Marathon You Can Do It

Staying thin is harder than trying to get thin.

The curse of dieting is that 90% of people who lose weight by dieting end up getting their old weight back. Tv star, Valerie Bertinelli managed to lose 40 pounds and she is determined to beat the curse. She is lacing up her running shoes and training to run at this year’s Boston Marathon.

The Boston Marathon is on 19 April for days shy of her 50th birthday. If she finishes the marathon that will be a perfect birthday gift to give herself.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: 19 April, 50th Birthday, Birthday Gift, Boston Marathon, Curse, Running shoes, Tv Star, Valerie Bertinelli

Last month issue of bussinessweek magazine had an interesting article on calories hidden in some of the popular fast foods.

Check this

1. Large Tuna Melt Calories -

The Tuna Melt from Quiznos fast food is packed with 2,090 calories

2. Fish and Chips Calories

The famous fish and chips food is packed with 1,537 calories.

3. Double Six Dollar Burger calories

The double six dollar burger from Carls Jnr fast food is packed with 1520 calories

4. Large French fries calories

A large plate of french fries is packed with 1460 calories

5. Monster thick burger calories

The monster thick burger from 7hardees fast food is packed with 1460 calories.

6. Four piece chicken strip basket calories

This fast food from 6 dairy queen restaurant is packed with 1340 calories

7. Beef Taco Salad Calories

The beef taco salad is packed with 1280 calories

8. Triple whopper with cheese

The triple whooper with cheese from burger king is packed with 1250 calories

Low calories fast foods

9. Double Chicken & Cheese Sandwich Calories

This double chicken cheese sandwich has 738 calories

10. Sausage Biscuit Calories

The sausage biscuit 25 chill a Fill is packed with 590 calories

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Beef Taco, Burger King, Calories Food, Calories Foods, Calories In Fast Food, Carls Jnr, Cheese Sandwich, Chicken Strip, Chill, Dairy Queen, Fish And Chips, Fish Chips, French Fries Calories, Monster, Piece Chicken, Sausage Biscuit, Taco Salad, Triple Whopper, Tuna Melt, Whooper

Today is Thanksgiving in the U.S., but there’s no reason it can’t be day of “thanks” everywhere in the world.

So I just wanted to say “thank you” to everyone that has ever shown support for me through the years by visiting my blog.

I enjoy what I do for a living and I enjoy sharing new running ideas with everyone… but it just wouldn’t be the same if there wasn’t “everyone” to share them with.

I thought I’d just take the time to let you know… “thanks for being here”.

So no matter where you are in the world…. please enjoy time with your family and friends, and be sure to give thanks for whatever you are thankful for.

Constantine

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Blog, Constantine, Family And Friends, Giving Thanks, Running, Thanksgiving, Today Is Thanksgiving

Jenson Button tackled the 2009 London Triathlon. The formula one driver took advantage of the formula time out to join 6000 amateurs at the London triathlon.

Button raced through the Olympic distance – a 1500m swim, 40km bike ride and a 10km run – in a personal best time of two hours and seven minutes.

He did the 1500m swim in 24 minutes, the 40Km bike ride he covered in 1 hour 3 minutes and the 10K run in an impressive 35 minutes.

Comparing heart rates of triathletes  and Formula One drivers

This is what the F1 driver told the BBC

“I pushed myself to the limit in the triathlon and it is different to driving a car for a start my heart beat is a lot higher when I’m swimming and running.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Amateurs, Bbc, Best Time, Bike Ride, Driving A Car, F1 Driver, Formula One, Heart Beat, Heart Rates, Jenson Button, London, Personal, Start My Heart, Triathletes, Triathlon

After a woman has surgery for breast cancer, she is typically given a long list of don’ts. Don’t lift anything heavier than 15 pounds, including your child. Don’t carry a heavy purse or grocery bags. Don’t scrub, push, pull or hammer.

Why Breast cancer survivors should not carry heavy weights

The goal is to prevent lymphedema, a painful and unsightly swelling of an arm or leg that can occur near the site where lymph nodes have been removed or damaged by radiation.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer Survivors, Grocery Bags, Hammer, Heavy Weights, Lymph Nodes, Purse, Radiation, Risk, Weight Lifting, Woman

If you are a regular reader of this blog you might have noted that this blog was not updated in the last few week. I have been fixing a few unexpected problem.

This blog was hacked by a hacker last month. I didnt know of the attack until I got a email message from google that said they were temporarily removing my blog from their index because they had detected hidden links in the blog. My first reaction was WTF.. They informed me they suspected it was the work of hacker.

