I like bean burritos from Taco Bell
I like trippin on acid with Dick Vitale

“Trippin’ With Dick Vitale” - The Polyfuse Method - Kid Rock

Today was the first day all year that I ran in short sleeves outside. Sure enough the temperature rose to a balmy 54F at lunch today and I took an easy stroll around campus on a new route (2.9 miles). And you all with be very proud of me, that my planned easy pace run, STAYED an easy pace run. Or at least it felt really easy even though it was an average pace of 8:36 miles. I wasn’t sore from my speed work yesterday, although my (previously injured) left hamstring felt a tad bit tight.I chose a different course today because I wanted to see if there was any fanfare on tonight UT vs Florida Men’s NCAA Basketball game. Currently, UT is undefeated at home this year and Florida is coming off of 2 straight losses, the most recent to a stinky LSU team. Dick Vitale is in da howze (Thompson Boling Arena) for the game and Pat Summit is suspected of repaying men’s headcoach Bruce Pearl some zany wacky encouragement from a women’s game where Coach Pearl came topless. Not sure if Coach Summitt will come topless, but rumors are she will be dressed in a cheerleader outfit.

When I went by, there was nothing! What a let down because I knew there had been students camping out the student section doors since 5:30am Monday. Eh, oh well, I’ll follow the game tonight on the internet if I can’t catch it on TV.

Despite being on campus, I was able to fashion a route that didn’t have monster hills. And I liked the easy, lazy (as in making up a new route) of today’s run after yesterday’s strategic planned speed work out. I’ll take tomorrow as a rest day and Thursdays will either be Tempo or Hill workouts depending on scheduling for that week.

On a photography note, I polished off my Flikr and Shutterchance websites. I have been motivated by Leesa’s recent offers on her work that I needed to set my sites up and get my stuff online so people can see it. Here’s Leesa’s Flikr page. If you happen to discover Leesa’s work from this site and purchase something, let her know, I do get a kick back… okay, no I don’t…

Okay, I should just come out and say that the Princess Almighty Leesa is my photography mentor, I want to be like her when I grow up. Maybe I’ll just be president of her fan club Sometime ago, I was using Pixlepost for a photoblog and liked it, I had close to 300 pictures on there and I had like 683,778 visits. Unfortunately less than 100 of them were friends and people not trying to sell me viagra or visit websites with fetishes that even people who get nervous buying KY would blush. So, I shut it down. It’s deleted. Then, [trumpets sound] Leesa blogged about this new site Shutterchance.com and it looked like something that would be what I wanted without the headache. So, I tried it and like it… and it sat with 2 pictures for 2 months. Today, I uploaded some new pictures and will continue to put new stuff on there. It has an RSS feed, so you can toss that in your reader and new pictures will magically appear (each day) thanks to the power of the internet. The site is here: http://intergalactic.shutterchance.com/

So how did I alter this photo:

A) Used a Photoshop Filter to create the effect
B) No Altering done, paranormal activity caught in the picture
C) No Altering done, child with dirty hands touched the lens
D) No Altering done, it’s just damn misty in the room

The content of the picture, is actually putting Stella to do some money making work. What you are sort-of seeing, is the make-shift studio from Saturday’s purchasing excursion. The lamp is a Wal-mart standard clip-on desk lamp and the lightbulb is a Reveal 50W flood light which was almost as much as the clip lamp. I was taking pictures of broken cameras that I am going to put up on eBay for parts. The listings will probably go up Monday night or Tuesday sometime.

So how did you answer the question above?

If you answered C, you would be correct.

So today, I made it official… I’m in speed training. I sucked it up and headed on over to Tom Black Track for my first running session of the year. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The weather was a little chilly today, clocking in with upper 40s and a decent amount of wind. Enough to make me rethink this whole speed workout for today. But I have to start somewhere, I might not be able tomorrow and since I didn’t run over the weekend, I was well rested. Plus, I needed a benchmark on where I was, fitness wise, to truly plan for the upcoming racing season.

Here’s the shorthand of my workout:

800(WU); 200(H), 200(C); 400(H), 400(C); 400(H), 400(C); 800 (H), 800(C); for a total of 2.5 miles. I am using my own shorthand here: The number is the number of meters (tracks are commonly measured in meters (because the rest of the world is metric) rather than miles), “WU” means warmup pace, “H” means hot and running a speed pace, “C” means cool and running at a recovery pace. The reason that I used my own shorthand is because I had no set paces, so I don’t know if my 200m pace was a race pace, tempo pace or what! After the fact, I have a clearer idea of where I stand… so here is where I stand.

