So during the intro, Steve Runner (not his “real” name) asked me “So, Terry, what have you been doing running wise” (okay, don’t quote me) and for a split second, I went into another dimension and started to contemplate… “what HAVE I been doing?”

The Short-Short answer is NOT MUCH. The last time that I ran was on June 12, when I went trail running. Since then I haven’t run a mile or even a quarter mile. My last race was early May with the Run for the Deaf 5k where my Spring Racing Season did not turn out as well as I wanted it to. If you believe in the Periodization Theory, that is periods of time are grouped together for a specific goal, I have been in a Rest Period. Probably the longest one of my running career. My first month of basically “not running” was in July 2003 when The Elder was born. I ran once that month, and then came back in August. Usually there is another Rest Period in December/January where there is 3 weeks of little running as I recover from the fall marathon and then ramp up for Calhouns 10miler at the end of January.

So why the big break? Not sure, but I have my theories…

But what Wednesday’s Runner’s Roundtable did was to get a little fire going. I am still planning on running the Flying Monkey Marathon in November, so that means that training would start somewhere around August 1st. But that’s like 5 weeks away… and would result in an approximate 12 week resting period. Good thing you don’t really forget to run… or is that to ride a bike? I just check the calendar and this weekend (June 25th) would be Week 8 of no-racing, no-training. It’s actually kinda Surreal…

But Terry, it’s hotter than the sun out there, what are you thinking? Yes, it is hot out there, maybe not as hot as the sun, or even as hot as in Arizona, but isn’t it the Humidity that really is the clincher?

So yesterday during the Runner’s Roundtable, Steve Runner cornered me and in the deepest, most evil sounding voice… “So… when is the next Gravity@1053′ episode?”, the skies darkened and everything went silent. The next voice I heard was my own subconscious saying, “Dude, you are on Air… internationally, say something with words and try to make it sound good… Lord, please help us…”

Then I remembered that I actually enjoy recording my podcast: Gravity@1053′, what I don’t enjoy is the stretch of time that it takes to get to the computer, edited and all that other podcasting-type stuff. Part of the little fire was, yes, I do like to podcast… and I do have my laptop up and running, so what is stopping me? Basically, just a lack of focus and motivation. Well, make that a significant lack of focus when it comes to the extracurricular stuff in my life, which in turn, lowers my motivation on just about everything.

There’s been a number of factors (as with everyone) which has been contributors. Some of them I have been able to address and not necessarily nullify but at least mitigate it some to where it is manageable. I’ll probably blog about them, which will give me topics to blog about, since blogging has been another casualty of lack of focus… SQUIRREL!

While I don’t have a training program penciled out at this point, there is one in the works. I’ll need a couple of days to work on that to make sure the schedule is manageable for the rest of the summer and the fall. But what I am looking at doing is recording a new episode of Gravity@1053′. And I don’t think that I am going to try to capture the audio exclusively on runs, since that doesn’t always work well for me, but use the Planet3rry Mobile Recording Headquarters instead. I have a smart phone now… it should be smart enough to help me you would think!

My goal is to record the audio and have a show ready for Monday Morning…

Oh, and if you are reading this entry on my blog, you might see that I changed the theme… a new start… a clean pair of underwear… so to speak

Run for the Deaf 5k 05.01.2010

As for the actual race itself, the Run for the Deaf did not disappoint for a great run and venue! The weather held off (i.e. Storms that pounded Middle Tennessee) and it was cool and calm for the run. Now while I still had to stop for just a short bit just before mile 3, I was pretty pleased at my overall run. I am not exactly sure why my 5k runs have been so poor (i.e. I have had to walk in the last 3) physically, but mentally I feel fine. I am curious if it’s a residual effect of the marathon runs in Late 2008 and in 2009, or it’s a flag that something else is wrong. Who knows…

So my unofficial time for the Run for the Deaf was 24:58 (net Terry-Time from Start Line to Finish) but it’s going to be slightly over 25 minutes I know, but my split times were: 7:39, 8:02 and for the last 1.1 which included two short walk breaks was 9:17 for a total of 24:58. I didn’t win any Age Group awards, since I stayed for those, but I did win a DOOR PRIZE! Scored me a CASE of water! I think that makes my Door Prize winning at this race about 50%!

Rittenhouse Half-Marathon 4.24.2010

My Official time for the Rittenhouse Half Marathon was 2:16:28 and I finished 30 0ut 0f 36… and they didn’t have Age Groups, but I finished 23 out of 26 in the Male Finishers. I was on a 2hr finishing pace for the first 4 miles. My downfall came to a Rookie Mistake that I did the day before (Never Eat Anything New the Day Before Race Day). I ate something that wasn’t actually “new” to me, but given my current diet, it was “new” and thus had an adverse reaction. I have been on a Gluten Free Diet for almost 3 years now, and in addition, I have been on a Casein-Reduced diet as well. Reduced basically means that I’ll still eat Chocolate and Sherbet and a few other things that have Casein (Milk Protein) but never anything in high concentration. Well, as a reward for The Elder’s trip for a checkup at the hospital, the reward was a Frosty from Wendy’s. Seeing that the Wendy’s that they would be purchasing said dairy treat at the one just down the block from my office, I said “Get Me One!”