Looking at the homepage of this blog I couldn’t see anything fishy, the links were invicible on a browser even when I checked the source code using dreamweaver I couldn´t see them. But when I checked the blog using this tool forwarded to me by my hosting company, www.unmaskparasites.com I was shocked to find that this blog had 250 hidden links. Using this other tool at SMART IT CONSULTING I discovered the hacker had hidden the links insider the footer.

WHY HACK A BLOG?

I don´t keep credit card numbers in the blog the hacker just wanted to place the links. I suspect this was the work of a rogue SEO consultant. Google ranks sites depending on the number of links pointing to your site. If I can get 5,000 sites to link to this blog using keywords marathon running. This blog would always be at number one. The more sites linking to your site the higher you rank.

The competition to rank high has become fierce and some websites are using illegal means to get to page one of google search. One way is to hack into other sites and place hidden links. Blogs are popular in being hacked because hackers know bloggers have no time and resources to protect their blogs.

HOW I FIXED THE PROBLEM

Whoever had hacked my sites had created new files inside my wordpress installation. Instead of just removing the suspect files I un-installed the whole thing and installed a new wordpress.

DETECTING WHETHER YOUR SITE HAS BEEN HACKED

• You can´t see hidden links but there are signs that may indicate something fishy
• Your site starts ranking in some keywords outside your niche.
• Your bandwidth usage is rising while traffic stays constant or even declining.
• If you use google adsense the ads are totally unrelated to your niche.

PROTECTING YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG.

Keep your wordpress installation updated to the latest version but the irony was that when this blog was hacked I had the latest version 2.7.1. The plugins also need to be always upgraded. I suspect that is where the hacker found a loop hole because I had failed to upgrade many plugins. I guese I was just lazy because the current version of wordpress allows you to install and upgrade plugins on your wordpress without the need of visiting the C-panel. If you are still running wordpress 2.2, 2.3 or any other lower version you are missing out. The current versions allow you to do so many things without the need to visit the C-panel.The days of ´this plugin cannot install….´ are a thing of the past.

Wordpress Security Plugins.

There are many, one of the most popular is Login lockdown, Login Lockdown is useful in preventing a brute force attack. Another one is security scanner. The one that I liked is this one, wordpress firewall, it will even send you an email when someone tries to hack into your site. They will even give your the IP address for blacklisting . Just yesterday they sent me an email of an hacking attempt from an IP located in Carlifornia, USA.

There is no guarantee of 100% security, if someone wants you he can get you. Hackers are good just like those guys working for Symantec. They successfuly hack big organisations, Barrack Obamas servers during campaign period were hacked, last year someone hacked into online account of French president Sarkozy and withdrew some cash from his account. The only sure protection is to keep checking for fishy activities using the above links and when there is an intrusion remove it before google penalises you. After being penalised my blog traffic from search engines plunged by 80%. After removing the hidden links google lifted the suspension five days later, thats was three weeks before the end of 30 days suspension.

When I started blogging I didn´t expect to find myself learning about internet security. Learning never ceases and it feels good to be empowered.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Blog, Company Www, Credit Card Numbers, Footer, Google, Hack, Hacked Sites, Hacker, Hackers, Hosting Company, Insider, Keywords, Marathon Running, Signs, Something Fishy, Source Code, Tool, Unexpected Problem

The news story of the weekend was the shoe throwing incident in Baghdad. George Bush was giving a press conference when an irate Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at the American president, not once but twice.

I watched the clip on CNN and I have to say President Bush has good reflexes!! The way he ducked the first shoe was brilliant. The shoe thrower did not give a warning and threw it fast but Bush was quick to take cover. To do that you need excellent visual skills of eye-body coordination.

Develop Visual Skills

According to an article on wikipedia, reflexes such as those of President bush may be trained, such as during repetition of motor actions during sport practice.

Sir Clive Woodward the former coach of England rugby team credited visual techniques for his team winning the 2003 Rugby world cup. After being appointed team coach,  Woodward brought in ex-South African international hockey player Sherylle Calder as a “visual awareness coach”.  Her work made the team improve in passing and performance.

Areas of focus in visual skills training include;

Dynamic Visual Acuity – which allows you to see objects clearly while in motion.

Eye Tracking – the ability to “keep your eyes on the ball,” no matter how fast it may be traveling.

Eye Focusing – changing focus quickly and accurately from one distance to another

Peripheral Vision – seeing people and objects “out of the corner of your eye” while concentrating on a fixed point.

