A couple of posts ago, I wrote about how my shoes were falling apart and that it was time to get new ones. I also mentioned a small running shoe company called Vitruvian Running. I have purchased 5 pairs of shoes from them and was contemplating purchase another pair.

I emailed the company to ask about the difference between the newer model and classic model (the classic is what I have had in the past). Just a few hours later, I got a detailed response to my email, from the owner. How cool is that, to received an email from a company, on the same day. He explained the difference of the two models and I was happy.

I ordered a pair of the Symmetry II model yesterday around 4:15 or so. I get an email with a tracking number at 7:15. So I am pretty excited to get the new shoes. Best thing about them is that they are only $60 with free shipping. I know that I can wear the Classic Model which are only $30, but I’m going to test out to see if there is $30 worth of Technology in the letters “II”, so we will see.

I did something this month of October that I have not done in 7 years! I had a cumulative mileage of over 100 miles for a month. You would figure that I would have done this numerous times, given the number of marathons I run. I mean, it’s standard protocol to run 30-40 miles per week for marathon training. Oh Nooooo, not me. I get in that 50 - 60 mile per month average. No wonder it’s harder for me to break 4 hours.

Anyway, today’s very easy run of 4.5 put me past the 100 mile mark for the month of October. Not since October of 2000, when I logged in 107.7 miles have I broken that milestone. And in October 2007, I was training for the 2000 Richmond Marathon which is held in November. I have come close one other time with mileage in the 90s. So I’ll bask in this small little accomplishment even though I know there areplenty of others out there that have 100+ mile month all year around… I salute you!

Here’s something that I don’t like… the Link to Sprint Phone Upgrade. For 2 days now, I have wanted to post the phones that I would consider upgrading to, since it’s that 2 year anniversary of the phone I currently have.  I thought I would get some field research from those that may have or had these models, but Nooooooooooooooo… the linky-dink for Sprint has been down for 2 days… TWO DAYS. This is a NATIONAL OUTRAGE! I would rather poke sharp sticks in my eyes than wait for the Sprint Link to work.

My thoughts on showing you all the phones: I wore a button in High School, when wearing buttons were cool to wear, BACK in the 80s, and I think it says it all “Maybe Later, Maybe Never”, Oh how true.

Tomorrow you’ll I’ll write a post about Something I do Like.

I really liked the orange, but did agree that it was WAY orange. Hopefully the picture with lots of blue and white will hopefully tone the orange down. I could even change the background if I need to but, it fits, I think. I did play around with some of the Theme (php) files, so there will be tweaks here and there as I get it customized.

I think that I have narrowed it down to 2 different themes, one is gray and the other orange. Each has things that I like and don’t like and I think I can tweak the theme enough to make them to my liking. So now I would like to collect some data from you. Which theme is easier to read, looks better on the screen? Does one of them makes you want to puke? Any suggestions for the picture on the screen?

Here are the candidates (in no particular order):

and

I guess it would have helped to include some of the typing of a post in the picture, now wouldn’t of it?

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
theologian, philosopher, physician

Find Other Success Sunday Quotes
-Gwen-
-Jennifer-

It was a pretty fast weekend. Where did it go? Well this is where my weekend went:

Zombie Sleeping
Seems like My Lovely and Talented Wife needed a little snooze. Either that or the movie Premonition starring Sandra Bullock was so boring (which it wasn’t) that it put her to sleep for 16 hours. That’s right 16 hours, with one exception of waking up for some Gluten Free Casein Free (GFCF) Pizza that I made the kids for lunch. Sometimes we just need that extra long sleep of the dead to recharge the batteries.

Planetary Changes
You may have noticed the color changing like the fall leaves. Well, except that in our area, the proportion of trees still green has to be close to 50% although there is more color around now, alot of things are still green. I have been testing out some new WP themes to see what I like. It’s pretty easy to change themes in WP and there are 1000s of free themes out there, each with it’s own nuisances. And of course, I see little things in some themes that aren’t in others and vice versa. I would make my own, but I am not that much of a programmer and getting up close and personal with some CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) isn’t something that I look forward to.

