Today was a leisurely stroll along the waterfront. And when I mean leisurly, I actually mean that I ran fast for the first mile and then went from there. Actually, Marty (aka Beer Boy) and I decided to meet up today for a short jaunt along Volunteer landing. It was very convenient since he actually had to do some Brewmaster duties at the Calhoun's at Volunteer Landing and I could still get the mileage in that I wanted.

I met up with Marty just before the 1.5 mile mark and we ran my normal 5 mile route at Volunteer Landing. The only exception is that at the regular turn around point, we went on to the end of the James White Greenway which added about an extra 0.7 mile. So all in all I ran 5.7 miles, sweet!

I was breaking in a new brand of running shoe that I plan on using at the 5k this weekend. I'll talk more about them later once they are broken in and I can truly evaluate their performance.

So, Here is how it breaks down:

I got a call just a while ago that Beer Boy thinks he might have some yuckiness with his lungs. He was wondering what my symptoms that I had when I had pneumonia earlier this year. Hope all goes well!

One thing that I have meaning to blog on was an event that occurred on Thanksgiving more in the preparation stages for our Thanksgiving Feast. The menu for the day was:
Ham (it was precooked & seasoned - so only needed to be heated)
Stuffing (Homemade recipe from Solange)
Greenbean Casserole (My favorite, will do about anything for Greenbean Casserole)
Homemade Dinner Rolls (Recipe that my Mom used while I was growing up)
Cranberry Sauce(Chris's recipe: Ocean Spray from a can)
Rice (Brown Rice, nothing fancy, well it was Organic)
Pumpkin Pie(Chris's recipe: box of pie from Wal-mart)

So, I was in charge of Kitchen Management, the Ham and the Dinner Rolls. I had made the Roll dough the night before so, I just had to let it rise before baking them to ensure hot delicious butter melting dinner rolls, those would be last. The driver for everything was the Ham, it would need about 90 minutes to warm up and so it was the time hog. Everything else could be made and baked before the ham was ready, especially the cranberry sauce.

One of the nice things about our kitchen is that it has a double oven. It is a pure luxury and if you have ever had a double oven, you'll always want one. The plan was to cook the ham in the bottom oven, currently a holding area for cookie sheets and other metal pans while the other stuff cooked up top. Maximize everything so that it would be ready by about 1pm.

So I emptied the bottom oven and cranked it to 325 and went on doing some other things while it preheated. The Ham was covered in Aluminum foil in a broiler pan (the part that went with the Terry Hand Grater) and was ready to be tossed into the over and forgotten for 90 minutes. While running around the house, I do remember smelling something that didn't seem quite right, but ignored it.

So now the oven was ready for the ham and as I opened up the oven door, some thick black stinky smoke billowed out of the oven. WTF! I quickly shut the door, a little shocked that the oven had belched out such a horrific substance. I peeked again and sure enough, the oven door was open a little more than an inch and the smoke was pouring out. I immediately turned off the oven and told Jen that “We had a Crisis”. In super panic mode, I had Jen get Ryan out of the kitchen and outside. I opened windows on both ends of the kitchen. I hoped that a breeze would carry the black smoke out of kitchen and not set off the house fire alarm. I ran downstairs to get a stand fan first before getting the small vacuum cleaner. The fan was to dissipate the smoke and the vacuum cleaner was to filter out some of the smoke so I could see inside.

I vacuumed for a couple of minutes and the smoke was still coming out pretty strong. I noticed that the small vent at the top of the oven was steady kicking out a stream of smoke. I then thought that it would be best to open it up halfway to see inside, if the house fire alarm went off, I'd have to cut the entire power to the house, but so be it. When I looked in the first time I only saw smoke. The second time with vacuum in hand, I saw some orange flames in the back of the oven right near where the element connects to the stove. Oh crap! An electrical fire.

I could have made the Olympic Hurdles getting to the fuse box. I cut the corners and jumped over a few obstacles with the ease of a bounding deer. I cut the power and went to go get the flour. If I had left the oven door closed, the fire would have, in all probability went out by itself due to a lack of oxygen. It was not an electrical fire, but I didn't know that at the time. So, here I am with bunch of flour ready to catapult at the flames in hopes of snuffing the flames. In my first attempt, I got over half the fire. To minimize the amount of smoke, I instrumented a open, toss, close method and using this method there is little aim and no accuracy. The second toss killed the flame I was able to look, finally at the oven. Apart from being all black from soot, it looked okay.. after all where better to have a fire than the oven? Okay, maybe the fireplace!