Fusion Flexibility and Stamina – the ability to keep both eyes working together even under high speed, physically stressful situations.

Depth Perception – quickly and accurately judging the distance and speed of objects.

Visualization – picturing events with your “mind’s eye” or imagination. Studies show that when you visualize yourself performing a particular activity, your brain doesn’t know the difference between performing the activity or visualizing. Visualization can boost your confidence and aid in greater focus on your athletic goals.

Remember If you are not seeing well, your reaction time is slower and that may impact on your overall performance

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Marathon, Running, Training

Asernal football team has riches of young talented footballers. While many top English premier league team prefer to buy proven footballers, Aserne Wenger seems to have this canny ability to find young talented footballers.

Wenger Philosophy in Finding Football Talent

In an article I read in the BBC football, the frenchman believes it is either you have talent or don’t ….”Wenger says if a player doesn’t have the technical ability by the time he is
14, if he doesn’t have the physical capability by 16 or 17, the tactical ability
by the time he is 18 or 19 then he will never make a really good footballer.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Athelete, Talent, Training

Running your own business is hardwork, all the time is spent attending to the needs of your customer. Most business people admit they don’t have time for family let alone hobbies.

I have just finished reading a BusinessWeek magazine story about six entrepreneurs who have been able to balance business and time to train for Olympics. I loved the following four entrepreneur/athletes who have been sweating at Beijing Summer Olympics.

Melanie Roach

She is an American weight lifter, A bronze medalist at 2007 Pan American games. She runs a 17 employee Gym with her husband.  “To be a good business owner,” she says, “you have to put in the work, have the vision, and be goal-oriented. It’s the same in athletics. You’re never off the clock. There’s always something you can do better.”

Christie Ramphone

She is in Beijing as captain of the women’s soccer team and is co-owner of Airship Self Storage, a three-person company in Manchester, N.J.

George Hincapie

This cyclist has competed in every Summer Olympics since 1992. Hincapie and his brother Rich are the owners of Hincapie Sportswear, a six-employee, $4 million maker of cycling apparel in Greenville, S.C.

Sailor, Austin Sperry

When Austin got married he discovered that his new father in-law had tried to qualify for Olympics for 40 years. Austin teamed up with his father in-law, John Dane III the oldest American athlete competing in Beijing. They are now in Beijing!

Austin runs a 10 person, 500,000 mobile home business. He told businessweek “I look at sailing as a job. I look at the other business stuff as what I love to do,”

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Beijing Olympics, old athletes, Olympics, Running

The Tour de France ended on Sunday in a now familiar script in sporting events: A spanish athlete is the winner! In June and July, Spain national soccer team won the European Soccer Championship and Rafael Nadal beat Roger Federer in the final of Wimbledon. On Sunday spanish cyclist Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France. And today morning I just read in the papers that a Spanish race walker, Francisco “Paquillo” Fernandez has set a world best mark for 10Km.  Every man and woman in Spain must be walking with an extra bounce!

In recent years, Spanish athletes have also won the Basketball world championship, two formula one championships, five motorcycling world titles and a handball world crown. It is surely a golden era for a country who had a reputation of being perennial underachievers.

How do you turn perennial underachievers to winners?

A good case study is the Spanish soccer team. Just before the 2008 European soccer I remember reading a BBC report about the prospect of spain, Spanish football expert Guillem Balague said “I don’t think Spain can win Euro 2008. A good tournament would be reaching the last four”

“We’re not favourites,” Luis Aragones, the team coach had said on more than one occasion. “Nobody should be deceived by Spain because in the major tournaments we haven’t done anything.”

When a team coach talks halfheartedly you know you have a big problem.

In the same BBC report, the players had a different mind set.

“We have the players to create history for Spain” Fernando Torres their top striker.

“We want to live up to the prestige and pride of a whole nation” Defender Carlos Marchena

While the rest of Spain was stuck in a mind set of self doubt, the spanish athletes have moved on. Today they no longer doubt their ability, they believe they are good. They don’t fear the opposition but face him wholeheartedly.

As we get closer to Beijing Summer Olympics, Hopes are high the recent success will inspire Spanish athletes to bring home a host of medals. Spain are hoping to get close to the record 22 medals they won when Barcelona hosted the games in 1992.

The officials and public can hope but for an athlete to win ; You have to compete 101% with your mind and heart.

written by Constantine Njeru \\ tags: Beijing Olympics, Running