PLANET3RRY

Ms. Shirley Perly

of Humble Triathlete Fame

with her time of 25:00.000000000000000000000000000000

only 2 seconds off of my official finishing time of 24:58!

Swag will be sent this week once I confirm desired preferences… that’s right people when you win Crap from me… I go try to great lengths to make it the best better kinda good to not suck.

Race Report to follow when I am not doing 2 3 4 5 1,000,000 things.

We made it back from Dallas without incident. I am back at work with most of it under control, so I can move on to more productive things… like blogging.

I do have some content specific posts on our experiences in Dallas, along with pictures, but those blog posts have not been written yet.

Monday started my Fall Marathon Training for the Harpeth Hills Marathon with the stop the week before to the Rutledge Marathon. Huge thanks to Sam for getting me signed up for the Harpeth Hills Marathon right when registration opened up while I was busy in Dallas. All the spots are now filled and registration is closed!

For Monday’s workout, I ran on our treadmill, which was a mind numbing experience. I did make it for the interval, 3 mile workout. Thankfully, my run WAS intervals, so the change in pace was enough to keep me on the treadmill. Not sure how much of the treadmill I will be able to manage, but once a week should be pretty good.

Tuesday was a long run day and I realized that as I was out running that I hadn’t set my paces yet. That is, figure out what my goal marathon pace is going to be and then set my training paces accordingly. I typically use the free pace calculator over at MacMillian to figure out what pace I should be running.

My run yesterday did not fare too well. Not only was I getting back into the longer run distances, I still had to deal with the 90+ degree heat as well. I took water along with me and filled up at the turn around. Despite that, I was pretty dead at the end. See:

And I made a stir at the Pilot Gas Station because I bought 2 liters of water plus a 20oz of Aquafina water to drink right away. People thought I was crazy to be running at that time of the day. I told them, I could have run at High Noon with no shade. After that, running in the afternoon and in mostly shade didn’t seem so foolish.

So, what’s a boy to do after getting really sweaty during running? Go clothes shopping of course. Well, not really… but sorta. I went on my Terry Day errand run, one of which was to go to Target to check out their selection of Watermelons. Now, I can’t go into Target without scanning the 30%-50%-70% off clothing racks. On the 70% racks, there were some Sport Jackets. Nice Sport Jackets that had light blue stripes, just the same color as the Tech Tee that I ran in earlier that day (I forgot to bring a change of clothes)… I couldn’t resist:

It actually doesn’t look that bad, except my hair looks like I ran 5 miles in 90 degree heat and didn’t comb it afterwards… oh wait.

Now on Wednesday, a cross train (or rest) day, my Quads are a little sore, which is to be expected. I even have some soreness in my Hamstrings as well, that too is not to out of the ordinary. After all, I hadn’t run in 31 days. I am going to pay closer attention to stretching this training cycle and see about improving my flexibility some.

So, it feels SO good to be back in the game… in a training program with a goal to work toward!

I do have more posts (plus pictures) about our trip to Dallas that I still need to write, so hopefully, I will have some quality content for you to read!

Here’s some new math for you…

26.2 +26.2 = Bronze

Okay, maybe there are too many numbers there. Let’s Try again

+ =

How about that? I know that maybe one or two people will know exactly what my two equations mean. Some of you might have a clue, some of you might have an idea and the rest are scratching your heads saying “I’m outta here, this dude is WHACK!”

If you happened to hear my last Gravity@1053′ Episode #21 when I said that I had Fall Marathon plans and those changed pretty quickly last week, that is the equation above. I know it’s not like ordering from the Picture Menu at McDonald’s but it’s pretty obvious right? No. You need me explain? Really? You Sure? Okay… Really?

OKay, (math) class has begun:

The first picture is the logo for Harpeth Hills Attacking Flying Monkey Marathon which is my Marathon de L’automne. How can you just not like the Monkey?

The Second picture is of a marathon that My Lovely and Talented Wife found for me. I bet she is kicking herself now. The second picture is the “graphic” I found for the Rutledge Marathon, a brand spanking NEW marathon in our local area (within 100mi). The Catch? It’s one week before the Harpeth Hills Marathon.

So what is a dude to do? Buhhhhhhhhh, RUN both… DUH!

So, what it would look like is run the Rutledge Marathon on Saturday November 15th, then the following Sunday November 23rd run Harpeth Hills. No, I am not crazy, okay… well, maybe just a little. So that segue right to the meaning of the last picture.

