PLANET3RRY

I have a friend who needs some help… well, you can take that one MANY levels, but he is completing his Ph.D degree at VCU and needs some more “data”.

I told him that I would pass the information around, so see if you Qualify or if you KNOW of someone who might Qualify, please contact him ASAP.
If you are able to respond to him, I’ll buy you a beer or a soda next time I see you! Rumor has it that there is mad cash for those that participate, I dunno though…

Here’s the information:

For someone who loves to manipulate numbers, I sure have slacked on my Running Log numbers. I have a bunch to enter into BuckeyeOutdoors (the web’s premier Workout Log Website) and I am not even sure what I actually ran in January, much less most of 2009. Perhaps I can find it before the end of this post.

My last blog entry was the calendar for 2010 of what I want to run, what I may run and the things that I plan on running. Obvious I can’t do it all… there’s just not enough of me to go around. Plus, the cost for all of this would be outrageous!

I wasn’t sure, at first, what I wanted to do for a Spring Race. I am once again volunteering for the Knoxville Marathon and am staying as a course monitor this time and not a pacer. Perhaps in the future I might be ready to be a pacer again, but I’m going to be on the course this year. Without a clear Marathon to choose from, I looked toward a shorter distance… I thought perhaps I could work on the shorter distances, maybe even go for a new 5k PR time. I wasn’t quite exited about that, at least not in the spring, perhaps summer/autumn time. So that left me, with what to run?

The local racing scene here has a Winter series that culminates with the Knoxville Marathon distance. The first race is the Calhoun’s 10 miler, then Strawplains 1/2 marathon and then late-late February/Early March is the Whitestone 30k. So, it seemed to make sense to shoot for a goal race with some distance to it. And looking at the calendar, the Rittenhouse/Emory River Half-Marathon (don’t have an event URL yet) on 4/24 seemed to fit the bill perfectly. It’s far enough in the future to get some good workouts on my feet and it’s a (relatively) short enough distance to build up speed during that time.

The Summer months will be a periodization of shorter but faster work-outs. One, the weather is much too hot for the longer distances and the shorter workouts will also keep things interesting (I love the Ladders!). As the fall approaches, the race that I love to do is the Quad Cities Marathon… one, it’s really close to my birthday at the end September, plus I have a lot of family in the Quad Cities on my Late Biological father’s side. They know that I run and I am sure that I am a maniac… and they would be correct! The marathon runs through Moline, Il and Davenport/Bettendorf IA and Mile 20 is on Rock Island Arsenal… in fact its’ really close to the cemetery that Bob Tripp is buried. So this race has some very unique ties to it… but it doesn’t sit well with the school schedule and traveling to it, etc.

I have every intention of Running the Flying Monkey Marathon again this year! This year, I am registering EARLY to avoid having to worry about getting in! I’ll be bib #438 and will be shooting for a time 4hr 38min or faster! It’s not a race for the timid… if the Hills don’t kill you, the Flying Monkey’s sure will!

I could do both marathons, the Quad Cities (Late Sept) and then Flying Monkey (mid-Nov), but if I couldn’t do that combo… then I’d like to do Rocket City in Mid December. It’s 4hrs away and a little easier on the logistics. Where as a marathon PR at Flying Monkey would be difficult, I think a PR time at ROcket City would be doable, especially, if I could get serious about training in the Fall.

The other marathons highlighted are ones that might be able to make, if the timing works out.

On the morn of the day after I write this, I have the Whitestone 30k… a 18.7 mile run around some non-so-friendly hills around these parts. Should be fun… wonder how far I’ll get before I wear out. Maybe mile 11, maybe mile 18.6… who knows? To make things even more exciting, I had a stomach bug on Friday, that purged my system… which is nice because that’s less weight that I’ll have to carry, but it tends to dehydrate an individual. So we’ll see… I was going to have a Guess My Time, Win Crap contest, but honestly, I don’t think it would be fair to anyone right now… I’ll have it for some of the races this spring though… don’t you worry…

This is what I want to run for this year (well, considering that I am FINALLY posting it near the end of February):

Legend:
The Races in BOLD are the ones that I have every intention on doing
The Races in GREEN are ones where I have a Time Goal in mind for that race
The Races in YELLOW are Marathons that I would contemplate doing if the logistics worked out
The other Races are ones that I would like to do, but I probably won’t because of time & cost, but I may volunteer at them

Local Knoxville area races can be found at the KTC Website
US Marathons can be found in a number of places, I usually go to Marathon Guide.com

Or in my case: Strollers Broke!