I am most interested in my 800(H) time which translated into a 7:08 pace. Why this is important to me, because it is closer to a race pace being that it’s at the end of the workout and I was fatigued from the number of previous laps. When I looked up the paces, I fell right into the category for a 23:00 minute 5k according to McMillian.

This seems about right… I probably be able to run a 23:30ish 5k given race conditions (as opposed to a track). So here is I how I am going to use this to plan out my spring race season:

Goal: To break my current PRs in the 5k (2002 - 21:56) and 10k (2000 - 48:06)

Speed Training Section1
Race: March 17th Catch the leprauchaun, Goal Time: 23:00
Speed Training Section 2
Race: April 14th Spring Sprint, Goal Time: 22:15
Speed Training Section 3
Race: May 12th Run for the Deaf, Goal Time: 21:30
Race: May 26th Expo 10k, Goal Time: 47:30

So that’s my plan… I’ll need to look up some good track workouts and make sure that I make either Mon or Tues my speed work out (depending on my weekend runs). I think this will give me something to focus on this Spring, then, come summer I can start ramping up for the Quad Cities Marathon in September.

It seems that latent illnesses are all over the place. That 3-day rule of exposure to symptoms is so accurate at our place, you could win cash money in Vegas with it. Sure enough, the boys had been playing with a kid with just a little cough earlier this week. Germs. Oh how they spread.

Sure enough, 3 days later, runny noses and coughs. Fortunately, the effects weren’t all that major. Drainage in the morning, accompanied with coughs, runny nose during the day, decreased appetite…

Despite has sickos in the house, we were pretty productive this weekend. My Lovely and Talented Wife and I started a Friday Family Meeting right before date nights on Friday. The goal is to discuss our plans and figure out whom (can I get a grammar check on that please?) is doing what. It sure beats the whole Fly-By-The-Seat-Of-The-Pants thing. Ideally, we’ll be much more efficient as we get more comfortable with the procedure, but right now, it’s pretty good.

Saturday, Jen was having a class in the morning and one in the evening. So, to take advantage of the “free time”, The Elder went off for a play date and The Younger accompanied me to run errands. With the The Younger in tow, I was able to get stuff on my To-Do list that was weeks and months old, but since they hadn’t been high priorities they just kept getting moved around and rescheduled. Had I been a little more prepared, I would have worked in a run as well, but I’m glad I got my stuff done.

Saturday night, had me not as productive but still busy. I did work on some of my podcast episode, that is so overdue it’s not funny. Stop it… don’t laugh, I told you it was not funny. Mainly this time, it was household things that needed to be done. When ML&T wife was home from her class, we watched the movie Drumline, which was okay maybe a C+ or so. But when the sun rose…

Everyone had runny noses, coughs and felt bad, well, except for me. I was okay. And since I was the heatlhiest one, I went to church to cover our Welcome Center shift for the Nursery. I also went to sunday school which was nice because the class is going to start a book called Boundaries for the next few weeks. It looks interesting and may pick it up to read myself.

After church I went to the grocery store to get a little bit of food and on the way back thought it was too nice of a day to stay indoors, sickness or not. Later that afternoon, we went outside to put together Eric’s Hotwheel that Pa-Pa had bought during his visit. Of course, I am not sure that we really needed to put it all together because they were having fun with just the parts:

And after all was said and done, the adults managed to put everything together and in the right place. The only thing that was left over was a sticker that didn’t have a home. So here is the Elder with his new wheels.

The excitement outdoors, I think worsened some of the symptoms but I think was well worth it by getting out of the house. It’s a little chilly here today, but I have big race plans for the spring season and although I am a little saddened by not being about to run a Spring Marathon, but I think that I have a good alternative… more on that after my speedwork today at lunch.

It’s now the end of week… let there be praise!

But OH NO! the domain name on my family website has expired… yie-yie-yie. So I had to go around to see who has my domain name and renew it… at least it shouldn’t be too much of a headache!

So, today was not as nice (i.e. warm) as the past two days but the 50F weather sure beats the cold days that we have been having the past few weeks! Tomorrow looks even better with the “6″ starting the temperature forecast.