Trunk or Treat
Last Year I wrote about our Church’s Trunk or Treat event. It’s an annual event sponsored by the church and is a safe place for kids to trick or treat. There’s free food and games and a good time is had by all. I do have pictures from this event and will be posting them as soon as I get them off of Stella.

Hi-Oh SILVER! AWAY!
Before we went to the Trunk or Treat at our church, we attended the monthly Au Pair meeting for the Knoxville Area. This month’s meeting was at the Farm House of a host family that lives somewhere in between Oak Ridge TN and Clinton TN (read BFE). It was a nice break from the city and to see the vistas of the mountain areas of the area. Knoxville, being in a valley has the mountain ranges around us, but you don’t really get to experience them.

The host family had one of their more calm horses (don’t ask me breed) and had the kids up on the horse walking them around. The Elder road the horse solo and the The Younger road the horse with My Lovely and Talented Wife. Pictures, are on Stella.

A Halloween 2-fer
Seems like as I do the Time Warp again and go recap the weekend, we had 4 events to go to. 4 events AND My Lovely and Talented Wife slept for 16 hours. Now, that’s some time management skill going on. Saturday night we had 2 costume parties to go to as well. Pictures are, as you may have guess, still on the camera. At the first party, I scared some of the kids, enough to make them freak out pretty bad. The second party which was all adults, had my costume such that one of the women there didn’t want me to take off my mask as to ruin the fantasy of the man behind the mask. My Costume Theme? An Alien Tourist.

It has been a busy week of running for me. I was able to run 4 out of the 5 lunch day runs, which usually is just 3, so that was pretty nice.

Monday
I only had one rest day from my 20 miler and took  Monday as an easy run day. However, my 9:07 average pace was not something I would consider easy. It felt easy enough but I was really thinking that 9:45 would be a lot  easier.

Tuesday
Rest Day.

Wednesday
I could tell from the start that this was going to be a speedy day. My legs weren’t sore anymore from the 20 miler  and I went out with a fury. Although the fury didn’t last very long my 8:01 average pace over the 4 mile course was enough to please the inner speed demon

Thursday
I was hoping to get around 13 miles in for the day. Soon-To-Be-Doctor David had to cancel on me and other things came up so I didn’t run after work. I was able to get in a 5 mile Tempo session (8:17 average pace). I wasn’t happy with the speed. Let me clarify, I was happy with the numbers, but I was not happy that I ran that fast. I came off a long run the Saturday before and now my body thinks that it can runs these excessive speeds everyday. That only leads to one thing my friends, injury.

Friday
Not too sure if I was going to get any longer distances for the week  and so I was eyeing my 5 mile course. However, I didn’t give myself enough time and had to settle for my 4.32 mile course. I did try to slow down this run. After my sub-9 (8:52) first mile, I tried to slow down and that worked, kind of. I had an 9:03 average pace for the run, still not slow enough.

I do need to decide on whether to commit to November or December marathon or just not run one this fall. I have a feeling that I am more of a Fall Marathon kind of guy. Actually I am an Anytime Marathon kind of guy. I would run any and all marathons I could get to the starting line regardless of time. Now that I know how to survive a marathon with little to no training (but with an okay running base, ref: 2002 Mardi Gras Marathon), I would run them if could be there. However, I think that the weather/sickness variables are more in my favor in the fall and that if I try to train for a marathon in early spring (such as March/April) that I set myself up (but not guarantee) getting sick.

So now… I have to sit down and give a little think about what to run.

Here’s an actual conversation that I had with an employee at Joann’s Fabric Store. I went to the store to get a Daddy Gimme (The Younger SPeak for Daddy Blanket) because the highly geeky cool chemistry pattern on the fabric. I brought a 40% coupon but the blanket was 50% off and I used the coupon for some Thomas the Tank Engine Stickers for the kids. So the total is $12.87

Handing her $13 in bills and then 7 cents.

