving a couple of unused domains one to google and one to live so I can compare and contrast and test with the new phone.

So Microsoft - you want me to use gmail now?

zman — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 02:18:00 GMT

So I got my windows phone. I had access to some early units and read a lot so I knew I was going to be pretty happy... and I am.

I really like the people hub - with a few clicks it bought in my facebook people and my live messenger people. Where people are in more than one place you can link them and it magically keeps everything in sync. Very cool. Once I visit the phone store to get my contacts transferred I will have almost everyone in there.... ALMOST...

The bulk of my contacts are in Outlook. Sure some are duplicated on the old phone, facebook and messenger but the ones I can edit and keep up to date are in outlook. Surely Microsoft has a way to sync those... OMG NO THEY DON'T

Hey windows phone has a calendar - that would be cool to have in my pocket - how do I sync that from outlook? OMG YOU DON'T

Lets see what google says about this - it knows everything right: Survey says.....

Wow lots of choices there - and not one of them allows you to keep your master contact list or calendar in outlook. There's nothing that automtically syncs outlook to any of the 'cloud' services. I can import them but its a one shot deal. Maybe that would be OK as the primary store if outlook would then use that as its calendar/contacts list - but no thats an import the other way. Also I have my own domain for email so I really dont want to use hotmail or gmail.

Essentially the message from Microsoft here appears to be "we don't care much about the 10+ years of people and events you have in outlook if you buy a windows phone". Unless you want to pay for hosted exchange of course.

So now I begin the search for my 'cloud based' life... since google is the only one that will allow me to continue to use my domain with google apps I'm not really seeing much choice here. Hopefully some of you out there who enjoy the Microsoft lifestyle have a reasonable solution.

Catching up, Kmart still sucks and Coleman is AWESOME

zman — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:59:00 GMT

I know, I know I've been all quiet of late. The news from the ZMan is that I started a new job at the end of last year that involves me going out of the house and working in an office during the daytime. Its messed with our schedules a lot and only now do I feel like I'm on top of some things. I can't say much more other than its an XNA game, it uses the Sunburn Engine and its going quite well. We have an early build due next Friday so I'm working lots of hours.

So while I take a little beer break from my coding I thought I would catch you up on some things:

The double marathon was completed 5:06 and 5:24 - my 2 slowest marathons 24 hours apart. So a grand total of 10:30 for 52 miles which implies correctly that it was easier to do than 50 miles in one go which took me 11:13
The weight loss did well and then Thanksgiving and Christmas happened and I put it all back on. We're planning a tropical trip later inthe year and clearly I need to fit into my speedos so its time to buckle down. J's on a no/low carb thing for a while so I joined in... boy its hard and we've had some interesting recipies with coconut and soy flour but I'm down to 228 so its working. A few more weeks and then we slowly increase the carbs back. Yes folks other than a few squares of dark I am chocolate free for 3 weeks now! (Thankfully not bacon free). I have however used up a few carb credits on beer
My Kmart return finally got a refund 9 weeks after the order was started. I had about 10 more stupid emails like the ones in that blog before 5 in one day finally meant they escalated to someone with authority. Its the worst customer support I have ever had. One day I will post the whole thread for you to laugh at. They did send me a $35 amex gift card which I will NOT be spending at Kmart. I doubt I will ever shop there again and I'm in half a mind never to use sears online as they are all part of the same company

Just to prove good customer service exists I would like to highlight Coleman - they make camping gear - we got some camping plates etc for Christmas this year. I opened the box at the time and all looked good. A week or so ago I decided to move the stuff in with the camping supplies and dicovered that one of the plates and one of the cups was damaged. Enamel everywhere. I enquired with Amazon (where they were purchased from) and they told me it was too late to return them. So I emailed Coleman to see if there was some way to get one plate and one cup. To my amazement they replied in under 12 hours, the email was clearly written by a human and didn't come from some database of customer support sentences and to finally blow my mind they offered to ship out an entire new set. No cost, no obligation to even return the previous one. All I had to do was send them some photos of the damage.

So ZMan says - screw KMart - buy Coleman!

...and have a nice day everyone. Its raining heavily here in WA!

Come to the MVP Summit and run a 5k - yes YOU!

zman — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 04:47:00 GMT

Back in the days when I worried about the lack of documentation in Managed DirectX I met a guy called Jason Olson who worked at Microsoft and was also interested in Managed DirectX and blogged about it at 'Managed World' - some of you old timers may remember it - heck he even has a link from that good old ZBuffer site ;-)

Several of us that know Jason have often given him a lot of grief because he struggles to actually finish a game. Over design is a problem that many of us suffer from but Jason is, I'm afraid, a terminal case. I think he's still working on the API architecture and the coding standards for the first Xna3way ;-)

While those of us who call him a friend have given up on him changing and think he'll still be writing Tic-Tac-Toe in the old folks home we are all rather more impressed with his recent fitness and diet changes. Jason's a big guy - has been since the day I first met him - and this year he's done a solid job changing that. I think he's down 50lbs+ and working out more than I do - he even sounds convinced about eating healthy which is something I've never managed to do ;-)

A couple of weeks ago he dropped me a note asking about running a 5k and what I thought he should do to get there. I told him what I tell everyone - as long as you have a proper pair of shoes and you train for it then anyone can run a 5k (or 10k, half marathon or whatever you want!). I told him I'd happily run with him if he wanted company too.

Then Chris Williams (another 1/3 of the XNA 3 way) chimed in - he ran a 5k earlier in the year and was thinking about another. He'll be in Seattle at the end of February for the MVP Summit and a plan was hatched....

There's only one 5k the Sunday before the summit and its at Seward Park - http://www.fitnessforvitality.com/5k10k.html - Chris, Jason and I will be there and we'd be happy for any of you to come along too. Its the one on the 27th February - entry here.

Pretty much anyone without health or injury problems should be able to get to a 5k in 8 weeks - here's a very well known plan Couch to 5k that will get you there. There's plenty of others. All you need is a decent pair of shoes (those tennis shoes you've had for 5 years don't count - get yourself to a running store let them help you out).

If you are worried about being slow then don't worry - most 5ks have entrants from those who run the whole thing in 16 minutes to those who take over an hour to walk it with their kids or grandparents. Nobody will notice or care if you alternate running and walking if that's what it takes to finish. Save enough energy to run the last 100 yards because that's where your cheering friends and family will be with cameras and hopefully cowbells and honestly its amazing how you find extra leg energy when you can see the finish line.

So if you are coming to the MVP Summit, you live in Seattle, you know me, Jason or Chris, you've always wanted to run a 5k or you are an experienced runner who was looking for something to do that weekend then sign up and drop me a line. No obligation to run with anyone - go at your own pace and then cheer in those behind you. I'd recommend you sign up ASAP - I find $30 and a 2 month commitment to be a great motivator!

Dear KMart, you suck. Love The ZMan. xxx

zman — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 19:37:00 GMT

Christmas eve, J is busy making me a birthday cake and I finally have time to blog about my double marathon. But before Christmas starts and I have to be nice to everyone I need to rant about KMart and their terrible online service.

At J's office they have a 'giving tree' type of thing. You know how it works - folk who are down on their luck can put gift requests on the tree so that they have a reasonable Christmas. At J's work they support a woman's shelter.

I always like to find something for the kids - they rarely ask for anything crazy and its usually easy to find a simple request like 'a lego car' and blow them away by getting them a metric ton of legos.

This year we had a request for a pink dump truck so ordered this on the 1st of December.

Pretty cool for a little kid I expect. We also ordered this

because - who doesn't need more lego bricks?

KMart had a good price and both in stock so we ordered from there and they shipped on the 2nd and arrived on the 7th - plenty of time for the 13th which was the delivery deadline.

Except they shipped the wrong colors for the extra blocks and that is where everything went bad.

I sent a message through their website. No confirmation of getting it - nothing for 24 hours. So I found an email address and tried that - nothing for 48 hours. I sent a 3rd message which was a little more 'to the point' and pinged their twitter account and this time got a reply about 18 hours after the email (on the 11th December). I know its Christmas and everyone is busy but 4.5 days to reply is terrible. But maybe they understood the urgency and were sending out a replacement.

NOPE. I got the usual form letter built up of small cut and paste phrases that some idiot manager thinks sounds professional but really sound patronizing. Let me share some samples with you.