Today was still a good day to get out and run. I had, in fact, toyed around with the idea that I would take a long lunch and run for about 6 miles or so and enjoy the weather. But it was only a one-act show. I thought that I should just stick with my normal routine and worry about the rest of the miles at a later date.

So, I opted for 5 miles on my James White Greenway route. A very basic, almost all, greenway out and back course. One that I am well familiar and know what to expect. What I didn’t expect was to turn the run today into a tempo run. And a good one to boot!

It all started with the first mile being a 7:38 minute mile. Now, before you get all excited about this, a good section (about 0.3) of a mile is all downhill. Likewise, the same 0.3 is all uphill on the way back. At any rate, if you start fast, you’ll finish fast. If you ever want a PR time in a shorter distance (say a 5k or 8k) start faster than your planned pace, because you’ll ( more than likely) slow down closer to your goal pace than if you start out at the pace or a little slower and build to a faster pace. This methodology is NOT how to get a marathon PR… oh no…

Mile 2 was in 8:02, and that was more like it. The pace felt good, the nice thing was that because I ran a 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) the previous Saturday, I had some residual conditioning from that race. So, the first couple miles felt really easy. Easy enough in fact that my Mile 3 was finished in 8:01, something that I usually don’t do very often - consistent pacing! So consistent that I ran a 8:01 for Mile 4 as well.

During my 3, apart form consistent pacing, something else happened that usually does not happen… I was passed. And by a… get this… a girl! I KNOW! She had joined the greenway at one of the entry points and was kicking a nice 7:15ish or so pace.

You know, there’s a nice thing about pacing behind someone… two words and the second word ends in Maximus. So, I decided to pick up the pace a little bit and try to match strides with her… I was almost going into race mode, where in the last mile, I start to pick out runners as targets to beat them at the finish line. But I couldn’t match the faster pace. In fact, even though I ran a 8:01, I had to stop and walk a few short spells to get a breather. So even with the walking, I averaged an 8 minute mile… that’s how fast she was going.

So the last mile was here and I had to attack the Lake Loudon Avenue Hill… I was pleased with this too… getting up to the top, I was definitely winded, but still about to eek out a slow running pace. Once I caught my breath, I brought it home for a 9:00 minute Mile 5. A good Easy gone Tempo run and with good timing as well…

…uh, not as well I thought. Looking at my race schedule, the Spring Sprint which is historically in March has been moved to mid April. Hmmm… so now I have to think about what I want to do. I had wanted to run the Spring Sprint in March because of the slick marketing of the Ruby Tuesday’s triple crown of running in March, but now that’s in April. I really don’t want to do 6 weeks of speed training, I was hoping for like… 3 or so.

I think (which is why this is dangerous) that I could be in decent 5k shape for a March 17th race. But there are two problems: 1)Childcare and 2) there are two races on the schedule. Childcare is not too big of a problem, but which race to choose?

There’s:
9:00 a.m. Catch the Leprechaun 5K; To Benefit Safe Haven Crisis & Recovery Center for Sexual Assault
and
10:00 a.m. CASA Leprechaun 5K; All proceeds and donations for this race will go to support CASA of the Tennessee Heartland Roane County Program.

Well, the charity aspect part of it doesn’t help… sex crime victims or foster kids… both very good causes to support. But the Catch the Leprechaun has something going for it that the CASA Leprechaun doesn’t, the chance for free beer. Yeah, leave it to race who supports sexual assault victims to have alcohol (I know that not all sex crimes involve alcohol).

The deal is that one runner is designated as the Leprechaun and you have to chase their lucky charms and if you finish before they do, you get a free beer. A beer is mighty tasty after a 5k at 9:30 in the morning.  One year, the leprechaun was our runner-friendly mayor.

yeah, maybe I will do that and will give me something speedy to focus on. Since I had to abandon my spring marathon goal this year, I might look at trying to take a stab at my 10k time in May…

Tuna Fact: The minimum wage rate for workers who can tuna for StarKist and Chicken of the Sea is $3.26, for Private Labels from Thailand the minimum rate is estimated to be less than a dollar.

The weather is beautiful here today, but that doesn’t mean that I feel the same way.  If I could have gotten on the road today at lunch, I might not have been able to enjoy it. Tomorrow has the promise of being just as pretty… on the outside and even prettier on the inside.

12:36. What does this mean to you?

Did you think that it was the time? It is not.
Did you think it was a Bible verse numeric? It is not.
Did you think it was a  time? You are getting close.