“Here’s 13 and 7 cents”

She types in the amount and the display on the register reads “0.17″. I thought that didn’t seem right, I had given the 7 cents to get 2 dimes (that’s 20 cents for the mathematically challenge ;-)  ). I leaned over and looked at the receipt as she was digging for the 17 cents. I see “13.04″ typed on the receipt.

“I gave you 13.07, the receipt says 13.04″

“Oh,” she says dropping the change back into the drawer. “How much do I owe you?”

“20 cents.”

“Oh, okay, I’ll trust you.” So she’s getting out the 2 dimes out of the drawer and I say something to the effect of “It’s that whole number thing.”

“Yeah, I’m not good at math, it’s a good thing I don’t need it here.”

*cricket chirping* I walk out of the store thinking “I gotta blog about that”.

Doesn’t need math? In a retail store? In a fabric cutting store, where you have to use numbers and math to figure out how to much fabric to cut? At the register where there is MONEY being exchange?  *slaps hand on forehead*

I had to tell myself “Stop Thinking about the Story” while I was running today. Actually, I had to tell myself TWICE because I was writing a chapter in my forthcoming book. Yeah, that’s all you need: Terry’s thoughts printed and bound. Well, it’s going to happen. I just have to figure this whole writing thing out. Grammar Rock can only take me so far.

So on with the regularly scheduled blog entry.

So, I am running today at lunch (there’s the running reference) and I am approaching the intersection of Volunteer and Lake Loudon Drive, a mere 0.3 miles into my 5 mile run. I notice two golf-cart vehicles in the turn lane waiting for the left signal onto Volunteer Blvd. In the front vehicle are 2 girls, in the second vehicle are 2 boys. The boys were being obnoxious and honking the golf-cart horn seeming at the chagrin of the girls. The girls were apparently either a little embarrassed at the attention they were receiving from the horn honking or this was their first time one of the golf cart out on the road. It’s not like the golfcart things are uncommon on campus, the Sports Department lives on them. After all, why would you want to walk or run from athletic facility to athletic facility, when you could sport around in a nice golf cart. Just ask any one who is 65yo or older and lives in Florida.

So as I am approaching the corner to turn onto Lake Loudon and go down the hill, I look at the girls in the first cart as my scan of the intersection was finishing (to avoid oncoming traffic) when the passenger girl says, “Hiiiii.”

Here’s what I wished had happened:
“Hiiiii,” says the passenger girl. I raise my hand in a greeting gesture look her way and compliment her on the fine set of wheels she has to take her around campus.

“Nice Wheels there,” I would say in a semi-playful yet sarcastic tone. Had there been more time, I would have added “Speed Limit is 25mph on campus, don’t get a ticket.”

But what really happened was that my Asperger’s over powered my desire for witty banter and caused me to temporary shutdown. Thankfully, I had already initiated a hand wave, or else I would have looked like an elitest prick as I looked at them, acknowledging their existence and not saying anything and blowing them off. When, in reality… it’s nice to have someone not yell obscenities at you while you are running.

The wave that I started was followed with a feeble “Hey” and as soon as the girl started to say “Hiiiii”, I looked away as quickly as I could to focus on the back of a student in the distance. I could not make eye contact with her and say “hey” at the same time.

I went on to think that this happens to me all the time. I will make eye contact on my own terms, typically, when someone is not looking at me. Now that I know that I have Aspergers and that avoiding eye contact is something that is wired in my brain, I have to remember to make an effort for eye contact. Now, I do have 30+ years of making conversation (sometimes one-sided) so there has been somethings that I learned. But I still feel that I might be staring to hard and giving the “He’s too creepy” vibe or that I am staring and giving the “Hey, Baby…” look or that I am not looking in them eyes and giving them the “I’d rather be somewhere else” feeling.

One thing that I am experimenting with is to stare away on purpose and pretend that I am trying to think of something or performing second derivatives in my mind. [Ed. I typically do not perform second derivatives in my head, but first derivatives are fair game] This way, I can get the calmness of not looking at someone in the eyes without seeming to “pleasantly eccentric”