Thank you for contacting Kmart Personal Shopper! regarding the order XXXXXXX. I am glad to assist. I apologize for the inconvenience caused regarding the normal color instead of pink you received for your order item which you placed under the Order XXXXXX. I also understand that you have received incorrect item. I'll be glad to help you with your concern today. Normally we check all the items before we ship. However, I'm not sure how this has happened. It's a very rare issue and I'm sorry it happened in your case. We will always stand behind our products and will help you to resolve your concern to your satisfaction. I once again apologize for the inconvenience caused to you in this regards. If you have any questions regarding this issue or with any issue. Please feel free to email us, so that we can help you further. We thank you for your patience and cooperation. We are here for you! Please reply should you have any further questions. We value your business and look forward to serving you in the future. Have a wonderful day! I appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience. We want to make you happy. Take our survey to tell us how we are doing. Look for great bargains throughout the store and find Kmart exclusive brands like Thalia Sodi, Joe Boxer, Route 66 and Jaclyn Smith. Make sure you're registered at www.kmart.com for emails, so we can stay in touch! Happy Holidays!

Buried in the middle of that is

I have requested a UPS call tag to be released immediately. This is a free service where you have to do nothing expect keeping the item ready for UPS to pick up from your door steps. You will also be contacted regarding this issue within 24-48 hours with further details and provide you the details of your pick up service.

Well I suppose after 4.5 days its better than nothing eh? They don't offer to send the correct replacement but I've already driven to Target purchased the right item and its already on the way to the people who organize the thing.

So I wait 48 hours and I hear nothing. I wait another 48 hours and hear nothing. So I drop them another friendly email on the 15th December and hear back on the 19th December - seriously apparently 4 days is normal turn around time for them. Was it an apology, was it an explanation??

NOPE! They had forgotten all of our previous conversations and need to know what it is I want to return!

Thank you for contacting Kmart.com.We understand that you received the wrong item in your shipment. However, since there was more than one item on this order we need to know which item your did not receive and a description of what you received instead so we may make arrangements to have it picked up and sent back to the warehouse. Please advise. We will be awaiting your response.Look for great bargains throughout the store and find Kmart exclusive brands like Thalia Sodi, Joe Boxer, Route 66 and Jaclyn Smith.

At least I didn't get too many cut and paste insincerities this time! I reply the same day with some choice words and the information they want and of course hear nothing back until the 22nd December - I admit to being impressed with their 3 day turnaround!

Thank you for contacting Kmart.com regarding order XXXXXX. Please accept our apologies for the confusion regarding the item you received wrong. I understand that you received the regular colors set instead of the item #004W377418110003 Description: Large Bags, Alternative Colors. We are making arrangements for the the wrong set you received to be picked up by UPS, and returned to our warehouse. You will receive a confirmation email when our arrangements have been completed, typically within 5 business days. Still have your packing slip? Make sure to put this in the box. If you don't have the packing slip, just include a note in the box with your order number, and reason for return clearly visible. This will ensure that you receive proper credit. Also, if you no longer have the original box, that's okay, any box will do. You will receive an e-mail notifying you of the credit to your account once your return has been processed. We want to keep you as a customer. If you choose to place a new order in the next few days, please respond to this email with your new order number and we will gladly remove the shipping charge. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance. Thank you for choosing Kmart. We do appreciate your business. Enjoy the rest of your day! Your opinion counts. Take our survey to tell us how we're doing. Make sure you're registered at kmart.com for emails, so we can stay in touch! Look for great bargains throughout the store and find Kmart exclusive brands like Thalia Sodi, Joe Boxer, Route 66 and Jaclyn Smith.

Does any of that look familiar? It should do - because its almost the same as they sent me on the 11th.

So expecting another 4 days I do nothing with the box and and so am very surprised when at 10am yesterday (23rd December) the UPS guy catches me pre-shower and tells me he is here to pick something up! I have nothing ready but he leaves me the tag and I can have them pick it up any time.

Any bets on how long before I see my money back?

This story was in the Seattle Times yesterday "5 years after Kmart merger, Sears remains a tough sell" - well guys maybe if you would treat your customers better they would buy more. I know its pretty unlikley I'll be trying this again!

So now I have got my ire out on the internet I am free to wish you all a jolly good Christmas (or whatever excuse you need to buy presents and have a good time with your friends and family).

See you in 2011!

Double or Nothing

zman — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 06:00:00 GMT

Another running blog post.... move along if that sort of thing bores you.

There are less than 5 days to go before my next crazy run. 2 marathons in 2 days. Saturday 26th I run the Ghost of Seattle and Sunday 27th I run the actual Seattle marathon. The weather is not great in Seattle right now but the snow is supposed to go away by the weekend - we might have some rain but I can deal with that.

Like the 50 miler I'm not sure about how this is going to feel. The distance and time is still beyond what my body knows. The plan is to run a nice easy 5 hours for the first one. Thats 2 minutes per mile slower than my best and about a minute a mile slower than my normal everyday marathon speed. Then a cold bath, a very relaxing afternoon in front of the TV, a short stroll to see my local Xmas lights, another cold bath and an early night. On Sunday I have several running buddies along for the ride - they are hoping to run a sub 5 hour and I'm hoping to be right with them. Who is pacing who is the question and I'm humble enough to be dragged along if need be.

The weight loss has not been an outrageous success with barely 7lbs down instead of the 20 I planned. J did just force me (I was threatened with torture) to open some mint M&Ms so I probably put a pound back on already. So that's not going to help my cause.

When I ran the half + full at Disney I felt great until mile 16 in the full. When I did the 50 miler I felt pretty good until mile 45. So I'm expecting similar this weekend. One downside is that the Seattle marathon course hills are all after mile 18 which isn't going to help my case. The supporters have promised to be at several places on the course after that. I doubt there will be much lycra clad ladies to inspire me up the hills either - its going to be chilly.

Training has gone well again - no illness, no injuries and a nice taper that means that my legs should be pretty fresh.

4 weeks ago my biggest runs were a double half. I surprised myself by running a 2:10 and then a 2:13 the next day. The second race was half up hill and half downhill and though tired I was able to pick it up for a great finish. That made me feel pretty positive even though it was just half the distance.

So keep your fingers crossed and if you are local feel free to come and cheer... assume 5 hours with even miles and you should be able to guess where I will be at any time.

New Challenge Accepted!

zman — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:01:00 GMT

Well its done.. I am now signed up to run a double marathon at the end of November which will make me more of a maniac.

I had a little leg relapse after my previous announcement. My calf muscle decided that it had not had enough rest after the 50 miler and just went very tight. After various rest periods didn't work I found a massage place that was more PT than candles and oil and the masseuse beat my leg into submission. Weekend runs are almost all doubles from now until the race and my legs are starting to feel the permanent tiredness I remember from the 50 miler. I am already looking forward to my next weekend sleep-in on December 4th. This must be how people with kids feel except they have to wait longer than a few months!

The sign up form for the Seattle full asked how many previous races half or above - 11 halves, 10 fulls, 2 50ks and an 50 miler thank you very much. The Seattle full will be exactly 5 years to the day after my 1st half and by then the total will have increased to 13 halves and 12 fulls if all goes to plan. How time flies.

In other news clearly the pain of the 50 miler has passed. I watched a TV program about a guy obsessed with running and they showed him running a 100 mile race. My very broken instinct was to think 'that didn't look as hard as you would think - I could probably do that'. Still, I won't be signing up for that any time soon. It did look very hot where he was running and I don't do sunny races if I can avoid it.

Old and Fat -or- why the ZMan needs to stop snacking

zman — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:01:00 GMT

One would think that being able to run 50 miles would also mean being fit, thin and healthy - well lets check off just the 1st one there.

Last doctor checkup I was very happy to find after 4 years of running my 'good' cholesterol was finally reflecting my active lifestyle. However I was not so happy to discover the bad cholesterol had gone up and was over 200. Time to dig out my previous results I think. I will refrain from a spreadsheet as there's not quite enough numbers

Total (under 200)    LDL[bad] (<130) HDL[good] (>40)     Triglycerides (<150)
09/2000          193    128                      34                              153
01/2003           180                    116                      35                              141
03/2006           184                    126                      37                              102
03/2009           211                    137                      47                              134

(I started running in March 2005 and hit marathon distance in May 2006)

03/2011 will be my next checkup and I really don't want to be on drugs - I'm seeing too many of my friends starting to take them because of health issues. Thankfully I'm not seeing anything yet but its probably best to be defensive here since I've really never bothered to much.

Weight wise I've mostly hovered around the 220-225 for as long as I can remember. I used to be real skinny (160??) till I went to university and discovered that I could eat whenever I liked and drink beer.

Running didn't have the effect on my weight I wanted it to which is a major disappointment to me. With a little bit of cutting back on sodas when I was at Microsoft I managed to lose a few pounds and then in 2006 when I was marathon training I managed to cut out snacking for a while and got under 210.