It is a time. A time that someone thought would be satisfactory to achieve in his lifetime. Unfortunately, he will never achieve it. He’s been dead for over 30 years. And, as you might guess, he’s a runner.

His name is Steve Prefontaine. 12:36 was the time that he would happy with running 3 miles. His eulogy on the track where he made some of his most creative masterpieces was 12 minutes and 36 seconds.

What makes Steve Prefontaine or “Pre” a person that I admire was for his principles. Pre did not condone mediocrity, in his life or in his running. I strive to live this way when I am not feeling sorry for myself and a victim. It’s when in the last 0.8 of a half marathon that my goal is not let the runners behind me pass me despite the fact that I am out of fuel and hurting. Or when I decide to cut my 5 mile run to 4 just because “I don’t feel like it”. It’s about giving everything you have, seeing who has the most guts and although you might not win (Pre came in 4th in the 1972 Olympics 5k after leading the race twice and with 600 meters to go), you don’t settle.

There is a movie called Without Limits that I scored from the $5.88 DVD bin at Wal-mart in 2003. I use this movie as motivation during my treadmill runs and it works wonders.  And although it is a movie and just an adaptation of his life, it still has some of the core values that Pre held during his short existence in this world. It’s hard enough these days to find a role model that you can really back behind and since Pre’s dead, it’ll be hard for him to do anything stupid that would rebuke what he stood for while alive.

While my 3 mile will never be close to 12:36, I would have to say that I would be most please with a 19:30 3 mile, which averages to a 6:30 minute mile as opposed to 4:12 mile of Steve’s. For reference, since I don’t actually run 3 mile races, a 6:30 would equal a 20:09 5k, just a mere 1:47 faster of my current 5k PR.

So if you want to hear an absolutely podcast about Steve Prefontaine, then click right over here to Phedippidations and find Episode 85: Steve Prefontaine and give it a listen.

Ahhh… a nice post later and the outlook looks good. Damn, I love running and didn’t even take a step…

What tuna tidbit should I share today? Hmmm… how about 50% of the US Supply of canned tuna is from imports (Thailand, Philippines and Ecuador).

Today was so beautiful, but it didn’t start out that way. A huge rain storm passed through our area today and left some stuff called “rain” on the ground. Once the storm had passed, the temperature quickly rose to over 50F and now (at 3:45) is around 64F… ah sweet spring. In fact we had some song birds this morning at the house before the storm.

It would have been an even better day if I could have enjoyed the weather by running in the warm air. But alas, I had tuna and tuna accessories to work through lunch. Bleh. And tomorrow I am at an appointment during lunch so that doesn’t work either. I could run on the treadmill on Thursday night, but I want to work on my podcast.

Yeah, that podcast thing. I was able to work on it some on Monday and even tried a new editing regiment. I think I am going to have to move to an easier recording method to make it easier to edit the core of the show. I really enjoy my podcast, but the editing is so involved that it gets neglected by other things as my kids, wife and blog. But it’s not dead.

I don’t have much else… sorry.

Did you know that in 2005 the amount of imported tuna was equal to the amount made in the US? Yep, it’s true!!!

I am taking a slight break from the tuna report and wandering the internet reading about the misadventures of the universe. Yesterday, I had a “oh-Oh-OH” moment. And no, it was not during a moment of ravenous passion. It was brought on by glancing out of my front window:

The picture hasn’t been altered other than size but you can tell the color in the clouds and was quite dramatic. I believe in my non-meterologic opinion that it was a result of the sunlight of the setting sun refracting off dust and clouds out in the midwest which has a weather front that is going to bring us rain today. Could of been that my neighborhood was on fire… I dunno. I wish that I could say that I did some fancy stuff and had a better picture, but I had Stella on Automatic all the way…

After 5 minutes from the previous picture, the doomsday sign deepened a little:

The color really contrasted on the blue of the sky, but for some reason, you can see that. I probably need a little bit better lens or a different filter for these conditions. These are things I need to learn!

Weather map looks pretty decent to get a run at lunch before the rain starts today. And there does appear to be a warming trend in the next few days, almost to 60F on Wednesday. But being in East Tennessee, I don’t hold my breath because it could be a blizzard on Thursday.