We purchase a double stroller for the kids back in 2007, which I have taken on a number of different runs with me (including the 2007 and 2008 Worldwide Half Marathon) and some family excursions. Here’s a picture of the kids in the stroller on the 3rd Creek Greenway sometime in 2008.

We Like Running with Daddy

Well, on January 16 when I took the kids out on Third Creek Greenway from the Bearden Entrance to Tyson Park (2.5 miles one-way) where they can play on the nice big City of Knoxville playground. On the way back, I noticed that with about 1 mile to go, the stroller wanted to pull to the right. This was odd because The Elder was sitting on the left side and Vector Theory would suggest that it would pull to the left. I thought that it might have been a tire issue, with the right back tire having less pressure (thus creating more friction) and slowing that side down.

When we got back to the parking lot, we went over to look at the map of the Greenway and I showed the kids, where we were and where we went, etc. Then, when I went to leave, the kids seat dropped… how odd.

Getting back to the van, I took a closer look at the stroller and found a couple of places where it had broken:

EGADS! It’s pretty DARN broken there at the weld. I am not sure that even Duct Tape could fix it at this point. Looking at it with an engineer eye, I figured that it could be disassembled and the broken tubes could be replaced. I thought that the manufacturer would be able to supply the pieces for me, either for free or for a low-low cost.

So, I went hunting for the Dreamer Design website…

The first site that I found was for Stroller Ideas, where the had this to say about Dreamer Design Strollers…

“Dreamer Design does just that “Dreams to Design”. With years of Jogging Stroller experience behind their creative team, they have taken all the requests from parents over the years and turned them into an AWESOME stroller line. They back up our product line with a 20 year warranty and include features that no one else offers. The extra foot brake for added safety and the all weather canopy included with the purchase, just to name a few. From their creative research team to our customer service staff, your buying a name that says quality and strollers from the heart.”

and then when I went to the

Dreamer Design website… this is what is there:

Yeah! So now I am screwed! I can’t get any help from the Manufacturer… there are “no” spare parts. I’d basically have to buy a used one and gouge that one for parts, or just buy a new stroller. It totally sucks! The little glimmer of Optimism’s Flame is that now that The Younger can ride his bike, I can him with me on shorter runs. There is also the possibility of using a “not-really-for-running” stroller for The Elder while the The Younger follows behind. But the traffic on 3rd Creek is a little too much for them right now.

I have UPGRADES to planet3rry.com
I have POSTS partially typed
I have POSTS in my noggin
but your going to have to wait… but not too long!

So I thought that the Upgrade to my blog would be easy… well, it was except that I had an error saying that I couldn’t upgrade to WordPress 2.9.1 because MySQL db was something like 4.0.69 and it needed to be like 4.1.3.

No Problem… Export old db, Make NEW MySQL database 5.something, Import and I would be good to go.
Except that whole IMPORT thing didn’t work… or at least I didn’t know what check boxes to check/uncheck. Of course needing the internet, this was something I wanted to do here at work, since it was already in the middle of upgrading and I didn’t want to leave all of my readers in suspense on when Planet3rry.com was going to be back online.

So, I did it the old fashion way… by hand. Except in the world of computers… that is the Ol’ Cut N’ Paste. So I opened two windows of phpMYAdmin, one of the old WordPress database and one of the new database. Then take each table from the old database and Export it to SQL code, Go to the new database and run the SQL code which creates the table (and thankfully) and populates the data. I had 29 Tables…

Finally it’s done, the upgrade seem to have took. I don’t have time to fix/upgrade my plugins, because while all of this is going on at my desk at work. The GREAT BLIZZARD OF FRIDAY 3pm is happening right now. Of course, you may think that I am CRAZY for doing all this in the FREAKIN’ BLIZZARD, but this is how I look at it…

Everyone else scattered earlier… they’ll find all the slick spots before I do… and just by the sheer number of people leaving there will be less idiots out on the road when I make it home. Well, according to some, there will be at least one… I do have a contingency plan if I can’t get the car home… I have my running clothes with me!

Yesterday (Thursday Jan 21 2010), the weather peeps said that there would be Rain and more Rain until the afternoon and then a break and then MORE rain. And sure enough, the morning time was surely rainy and so I concluded that a lunchtime run wouldn’t fit into the schedule. Plus the fact that we had an IEPish meeting at the primary school earlier that morning and I would be taking time off for that, I could at least “Work” through “Lunch” and redeem that hour back. Plus this week at work has been rather unusual with the work requests.