Fast forward to 50 mile training in the last year. Even with running 5 times a week and increasing my distances a lot there was no significant change. Then I went to England for Christmas and ate too much. In the past a few lbs of chip, bacon, turkey and chocolate fat would just disappear in January but not this time. In fact I suspect I may have run my 50 miler a pound or 2 over my heaviest.

After the 50 miler - back to 3 runs a week with shorter distances, several vacations with good food and in the blink of an eye I'm over 230. I'm pretty boring and predictable in my eating and we dont eat out often so I dont think there's been any major changes other than the trips.

And here we are today... I weighed in just over 235 and in the last couple of weeks I've been getting some leg issues when I run so, dear body, I'm taking the hint. As fast as I increase my working out my body gets older and slows down and now I'm at the point where running alone isn't even maintaining. Damn this getting old sucks.

To be honest, I know where most of my problem is - I snack too much. I'm home all day and its pretty easy for me to grab stuff that's not good for me and eat way too much of it. It's not just chocolate I have no will power over. I can happily eat a whole bag of goldfish in a day convincing myself that since they are baked they are not so bad (840 calories, 30g fat). I know I need to eat more fruit snack. Odd thing is I actually enjoy fruit - I just prefer good old refined sugar more ;-)

Several of my friends have been using http://sparkpeople.com to track their intake so J convinced me to sign up there. It will hopefully let me know where I'm going wrong. I am already so embarrassed by yesterdays snack total of 1275 calories (550 of those were my once a week beer night so lets amortize that out eh?) that I've not got up and eaten anything this morning for fear I will have to admit it to the internet. Thankfully some of those snacks were finishing up bad leftovers from a weekend party and there is no more of that left. Unlike most people I respond well to shame and guilt so feel free to force me to publicly tell you my weight at any time.

I've often thought the 'Shame/blackmail' diet would work for a certain percentage of people. It works like this: You sign up and give me $1000 and let me take unflattering photographs of you in your underwear. If you lose the required weight I return 80% of the money to you along with the original pictures. If you don't lose the weight I start spending the money and sending you pictures of all the cool stuff I do with it. When the money runs out I put your bad photo on the internet for strangers to mock. Actually that would probably only work for me - maybe I should get J to take a horrible picture of me tonight as a threat.

I need to do something other than running too so we decided to go with last years cool thing and do 100 push ups for starters. I often wonder how many of my friends ever finished that program because though I remember the initial bragging I dont remember anyone bragging about doing 100 and I promise that when I do it you will all know about it!

The plan is to get down to 200lb for my double marathon in November because seriously nobody should be carrying the equivalent of a small child when they run 50+ miles. Then 180lb by my doctor checkup in March in the hope that will also help out the cholesterol. 180 (well 178) would just about scrape me into a 'normal' BMI too. Plus I'd be able to fit into my prom dress.... oh is that TMI?

Saving money with Alaska Air

zman — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:30:00 GMT

I'm a fan of Alaska Air (other than their useless customer support but that's a problem with most CS these days) for most of my flying. In general my opinion of airlines is that they are all in a race to $0 fares with everything else charged in fees so at best Alaska seem to be the best of a bad bunch. But I recently found a feature that means it will be hard for me to use other airlines unless there's a real bargain.

I like to book early - I'm a planner like that and it usually means the cheapest prices. But there's nothing worse than booking early and 6 months later finding out there is a sale and you missed it. I've been told that many airlines will give you the cheaper price if you call them. But you know what that involves? Talking to a human, probably one at less than minimum wage, or one with a sales commission in mind. Thanks but no thanks. My thoughts are that the airline knows this. Other airlines have a change fee. So it might cost you $50 a ticket to change it - not worth it for a $15 sale discount.

But Alaska allow you to do the whole thing online for free here https://www.alaskaair.com/booking/ssl/garr/GuaranteedAirfare.aspx. Its so simply I can't believe that a team of managers and business people had anything to do with it. You type in your name and booking number and if there is a cheaper price than you paid they put the difference in your wallet. Sadly its the Alaska air wallet not cash but it lasts a year so I will have no trouble using it. Even better you can keep trying. I have some California tickets for later this year that were originally $291 each. I've price matched twice and got $31 and today another $11.

Now I never need to worry about early booking. All I need now is for them to do this automatically whenever they do a sale... but I guess if they did that everyone would get the discount and they would probably not be able to afford it any more. Probably better if only me and a few of my close friends know about it.

How do you top 50 miles in one day?

zman — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:07:00 GMT

52.4 in 2 days.

Its been a while since I qualified for Marathon Maniacs by running 3 in 3 months so its about time I graduated to the next level of insane. Running a 50 miler doesn't count because this is a club based around running lots of marathons. But if I can run 50 miles on one day surely 2 marathons in 2 days can't be so hard eh? Well that's my current logic and though I don't expect many of you to follow it that's going to be my plan for November.

As you can see from the crazy list 2 marathon in 2 days will take me from 1 star (bronze) right to 4 star (iridium). I think on top of the 50k training run and the 50 mile race a double marathon will be fine end to a my running year.

My legs seem mostly recovered from the 50 miler. Still some tweaks when I try to run fast which has got annoying but otherwise everything is working well. My training will have to ramp up to teach my legs how to run very tired the day after a race but I did several double runs in the build up to the 50 miler. As part of the training I intend to do a double half too which will be fun.

So Ghost of Seattle Nov 27th, followed by the real Seattle Marathon on the 28th is the goal. Then in December I rest (and eat).

Community Charity work

zman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:48:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago inspired by George and Chris's efforts I asked everyone some questions about writing a book and got a ton of good feedback. Man everyone was so nice... its always a boost to the ego that even though I let http://thezbuffer.com die a death a few years ago that so many folk still care enough to comment and email.

So while I've not made a decision I have to say you encouraged me to really think about it again. Watch this space in a week or so when I'll go over some ideas I have.

Some other feedback:

Honestly I didn't mean to demean other authors, but I got the impression I probably did. Everyone has work they do for reasons other than money - lets call them our community charity projects. I've probably spent more time in the xna, and prior to that the msdn, forums than any of the authors have spent on a book and nobody paid me a penny. Its helped me get a few jobs for sure but the $ per hour is probably less than any author ever got. So yes I know you didn't write a book for money - you did it for the same reasons as I have blogged, answered questions and spoken at user groups. I understand why you did it, you do it and why you will continue to do it.
The post was really more about *me*. Writing is not something that I do 'for fun' so it feels like a job and for that I want what seems to be a fair compensation. Fame and reputation are not enough when I feel like I already have a fair amount of that. The feeling of 'I wrote a book' is something I get and probably the reason its always at the back of my mind. I guess its just not as big a goal of mine as it is for others - that's fine everyone has different goals.
Additionally my experience with some of the publishers makes me feel that there is a certain amount of exploitation going on and I don't like how that feels. I've also seen how books are rushed to market, often by no name authors with release date and buzz words being more important than technical correctness. Books become a risk management strategy for the publisher who has to make a profit so I understand that to. I just don't like it!
Several folk suggested I go all web 2.0 publishing and either offer content for free, ad based or payment based. Right now I feel like I do plenty of free community work - ask my girlfriend who is not above pointing out when the forums are more important than her. Ad based sites are great but really the $$ are enough to cover your hosting, a few books and maybe a new hard drive once in a while. At peak I was lucky to clear $500 a year in ads and amazon associates on the ZBuffer. As for payment based content - that either means a commerce system and hackers/paypal woes, a DRM system and annoyed users or me trusting people to pay and sorry but I have little faith in the majority of the internet there. So while I love my blogging and one day I hope to find some time to update the ZBuffer once again that will continue to be what I consider my community charity work along with the forums. I can do this as and when I like without a commitment and without paying customers at my throat . It does get me an MVP award with a few benefits and the reputation to get jobs and most importantly I love doing it. So sorry - web content isn't going to happen. At least not just web content...

Things are a bit busy this week and next but whatever I decide to do there will be a post summarizing the questions (so if you have not given feedback then feel free to comment) and probably some more questions about how I might be able to make this work and stay happy.

Oh and for those who have read this far someone sent me this link - a very inspiring read for wannbe authors http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2010/06/28/how_to_write_a_book.html

Old file formats - how to read Microsoft Works 4.x files

zman — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:17:00 GMT

Its not just NASA that has trouble reading old files sometimes those of us with less important missions have problems too. J has been doing some family research recently and came across a CD that had been sent to her some years ago by a distant relative, G, who has since passed away. G had spent a lot of time doing the same research and after questioning lots of family members he had recorded his notes in a state of the art application called Microsoft Works. Apparently the family tree was also somewhere on the CD too.

