Today is cold and rainy. Well, it’s not all that cold, but it is rainy. I wasn’t as sore today even though I had a fairly difficult session yesterday trying to cope with why a 9:20 mile was kicking my butt. I am not worried, just a little inquisitive why it would be that difficult. By the end of the run, I was feeling better, so another 3 miles in for February. March Mileage should be much better.

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I’ve picked up Show Girls now to add to my POT. Of course when I picked up some Las Vegas Sands (LVS), they decided to rally a bit and so those gold diggas sweated me out of about $100 today. Oh and POT was down for me too… 300 bones. Oi! However, I made some of my money back from ICE (ice baby) which is now moving in my direction. I love it when a plan comes together… too bad it took a side detour and $2000! HA! I’m back to under a grand and I haven’t lost it if I don’t sell it. This was a case of improper position sizing. So as any woman who contest too… SIZE does matter… and as men try to come back with… PERFORMANCE is crucial. So lessoned learned and I don’t planned on getting burned, might be a few days before I get my money back.

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I’ve lost my MP3 player that I use in my car to listen to podcasts… it has the pause feature so that if I turn the unit off it knows right where I left off and I don’t have to rewind/fast forward to get to where I was. I’ve been without for about 10 days and I have looked EVERYWHERE! It must have fallen somewhere I don’t usually go or worse… accidentally in the trash. Anyway, I have been wandering around letting podcasts build up. I typically listen to podcasts in the car, as to avoid having to listen about sports for the entire trip. Here in Tennessee it’s UT this and UT that and after about 15 minutes, you know what the deal is.

Well, I had an epiphany yesterday that I could use my Palm T|X as a MP3 player… DUH! So, I’ve loaded up the Palm and will now get back to the regularly scheduled listening.

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Speaking of podcasts, Gravity@1053 will be recorded this weekend. I need to refine my material and script for the show, but it should be out on Monday at the latest.

Today is an important day in the history of my running life. Today marks the 10th anniversary when I officially became “A Runner”. In Late February back in 1998 my friend Gray was visiting me from Richmond VA and said, “Hey, You want to run an 8k?” And like the classic non-runner that I was at that point I responded, “What’s an 8k?”

Finding out that it was near 5 miles, I figured that I better get out and do some “real” running. Up to this point, I was heavily into winter indoor soccer. I played on 3 different teams: 2 very competitive teams and one not-so competitive teams. So I knew that I was in shape, sort of, but I had no clue how I would do during the 8k. At least the soccer games consisted of 2-20 minute halves, so I was playing soccer for nearly 3 hours a week, sometimes back-to-back games. Little did I know that soccer would do little for my running, but running would intensify my soccer!

The race we were doing was the Smoky Mountain 8k, which was held in conjunction with the Smoky Mountain 1/2 marathon being held on Feb 28th 1998. At this point in the running scene in Knoxville, this was a long standing race of both duration and consecutive runnings. The race was held in Townsend TN, at the base of the Great Smoky Mountain. However it being in the mountains, the 8k was one of the flatest course I have ever run in the Knoxville area.

I remember being at the starting line (which happened to be roughly 1,053 feet above sea level) not having a clue what to do. I remember having Gray there kinda showing me the ropes, but so much was going on. There were some freaks running in tank tops or shirtless. Some other’s with belts of water and stuff I had no clue what it was strapped to them. I could sense the excitement of the starting line, but I felt like an unbridled horse trying to start the Kentucky Derby.

I can remember a few things from that race. I remember running along thinking that I wasn’t running fast enough, but Gray telling me that things were okay. I remember thinking that t the turn around that I didn’t feel all that bad. I don’t really remember the actual finish line crossing, but I do remember being in the food area thinking that I had a blast. I then proceeded to grab a bunch of race entry forms and that was the start of ALL THIS!

So what has happened in 10 Years?

4615.32 miles total
508 average miles per year
134 Races
19 Pairs of shoes
10 Marathons
10 Triathlons
12 Age Division Top 3 awards
2 Age Division 1st Place awards

Race that I have done EVERY year since 1998: Scholar’s Run 5k, August

Most Miles in a Month: October 2000 107.7
Most Miles in a Year: 2006 665.4
Months with 0 Miles: 2 (June 1999, January 2000)
Month with highest average miles: October

Run-Halting Injuries
4 Pneumonias
1 Pulled Hamstring
1 Pleural Rub

Hey Neighbor! You may not be on my block, but you are on my planet and therefore, I shall call you neighbor. The TV good virtue Icon Fred Rogers has long since gone to his heavenly neighborhood, but his ideals live on.

I picked this up from Roon (although there was no mention of Indiana Jone is the post) and I wanted to add that right now, in some communities, there is a sweater drive. I tried to find information about the Sweater Drive, but after multiple Google searches, I could not find a real great site for information about the drive. You’ll have to check your local areas to see if there is a sweater drive near you. I happened to come across one in the Knoxville area at our Western Avenue Food City. I will have to see if we have any sweaters to donate, as I see this as a worthy cause.

