It seems like it has been FOREVER since I have written anything and since I have so much, I feel that I am going to keep the updates brief. Of course, this might be GOOD on your end as I won’t be as long-winded as normal…

so let’s stroll down memory lane shall we?

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY PRETTY DARN CLOSE…

Rest of Friday
I am drawing a blank on where I ran on Friday Lunchtime. I know that I ran that day… my watch says that I ran for 35 minutes and 17 seconds. I made no notes in my book about how long. I do have 3 split times in my watch and the 2nd split is 19 minutes, which suggests that it was about 2 (or more) miles. Also looking back at my Thursday post, I am concluding that this 4.27 mile run (from another log) was run down Neyland Greenway to Volunteer Landing and then up into downtown and connects with my normal Market Square Fab Four Run. Okay… good, now that that is settled.

We were supposed to do Parents Night Out on Friday, but Eric was under the weather, so much that he fell asleep while I was holding him. Out. Cold. So we laid him in bed around 5:45 and he slept for the night.

Saturday
I actually got out of bed and had my run on Saturday Morning! I going to copy the post that I logged in on the Phedippidations Message Board-Forum-Thingie for my convenience, so if you have been there, you have read this:
Saturday, I started my run a little late, so that made things a little hectic for me as I wasn’t sure how far I was going to go. I had mentally can to the conclusion if that I could do 14-15 miles without any problem, that I would opt in for the Big South Fork 17.5 mile trail run as my WW Half run on the 7th.

I explored a new (to me) greenway right here in my area. I had planned to do a “T” shaped Run, as I would go out, run one branch come back and run the other and then back home. Either way, I would be able to abandon or continue as I felt.

The late summer morning was very nice, still a tad humid. I was able to catch up on the new podcasts, I listened to Running from the Reaper, Burning 20, Dump Runner’s and Fdip… I wasn’t too concerned with my pace, but I was running pretty evenly.

The other bad thing during the run was that construction cut off the second branch of the “T” a little short. Not sure how this happened, but this was my longest run since the Knoxville Marathon in March! I estimate that I ran somewhere around 11.8 miles and kept an easy but fairly consistent 10:00 min pace.

I didn’t have any soreness, but I was physically tired. So, I am glad to know that despite my longest run for the training to date was 6.8 miles, that I will be able to cover the half marathon distance without killing myself.

Not sure about the trail run yet. I think that I could do it, but I would have to make myself not race it, but take it easy. Maybe bring a disposable camera and take some pictures on the course. I think my biggest dilemma will be logistics, as my wife is out of town that weekend and the race is 2 hours (one way) away. We’ll see though, runners are known to be resourceful!

Saturday Afternoon/Evening
We got out of the house for most of Saturday Afternoon and went to a few places and ran a few errands. We had a slight altercation in Sams with Eric and a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD, but it was short lived.

I tried to get Eric to watch some football and we were able to watch the horrible, horrible call in the Oklahoma vs Oregon game where the referee totally missed the call TWICE! The play was at the end of the game, Oregon was going for an on-sides kick. If you are not familiar with Football an on-sides kick is where the kicking team can get possesion of the ball back if it goes a certain distance (10 yards) or is touched (by any part of the body) of the opposing team and the kicking team gets the ball. It’s tricky because the kicker puts a wicked spin on the ball and you never can judge the bounce… if the kicking team gets the ball back, then wonderful but if the receiving team gets the ball, they can usually run out the clock and/or have wonderful field position.

In this game Oregon Scored a touchdown and was trying an on-sides kick. The kicker did a wonderful job and the ball was bouncing. An Oregon player touched the ball before the ball had gone 10 yards (illegal), and the ball bounced around, hit an Oklahoma player and Oregon got the ball. So, the ref missed the call on the field. The play was being reviewed in the press box and we were shown the replay… clearly, the ball was touched by an Oregon player before it had traveled 10 yards, but the replay referee did not overturn the call. So, Oregon got the ball and proceeded to score again winning the game, when Oklahoma should of had possession of the ball where they would have ran out the clock and would have won the game. But who said life was fair, of course, life doesn’t have instant replay to “fix” bad calls…

UT vs Florida… UT could have won the game, but their offense and defence fell apart at the wrong times. Florida was able to pull out a 1 point victory and now has the advantage in the SEC East division. People around here are bitching and complaining about losing to Florida and maybe with some validity, but really I don’t share that sentiment. What I saw was that the team played decently against a strong opponent. Erik Ainge, the QB showed poise and control despite seeing a faster more agressive defense this year. There was great speculation all year long that he would flop this year due to his Sophomore Season (last Season) being so bad. He looks pretty good, much better than last year.

I’ll continue the rest of the catchup on another post…