There was a handful of JPG files which were easily read - SCORE #1 for mass supported open formats.

The rest of the CD contained a single .PAF file, multiple .WKS, .WPS and .MAX files.

The .PAF file is from a program called Personal Ancestry File and even though the file was last saved in 2002 and was multiple versions old it imported into the newest version of the program with no apparent problems. SCORE #2 for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The .MAX format is a proprietary format used by ScanSoft for their scanners. Its likely that the latest version of PaperPort will open it but I wasn't about to drop $99 jut in case especially since I only had a handful of these files. After some google time I found a direct link to the old ScanSoft ftp site which is still up and has the PaperPort 7.0 viewer available. There is no export but viewing the images at 100% fitted just fine on my monitor so SnagIt was able to grab it cleanly.

Which left me with the .WKS and .WPS files which are both from Microsoft Works. But which version? There's no way to tell. Word 2010 will import Works 6-9 and it wouldn't read this file which matches the 1998-2000 dates on the file. Its likely Works 4.x or 2000. Excel doesn't even try to load Works files in .WKS format. I found a commercial conversion tool for the WKS to Excel conversion which is only $10 and has a trial. I found an online conversion tool called ZamZar which was a complete failure. I tried opening them in notepad and realised I can see the text - but several of the files I know have images that we really needed (scans of 2 civil war letters). There is plenty of evidence that older versions of Word (and Excel) would read the files. Thankfully I have an MSDN subscription that contains old versions of office back to Office 95 and so that I don't have to mess up my normal machine I have a handy VMWare virtual machine running Windows XP. So I spent the morning installing Office 95, Office XP, Office 2003 and not a single one of them would read my files. Thank goodness for the VMWare snapshot feature - after each failed attempt I could roll back the machine to its previously clean state with a couple of clicks. The more I researched the more I came to the conclusion that Office 97 or Office 2000 were the versions I wanted but those are not available anywhere. We can thank the Sun lawsuit for that apparently. At this point I'm ready to head over to ebay to buy a copy of works but I still don't know if its 4.x or 2000 and we really needed to open these files this weekend.

So I broke the law... sorry Mr Gates/Ballmer but I fired up a torrent client and found myself an installer for Works 4.x and a license code. (No I'm not going to help YOU break the law find them yourself). Its pretty clear that even in the pirate world nobody cares about old versions of Works. It took a lot of looking through sites with naked ladies on them (yes all the ads on torrent sites seem to be adult in nature) to find what I needed. Of course I have to be paranoid about viruses and the like. Thankfully I have my virtual machines and even on those I install Microsoft Security Essentials. Once I'd downloaded the file I disconnected the VM from the internet and installed it. All the files loaded first time and allowed me to save them in old versions of word which will happily load into Office 2010 for conversion. I've also saved each document in PDF format too. Both proprietary I know but I suspect they will be around for a long time to come.

It made me think though that as more and more of our life becomes digital what will our kids and grand kids be able to see when they inherit an old machine/usb key whatever with family 'heirlooms'. Paper has its own problems too. I'm looking at pictures from 50 years ago that are horribly faded and damaged and newspaper clippings so delicate I don't want to touch them. Seem like 'the cloud' may be a good solution. I assume if JPG ever becomes unused Flickr/Picasa will be able to do a batch conversion for me. Of course then there's a privacy issue that some folk don't like.

Writing a book ????

zman — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:36:00 GMT

Every since XNA was released my visibility in the community has meant I get the occasional email or phone all about authoring a book. I've resisted for several reasons.

Its a BIG time commitment and I don't have much of that
The $$ return is terrible

When I mention #2 to the publishers they always tell me that "many authors do it for the increased visibility and not for the profit". I usually point out that they are calling me because I already have the visibility which rarely goes down well.

So how little money do authors make? Its hard to get all the details of course but you can find general information out there. I have a good book on self publishing that might be a little out of date now.

Lets take 7 XNA 3.1 books (I ignored Dan's book as it seems to be on super sale). The average 'list price' is $38.55 and the average actual price is $25.23 so pretty much every book is sold at a 35% discount.

As an author you will negotiate your pay usually in 2 ways. An advance and a per book percentage. Obviously both vary but O'Reilly are very up front about their 10% rate and 5% on translated copies on publisher NET sales. If Amazon is selling our imaginary XNA book for $25.23 you know they paid less than this so lets assume the publisher sold the book to amazon for $20. So from the $38.55 'list' price the author is going to see about $2 a copy.

That's not too bad if you are Stephen King but technical books have a rather limited audience. I've seen several places that talk about 10,000 copies in the 1st year being considered a 'best seller' in the technical book space. Lets say the average book sells 5000. That's a grand total of $10,000 before any taxes for your hard work. I've seen advances around the $10,000 mark so its no surprise that common advice is to negotiate as big advance as possible because most books will never pay beyond that.

So how long does it take to write a book? I asked a few folk some years ago and though it was a pretty wide range the estimates were between 500 and 700 hours by the time you have got everything done, edited, proof read and produced the code samples, supporting web site etc.

That gives us a pay range of $13-$20 an hour assuming your book. I've mentioned this figure to some authors and been told thats 'if you get lucky'.

So back to the publishers - how many of them pay their staff $20 or less an hour? It just seems wrong to me that the person who puts in the effort gets the lowest wage? When you buy that XNA book does it cross your mind who is getting rich off it?

So last time I was asked to write I suggested a $25,000 advance to make it worth my time and you can imagine how well that went down.

So why do authors continue to write books? Well there are many intangible rewards. Some folk do it for the increased visibility which can get you jobs, MVP awards, speaker gigs at conferences, some folk do it because seeing your name on a book is just plain cool. Others do it as a challenge - its something that they have always wanted to do. Others think that $20 an hour is worth their time as a second/side job. I can totally understand all of these reasons and heck I need to thank many of the authors for doing it - I own hundreds of your books. For some folk its just a hobby that they would do for free so the money is a nice bonus - heck I've probably put in more free hours on the xna.com forums over the years and rarely felt exploited.

However I just can't get over the feeling of being shafted. I can bill much more than $20 an hour for regular work and as my blog readers know I have plenty of other hobbies that take up my time.

But.... with George and Chris writing a Windows Phone book the topic has come up once again in my circle of twitter friends and I've got to admit it would be nice to see my name on a book in a book store.

So given there is no way I'm working for $20 an hour (max) I've dug out the self publishing book and taking a look at the options there.

Here's some questions I posted on twitter and I'd appreciate feedback in comments or email.

How much does the publisher of the book vs the author name affect your buying decision?
How do you find your books? Brick and Mortar browsing? Online browsing? Other?
Do you still buy paper or are you all buying eBooks now? Do you care about DRM? Can I trust you not to upload the eBook as soon as you get a copy?
How big do you expect a book that costs $25? I understand you care about content but if you are in a book store and you grab a thin book you are less likely to buy it. The 7 XNA 3 books range from 336 to 792 pages. Average is 496. The bigger the book the more 'value' in terms of pages per $. That ranges from 25 pages per dollar down to 12 pages per dollar.
I also asked about color as I see it starting to appear in technical books. I see its use in game books and in reading VS code but after a quick look I realised that its just not economical for self publishing yet.
What do the big publishers get wrong? What drives you nuts that would make you buy MY book instead?
What is missing in the XNA books? What do they do wrong? What do they do right?

No this doesn't mean I'm going to write one for sure... all of the time constraints about still apply and it seems like the successful authors have some amazing ability to sleep less than 4 hours a night and let me tell you - I love my bed!

Recovery

zman — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 22:31:00 GMT

Yes I know its over a week late... I'm a busy guy. Procrastination takes a lot of effort you know!

So what happens after you run a 50 miler?

Well right after the race I was moving around well. I got my own food, drink and walked around and stretched just fine. I even made plans for a celebratory drink even though the others were correctly skeptical. knew I had a blister on one foot - i had felt it burst at mile40 something. I had a little chafing on the inside of my thighs, but I've had worse. Overall pretty good for 50 miles and 11 hours.

Once we got in the car things started to go downhill as the euphoria wore off. My legs got very restless. Suddenly the front of the car seemed like a very small place - I wanted to stretch out so badly. Its only a 40 minute drive. I'm glad I wasn't driving. Once we got home I just lay on the bed for 20 minutes or so. Man that felt good. My legs were starting to stiffen up and I had no energy to get up and stretch. My feet were so hot - I got J to wet a towel and drape it over them.