Go Figure… about 11am the sky cleared up a bit, the rain stopped and it was almost pleasant. And it stayed that way until… OH until the evening! I could have managed that Lunchtime run, BUT (wait, here’s the rest of the story) I didn’t have 1) Shorts or 2) Underwear Incognito (i.e. “shorts”) or 3) Towels because I had “thought” about checking off my list of stuff to restock my workout bag (and car) but I never actually got around to “doing anything about it”.

Today (Friday), I had The Younger with me at work, then with everywhere I needed to take him, I didn’t get back to my desk until 1:30pm. But no worries… I just have a 10miler tomorrow.

That’s right! It’s the annual Calhoun’s 10 miler in Lenoir City, TN! I’ve run this one a couple of times and with a Fall Marathon, it’s typically the first long distance of the year for my Spring Training. Which technically, it will be longest distance so far this year (decade) but I have not figured out what I am going to race this Spring.

I doubt that I will be asked back to the Knoxville Marathon as a pacer, given my CRASH AND BURRRNNNNNN (i.e. DNF) from last year, which means that I will Volunteer somewhere out on the course like I have done in the past. So that means we will have to travel somewhere (not far probably) for a race and if we do that… I want to do a race in a State I have ran before (‘Being Sober’ doesn’t count).

So, I’m going to look at the calendar of 2010 races from Marathon Guide (around 411 of them starting the first weekend of April through end of December) and which ones are candidates and go from there.

But I think in the mean time, I will concentrate on the local races, which will help build for a Late March/Early April marathon at the very least. Calhoun’s 10 miler (now), Strawplains Half Marathon (2-13-10) and Whitestone 30k. Also, there are a number of shorter races that I “can” run, but given they cost money… I might run a few and volunteer at some. That way, I can earn volunteer coupons for Race Entries, KTC items!

“planet3rry Getting ready to do a lunchtime run… MAN it has bem a loooong time! http://tinyurl.com/yd7e58e about 2 hours ago from Tweed”

From my twitter on Tuesday (1/19/2010), I was VERY excited about getting back into the Run-At-Lunch thing that I used to do, but hadn’t in MONTHS. I think sometime November, I ran ONCE at lunch time. So, I was excited to get back out on the streets of the UT Campus and Downtown area for my runs. The lunchtime runs are truly the meat of my running life. I’ll post what my mileage was for 2009, and it was some what of a joke. Some of the mental trash that went on in 2009 carried over into 2010… and it was FINALLY 18 Days that I broke the seal on running in 2010 and today’s lunchtime was the second run of the year (hell, decade for that matter).

And in my second tweet on my running, I commented about my dilemma… a lack of running attire in my workout bag for the run, namely: SHORTS.

“planet3rry So what does a runner do when faced with no running shorts in you workout bag and you can’t exactly run in you work pants? about 2 hours ago from Tweed “

Being rather excited to get out and up to the Aquatic Center, I threw my workout stuff into my backpack and headed out the door. I knew that I should have everything, as I had started to (but only got halfway) organizing my workout bag last week. This time I HAD shoes… so I should be good… right? Wrong.

I got to the Aquatic Center and while I was disrobing, I realized that I couldn’t re-robe myself with running shorts because there were none to be found. WHA? I didn’t have shorts… COME ON NOW! I should have shorts… I mean, I have forgotten socks, towels and shirts before, but SHORTS? Sweatpants… I usually carry sweatpants! Except this time. I’m thinking now, “Oh great, now I have to back to my office and mope around because I forgot stooopid shorts.” Who knew if I had shorts at my desk at this point anyway. I thought that I had them in my bag, but nooooo…

Pants… I could run in my pants. Denim Jeans to be exact. Friends don’t let Friends run in Cotton and surely not Denim. I didn’t have a backup for the pants… and I didn’t want the denim to get wet then heavy, not to mention the stench. Bathing suit! Yes! I could wear my Speedos… they aren’t the European Old Man Cut. They actually have like a 1/4″ inseam so, they are about as long as some of the running shorts out there. And while I would run in them (and have), that is warm weather attire since I run in them when I do a Brick Workout (swim then run).

So what else could I do? Run in my skivvies? Well, not to mention my unmentionables, but I wore a pair of technical skivvies since I knew that I would be running today. While I “could” run in these seeing that they would be the equivalent of the “sports bra”, I did not want the chance of them becoming Running Thongs during the run.

I dug into the depths of my workout bag and I discovered a pair of Boxer-Briefs. Hmmmm, Salvation? They had more fabric real estate than my current skivvies or the Speedos. They were dark-gray which would not stand out as some of the other vibrant under garments that I have. They kinda “looked” like spandex except that the stitching on the backside was not disguised not were they very shiny, but the might work.