The stand fan did a good job of getting rid of the smoke, but now I wanted to clean up the flour all over the oven. I scooped most of it out and then used the vacuum to get the smaller stuff. When I came to cleaning up the back of the oven where the flames where, a large burned mass broke off the oven floor. I initially thought it was a Flour Hybrid creation fashioned from the fire, but it was in fact the culprit.

Apparently, a knife (not one of ours) had been placed in with the broiler pans, cookie sheets, etc and when I took them out, fell onto the element. Then during preheating, caught on fire and made the mess. Here is a picture of what we found:

To date, I have wiped down the oven but not cleaned it thoroughly yet. I do not know the status of the element, but I am leaning to the fact that it should be okay. The top oven turned out to be just fine and instead of heating the ham in the oven, we tossed it into our 6 qt crock pot and cooked it for 3 hours on high. It was actually a little tall initially for the pot so we ended up hacking the top part of the ham. Of course, I had to cut and rip out the ham bone first… and that was hard and it was work.

Needless to say, Thanksgiving turned out just fine. Everyone ate and was happy.

It was another windy day despite having a huge weather front pass through our area last night. It is a little colder today, maybe a tad bit colder on the mild side. Or something like that… I was in a LS Coolmax shirt and shorts and was just fine!

Running today was actually okay. I just ran around campus, wandering a bit here and there. I ran where ever there were people, I guess so that it would motivate me to keep my pace up while I was trying to be leisurely. I ended up going somewhere close to 3 miles, but really am only counting 2.6. Why 2.6? I dunno… randomness I guess. I was distracted while I was running and stopped my watch, but from what I can gather, I was running a little more than an 8 minute mile. I think tomorrow I will run a full 5 miles and see how I am doing. That way, on Thursday I will do an easy 3 mile, swim Friday, rest Saturday and then up and running for the race on Sunday.

See what I did this morning? YAY! Fun! And now it is sore again. After all it was healing well and starting to look normal but now it's broken again. sigh!

Just when I was going to go get my hand modeling gig back!

and another day of rest and another and another…

I think I am testing whether a longer rest period will make you faster. Today is day 4 of rest since the Autumnfest 8k and probably with some good reason. So, I am listening to installment #20 of Phedippidations when I should be running around 5 or so miles. Oh well, if you don't bring your workout clothes, you can't really workout, can you?

So, I will be doing a little alteration to my training this week. Since I rested today, I will be breaking away from my training mantra of “two days off before a race” and run on Friday. Or, I could run Tues, Wed, Thurs and swim on Friday. Perhaps that will be a better choice. The problem, of course, is for me to stay slow or at least slower than tempo pace because knowing me… I go out for 4 leisurely miles and end up 2 fast miles that leaves me worn out for Sunday's Reindeer Run 5k.

On a side note about Autumnfest 8k, my official time of 37:40 made the 2005 running of the race a Course Record (by more than two minutes) and a Race Record (by 42 seconds). I just noticed, but it also makes it the fastest paced race of the year as well with an average pace of 7:32 minute miles.

If you have been perceptive and noticed that I have taken multiple days off, you might have noticed that I did not run my long run on Saturday. Let me be the first ot admit that the reason why I didn't run was I was lazy. I should have gotten up and ran but instead, I chose to sleep. I am not sure if this is something cyclic or psyhcological, but I have not been able to be motivated in the mornings these past 2 weeks. I should be getting up no later than 5:30am to get my personal stuff done before Eric wakes up, but I have essentially been sleeping UNTIL Eric wakes up. Maybe I'll figure it out someday!

So, Crappy but warm weather for tomorrow's lunch run. Thanks Weather Channel!