Eventually I felt up to stepping into a cold bath and spent a happy 20 testicle shrinking minutes. My feet were still very hot and the water felt so cold that I couldn't dip them in at first. The fatigue of the day started to take over here. Getting up at 4am and running 11 hours apparently does that to you. Out of the cold bath and into the shower. I was actually more mobile now though bending over to wash my feet and lower legs was beyond me... thankfully I had a helper. At this point I realised just how tired I was and we cancelled the drinks. By 8pm I was back on the bed and after some TV I think I tried to sleep around 9.

But it was a restless night. My legs were not sore or stiff, but very twitchy and tingly. I guess all the muscles were busy healing themselves. I didn't sleep too well and when J headed off to work in the morning I tried to sleep in but that wasn't working.

Waking up was fun. My legs were very stiff and I couldn't straighten my right leg all the way which was new for me. I had decided to take the day off so other than blogging and emails I spent most of the day catching up on TV. As long as I kept moving I was fine. But even after 10-15 minutes of sitting down my legs started to stiffen up and the 1st few minutes of moving was hard. In the evening we had a 30 minute walk which turned out to be quite doable. The blisters were popped and covered, the chafing was covered in Vaseline and all was well.

Tuesday things were much better. I slept well and my legs were far less stiff when I woke up. I went to running class that evening and though I didn't run I still managed to do all the circuit exercises other than the crunches - who knew 50 miles used your abs so much!

Every day since then has been an improvement. My walking was back to normal by Wednesday, the chafing was gone by the weekend and the blisters are pretty much healed. I ran on Tuesday and Thursday this week and though my legs were tired they worked just fine. The right leg is still tight when I straighten it but thats pretty much it. This is good as I have a half marathon in less than 2 weeks... yeah that was a smart move!

I am reminded that the training I did wasn't just to prepare my body for the day, but also to teach it how to recover. Hard to image that 3 days after running a 50 miler there were almost no visible side effects.

What did you do on Sunday?

zman — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:40:00 GMT

Here's what I did:

4:15am - got up
4:20am - got dressed
4:30am - ate a bagel with some bacon
4:45am - drove to Mt Si High School
5:30am - went to the bathroom
5:45am - ate a energy bar and drank some Gatorade
5:50am - went to the bathroom again
6:00am - ran 50 miles in 11 hours 13 minutes and 30 seconds
5:15pm - drank a beer
5:30pm - got driven home
6:30pm - sat in a cold bath
6:45pm - had a shower
7:00pm - lay on the bed and didn't move till Monday!

The observant amongst you will notice the large jump in the middle of that day. Yes Sunday was the big day. Sunday was the day I've been training for for the last 6 months. In reality though the training for this has been 5 years - you don't just decided to run a 50 miler 6 months before. There were many years of 5ks, 10ks, half marathons, triathlons, full marathons and 50ks before I even decided to go for this one.

In fact this really all started 4 years ago. I was training for my first marathon I think and was on a long run - just me and coach N talking about crazy races like eco challenge and ironmans and I happened to say 'wouldn't it be cool to run 50 or 100 miles'. Well at the next team training she announced that 'Andy wants to run 50/100 mile ultras' and we all had a good laugh about it. Who knew eh?

The last 6 months training went to a new level of crazy. No more tapering down before marathons or 50ks - no those were now just long training runs. Instead of my usual 2 training sessions and a long run at the weekend I had 3 days of training and weekends with very long runs or even 2 days of long runs. There's been a couple of times I have wondered if tired legs is the new normal for me. Thankfully I remained injury and illness free for the entire time. I think I missed 1 workout due to travel and had to walk one due to tiredness but otherwise did everything coach said. I ran long runs in England in the snow (26 times round the soccer field), did 3 hour runs the day BEFORE a half marathon and changed in a hotel at 8am becuase it was too early to check in so I could get a 3 hour run over the Golden Gate bridge.

Honestly, 50 miles is so much its been more than my brain can comprehend - other than a few nerves when I looked at the map the build up wasn't bad. I've done so many races now that I tend not to worry about them. This is good. Some of my running friends are more nervous about races than me - I can't imagine how they would feel with a 50miler on the table.

Friday and Saturday we packed the drop bags. You can have 2 bags - one at mile 6/14 and another at mile 29 - this means you don't have to carry 50 miles worth of supplies. We've been making a list of things we might need for 6 months now. Changes of clothes, hats and shoes in case of rain, layers and gloves in case of cold, a big selection of food and drink, body glide to stop the chafing, wipes/TP in case of 'trips into the woods', refills for my camelbacks and gel supplies. It was like going on vacation and it was clear to us both that we likely had over packed - but it was my first and I wasn't going to miss the end because of a missed item.

Tried to get a early night on Saturday but I'm just not an early sleeper and 4am comes round very quickly. Load the bike onto the car for J to ride with me and we are off. As we drove into the school we see the 5am starters leaving. If you think you won't do it under 11 hours they let you start early. Its a bigger group than I expected and I feel a little nervous. Those are likely the people running my pace. I need to be at mile 29 in 6.5 hours or I will miss my bag. Plus they take the finish line down at 11 hours. I expect to finish sometime after 10h30m (12:30 pace) so I know it could be close but I chose to take the normal start anyway. The weather is in the high 40s so no need for the layers... I start in my shorts and just 2 shirts. I've been promised nothing above 58 which is perfect for me.

6am comes round quickly and off we go. Some of my running group have arrived for their 6:30 relay start so I have a good crowd of cheerers to see me off. As I jog out easy I hear 'so are you trying to break 8 hour today?'... Hmmm better drop back... wow these guys are going a bit fast too... drop back more. OK now there's only 2 people behind me... maybe I should have taken the early start. Lets check my pace on my GPS watch... thats odd its not on... Beeep... look again and its off again.. Beeep... looking carefully 'Battery Low'... and off again. OK there goes my only accurate pace guide. Thankfully I have my normal watch on my other arm so at least I know the time and how long I've been going.

The sun is slowly rising and after an hour or so I'm getting close to the bag drop. I realise the bag drops are 5.7, 14, 29 so I can work my pace out there. As I hit the first one I realize that I'm running under 11 minute pace. Normally a nice pace for me but way too fast here. I drop my bad watch, my long sleeve shirt and grab some food and drink and head off resolving to slow down. There's still a few people around me but they are pulling away so I assume I'm doing well on that front. As I pass 7 miles the leader is coming back the other way. He's already 6 miles ahead of me. For the next 3 miles I get to see how far in front everyone else already is. Thankfully I'm under no illusions about my speed so its not as depressing as you might think. With fresh legs its much harder to tell 11 minute pace from 12 minute pace so as I hit the turn around at mile 10 I'm slightly annoyed to find I'm there in 1h50m - in other words still at 11 minute pace.

I double my efforts to slow down on the way back. The 6:30 relay runners are 30 minutes and about 2 miles further behind (they have an extra run to the changeover point) but the lead teams are now coming towards me. After a little while I spot L who is concentrating very hard on catching someone up and doesn't see me at all until I yell - I think I made her jump - its nice to see the team. I make it back to the 14 mile bag drop at 2h40m and eat some food and my average is 12:30 pace for that segment... great back on track. Overall I'm still ahead of goal though (11:40 pace). That's good because it means there's almost no chance of missing the 29 mile bag drop deadline. I head out at the same pace. Legs feel great, weather and scenery is beautiful and I've only got 36 miles left to run !!!!!

At mile 15.5 or so I see D from our other relay team. They started at 8:30 so they are heading out on the first leg. He's looking for me so we have a quick manly high 5 and continue on our way. I've been running for almost 3 hours now and they are just getting going. As I approach the steps (yes there's several sets of steps - its mean) that take me from the trail back to the road section my gut is starting to feel uncomfortable. This isn't good.. I have 7 more hours to go at least. I can't work out how serious it is but its not something I want to run much further with. Thankfully I know there's a relay checkpoint coming up and they always have porta potties - no need to 'go like a boyscout'. After a few minutes of personal time (though no reading matter - come on guys you can only read the cleaning log so many times!) things seem a bit better so off I go. J is waiting at the next checkpoint, a mere 4.5 miles away. The running seems better but within a mile or 2 my belly is once again fermenting away. I'm a little concerned now. The next toilets are 2 miles away and there's not too much cover to hide behind on this segment of the trail. The runners dilemma here is 'do you run faster or slower'... I manage to run it out without the evil alien bursting out my stomach and as I see J I yell 'off to the little blue huts' and dash across the carpark for the 2nd time. 27 miles still to go - this may not be a fun day.