Excited about the cold, casein-rich Frosty, I ate without even thinking of any residual effects for the next day. After all, I have had plenty of Frostys in my lifetime, so what would odd about it now? Nothing, other than the fact that it made my stomach feel like a lead weight around mile 4 and that shortly after mile 10, I was hoping that I would just expel whatever was hating me that day from either end… at this point… I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel better. Nothing ended up happening and around mile 11, I was feeling okay… tired, but okay. I had been taking walk-breaks as needed but I was finding that after Mile 10, my walk breaks were becoming less frequent, even when I running a challenging part of the course. So, I knew that my sluggishness was stomach related and not fatigue related.

In the last mile, there was no one ahead of me, and I had distanced myself from the runner behind me, who just before Mile 12, had caught up with me as I wasn’t sure of the Course and stopped and back-tracked about 0.1 of a mile. I was going to make the best of whatever was left. As part of my normal race strategy, I had the last 0.25 mile or so planned out on where I would start accelerating to the finish. Not exactly sure how “fast” I got in the last 0.15 miles, but it FELT like a sprint. I knew that I wasn’t going to even be close to my goal time for that race (sub 2hr), but it was a RACE and every second counts!

The nice thing about this Half Marathon is that you get a Finisher’s Medal, so I didn’t walk away empty handed (didn’t win a door prize either). Usually only the Mega Halfs (or in this case the Micro Halfs) which can afford the medals will have them, but sometimes the Micro Halfs will have something for the Runners. This was my first time running the course and I really enjoyed the course itself, which is part through the town/city of Harriman and part on the back country roads. When you were on the country roads, the shoulders on the road were ample enough that traffic didn’t seem like it was going to plow into you. Plus, the Rittenhouse race having the support of the Harriman Police, there were plenty of patrol cars on the course. The water stops seems nicely laid out according to  difficult parts of the course. There were mile markers, but they were at not uniform places along the course, which for my run that day was probably a good thing so that I wouldn’t be obsessing about my mile times every split.

I would probably run the Rittenhouse Half Marathon again, but with it being in late April, it does have some competition with other events on that particular weekend or being close to a spring Marathon.

This will be last planned race until the July 3rd Fireball 5k Classic, which I may or may not run. This will also be the start of a transition period between Spring Running and Summer Running which I will focus on less distance and more speed and with the opening of the UT pool, I’ll include some brick workouts (run, swim) at lunchtime. Maybe even sneak in a sprint triathlon if I can. Who knows.

Anyway, I’ll entertain Guess My Time, Win Crap guesses if you want to play for the Run for the Deaf 5k…

Guess My Time and Win Crap Rules and Regulations:

1. All you have to do is guess my OFFICIAL finishing time for the race. I will provide some numbers below to help you base your calculation. Official Times will be what is recorded by the race officials. If I am not able to get that time, then I will use my watch time.
2. You can enter as many times as you want, however, your Guess with the latest timestamp on it will be your official guess.
3. Entries with a timestamp later than the advertised race Start Time will not count.
4. You can leave a Guess a number of different ways, thanks to today’s technology. You can leave a comment on my blog www.planet3rry.com, leave a comment on my Facebook post of the contest, leave a comment on my Twitter account, either direct message or mention is fine (I recommend using the hash #GMTWC, so it’s easier to find) or you can email me your time as well.
5. Winners, if I do not already have your postal address, will have to submit a mailing address for the Winning Crap, but beware… that does open you up to things such as Christmas Cards, Free Trial Sizes of embarrassing items and anything else that I deem to be humorous to me. I think past winners can testify that I am all bark and no bite when it comes to the “embarrassing stuff”.
6. In the case of ties, I will award the time with earliest time stamp, going down to the picosecond if I must.
7. If by some chance you guess my time exactly, you will win The Craptastic Prize!

So what exactly will I win?

That remains to be determined but it’ll be items that I have lying around. While I am not going to be giving away anything as cool as an iPad or something like that, it will be marginally useful. Primarily it’ll be things that won’t cost me much to ship. The Craptastic Prize will be in the form of a gift card from a store of my choosing with an amount of my choosing. It will be in addition too the regular Guess My Time, Win Crap prizes!