That last picture is a 8bit picture from Marathon Maniacs website. Running both marathons would qualify me for the Bronze (most entry) Level of the Marathon Maniacs.

So that is the news from Planet3rry Headquarters: Two marathons, Back-to-Back Weekends, certified Maniac. You’ll be able to follow my training and I may even make a Widget in Wordpress just for this Glorious, Magnificant, Outlandish attempt. Next thing I’ll tell you is that I am going to run an Ultra…

Here’s the latest, but not the greatest episode of Gravity@1053′, if you don’t already subscribe with a podcatcher/media player (e.g. iTunes, Media Monkey, Juice, etc).

In this episode, I am unveiling my 2008 Fall Marathon Selection. However, it will be modified slightly, so this ended up being a short episode because of that. Didn’t want to ramble on and on about the marathon when it was going to change some. So here is the episode. I am going to post the “update” on my fall marathon next week.

[ed: Podpress is not working for some reason... and I don't know why, so there is no player in this post for this episode at the current time. You'll have to click the link above.]

Wednesday night I actually got more sleep than usual. I was in bed by 11:30 (okay, it was really close to 11:30) and after a couple of games of Solitare on the Palm TX, I was alseep. The Kids woke me up around 6:30, but I got up made oatmeal and then somehow was able to get back to the bed for some more sleep.

So, I am thinking I may have had around 7 hours of sleep. Too bad it wasn’t consectutive.

My foot is much better today, I can actually put just about all my weight on it and instead of being in pain, I can just “feel it”. My finger is better too, so now typing doesn’t hurt and I don’t have to wear a bandaid that mashed extra keys when I type.

It was a fairly straightforward day, I had a decent day trading today and took some profits on some positions. I will be requesting the money that is dogearred for Elijah on Friday, so I can get that sent in.

I threw together an episode of Gravity. Mainly because I had worked on part of it, but thanks to My Lovely and Talented Wife, that has all changed for the fall marathon training. I didn’t want what I had to go to waste, so ir’s a short episode (10 min) and it trails off after the announcement.

Next week, I’ll post what I am going to do since I will be in Dallas next week and then training will start on August 4th for my marathon. I’m not sure how much internet access I will have next week and I wish that I could get my camera phone to send posts to my “secret” blog email and I would MoBlog.

Stella’s lens covers are on order, but not sure if they are going to make it or not. It’s not that I am too nervous because I can always purchase one from the local camera store. You never can have too many Lens covers when your Father in law is involved. Someone asked how that happened. We were talking and I had gotten pictures off of Stella and she was in the chair. He went to change chairs to better see the computer and knocked it off with his butt.

So is everybody ready for Friday?

I am actually injured on two of my appendages. Don’t worry it’s not THAT appendage, but my two injuries are rather annoying.

The first and less severe is a cut across my index finger. It’s right on the tip, so when I type something with my right index finger like “Y U H J I or N” it hurts. In fact, half of typing the word “hurt” hurts. Oi.

The second and more severe injury is VERY annoying. It’s a good thing that I am taking a break in running because the injury is on the bottom of my big toe. It’s about dime size and is really gross. You wanna know how I did it? I didn’t think so. So here’s what happened. I’ll get you a picture if you want!

The kids love it when we play Hide and Go Seek. In fact, it’s really Hide and Scare the Bejeezus Out of The Kids… and that’s the part they love. The Kids will count to 20 (or somewhere close) and I try to go as fast as I can to hide somewhere in the house. Typically, The Younger will peek to see in which direction I am going. Cheater.

So when I hide, I try to find a place that’s in the open but concealed (like behind a door) so when they get close to me, I can jump out from behind the door and scream “BOO”. I know that I do it right, if The Younger falls over after the Scream. In either case, Both kids love it and laugh hysterically and want to do it again, over and over again.

So there are only a limited number of places to hide. One of the better places to hide is behind the Master Bed, there’s a limited amount of space, but very concealing. So that’s what my “target” spot was going to be. there about a 2′ wide space there between the bed and wall. Enough to laydown on the floor and be concealed, but not a whole lot of room to move around and get in there. It’s actually easier to roll off the bed and drop down into the crevass.

So that’s where I was headed.

I run down the hall and cut into the bedroom. I only have a few seconds to hide and to do it stealthy as to avoid detection of my location. So I run and bounce off the bed. In a Jackie Chan-esque move, I lept off the bed, laid my self out flat and side down the side of the bed to my hiding space. I think I had pulled it off, but my toe hurt since I had hit the metal floor vent.