After mile 20 you are allowed to have a 'pacer'. Fast runners need a pacer - people like me need 'company' or a 'distractor'. Someone who can ensure that I don't think too hard about how tired my legs are or how far there still is to go. Even though she has a busted sesamoid in her foot that is going to be removed on Friday J was not going to miss the chance to be with me on the race. The plan is for her to bike me up the 8 miles to Rattlesnake Lake where she will rest and cheer our relay teams while I do the upper 10 miles. Then she will meet me for the final 10 miles.

Mile 23 is in the middle of the long boring flat and straight part of the course - this is also miles 45-50 on the way back when its going to be even more long boring straight and painful I am sure. However right now I am feeling very good other than the nagging gut. My time is 4h40m right around 12 minute pace. After 2 more miles a couple of things happen... 1. My gut seems fine... (Boy are you glad you don't have to read 12 more toilet stories!) 2. We hit half way! 3. We start going up hill.

Ah the hill.... from mile 25 to 35 its a slow gradual climb - its only 1000ft over those 10 miles so you don't really notice other than you slow down a bit. I've run this hill several times before but never after just over 5 hours and 25 miles. Yes folks you heard that right at half way I was right on 12 minute pace and feeling pretty good about it too. Everything was going well now. Was there a chance of finishing closer to 10 hours than 11 - I admit it crossed my mind at this point though I should have known the hill was going to slow me. As we hit mile 26 or so we see the winner coming down. He's at mile 45 - just 5 miles to go - and he looks like he's out for a morning jog.

As we go up the hill J reads me the emails my friends and family have sent - some are funny some are touching and some make her cry! Thanks to everyone who sent words of encouragement in whatever form - it helped the hours melt away on the up hill. And then we are there - the bag drop comes into view and mile 29 comes into view at 6h - wow that took longer than I expected. Remember what I said about the hill and tired legs! Those 4 miles took me almost an hour to cover. I take a fairly long bag break here - switch out my water bladder, change shirts, eat some Mac and Cheese, Cadbury Creme eggs and potato chips... Lube up the places that are starting to rub, refill my gel supplies and give J some extra food since I won't see my bags again till the end. We leave at 6h10m so my pace is now over 12:30. All my 10 hour illusions are gone thankfully but you know I'm still feeling pretty good so no complaints. We run on for one more mile when J stops for her rest and I go solo for miles 30-40.

I don't know if it was the lack of company, the continuing hill or the fact that in the next 3 miles I passed 31 miles and 6h30m of running into new territory but this was the first part of the course where my legs started to let me know that what I was doing was not actually something they had planned to do that day. They've done some long runs over the last few months but I guess they hadn't got the memo about the extra 19 miles and 4 hours they were going to have to find today. The relay turn around point is 2 miles up the hill so you run past the 2nd worst sign on the whole course. It says "Ultras straight ahead, Relay turn around". The relay folk have been passing me for the last 5 hours and its good to see them even though they are going fast - plus they almost always cheer you and say nice things which helps. At this point I wont see them for 6 more miles till I'm on my way down. All I will see is the tired faces of the ultra runners coming back. I keep plodding on telling myself its only 3 more miles till I too get to turn around but its taking forever. My run schedule is run 20m, walk/eat/drink for 2m and I've managed to keep that schedule for the whole race so far. On one of my walk breaks I feel like a muscle in my hip has seized up and there's no trees nearby for me to hold onto to stretch it out. I don't think at this point its wise to balance on one leg to stretch. So I hobble to the next bridge and stretch there. I'm a little worried because it doesn't seem to help much. I try to run and it actually feels better and in a few minutes it has loosened back up and at the next walk break all is well again. The numbers of runners coming towards me is dwindling and I start to recognise a few who were near me at the start of the race so I know there isn't far to go. And then there is it the worst sign on the course... how can that be you say? The sign is telling you its time to turn around and you are just 15 miles form home. If only it was that simple - the turnaround is at the bottom of a hill. Yes we've climbed for 3 hours now we go down to the trail head and then we have to walk back up. Its was evil at mile 17 on the 50k and its even worse at mile 35 on a 50 miler. But you have to do it so down I go. I eat at the bottom and say hi to the guy who has been chasing me for the last 20 miles.

I walk up the hill and man my legs hurt... ONLY 15 miles to go says the sign at the top. It doesn't sound far especially when thats a medium length training run. I call J to tell her I'm a bit behind schedule so not to worry. I'm at 7h35m so it took me 1h25m to go 6 miles - wow 14 minute pace. Average is now 13:00 so I'm back to a 10:50 finish time. But no time to worry - there's running to be done. It helps that at this point you have a pretty good feeling that you can complete this. You are running home. 15 miles doesn't seem that much and the end is totally in sight and the last uphill is done.

Off I go.. and guess what - its not so bad. The downhill is helping, the slight wind is behind me and I feel pretty good all of a sudden. I rip though the first 20 minutes and when I stop for my gel/water/walk the guy behind me finally passes me... I never saw him again. He did a better job pacing than I did I guess and took even more advantage of the downhill than I did. After 3 miles I see the relay turn point and right on time there is M from our 1st relay team... cheers and high 5s and she goes off like a bat out of hell. At least she can tell the teams to hang around to cheer me. A couple miles later I see M from the other relay team - he lets me know my mileage and carries on. I'm only 4 miles ahead of that team so they will easily catch me before the end. 12 minutes later I pop out of the forest to a wave of cheers - both teams are there and J is ready on the bike. I've run the 5 miles down in under 12 minute pace and the 33-35 mile funk seems to far behind me. Coach N decides to join us for the next 7 miles so I have 2 distractors. J continues to read the words of encouragement and her and N both have tears in their eyes at some of them - girls eh? At other times they just rabbit on to each other so I can just listen and run and before I know it we are at 45 miles and there is no more downhill.

There's JUST 5 miles left, 10% of the course... at this point you know that you will make it... you can walk it, you can crawl it in... though my legs are tired and getting worse with every step. The hip muscle I had trouble with earlier tightens again so a bit of stretching and once again I run it out thankfully. We lose N at mile 46.5 and she heads off to the finish to prepare the reception committee 11 hours is looking unlikely at this point and I know she knows the race organisers.... "Don't let them take down my finish line" I think were my last words to her.

As I mentioned these last 5 miles are a long straight line - I'm slowing all the time I can feel it. The 20 minutes runs seem to take forever and for the first time I can't finish some of them and have to take some extra walk breaks. In reality I should be happy to still be running at this point I know but I'm a little annoyed. J asks if I want her to shut up - apparently I've gone all quiet and am not responding to her witty repartee. I tell her no keep going I need all the distractions I can get but I'm concentrating on just getting to the end so don't expect too much response.

Finally at mile 49 I can hear the finish line to my left and all I have to do is run to the bridge and loop back into town. The bridge is less than half a mile away but its a struggle to get there... my watch ticks past 11 hours and all I care about is that the finish line is still there. But even if it isn't I realise that all my friends are still there and I will still have the best finish crowd of any runner that day. This is the best reason for running with a team. Eventually the bridge appears and I walk down the stairs (YES STAIRS!!!!) and J carries the bike down. She heads off to get the cowbells and cheering ready and I struggle on the final small incline. I take one last sneaky walk break because I'm not going to walk in front of the team... then I run around the corner and head down the street to the school. There's one last little loop into the school drive and the team are there with cowbells, signs and high 5s all round. And the finish line is still there too...

I cross the line arms raised in 11h13m30s, 13:27 pace - the winner did 5h54 but I doubt he had the cheers I did.

There's a beer waiting for me and it doesn't last long, nor does the chocolate milk.. after a few minutes I'm feeling pretty good. I stretch a bit and chat about the race and nothing seems to hurt too bad. I guess its the euphoria. Man I am so happy to be done. I get a cool glass medal to show I finished and really thats what its all about for me. I'm very unlikely to win anything but I think there's not many people out there who have run 50 miles.

This is way too long so most of you stopped a while ago but for those still reading I want to thank N for all the training, the team for waiting at the end end to cheer - I know you could have all gone home because you you were a bit tired and my friends and family who sent words of encouragement.. I know most of you think I'm 100% crazy.

And finally most thanks to J - you've got up early with me, you've biked with me, you did 20 slow miles reading stuff without falling off and you washed my legs and feet when I couldn't bend over. I couldn't have done it without you. love you xxxx.

[Tomorrow: What happens AFTER you run 50 miles]

50 mile nerves

zman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:43:00 GMT

Yesterday I was checking out the website for the 50 mile race I'm running in April. They have a link to the course and while I was looking at it the enormity of the situation started dawning on me.