If it hadn't been for my lining up a little towards the back and taking me 13 seconds to get to the start line, I might have actually made it 37:30. Instead I was 37:40 being 127 out of 607 and 8 out of 30 in my age group. Despite making the goal time that I wanted, it was by no means easy or that enjoyable while I was running. I started to get a stitch in my diaphram area around mile 2 and it stuck with me for the entire race. My legs felt fine for the entire race, it was my core muscles that felt like crap. I think it was that I was in auto-pilot for those last 2 miles that kept me on target. Actually, I almost ran negative splits for the entire race, which absolutely baffled me because I SWORE that I was slowing down for the last mile, which I ran my fastest… go figure. So here is my box score:

Okay, I seemed to be obsessing over the 8k tomorrow when I am not evening going for a PR. But am I going for a course record? Hmmm… let me check that.

I am looking for a 37:30 finish for an 8k (5 miler) that is a 7:30 minute per mile pace. My current course record for Autumnfest is 39:42 (for the current course) which they changed in 2003 (I think).
So yes, this will be a course record and a race record for that matter. This is my 3rd most personally attended race and will be the 7th consecutive year that I have ran this race.

This race is dedicated to William “PaPa” Adkins (1914-2000) who was like a grandfather to Jen. He passed away right before Thanksgiving in 2000 and instead of staying in Knoxville for Thanksgiving we were going to travel to North of Charlotte for the wake and funeral the next day. Since we were not leaving until the afternoon, Jen decided that she would run this race in memory of him. This was the first time that she had every run 5 miles and ran with a friend for most of the race. We even took the race shirts that year and put on an iron-on transfer with “Running in Memory of William “PaPa” Adkins (1914-2000)” and wear them to that race. One of my quirks is that I do NOT wear race shirts to races… except for this one. So ever since 2000 we run or volunteer for this race. This year, I have a 37:30 goal and Jen is going to be working the finishing line.

So the next post will probably be a race report!

I keep failing to mention that sometime earlier this month I surpassed 400 miles for the year.

Well, I didn't exercise at lunch today because I am in another mini-taper for my Thanksgiving race - Autumnfest 8k. I would like to thank the co-worker that brought in what can best be described as Terrybane… or commercially known as Tootsie Rolls. I have been “carbo-loading” with these things all day long, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, thank goodness that they are lower in fat than Tootsie Rolls cousins such as Snickers and Twix (just to name two). I think that I may have eaten the entire bag… oops.

So, this rest day is supposed to help me perform faster on Thursday. So in the long term, the taper is supposed to help me. In the short term, it drives me crazy. But I should mention that this mini-taper is a little more drastic than the regular taper that I use for marathons. In that taper, I generally reduce the number of miles that I run gradually over 14-17 days before the marathon. At this point in training there is little more that you can do and the only BIG thing that you can do it injure yourself by OVER training.

So, we runners taper. Being the educated runner that I am, I am applying this mantra to my shorter races. So for my 8k on Thursday, I ran 2.3 yesterday and nothing for today and Wednesday (Autumnfest eve). Tonight, I will also make some sort of pasta with jalepeno ranch dressing dish or Torta (a filipino dish that is more like an omelete on steroids - but not EPO) and rice. This will aid in my carbo-loading, so that I will have plenty O' Glycogen to battle Lactic Acid Thursday morning.

Something else that I did in efforts to make me faster was get a hair cut. I attached a before and after picture just for posterity. And since Laura made such a funny comment yesterday
(hardy har har), you'll see that my mono brow has been severed like a finger in stowaway bed… or at least until it grows back.

Okay, I have procrastinated enough to put this post online. I looked at the empty Entry: box screen thinking about what I was going to put into the box. So why don't I just start typing perhaps I can regurgitate what is in my brain on here…

The forecast today was rain, cool around mid 40s.
The run today was in rain and about 44 degrees. Rock on Weather Dudes! Tomorrow the forecast has little snowflake icons in the small picture picture forecast. Thank goodness that tomorrow is a rest day in preparation for Autumnfest. The Weather Channel has the forecast for Thursday as Mostly Cloudy and the temperature around race time will be a balmy 38-40 degrees. Nice.