I ended up wearing them, with my shirt no tucked. This way, the shirt would cover some of my backside, so unless you were really looking, you wouldn’t see the underwear stitching. Plus, I was hoping that if people were to look, they might just think they were short-short running shorts and I’d be gone down the road. I wasn’t trying to draw attention at this point because this was not a clothing-optional organized race and I didn’t want to violate any pub(l)ic decency laws in the city.

So, I went out to run in my underwear. Things went fine. No unusual honking or whistling or yelling that I noticed. I didn’t go quite as far as I wanted… I ended up going 2.8 miles, which was fine. I tested out some GPS apps on my Palm Pixi, which is my first experience using GPS equipment, so now I get to see how that all worked out.

I’ve made a list of stuff I need to restock my workout bag, but nothing was going to stop me from running at lunchtime.

For Christmas, we received a juicer… Yes, one that we saw on an Infomercial… No, not pitched by the Late Great Billy Mays. We felt this would help us have a healthier diet by being able to drink the blood of fruits, vegetables and anything else that would fit in there.

We very much enjoy being vegetarian vampires. And with our juicer we get 30% MORE juice than leading competitors! But what about the wate/by-product/pulp of the victims? 3 words: Soups, Smoothies and Casseroles! We have been trying number of fruit-vegetable combinations and this leads dorectly to the point of this post, which I am getting to… Eventually.

I’ll save some of our recipe/combinations for later and focus on one fruit, Canteloupe. A nice light and rwfreshing part of the melon family, it makes a nice compliment to any juice. The Younge LOVES canteloupe. Well he like All melon regardless of type. All he requests is that they be cut into near bite-sized pieces… If too big he’ll just cram it in his mouth and if too small, he’ll just take a handful in there. Today we went to the grocery store and picked up a Canteloupe. Given what he ate today as cut fruit, I should have gotten 2, maybe 3.

For afternoon snack he had his first helping of Canteloupe and some strawberries.
“Daddy, can I have some of that fruit-What’s it called again?”
“Canteloupe”
“Yeah! Canteloupe. And strawberries. But no grass… On the strawberries.”
“Okay.” I cut him a couple of pieces and quickly realized it would be wise to go ahead and slice the whole melon, at least into strips which would easy to juice.

Later, he asked for another snack and I felt myself in the middle of a Monty Python sketch…
“Daddy, I want some more, uhhh, stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I want some more mayonnaise.”
“Some what?”
“More mayonnaise.”
“You want more…. Mayonnaise?”
“Yeah, like we had today, with strawberries with no grass.”
“Ooh, you want some canteloupe.” I said thinking how in the hell the translation between the two. I could find no logical connection…
“Yea, cant-tee-loot”
“Sure,” I replied cutting couple of pieces for him. Not 2 minutes later, I found myself in a strange strange situation.
“Mayonnaise is my FAVORITE!” exclaimed The Younger, cramming in a “Younger” sized morsel in his mouth.
“You mean canteloupe.”
“Yeah, canteloupe!”
When he finished that piece, he asked for some more.
“Daddy can I have some more mayon- What this called again?”
“Canteloupe,” I replied not even pausing with what I was doing… as if mayonnaise and canteloupe were one in the same.
“Yeah. It’s my favorite.”

We will see if it sticks… I do know that The Younger knows that 3 is 3 and not 5.
###
Review of The Younger’s sandwich, a BLT with some canteloupe, coming soon.

[This was written on New Year's Eve...]

Our household has been without internet since September as a way to cut spending. Also at the end of September, we turned off our home phone AND our Cable. Although, we have not totally become TV free in our household, we have made that step to stop the crap that Hollywood can only seem to reproduce time and time again. And if there is anything news worthy, we do have the internet via our mobile phones (My Lovely and Talented Wife’s Palm Pre) and my work. I do now have the Palm Pixi (which I call ‘Pi-11′ to soften the tinkerbell connotations of the phone…. disclaimer: my most recent phone was a pink Katana II, so having a phone that “sounds” girlie is nothing compared to one that “looks” girlie) [uh, where was I], which I can access my email and web and a bunch of other cool stuff that I could only do if: I borrowed My Lovely and Talented Wife’s Pre or be at work.