Here’s the Official (Family Communication Inc.) website about Sweater Days

Here’s a video about a Sweater (by Weezer)… Universal Music Group doesn’t want the video to be embedded, so here’s the link…

Editor’s Note: if punny references to natural bodily functions grosses you out, I suggest skipping down to the 3 starred lines, where the regular post will commence.

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“Private!”

“Status Report”

“Yes, sir! Sir, the Operation is going accordingly to plan at this point sir. Reports from the field are coming in as we speak.”

“Damn you, private. I want the reports, not some monologue!”

“Yes, sir! Our first report is from Captain Lung of the 101st Villi Division. His troops manage to break up come of the militant cells that were hiding in the pleural region, sir. He used some some Shock, Awe, Hack and Cough attacks sir to flush out the militants up to Capitan Larynx who then expelled them from the Runner.”

“Excellent, all according to plan”

“Intelligent reports that there are still some in the area, but with supply lines cut, we should be able to take them out”

“Right! What about Major Nasal, Private?”

“Sir, Major Nasal successfully fired two Snot Rockets. Two others were fired but with little success. Major Nasal reports no balant enemies running in caves.”

“Excellent! Private, Get the Rear Admiral on the horn. We have a debriefing on the release of his new submarine this afternoon.”

“Yes, Sir!”

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I did it! I actually RAN today, for the first time in like…18 days! It’s like I gave up Running for Lent or something. Actually, you could, I mean, I could really tell that I it had been a number of days since I ran. We’ll see tomorrow exactly how out of shape I am…

I ran my Market Square Fast 3 mile course, which I am very familiar with… I figured that I should try something new on my first day back. Plus, I can really gage how well I am doing.

At the 1/4 mile mark into the run, I could tell that I was going be slower than normal for this course. It felt like I was exerting myself like a Tempo Run, which isn’t surprising because that’s the pace that I seem to find if I am not monitoring my pace. Mile 1 was 9:10, which is relatively slow to my normal (or in training) pace of 7:50-8:15. what was nice is that during the run, although I wanted to stop a walk at a couple of points, I didn’t. I kept along. Mile 2 was 9:16. So at least I was being consistent.

On the last mile, I was really feeling it on the hills. They seemed to go on forever, but I still made it up. By about this time, I was warmed up all the way and on the last 1/2 mile, I could feel my body ease into a nice rhythm. I think that is why Mile 3 was a 8:52.

Given the fact that the weather is supposed to be CRAP tomorrow, I probably won’t run… which isn’t a bad thing. I need to ease back into the regular grind, plus, I have a different schedule tomorrow anyway. Thursday is a significant milestone in my running, so I will HAVE to run something on that day. Even if it is at 10 O’clock at night.

SO hopefully, I have beaten this cold thing that has been plaguing me FOREVER it seems like. Because of it, I am NOT running the Whitestone 30k on Sunday. It’s a Damn Hilly course and that’s from someone who LOVES hills. I probably will also NOT try to run the Knoxville Marathon relay. Given that what I am running now will really start to show mid-late March, I’m not going to try to run the Relay.

I will however go ahead and volunteer for the marathon. I was already asked to help as a course monitor (FUN!!!), so I will probably do that and still be part of the marathon experience. Plus with the money that I save with not running Whitestone and the Marathon Relay, I might be able to budget in some more 5k races this year. We’ll see. I am not going that far into the future quite yet.

“Private, what’s the status on the Runner?”

“Not Good General. Prognosis is still unclear.”

“Come on Private you can do better than that.”

“General Sir, the Runner has been exposed to some hostile creatures. We engaged the auto-defenses 3 weeks ago. Seems that their armor is stronger than our weapons.”

“My God Private, didn’t you use the Big Guns.”

“Yes sir, we unleash the SUNISDNADLOC in a multiple scatter pattern over a couple of days. That only took out the some of the weaker creatures. Over the weekend we launch two heavy payload CETRYZs. We got rid of most of the infantry, but some of the ranking officers are still there.”

“Private.”

“Yes Sir!”

“I am authorizing a sniper strike on the enemy’s ranking officer. I want tear gas, I want mustard gas, I want this place moving, I want to get flush them out, I want to smoke them out of their caves, I want them OUT of the runner. We have to mobilize the runner as soon as possible. Private, this Operation Looks Like Split Pea Soup. Get Moving!”

“SIR YES SIR!”

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Sounds weird, but I might get to run… today.

Found on the Downtown Street of Loris, South Carolina.

2008 has been a very womanly year for me so far… hopefully I won’t start my period anytime soon.