A Little History:

19th Annual
Official Race Page: (http://www.ktc.org/RacePages/strawplains07.htm)
USATF CERTIFICATION NUMBER: HALF MARATHON TN 9000 WN

Course Records
Bill Kabasenche 1:08:15 (2000)
Doris Windsand-Dausman 1:23:29 (1993)

Overall Finishers
1998 375
1999 420
2000 302
2001 321
2002 319
2003 217
2004 295
2005 391
2006 257

Terry’s Results
Date Time Overall Age Pace
Feb-09-2002 2:37:04 316/319 19/19 11.99
Feb-15-2003 2:01:40 153/217 10/10 9.29
Feb-21-2004 2:16:35 267/295 17/18 10.43
Feb-18-2006 1:58:56 169/257 13/16 9.08

Race Day Goals:
Stretch Goal Time: 1:58:48
Goal Time: 1:59:59

Pre Race: Day of Race Registration

For the 3rd straight race, I worked the Day of Race registration which is a great way to volunteer for the race as well as being able to run the race. In fact, the 4 of us at race day registration were running the race. It was a very busy day signing up people, partly because this race is part of the training program for the Knoxville Marathon. Seemed like the line was long all morning long, no matter how fast were were processing people, of course the overall time actually processing people was only like an hour. Couple of interesting points:

• We had two people pay their race registration fee with $100 bills. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it’s just out of the ordinary. Day of Race fee was $25 with shirt, $15 without, but the shirt was a coolmax technical shirt. Not a super neat design, but enough to get the shirt.
• I was able to use my trademark “And what age group will you be participating in today?” line to the lovely women who blatantly absentmindedly forgot to include their age on the entry fee.
• We ran out of Small shirts very quickly, Medium shorts quickly, Large shirts were gone after a while leaving only XL shirts. Is ordering shirts the hardest thing to do? Can’t someone come up with a Chaos theory on this?

After my stint was done, I ran up to my car and got my running shoes on as well as another layer of clothing in anticipation of the imminent weather (calling for snow). I grabbed my iRiver, Carb-Boom, energy bar and a little water to wash the bar down with when I was done.

The crowd had started to gather outside the school as some of the pre-race announcements started, I on the other hand, had to go use the restroom. Now, at this point, I had my iRiver recording and thought that I would just edited out any strange and unusual noises during the visit, but while I was in there, I caught some interesting audio between a (high school/college) runner and his coach. It’ll be on the podcast assuming that there’s not alot of gaseous background noises or toilet flushings to drown out the conversation.

Once everything was ready, I walked outside just 10 seconds before the National Anthem, which give the KTC credit, has found some decent singers for the national anthem. In the past they have had a recording that sounded like a copy off of a vinyl album. Not that there is nothing wrong with that, but that it have a live singer is so much nicer. Marianna will be delighted that I did not engage in any wardrobe maintenance (except for removal of hat) during the anthem. Next, they gave the runner’s set and BANG!

The Race
The instant, that the gun went off, a light flurry of snow came to the area. Now, it’s always fun to run in some what challenging conditions, especially if you are dressed for the occasion. I sure was ready. I had a coolmax turtleneck, a long sleeved coolmax shirt and a fleece outer covering. Plus hat and gloves.

What I wasn’t expecting that within a half-mile, I would be very warm and have difficulty monitoring my heat for the rest of the race. I ran the first mile with Solange (Marty’s wife) who was there sans husband because a vicious cold had smacked Marty upside the head and he was home sick. So, I had to do some on-the-fly race strategy on how I was going to run the race by myself (for all practical purposes).When I had talked with Marty on Thursday wehad talked about running 9:00 min miles but he did sound a little stuffy, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that he skipped the race.

Mile 1: 9:10
I said adieu to Solange as I was now behind a little on pace of staying with 9:00 minute miles. Not that I was too far off, but I needed to pick the pace up or I would be very comfortable running at her pace and running a 2:10ish race. Which would be a PR for her.

I pressed on started talking with this couple who was wondeirng were the water stops were on the course. Since I was very familiar with the course, I volunteered the answers to them so they need not worry about the conditions up ahead.

Mile 2: 8:52
At this point, I am going from hot and cold, hot and cold. The cold wasn’t all that uncomfortable, but the hot was unbearable hot. But once I tried to cool myself down, I could feel my arms getting cold, so I would zip back up.

Mile 3: 8:47
The snow isn’t much of a problem. It’s a light flurry and the roads are in good condition. The hills are going to start in the next mile and I try to prepare to attack the hills.