I have to start at 6am which is fairly normal for a race but then I read you have to be done by 5pm. I had to look twice. Normally if I start a marathon at 6am I'm done by 10:30am, showered and eating lunch by noon with the rest of the day ahead of me. For this race I will be running from when its dark in the morning until its getting dark at night. I'd love to think I can average a 12 minute pace which would be 10 hours total and finish at 4pm but its probably more realistic to think of 11 hours and 13 minute miles. I honestly can't think of anything I've ever done for 11 hours straight - even slept.

The course has a 10 mile out and back so after 20 miles of running I will be almost right back where I started and I won't even be half way. 5 more miles of flat in the opposite direction and at roughly half way, and having almost done a marathon I start a slow 10 mile uphill. Half way there I will pass 31 miles and from there on its all new territory for my legs and there's still 19 miles to go.The turnaround point is at the bottom of a short but steep trail access which of course has to be descended and climbed and then there's just 15 miles to go. As I learned on the 50k I did here its downhill but your legs don't really appreciate it. Well until you get to the bottom and the last 5 miles of flat feels like the worst up hill ever.

Training is going very very well - no injuries, no missed runs and other than some tired legs its all going great. I've got my list of supplies I need ready and I'm breaking in 2 pairs of shoes so I have a spare pair. All systems are go.

Don't get me wrong I'm excited to do this but every time I look at that map I feel a little queasy.

Longest (training) run ever

zman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:01:00 GMT

In terms of distance it was identical to my last 50k almost 2 years ago. In terms of time it was longer. I was running for 6 hours 29 minutes which is the longest I've probably been on my feet ever including hiking.

But the really different thing about this 50k was that it was just a training run. Yes ladies and gentlemen there was almost no taper down before the race and I got no time off after the race. I ran 50k on Sunday and then I did my normal training runs Tue/Wed/Thu. I did get to miss out of some speed work on Thu and my weekend run the week after was only 90 minutes but essentially there was no break. It was rough. On Tuesday my legs had a clear maximum pace that they were not going to go over and my legs felt tired whenever I would start to run. It is obvious that the last few years of marathons have increased my tolerance and decreased my recovery time. The evening after the 50k I went to a party and played ping pong (playing was fine, bending over to pick up the ball was NOT) and when it comes to general walking around you really couldn't tell I'd run 31 miles. I remember hurting more after 5ks.

Since this 50k was just part of my training for the 50 miler the goal was to finish and feel comfortable. No injuries, no hitting the wall just a nice even run. The course was a 9.6 mile loop so I had to run 3 laps and then add in a short out and back to make up the distance.

The first lap had plenty of folk to run with as there were 9.6 and 19.2 mile runners but that meant the pack disappeared quickly. I had some trouble with my camelback tube and had to stop and 'rewire' it. One of my running group caught up and so I ran with her for the rest of the lap. It was slowly raining - so everything was getting damp but on the positive side it wasn't hot. The course is a bit hillier than I expected so I timed my walk breaks to align with the hills. I finished the 1st lap in 1:51 which is just under 12 minute pace. No point in rushing, I changed some damp clothes, grabbed a bacon sandwich and some cookies and picked up my running mate for the 2nd lap. I suspect I was hanging around for over 5 minutes.

We could choose which way to run the loops after lap 1 so we headed off in the other direction - we got to see the other runners from my running group who were out on the course going in the normal direction. Going in reverse was easier for most of the lap but all the hills were at the end which meant you had to think about it all the way round. M had kindly offered to keep me company for this lap - its great having people to talk to to keep your mind off things so I got to hear all about her wedding in Hawaii. The rain stopped by half way so I was able to run without a hat on finally. My head gets so hot with it on. The final hill up to the start/finish is evil. Probably only 100m but totally unrunnable by mere mortals but we come in for a 2:00 lap. With that 5 minute break thats actually 1:55 running so I'm pretty happy about pace. My legs are feeling great still. Back to the car and I change socks and shirts for dry ones and leave my jacket and hat behind. This time I eat pasta salad, almonds and more cookies. My partner for lap 3 is a different M so after another 5 minute layover we head out. While I wait for her in the most disgusting porta pottie ever I see the 2nd and 3rd place 50k runners come in. Yes they are done and I have 11.8miles left to run. The winner has been in for half an hour. He ran 50k in 3:32 - thats 6:50pace. I can run that fast for about 800m. [Edit: Oh and I just looked at the results and he's the same age as me so I can't even claim its some young kid.... I did see him though and he weighs about half of what I did so I suspect that has something to do with it too]

Final lap I run the normal way to get the hills out of the way at the start. This time round there appears to about 3 more hills than I remember so there's more walking happening. But in general my legs are feeling pretty good. We hit the marathon mark just before 5h 30m so I'm over 12 minute pace but my pace is still good so its not a concern. It started to rain again... no fun but I'm very warm now so I don't really mind and I know its not far now. I round the corner to the switch over with a 2:05 lap. I've slowed as expected but I'm at 28.8 miles and still running just fine.

I don't bother stopping other than to grab some Cadbury's and a kiss from J (who was going to run the last out and back with me but is now changed into warm non running clothes) and head out for the final 2.2 miles. Remember that really short but steep hill I mentioned? Well that was the 1st thing I went down which means...... drum roll...... I have to run back up it at mile 30.9. Its cruel, very cruel. I run the mile out to the turnaround and there's few people still out on the course. Even fewer seem to think I'm funny when I ask them if someone moved the white line. Eventually there is it, I pause for some water and turn around. I can see the hill in the distance and in less than 12 minutes I stop to walk up it and then I'm done.

As I said - final time was 6:29 but best of all I was able to keep going for the whole time. I walked the steeper hills and stopped for food breaks but by the end I know I could have kept going. I'm sure I could have lasted for one more lap which would have taken me over the 40 mile mark. I'm less sure if I could have done a 5th lap to hit the 50mile but thats OK because I still have 10 more weeks of training to get me there.

Since it went so well I finally signed up for the 50 miler on April. There's no way out other than injury now. This is serious stuff - the 50k seems doable after a marathon. "Its just an extra 5 miles". The 50 miles is an extra 19 on top of that, or an extra 24 after you finish the marathon. The further you run the less 'amateurs' like me there are too. I was 72nd out of 80 on the 50k and I expect to be even closer to the back on the 50 miler.

Its been 10 days now and last nights run felt almost back to normal. I was able to hold a good pace even though it was only 40 minutes. My weekend runs are now doubled up - Saturday AND Sunday - and my week runs are going to get longer.

Yes me an official Ultramarathoner... hard to imagine isn't it!

Kissy Poo update

zman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:15:00 GMT

Its been pointed out to me that I am slacking off on blogging... so lets catch up on some things...

Kissy Poo has been doing very well. Our predictions were not high. Its a niche product on a platform dominated by grown up games and while we are quite proud of it we also know that its not done with high production values that most people expect. of course 4 year olds don't care about the production values but the folk with the credit cards often do. We passed Georges prediction of 500 copies at the end of December and sales were down to under 5 per day - it looked like it was going to be a long time before we hit my prediction of 1000. We'd run out of friends to ask to blog and tweet about it and were both busy on other things. Then we heard that Majors Minute was doing a kids game special because they asked us for the original footage of Georges son playing Kissy Poo - we didn't get any notification of if we were included for sure, or when it was going to be on. When it came out not only were we one of only 3 videos included, but thanks to Tennyson's cuteness we had more of the precious minute screen time than any other game. They don't keep the archives on the website so if you want to see it you will need to go to 'Inside Xbox' on your console, scroll over to 'More free videos' and then look in the Majors Minute archive for "Got Kids? Find fun games for them on your xbox". Looks like they keep 16 weeks on there so it will eventually roll off.

So what is the Major Nelson effect? Well here's a chart of the downloads and sales for January... lets see if you can spot the day the video came out!

As of yesterday the sales and downloads are almost back down to normal levels but its fair to say the additional exposure was worth about 600 extra sales and 1300 extra trial downloads. Thanks Major! George and I will have a beer and toast you.

Sadly none of this can be used to anyone's advantage. Its just about impossible to predict in advance what will be on the minute, there's no reliable way to get your game in front of the team that do it either. Even being an MVP didn't help much. It certainly meant that the XNA GS team know of our game, and it meant that they knew who to email for the extra footage but from what I gather the XNA GS team filmed far more than 3 games for the slot and the xbox/major nelson team made the final decision. We think that the cute kids footage probably helped more than anything.

Don't forget to be a friend on facebook http://facebook.com/kissypooisland for any future news and if you have not already done so we always love to get good ratings on xbox live marketplace.