So what’s been going on that has been making me feel like Ms. Planet3rry. Well, if you’ve every listened to my voice via podcasts either Phedippidations, The Extra Mile, or Gravity@1053′, you can tell that I don’t have a super manly voice. I’ll never do voice over work for tough guys or anything like that. ANd this is nothing new, I am actually quite used to it and just roll with it now.

When I attended Longwood, I was a Longwood Ambassador, which is one of those that gives campus tours and other offical university grunt work. One of which was to call alumni. Longwood was an All-Girls school until 1976 and I was calling some older alumni. She finally figured out (because it wasn’t obvious at first) that I was a guy she promptly said “You’re a guy? I bet you are out messing with all the girls.” How she knew that, I don’t know. But she didn’t think that I was a guy.

Rewind to high school. I answered the phone and some guy said that he was a DJ from a radio station and that I had a sexy voice. I tried to tell him that I was a guy and that I liked girls. Had I been more on the ball, I could have really messed with him, but I was trying to follow the rules and tell him like it was.

Fast Forward to the 90s, Burger King drive thru. I place my order, “Drive up to the next window ma’am”. When she saw that I was a guy, you could see her get physically embarrassed and actually apologized. I told her not to worry.

ANytime that I am on the phone and I get nervous or off base, my voice goes up. My Fraternity nickname is Squeeky because my voice sounded like a mouse during the pledge period. So many a times, I have been called Mrs. Higgins, Ma’am and other womanly identifiers over the phone. Just the other day, I told the person that my name was TERRY, but since MLATW’s name is on the account, he called me by her name. I just went with it, it was easier.

However, lately, it seems that my womanly aura must be exuding at a greater intensity.

At the Home Depot in Chattanooga, I went to check out. The cashier was turned away and I said “Can I pay for this here?” She responded before turning around, “Yes, Ma’am” but then quickly apologized when she saw me.

The Kicker… and this is the first time this has happened to me. My hair is longer, but not that long. We are checking out at the Sam’s in Myrtle Beach. MLATW and I are there with the kids and I hand the cashier my Sam’s Card. She looks at the picture (which is about a 4 pixel black and white image) then looks around and looks back at the card and asks, “Is Mr. Terry Higgins here?” *crickets chirping*

Here’s one that Roon has tagged me with back at the end of January, which I was going to do but forgot.The rules:
* link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
* share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
* tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
* let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.

1) As a child, when I said ‘Yes’, I always said “Yeah, that my talkin’ I like my say”

2) I thought that when I first got to Grad School that I should start drinking coffee, because all grad students did was read and drink coffee

3) I’ve never broken a bone

4) My First Beer was a warm Budweiser, My first legal beer was a St. Pauli’s Girl

5) So far, every country or place out side of the U.S. I have had the local beer/ micro brew

I’m not going to tag 5 more people but feel free to play, if you want to, so consider yourself tagged.

I got tagged from on-again-off-again blogger chick Sam I Am over at Musings from a Rambling Mind. So I thought that I would go head and get the tag… which reminds me that I totally screwed Roon out of his tag from a while back… okay, that’ll come up soon too (Sorry!)

From Sam:THE RULES:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.

2. Post THE RULES on your blog.

3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.

4. Tag 7 people and link to them.

5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

My Seven Weird and/or Random Facts:

1) I have a wax mold of my hand when I was 15. I immersed my hand multiple times in hot wax (ruined the pan) and have a replica of my hand some 21 years ago.

2) Had I been a girl, my name would have been Robin Lynn.

3) I have 3 college degrees.

4) My graduating High School class was 42 people. I’ve kept in contact with 2 of them (although, I would love to hear from more of them).

5) Longest I ever stayed awake consecutively was 38 hours, back in Grad School at UVa in 1994

6) I once literally caught a fish when it jumped out of the lake into our paddle boat

7) My first ever goal playing soccer happened almost 10 years after I started playing and was a result from a penalty kick

Seven People to Tag:

Leesa

Marianna

Dpeach

Dpal

Susan

Shirley

Mike with a Bike

Consider my Link to your website, your notification to play. Play if you want to… but play nice.

“I have never been more ready in my entire life to do this right now.
Never. It’s all been leading up to this moment.
All right now, right here.
My whole life, right here….”
We got rhyme selections in a wide array
J’ai des bons bons pour vous mangez
The party people scream “Oui, oui c’est vrai!”
‘Cause I got a remote for my B-Day-”Alive” Beastie Boys

One of my friend’s here in Knoxville just had a little girl, Isabella Claire Hansen, today. Okay, so his wife, Annette, was the one that did all the “pregnancy duties”. Arriving a number of weeks early, she weight 3lb 7oz and 16.75 inches long. Last word is that she is breathing on her own but will need to stay in the NICU for a couple of weeks to ripen a little more. Knowing her dad… she’ll be knocking back White Russian Martini’s in a couple of days and be the life of the NICU.

Congratulations to Tom and Annette!