Mile 4: 9:30
On this section of the course, it follows a circle and hooks back up to the main road. When I was passing the connection, the leaders were getting ready to get back on the main road. The cop car that was in front of the leader took a turn a little slow and threw the leader off pace as he rounded the turn. The leader was visibly irate and even yelled at the cop to speed up. A group of us discussed this a little later after witnessing the event. I don’t think that guy won overall either.

Mile 5: 8:50
Who turned on the wind? This was probably the worst section of the race, mainly because you were unprotected from the 10 mph crosswind. The only reprieve was that it was downhill for most of the time and so it was a give and take. I seriously thought about taking off my middle layer to regulate my heat better. I was getting really hot and was getting concerned.

Mile 6: 9:04
This mile included taking a small water/gatorade break before heading out for the other out and back loop. By this time (54:11 since race start) the flurries had died to a trickle and we would be protected from the wind until the top of the hill at mile 8.

Mile 7: 8:55
It seems like a very curvy and hills section of the course. I think that’s just my perception. At this section, most of the early finishers are making their way back to the intersection to head to the finish.

Mile 8: 8:48
This mile is basically a long winding hill. It goes up and up and up, there really isn’t a very steep part to it, but the fact that it is continuous is the catch. I tried to keep my legs working and promised them that they could take a breather on the way down the hill.

Mile 9 and 10: 18:27
It’s downhill… Somehow the mile 9 marker was lost or got knock over, but there was not a mile 9 marker and I know that I didn’t run a 7:23 mile when I looked at my watch where a mark was spray painted on the road. 8:23 maybe… NOT 7:23.

Mile 11: 9:02
At the waterstop in mile 10, I could tell that my legs were getting tired. And sure enough, they were starting to fade a little. I did my best to stay on the flatest best patches of road as I headed toward the finish. Towards the end of the mile, I was starting to mentally lose it. I knew that a sub-2 hours would be very tight given my condition.

Mile 12: 10:05
The last water stop is at the beginning of mile 12. At this point, I was in my marathon survival mode. I stopped at the water stop, drank some water, let about 10 runners pass and got some more water. I stretched my legs and headed back out. This is how out of it I was while running: A large truck was passing us from behind. I remember hearing it and moving over to let him pass… the next thing I remember about the truck was that it was way up the road. I don’t remember it passing or anything! I knew that I needed to buckle down if I was going to make this sub 2hour thing happen.

Mile 13: 9:38
Since I had a good knowledge of the course, I knew that the last 0.8 of a mile is (for all practical purposes in East Tennessee) flat. So, when I stopped twice when it was still hilly to stretch my legs, I didn’t sweat it. I knew that it would help me in the long run. My biggest motivation was to not let the runners behind me, pass me in the last 0.25 mile but I could hear them get consistently closer.

When I could hear (but not see) the finish line announcer, I knew that I had to give it all I had. I could see the 13 mile marker, but I had nothing in my tank to hold off anybody trying to pass me. My legs ached but mentally I was still think “Sub 2, Sub 2, Sub 2″ and as I ran into parking lot for the last 40-50 yards, I could see 1:59:52 on the clock. It wasn’t until that point that I knew I would be over 2 hours. Perhaps if I had had some extra juice, I could have sprinted to cover that last yardage in a sprint, but it wasn’t there. It was just me cranking my legs to not let anyone pass me. I couldn’t look at the clock, I could only focus on the finish line to stop my own personal competition with myself.

Crossing the line, I hit the stop on my watch as I reached for the tag on my running bib. I wasn’t all that winded (I didn’t sprint that hard) but I was very tired and knew that I had to get home asap. As I discovered that the previous finishers had already dried up the coolers of water/gatorade, I wandered into the gymnasium to score some bagels.

The only liquid in there was hot water (for chocolate) and coffee. There may have been regular water, I didn’t see it. I grabbed a donut and a chocolate chip bagel, oh, I may have grabbed a banana, but that part is a little hazy. Heading back to my car, I remembered to look at my iRiver… it was off. Huh, I sure hope that I recorded something of the race. Oh, yeah and I looked at my watch. It was stopped at 1:59:53… so unofficially I ran a Sub 2hour half marathon. Officially, I was the very first runner with a “2″ in the hour mark with a time of 2:00:06. I finished 204 out of 298 finishers and 14/16 in my age group. (aside: my age group did really well, the overall winner (1:13:47) and the 3rd place finisher (1:17:16) were in my age group, which left the Age Group winner with a time of 1:21:00)

For a distance that I wasn’t really trained to run at that pace and the large gaps of not running due to company, weather, etc… I don’t think I did all that bad. My next race won’t be until mid march and will be something considerably shorter… a 5k.

post race thoughts:
In regards to my clothing. I don’t think that I needed the turtleneck and fleece sweatshirt. I think the two of them combined were too much. I think that instead of the turtleneck, that I should of had a mock turtle neck OR if I had worn the turtleneck, I should of had a lighter jacket on. I don’t contribute the up and down temperature to inhibiting my running, but it would have been nicer to have had an easier time regulate my body temperature.

