Feeling the Bern

D - Ran 5 Miles - 41:58


As an FYI, the current background behind Long Running Discussion's title was taken in Bern, Switzerland. Its probably a block from Einstein's office apartment (Einsteinhaus) when he was working for Switzerland's Intellectual Property Office. It was that view of the Zytglogge clock, as he was riding the trolly away from it, that he came up with the theory of relatively. As the trolly moved away from the clock, he reasoned, you would view the time as slowing down - since the light from the clock had to reach you. The faster the trolly, the slower time would appear to go. For anyone on public transit, or watching the clock as you finish a race, this is pretty depressing reasoning.

So instead, I'll focus on the physics of running. I got in a coversation at work about how many calories you burn running. My co-worker actually uses a website to track everything he eats and all the excercise he does. In the end you can see a breakdown of calories in vs calories burned. Far from perfect, but an interesting set of data regardless.

Rosti in Bern

I opted for a much simpler querie of a simple 'calories burned' formula from Runner's World. Its nice, since the author works with net calories burned (the calories you would have burned are subtracted from the calories burned during excercise) and compared it to walking. It generally works out to .63 calories per mile per pound. That means 97.6 calories per mile... or 1,464 calories this weekend when we do our 15. I'll have to remember to pack snacks. And, as a commenter noted, this doesn't account for the extra energy needed to repair and grow muscles.

As a point of reference, Cliff Gels have 100 calories each. Make me wonder how many calories were in the Rosti we had in Switzerland.