It took the kids a couple of minutes to find me but they did. They Screamed and Laughed and it was time to hide again. So I dashed out of the bedroom and down the hall into the hall bathroom and into the shower, pinned up against the wall so they couldn’t see me. I can hear them trying to figure out where I must have gone.

While listen to them try to find me, I see a spot of blood on the bathtub. Huh, looks fresh. Listening to the kids roam around, not finding me and then I look down. Woah! A small pool of blood has formed and then I realize that my foot hurts. Oi! As I am in the shower hiding from my Kids, the pool is getting larger. It’s probably about the size of a half dollar. I am slowly bleeding to death hiding from my terror-seeking kids, the irony is that this is a great hiding place so much that when I’m passed out from blood loss, no one will find me.

So, now I need to hurry the kids up and let them find me so I tend to my wound. But I wasn’t going to let this good opportunity to mess with The Kids.

“DADDY! WHERE ARE YOUUUU?” The Kids call from the Kitchen. The Hall Bathroom is located in the middle of the house with the Kitchen on one end and bedrooms on the other and being in the tub made for a weird echo-y sound.

“I’m in MOMMY’S ROOM!” Patter Patter Patter from Kitchen to the Master Bedroom (It is my room too…). I’m not there.

“DADDY! WHERE ARE YOUUUU?”

“I’m in the Kitchen!” Patter Patter Patter from the Master Bedroom to the Kitchen. I’m not there.

“DADDY! WHERE ARE YOUUUU?”

“I’m in The Playroom!” Patter Patter Patter from Kitchen to the Playroom. I’m not there.

“DADDY! WHERE ARE YOUUUU?”

“I’m in the Living Room!” Patter Patter Patter from the Playroom to the Living Room. I’m not there.

“DADDY! WHERE ARE YOUUUU?”

“I’m in the The Tent (in the Kid’s Room)!” Patter Patter Patter from the Living Room to the Tent. I’m not there.

“DADDY! WHERE ARE YOUUUU?”

“I’m in the The Hall Bathroom” Patter Patter Patter from the Tent to the Hall Bathroom. The little pool of blood is about the size of half my foot now. The price I pay for amusement. As The Younger approached the Shower Curtain, I pull the curtain back and yell, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!” Laughs ensue. And of course, they wanted for me to hide again, but I needed to inspect the damage. Thankfully, I had a hose that I could wash my foot off to see the injury… ouch. As I went back to the Master Bath where there were some first aid items there, I could see spots on the carpet where I had been.

Oh, and I decide not post any picture of my toe. You’re Welcome!

So it’s been healing for the past couple of days. I want  to say that it’s better, but it still hurts. I do put a bandage on it everyday, but I could not imagine having to run on it. It would be a right bloody mess! So, I need to let my foot heal so that it’ll be ready for the massive walking in Dallas next week and then the Fall Marathon training starting the week after (Aug 4th).

I’ve been kinda quiet on my running, but the truth be told, I haven’t really ran at all this month, except for the Fireball run/walk 5k. Part of the problem has been that I have been busy OR I pretend to be busy at lunch and thus didn’t go to workout. It’s not like it’s super hot or anything (yet) but I am struggling withmy performance at Fireball, whether I had allergies or a sickness or not.

So, I kinda decided to take July off from running. It’s not that I am going to be NOT running. I am not scheduling any real runs at this point. I am sure on Terry Day that I might find myself on a trail, but when it comes to the lunch time runs, eh… not so much.

I am working on a Gravity@1053′ that will reveal my Fall Marathon, which I will begin training for on 8/4. Once that happens, it should change my focus back to running. Hopefully, I can catch up on my sleep before then. I am in a HUGE sleep deficit right now.

The Fourth of July race for the Knoxville area is called the Fireball Moonlight Classic. When I first started running, it was just the “Fireball Classic” and was held on the 4th of July. Well, things changed and although the venue did not, the date and start time did. It was moved to a night race held on the 3rd of July and has been this way for some time now. Back in the good old days, they had a small bunch of fireworks before race start. However, when there was no wind, this created a plume of smoke that the runners had to run through and caused some problems. But since this was the first time that I had ran the Fireball in some time, the race start was moved to 9pm, which in Tennessee is about dusk during the summer months.

The Fireball 5k was a last minute (couple of days) decision. I wasn’t planning on running the race, but it would give me a chance to see how I was doing on my running. This way I would know how much I needed to work on in preparation for the fall season. However, I didn’t realize that I had something in me that was keeping me down, but not out. So I really was tricked into thinking I was going to have an awesome run, when I had a limiter on myself that would cause me to have another poor performance at a road race.