Now that I am on a forced vacation… December 28 through January 1st, because the University of Tennessee is in its annual “administrative closing” cycle, this meant two things: More Kid Time, Less internet. My BRILLIANT Lovely and Talented Wife suggested that I go to the Library and work “1/2 day” to maintain some normalcy in our household. Both The Elder and The Younger are on their Christmas Holiday Winter Whatever Break and so with everybody home that is just a recipe for Clutter and Chaos. So, a few things had to happen for me to get to the point where I could work 1/2 days. 1) I needed a place to work with Internet Access 2) I needed a place conducive to getting real work done 3) I needed a place that I could work and then when I was done working, I could run. yes, I said RUN. As of me typing this blog entry, I have not run since December 3rd, but there is hope on the way. I need am INTERVENTION from this not running.

The place that satisfied ALL these conditions was the Knox County Public Library… 1) I can get internet access, 60 minutes with a library card, 2) It’s quiet in the library and you can really “buy” anything… but does have some strange personalities that roam through the collections and 3) The Farragut Branch is really close to my house AND adjacent to the Campbell Station Greenway! So, 2 weeks ago, I signed up for my library card… which means that now the The County and The Government is following my every move… wait, don’t they already do that?

Since my “real” work has actually been full of legimate work, thanks American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I have had little time to do the things that I used to do mainly at work: Blog and Trade (stocks/options). So that is what I have been doing this week… well, when I wasn’t sitting in the waiting room of The Clinic.

Seems that the other day, in one of those simple instances… like putting down a cup of coffee… strange things happen in our world which follows the rules of Physics. Seems that I was able to apply enough Force (F) which was enough to break (coeffiecent of adhesion) the handle of the mug into two (n) pieces which cause one of the pieces to interact with my hand, namely the knuckle of my right hand’s middle finger (FU). Following Newtonic Rules of Motion, it was the ceramic piece which ceased to be in motion once it came into contact with my knuckle. Seems that about an inch (1″) of flesh was enough to stop the ceramic piece’s motion, however, it caused an incision to open in my hand (OWWIE). Noah would have been excited because with the blood, it was like the parting of the Red Sea. (I put the wrong person down, just to check to see if you were reading this… everybody knows that Abraham parted the Red Sea). Being a guy, and previously been certified in Red Cross First Aid, even to the First Responder level, I knew that I needed something… and a beer was not that thing. It was direct Pressure (P), and I applied that in a millisecond (ms) of the cut. At this point, I wasn’t sure of just how big the cut was, but I knew that it wasn’t going to be pretty. My Lovely and Talented Wife was in the next room and hopefully not engrossed too deep in a game of Five or More to hear my body hit the hardwood floor as I bled out.

I made it the Laundry Room, which is also our First Aid Triage Room and our Pharmacy. I was now faced with a dilemma… I couldn’t get the band-aids (please don’t sue me) bandages with one hand incapacitated and the other one engaged in self-preservation. I tried for about 30 seconds, before I called out, “Lovely and Talented Wife, I need your help!”. I was met with an immediate response since I NEVER ask for help, even if getting help is EASIER than the way that I am doing it. So, with the calling for help, she was like a cat hearing the can-opener, except… no tasty treat. Surprisingly we were able to get the bandage on with little problem. There wasn’t much blood, but there was “sinking” of one of the flaps of the skin. I didn’t think that I needed stitches, but still followed (yes, dear) my wife’s request of trying to call the doctor. But given that it was 7:30pm on a Sunday, I had no chance of being seen. That meant, if I wanted stitches, I would need to go to the Emergency Room. Seeing that I 1) I did not have a head injury or 2) a gunshot wound, the chance of being seen in the Emergency Room before Sunrise, was slim to very very very slim. I decided to do my own First Aid handy work and try to survive the night.

Although I was never a Boy Scout but rather watch MacGvyer in the 80s (and had the hair at the time), I was able to fashion a split for my finger using a bandage, prewrap, athletic tape and popsicle sticks. And it worked, just peachy! No duct tape needed (darn!).

The next day, once the kids were up, I had some full frontal reality. In about 10 minutes, they must have hit my finger at least once if not TWICE! (and once was enough). I decided that I would be going to “The Clinic” so that I could get it looked at by a ‘professional’ and see if I really needed stitches. The Clinic didn’t open until 2pm though and I didn’t want to go to my PCP because that place is full of sick people. At least at the clinic, they are doing mainly tests at time of day. After a 2 and 1/2 hour wait at the clinic… I walked out with a metal splint on my finger, which was a nice upgrade to my home-grown splint. All it cost was the price of a co-pay.

### Fast Forward 2 weeks

I guess now I have to play catch up on my blog. The good thing is that I have a smart phone now which makes texting, browsing, etc SOOOO much easier. So, now I still have to figure out my running calendar this year!