About today's run… since it was rather cold and rainy, I decided that I would minimize the amount of time that I would be out in the elements. I limited my run to 20 minutes, which should put me somewhere around the 2.5 mile mark if I ran 8:00 min miles. I also decided that I would stay on campus as well, as I would never be too far away to abort the run and head back to the aquatic center. I tried to protect myself from the rain by wearing a semi-impurvious jacket and went for the LS coolmax shirt instead of the LS cotton shirt. I also had my MP3 player setup to the 2nd and 3rd podcast of Runcast Weekly, as I have come up to date with the Phedippidations podcast. Oh, a side note, in Podcast #19, my description of Phedippidations is read at the close of the podcast… tres cool!

So, I was already for the wonderful scurry through the wet weather. I was surprised at the number of students that were out and about during my run, I am guessing that they are only getting to and from class and the number of students actually being leisurely was next to, or equaling nil. As with most all places in Knoxville, there are hills. “The hills are alive with the sound of… runner's breathing…” but the campus is no exception and in fact the annual Trideltathon is ran on campus among some of the less runner friendly hills. So, what that meant was about 1/2 through my run I was feeling the effects of Saturday's long run. What was I doing? Why was I running in this weather? Well, the reason is that I have come to realize that before any race where I need to perform well, I need to take 2 days, and 2 complete days, off mfor my best performance. Well, maybe I could get away with 36 hours, but I think that would be the minimum for optimal Terry performance. Also, if I didn't run today, I would go nuts in my mini taper that would case me to over analyze and basically self-sabbotage my performance on Thursday. Thanks to all the speedwork Monday following the lack of running weekends that I was able to see… I run faster on Monday after 2 days of rest than after only one… cool.

I only have an overall time of 19:23 seconds for 2.3 miles giving me a 8:26 pace per mile. For the perceived effort… I'm scared because it should have been faster, but I have two days to rest and get stronger.

I waited too long and now I have to run…sigh. Perhaps it has been the full moon that has been affecting me…. after all my wife likes to make fun of my uni-brow.

Upcoming Races:
11/24 Autumnfest 8k (Knoxville, TN), Goal time 37:30
12/04 Reindeer Run 5k (Maryville, TN), Goal time 21:55
01/28 Calhoun's 10 miler (Loudon, TN)
02/18 Strawplain's 1/2 marathon (Strawberry Plains, TN)
03/26 Covenant Health 2nd Annual Knoxville Marathon,Goal time 3:59:59
(indicates potential Personal Record for distance)

Welcome again to my running blog, this weekend was a kick-off of sorts as I officially begun an 18 week training program for the 2006 Knoxville Marathon whose second running will be on March 26th. In my previous attempt at an 18 week training program, I swore that I would never ever do that again. It was for the Richmond Marathon that I started an 18 week program, 18 weeks out from the second weekend in November is in July… hot dry, hot, boiling and slightly warm July. I have found, that for me, 16 weeks is works for me, 12 is too little, 18 too much… 16 is Terry's Goldilock's Marathon Training timeline.

We met in the Bi-lo parking lot in sub freezing temperatures for our first group long run, oh, I mean official group long run. In this inaugural training run, there was close to 15-20 people bound up in a variety of running garb to protect themselves from the artic chill that covered the sheltered Third Creek greenway. The training runs were to be separated by “beginner” and “advanced” and with this first meeting, it was hard to distinguish who fell into which group. But that doesn't really matter, we're all going for the same goal.

I was thinking, Chickamauga last week, perhaps the advanced running distance of 10 miles would be a little long, but on the other hand, it's just a recovery run. Perhaps that was my downfall… just a recovery run… because my recovery runs turn into freakin' tempo runs. History did repeat itself and now I wonder if my Thursday speed run (Autumnfest 8k) will be too much of a reach and will I truly be ready for my 5k on December 4th when at 2:21:55 (if it starts on time) my 4 year old 5k PR will fall.

We had a little kick off party before we actually ran. Jason A collected vital information from us, I think to guilt us when we don't show up, nah, probably just to remind us incase we forget that we are running a marathon in a few weeks. There was a great variety of paces that people wanted to run, but it turns out that 4 hour pacer for the marathon, Pete, was going to run 9:00 minute miles. Oooo, that's where I want to be (see, I already forgot it was a recovery run) but I wasn't warm enough to actually start at that pace, also, I had a full bladder.