I was going into this race very excited. In fact, I was having major race jitters: I was nervous, my stomach was up and down. So I knew that I would have a good showing at this race. Based on some of my workout times, I was thinking that a 23:30 target would be about perfect and with some of the guess for Guess My Time, Win Crap contest, I knew that was achievable. But I kept over looking a cough with phlegm that I had.

During my pre-race warmup, I looked over the finish line. It hadn’t changed locations from years past, so I was happy. I knew what to expect at the end and how to tweak my strategy at the end. As I continued to warm-up, I got a Nature’s Do Not Call signal and I decided it best I go over and wait in the porta-potty line now and not try to “hope for the best” during the race. Thankfully, there were 10 porta potties and the line, although long moves quickly.

Just after I was “finished”, the pre-race announcements and national anthem began. The KFD had one of their big trucks with a large boom ladder up over Neyland Drive, holding up a HUGE American flag as the national anthem played.

Fireball always attracts runners and this year was no different. I knew that it was important to position myself at race start to be up with runners of my ability and not hang back and try to make up the time during the race, the traffic would be immense. I had learned my lesson well at a crowded race at the deteriments of weaving through traffic, and so I wanted to place myself strategically to succeed.

The gun went off and the race started. I had placed myself pretty well. I was on the outside edge and up far enough that the people around me were running the pace I wanted to run. I still had to dodge some people who may have thought they were faster than they thought or just wasn’t using a Race Day strategy at all. Regardless, by the first 1/4 mile I had secured a location in race and felt good.

Mile 1: 7:44

I was feeling pretty decent at this time. I was running comfortably. I had established my lane and knew in 1/2 was the turn around. I avoided the traffic of the lone water station and held my pace.

Like I had mentioned before, this race and Expo 10k turned out to be almost exact in results. Good first mile, then everything falls apart, reduced to walking and regrouping. The only difference in this race was there was no cool slip and fall.

As I rounded the 1/2 way point, the running went from okay to labored. I could tell that I was starting to slow down in my pace and things were becoming difficult. I tried to analyze what was going on with my running, but nothing was making sense. I decided to get some liquid at the water stop.

Mile 2: 8:26 (16:10)

I’m actually starting to feel tired as I get to the water stop. Not fatigued tired, but sleepy tired. I feel like I could just lie down in the road and nap. When I got the water, I stopped to walk, something that I have rarely done in a 5k race before. I finish my water and move along.

The water helped some, I feel refreshed and running feels good again. But now, my head is starting to feel funny. I actually am starting to feel lightheaded, so I stop to walk. Very strange that I feel woozy while running, that had never happened before, so I was confused about what to do, so I want to experiment and see if I can replicate the feeling. Yes, I can. I start running again and sure enough I am starting to feel lightheaded and almost like I could pass out.

I reduced my pace to the point where the lightheadedness did not exist. With all the walking and slowing down, I had moved over to the left so that all the runners could pass me, and it’s just a 5k too.

With 1/4 mile to go, I start to think about how I was going to finish. Would I push it at the end (like normal) or just mosey in and call the race a loss. I didn’t really know until the final turn at the Mile 3 marker when I am behind this father-daughter pair and I am hearing the dad encourage the daughter to run ahead to the finish line without him and finish strong. She’s about 10 and she’s very tentative about it. Right after the turn she gives in and starts to pick up speed and pulls away from her dad. I pick up speed and chase her. I did this for a couple of reasons:

1)I can let her pace me so I don’t kill myself at the end
2)She’ll know someone is behind her and this will keep her going
3)If she does start to falter at the very end, I can be there to encourage her runner-to-runner to push it to the end

We pull away from the group with about 40 yards to go. I kept to just 1-2 steps behind her and began to run coverage for her. Even though I could out kick her to finish line just based on stride-length alone, she had worked hard during this race and deserved the finish. Although it wasn’t necessary, I was running right behind her, looking over my should to make sure that if any runner was going to sprint at the end, I was going to run in that space to protect her finishing place. It’s like we were team mates with her knowing.

Mile 3.1 10:13 (26:31)

The best part of the race was the cold race logo towel that they gave finishers at the end of the chute to help cool off. That was awesome.

So what went wrong? Why did I feel mentally that I could run a 23:30 but physically managed only a 26:23? The first clue was that I realized pretty quickly after finishing that Expo and Fireball had the same result, start okay, but finish poorly. Fireball had been different because I felt woozy, while running.