Kissy Poo is live!

zman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:21:00 GMT

It is done... after a speedy review (it pays to be 1. Well known, 2. A good community member and MVP, 3. very well tested) we waited 48 hours and then a few more for the game to propagate to Xbox live.

Download/Buy it here http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025855036d/

If you like it you can also rate it there http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025855036d/

Check out the website http://kissypooisland.com and the facebook page http://facebook.com/kissypooisland

And now I'm going to have a beer to celebrate!!!

Sometimes you've got to quit...

zman — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:31:00 GMT

Well those on facebook have probably heard the news but of course I need a proper race report.

Saturday was a VERY early start. Up before 4am to arrive at the start line just after 5. I've never run at this park before even in the day light and this race starts with 3 laps in the dark. Once I got my number we sat back in the car to stay warm but it wasn't long before the race briefing and we were off.

The course starts at the low point of the park so you don't run very far before you hit the first up hill. 80+ steps and more than 200 ft of gain all in one go right to the top of the park. It seems that everyone is sensible and walks this at varying speeds. Its very cool to look behind and see the train of headlights. The next mile or so is mostly downhill with some uphills and several smaller flights of stairs to bridges and then you start going up again. There was about 3 places on the course that I decided were walk only. The last one was up to the top of the park again and then it was a steep downhill back to the start line. 1st lap 28 minutes for slightly under 2 miles... wow that took longer than I expected. But I walked 1/4 of it maybe and it was dark so you have to take your footing carefully.

Went to find the ladies for 1st lap supplies - they were chatting and not napping like they were supposed to. They looked so tired ;-) After a few minutes chat and eat I was off again. 2nd lap everyone was already getting spread out and I ran most of that and the 3rd lap on my own. I actually enjoyed it - its pitch black other than your headlamp and a few glowsticks marking the course. All my laps are about the same - just under 30 minutes with a few minutes of refuel/break at the end. Everything is feeling pretty good. The 1st hill is rough but its not killing me and the rest of the loop is long enough that you forgot about it till next time round.

Lap 4. M is running with me in the light - its nice to actually see the course and try to remember features from the headlight. The sun is coming up and its looking like a beautiful day and nothing like the 80% chance of rain we had been promised.

Lap 5. Another runner shows up to run with me - lets call her M2 ;-) - so I have 2 pacers for this lap and the sun is now fully up. Chatting all the way round takes your mind off things. People are passing us which means I'm being lapped already. No matter how crazy you are there are others more crazy.

Lap 6/7. M goes back to the car with J and M2 and I head out for another go around. Legs are still feeling pretty darn good considering all the hills. We spot a runner going the wrong way and call them back. Good job I was paying attention to the turns on the earlier laps.

Lap 8. I was supposed to have walked one by now so M2 and I walk this one. My costume (its Halloween) isn't running friendly because I have a fake cat attached to my head so I wear it on this lap. You have to wear the costume for a whole lap to count for the competition. Lots of people pass and everyone loves the costume. M has a jelly donut ready for me and the girls are finally awake and have a little camp site set up. The weather is nice so they don't need the canopy or the heater we bought as a contingency. At the end of the lap its time for a new dry shirt. I started in 'will run for chocolate' and now I choose 'will run for beer'.

Lap 9. Back on my own so I start naming bits of the course "Spikey tree", "Tree with arrow" etc. I fully expect to be naming the leaves on the floor by late afternoon. Time to start doing the math. 21 laps is one every 34 minutes and I'm doing quite well on that. I'm very sure I can do over 50k now and that's a nice thought. 40 miles might actually happen as my legs are still feeling fine. The aid station people see my shirt and someone finds me a can of beer.... excellent! J has started with her crafts and so I have a 'Go Andy lap 10' banner on my return. Doesn't look like we will need the 4 changes of clothes but one of my socks is rubbing so I stop and switch them.

Lap 10. Almost half way to 40 miles and well past half way for a 50k and I notice the stairs are a bit harder. I'm very impressed with the people who are passing me for the 3rd and 4th time. This lap takes me over 30 minutes so I figure the slowing process is beginning. Also my right foot feels a little odd. Like my shoe is too tight. I mention this to J at the end of the lap and retie the shoe. Maybe next lap I will change to some different ones. It doesn't seem too bad though and I'm going to get a 2nd walk lap in to help it. J has chilli ready for me on the camp stove and makes me eat some bagel too. Fuelling is going very well.

Lap 11. Officially half way to the 40miles on this lap and as I go up the stairs the foot pain gets worse - much worse. I start adjusting my walk when I get to the top and there's a short steep bit that I jog down and I realise the foot isn't good at all. I stop and take the shoe off to make sure its not that or a twisted sock or anything. Still hurts so I try to keep weight off it and I think maybe I will be ok. But every downhill puts more weight on it and I can feel it getting worse. By the time I'm 3/4 of the way round I am pretty sure this is it for me. If I knew the park any better I would have found a shorter way home but I limp through the last 1/4 mile which is mostly downhill and head back to 'camp'. Its taken me almost 50 minutes to get round. I got credit for the lap though. I take off my shoe and sock - no hint of swelling or anything. I ice the foot for 15 minutes and then try to walk/jog on it and there's no change at all... Game Over!

I might have been able to struggle home if this had been a longer trail run but at this point I was 6.5 hours in with 5.5 left to go. Carrying on wasn't going to prove anything other than I wanted to make my foot worse. I covered just under 22 very hilly miles and I was really only just starting to feel fatigued which I think was a good result on that course. I have other races coming up and I can always try again next year!

So we called it a day early. Called other friends who were coming to watch/run with me to let them know and headed home to cold bath and a beer....

Overall a little disappointing, but one of those days where you have to go with the flow and listen to your body which clearly was saying stop.

I wasn't too stiff after the race but Sunday and today I am suffering a little with my quads and glutes. The stairs and downhills are rough on the legs and I did them 11 times. I think I would be suffering more if I'd gone further. As long as I keep moving I am ok. Apparently my costume didn't win any prizes which was a little disappointing but hopefully it will get my picture in the maniac newsletter next month!

Many thanks to J&M who got up very very early to be the support crew, M & M2 for running and J&P who showed up to cheer just as I stopped... What are you all doing October 30th 2010?

KissyPoo

zman — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:51:00 GMT

This blog was supposed to be about writing game wasn't it... remember that. It was a long time ago when I quit the big M to write the next Halo. Well today I'm happy to say I'm a mere few week away from that. Yes that's right sometime in November I will be rolling in several million dollars as a result of my efforts. I do intend to get it in singles and put it on the bed if you are wondering and yes I'll post a picture.

Ladies and Gentlemen I proudly present KissyPoo:

[YouTube Video if you dont see it in your RSS reader: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEhWA0ejiLs&fmt=22]

You may notice that this one isn't really going for the Halo audience ;-) Its targeted for young kids. We've had happy playtesters from 18 months up to 8 years old depending on the kids though the younger ones have the most fun (the older ones have been known to play only when they think people are not looking!)

It started off as a potential job for someone that didn't happen. George and I had already thrown together a very simple prototype so we re themed it and tired it with some kids. It was so successful we had reports of tears when the game was taken away. We knew we were on to a winner. So we tidied it up and put up a playtest version to get some feedback. We got a lot. Initially we rejected some of the feedback becuase it was obvious that the adults wanted changes the kids didn't even care about. But as time went on we ended up doing pretty much everything.

Georg's wife, Shawna, did a great job with the graphics and the game looks so good as a result. The singing is all George with help from Songsmith and the sound effects are mostly his kids. Thankfully they work very cheap but I promise I will personally buy all 4 of them new bikes if we sell 100,000 copies!!

This week we put the finished version up for a 2nd round of testing. I doubt we will add/change any features now - just looking for bugs and bad things.

If nothing is found we will be going into peer review next week or so which means a release on xbox sometime in November. Its a peer review system so you can't predict an actual date.

If you want help:

Become a fan of KissyPoo on facebook
Blog, twitter, link, facebook... get the word out to folk with kids and xboxes
If you are a premium XNA creators club member you can get it here.
If you are a trial XNA creators club member you can get it here
If you want to try a windows build get it here. Note that this hasn't had quite the testing of the xbox builds but it seems to work on most PCs. You can use the keyboard but a wired xbox controller works best (or wireless with the receiver). Sorry other gamepads/joysticks not supported.
And when the game comes out tell all your friends and buy it... its going to cost a grand total of $1 and its worth at least $1.22 so its a bargain

If you have any feedback be sure to email it to me zman@thezbuffer.com