We finally took off and I began to wonder if I had enough clothes to protect my skin from the elements. I had opted for my Almost Tights in lieu of just shorts. I couldn't remember my Rules of Thumbs on cold weather running. Anyway, I had hat, gloves, LS coolmax, SS cotton shirt, NB climalyte top, Almost tights, compression shorts, coolmax socks and my GT2080 and that did the trip.

For the first 0.5 mile, I was mentally out of running, my bladder was taking too much of my cognitive thinking. I was looking around for a good place for me to sidestep into the brush and relieve myself. Now, I am not too shy about states of nakedness, but, at 7:45 in the cold cold morning… I didn't want anyone in the apartments that border the greenway to decide that I was some sort of perv and call the cops (although I probably could out run them). To my delight, I found the small trail that was sheltered from the apartments, so I could, well, become lighter.

I was now back with Jill B. Jill B's current marathon PR is 6 hours, 27 minutes… her goal is to break 6 hours. More on her in future posts. I had the privilege of running with her for about a quarter mile before I took off in search of the 9:00 min pace group. So, to get up with them, I had to run a sub-9 for a while to get there. After about 20 minutes, out on Tyson Greenway, I caught up with them: Pete, Ann and Angie. And thank goodness because I was getting a small cramp in the stomach and my legs were getting heavy. I was a little out of breathe and it took me about 1/2 mile to get up back to level where I could converse with my fellow runner. We made it to the halfway point right at the 45 minutes or so, Pete was right on target. Sweet!

On the way back, the effects of Chickamauga were taking their toll. Angie was also hurting overall and so I held back with her to get her through the distance. Attending and encouraging her was a distance to the fact that my muscles where being replaced with iron, heavy heavy iron, with rust. Finally we made it back to the parking lot… somewhere around 10 miles, I am recording 10.5, as that is what my software program that I use, USAphotomaps, says it was. There were two Garmins on the course and one said 10.5 and the other 10.2, but neither was with our group (I think), so I will go with what I have. It'll all average out in the end. We did about a 9:00 minute pace

I felt good after the run, but my legs were toast, they were like concrete posts and the drive home did not help either. I think the little stretching helped, but my legs hurt ALL day and night. I used my massager (that should get its own post) to help speed up my recovery and Sunday, they do feel much much better, so… that means that I can run tomorrow. Sweet!

Next week the Long Run venue is at Anchor Park (about 1 mile from my house)!

I got more running Stuff in my head, more on that in the future…

Upcoming Races:
11/24 Autumnfest 8k (Knoxville, TN), Goal time 37:30
12/04 Reindeer Run 5k (Maryville, TN), Goal time 21:55
01/28 Calhoun's 10 miler (Loudon, TN)
02/18 Strawplain's 1/2 marathon (Strawberry Plains, TN)
03/26 Covenant Health 2nd Annual Knoxville Marathon,Goal time 3:59:59
(indicates potential Personal Record for distance)

I running up against the clock because I want to get this post out but I need to leave to get home so that Jen can get to her openhouse.

Tomorrow I am particpating in the 2006 Knoxville Marathon Training Program's first long run tomorrow morning. I have no idea how many people will be there or the levels of experience but I do know that it will be run on a familiar course for me, so it's a good way to get in 10 miles of running under my belt. Hopefully, there will be someone looking to run a 3:45 marathon that will push me to run fast and train faster and therefore finish faster. If you go to the website and click the Schedule of Long Runs, I will be doing the “Advanced” section.

This will be my first long run since Chimichanga 10 miler last Saturday. I seem to have passed my speedwork training on Thursday with flying colors, so I should be A-OK to go the distance. My toe is not sore, but looks like crap, maybe a gruesome picture is warranted. I anticipate it to be cold tomorrow morning, so we will see what the turn out is like. That is the bad thing about training for a Spring Marathon… long slow runs in the cold… yucky icky!

Upcoming Races:
11/24 Autumnfest 8k (Knoxville, TN), Goal time 37:30
12/04 Reindeer Run 5k (Maryville, TN), Goal time 21:55
01/28 Calhoun's 10 miler (Loudon, TN)
02/18 Strawplain's 1/2 marathon (Strawberry Plains, TN)
03/26 Covenant Health 2nd Annual Knoxville Marathon,Goal time 3:59:59
(indicates potential Personal Record for distance)