I think the iRiver recorded something like 1hr 40mins and failed due to lack of electrons.

Mentally, I am already on my weekend. I want to go home… but there are some exvessel tuna prices that I need to look up. Could they wait until Monday? Maybe…

So let me entertain you with some other observations…

Stella (How could I forget)
With that whole Sharpie fiasco, I forgot to finish talking about Stella.  Below, you should be able to see a topless picture.. if I had Photoshop here at my new computer, I could have done some special effects for you.

and

I had never gotten around to saying why I had chosen Stella as the name. 2 reasons for this. The first reason was while I was in San Diego when I realized my “dream” for the first time, while  we were doing an exercise on what would be our dream, I blurted out about my photography desires and I was amazed at how fluent and succinct I was at my answer. The person that I said this to was one of My Lovely and Talented wife’s sister directors Pam Castellana. But I didn’t see the name yet.

Secondly, I have a named already picked out for my business and it’s a play on the astronomical/numeric name that I used for Planet3rry and that is Interst3llar. But alas, the name did not enter my brain. Fast forward about a week or two and “powerful impact, BOOM from the canon” and I had it… the common thread of using the power of speaking my dream and the vehicle that would be my business was “Stella”, and the deal was done. Plus who doesn’t like to just yell out “Stellllllaaaaa!”

Friday’s Run
3.16 miles, new route. I’m calling it the Fort Sanders Figure 8, which the middle 1.16 mile is a figure 8 configuration in the eastern part of the Fort Sanders area. I know, I forfeit points on creativity. Apart from the 25F weather (it warmed a point or two while I was running) it was a good run. For the first mile, I wasn’t sure if I was running too fast or if the cold weather was making it more difficult to breathe. The air was so sharp and cold… it’s almost as if it went to your soul. Good thing (for the race tomorrow) was that it was the cold and not the pace. My first mile was in 8:35 and I was glad that it was the cold and not the pace… I did not want to have overly tired legs for my little run of 13.1 miles.

I’ve been wanting to map out a couple of other routes in a more northernly direction (hence, Fort Sanders). A couple of runs ago, I had found a 3.1 mile route in Fort Sanders, but the pattern was such that I would never remember it and my last attempt of a route was  less than 3 miles. So, today, I wanted to find a 3 or slightly over 3 course.

Apart from a circle, the best configuration of a route that would be most memorable would be the Figure 8. And sure enough, it was just about perfect. I did forget about the cold as I made my way up the big ass hill right at the start of the neighborhood. Further along the road when I recovered from the hill AND the cold effects, I thought that area would make AWESOME hill repeats! I could almost make a zig-zag route of UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN… Weeeeeeeeeee

The Fort Sander’s area is not as protected as my Market Square Fab 4 route or anything on the greenways. In Fort Sanders, I have to watch out for maniac college drivers, vagabonds and riff-raff. Also, I am not as visible as there are more parked cars that limit visibility. So I guess there is a little danger in running in this area.

Luckily for me, I didn’t encounter any maniac drivers, but I did have a sighting of a pair of vagabonds walking around. I thought about where they must go to stay warm, they were over a mile from the shelters… eh, they’ll get warm somehow.

When I came back to the starting point of my route (which would signify that I have 1 mile back to the aquatic center), I knew that it would be over a mile since the time was 10:14 for that figure 8. For the 1.16 miles, I averaged a 8:50 pace (seems about right) which was good since I was running in a somewhat new area.

I just figured out (thanks to gmap-pedometer) a 4.14 mile route that is, in essence, a double 8 configuration in the Fort Sanders area. So that makes a number of routes that I can take if I want… nice!

So tonight, after our date and the kids are in bed, I will start to get ready for my race in the morning. Layers, LOTS and lots of layers!