I finally admitted to myself that the productive coughing I was having was something in my lungs. In fact, it very well could have been allergies because I didn’t feel “sick” at all, but I would cough. This junk in lungs was causing a lack of oxygen to get to the lungs, even though I had Breath Right Strip on and had taken an Abuterol hit before the race.

Despite a bad performance on my part, my stats didn’t look all that bad. I finished 404 out of 1064 runners and place 39 out 75th in my age group. Percentage wise, those were about right on. But the fact of the matter is that I could have done better! I should have finished closer to 28th in my age group!

OKay, so my multi crap prize contest disappeared faster than Dobby the Elf from Harry Potter. But guess what? Chicken Butt.

MY TIME!

It’s Race Week and it’s time for another contest! Here are the Rules:

1) Leave a time you think I will complete the Event as a comment to this post.

Event: Fireball 5k Road Race website

2) You can enter as many times as you want, but only your most recent entry will be your official guess

3) This will be an Over/Under format, meaning that you time will count whether your time is over or under my official time

4) You can enter as long as Comments are allowed for this post, which is typically through Race at some point

Fireball 5k is run at 9 pm on THURSDAY JULY 3rd

5) The Official Time as reported at the event website will be the End-all-Be-all result. Should no result be posted, then my watch time will be used

Results for this Event are (eventually) posted at: KTC.ORG

6) Winners will have to send me their postal address to gain their prize. Giving me their address subjects them to such things as world domination, Christmas Cards, and other random items (and sometimes embarrassing items) sent to their homes.

7) There are no restriction for past winners… Enter and Win and Enter Again.

All submissions must be made as a comment unless you are technical incompetent, then I will accept other forms of submission such as carrier pigeon, smoke signals, tea leafs, chicken bones, etc

9) Is my favorite number, so I wanted the Rules to go to 9, so, uh, have fun!

The Crap Prize for which you are competing is:

Some Book of Quotes that I can find at our local Used Bookstore

Stuff to help you in your guess:

Last Five 5k Times:

Scholar’s Run    Aug-18-2007    5 k    23:32
Reindeer Run    Dec-2-2007    5 k    22:33
Spring Sprint    Apr-12-2008    5 k    24:12
Ribbon Run        Apr-19-2008    5 k    24:10
Run for the Deaf    May-3-2008    5 k    23:27

Historic Fireball Times:

Fireball Classic    Jul-4-1998    5 k    23:35
Fireball Classic    Jul-3-1999    5 k    28:00
Fireball Classic    Jul-3-2000    5 k    23:30
Fireball Classic    Jul-3-2002    5 k    23:17
Fireball Classic    Jul-3-2003    5 k    23:39
Fireball Classic    Jul-3-2004    5 k    22:57

I get to add a DNS to my Running History, oh JOY! Apparently, Race Day was just a sleep accident waiting to happen. With my trip to Atlanta, a visit from my friend Gray which I stayed up late talking, new meds… it all came to a head on Sunday Morning. I had everything ready to go for the race. The bike was in the van, my bags were ready, I had my clothes out, I had basically 2 alarms (The Kids and My Watch) and turns out that my Human Alarms had their own snooze button and my watch, which I always hear, wasn’t loud enough to wake me from the sleep of the dead.

There was one point, which in our groggy state, My Lovely and Talented Wife asked if we wanted to go and when I looked at my watch, if we had left RIGHT THEN we could have made it race start… but everyone was asleep and that’s not how I wanted to start the day. My eyelids closed again, and I arose about 3 hours later.

So not starting a race isn’t all that enjoyable. There’s a little more mystery to it and how you might done, but it’s not as frustrating as a DNF (Did Not Finish). My goal this year was to do an Olympic Triathlon, but with missing Tellico Sprint, that stepping stone was important, especially becoming more comfortable on the bike.

There is another triathlon in July that I can sign up for, but it’s short than Tellico and not necessarily a good move to the Olympic Distance. I think that this would mean that 2009 would be an Olympic Triathlon and then 2010 would be the Atomic Half Ironman (Oak Ridge).

Now apart from my NOT running, I know that most of you are depressed because you didn’t get a chance  to Win Crap. Well, I think that is going to be remedied in the next week. Just like every’ other running city in America, Knoxville has it’s own Fourth of July Race. Actually, we don’t call it something wimpy like a firecracker 5k or something like that. In fact, we don’t even have it on the 4th of July. Ours is at 9pm at night of the 3rd of July and we have a manly name to it, the Fireball 5k.

So, look for a new contest early next week.