Race History and other race information

Race: Run for the Deaf 5

2009 Results
Number of Finishers: 233
Overall winner: Ron Manis 18:20

My Finish Times

Race Date/My Times/Overall Place/Age Place

May-08-1999    22:29    054|173    6|9
May-11-2002    29:07    100|154    10|10
May-08-2004    22:28    026|121    2|11
May-07-2005    24:01    038|111    1|3
May-03-2008    23:27    052|204    10|14

Course Map – I made one on Gmap-Pedometer

Terry’s Finishing times for 5ks since 2004

Race                  Date        Time
Spring Sprint         Apr-3-2004  24:03
Run for the Deaf      May-8-2004  22:28
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2004  22:57
Scholar's Run         Aug-21-2004 24:57
Run for the Deaf      May-7-2005  24:01
Scholar's Run         Aug-20-2005 24:36
Reindeer Run          Dec-4-2005  23:14
Scholar's Run         Aug-19-2006 25:12
Farragut Fall Classic Sep-23-2006 22:08
Spring Sprint         Apr-14-2007 23:46
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2007 23:32
Reindeer Run          Dec-2-2007  22:33
Spring Sprint         Apr-12-2008 24:12
Ribbon Run            Apr-19-2008 24:10
Run for the Deaf      May-3-2008  23:27
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2008  26:23
Scholar's Run         Aug-16-2008 24:58
Ribbon Run            Apr-16-2009 24:11
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2009 26:21
Run for the Schools   Apr-10-2010 27:12
Run for Autism        Apr-17-2010 26:22

My finish time was a 26:22 on a course that I had previous done a 24:12 and 24:11, so why the 2 minute difference? I have a speculation, but more on that later…

At the mile split, I knew I was in trouble because my 8:15ish pace FELT like 7:30 and so when Slower Feels Like Faster that is NOT a good thing. Close to Mile 2, I started to walk, just a short distance, then off to running again. I stopped again just before the 3 mile mark, hidden from the view of the finishline. I took the last 0.25 mile or so to bleed off any energy I might have left, it was a race anyhow! In the last 0.1 of a mile, I picked off 3 runners and the runner with the running stroller who passed me just a few minutes past.

I was not in all that of a happy place when I finished, so I went and got a bottle of water, a banana, got in my vehicle and headed home.

Nobody played the Guess My Time contest game, so I’ll guess that I’ll just contest for the Half marathon on 4/24/2010.

Guess My Time and Win Crap Rules and Regulations:

1. All you have to do is guess my OFFICIAL finishing time for the race. I will provide some numbers below to help you base your calculation. Official Times will be what is recorded by the race officials. If I am not able to get that time, then I will use my watch time.
2. You can enter as many times as you want, however, your Guess with the latest timestamp on it will be your official guess.
3. Entries with a timestamp later than the advertised race Start Time will not count.
4. You can leave a Guess a number of different ways, thanks to today’s technology. You can leave a comment on my blog www.planet3rry.com, leave a comment on my Facebook post of the contest, leave a comment on my Twitter account, either direct message or mention is fine (I recommend using the hash #GMTWC, so it’s easier to find) or you can email me your time as well.
5. Winners, if I do not already have your postal address, will have to submit a mailing address for the Winning Crap, but beware… that does open you up to things such as Christmas Cards, Free Trial Sizes of embarrassing items and anything else that I deem to be humorous to me. I think past winners can testify that I am all bark and no bite when it comes to the “embarrassing stuff”.
6. In the case of ties, I will award the time with earliest time stamp, going down to the picosecond if I must.
7. If by some chance you guess my time exactly, you will win The Craptastic Prize!

So what exactly will I win?

That remains to be determined but it’ll be items that I have lying around. While I am not going to be giving away anything as cool as an iPad or something like that, it will be marginally useful. Primarily it’ll be things that won’t cost me much to ship. The Craptastic Prize will be in the form of a gift card from a store of my choosing with an amount of my choosing. It will be in addition too the regular Guess My Time, Win Crap prizes!

Race History and other race information

Race: Run for Autism 5k

2009 Results
Number of Finishers: 229
Overall winner: Andy Baska 14:37

Race Date/My Times/Overall Place/Age Place

Apr-19-2008 24:10 /  39|126 / 04|08
Apr-16-2009 24:11 / 49|229 / 06|15

Course Map – They don’t have a link to one on the website, but I might

Terry’s Finishing times for 5ks since 2004

Race                  Date        Time
Spring Sprint         Apr-3-2004  24:03
Run for the Deaf      May-8-2004  22:28
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2004  22:57
Scholar's Run         Aug-21-2004 24:57
Run for the Deaf      May-7-2005  24:01
Scholar's Run         Aug-20-2005 24:36
Reindeer Run          Dec-4-2005  23:14
Scholar's Run         Aug-19-2006 25:12
Farragut Fall Classic Sep-23-2006 22:08
Spring Sprint         Apr-14-2007 23:46
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2007 23:32
Reindeer Run          Dec-2-2007  22:33
Spring Sprint         Apr-12-2008 24:12
Ribbon Run            Apr-19-2008 24:10
Run for the Deaf      May-3-2008  23:27
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2008  26:23
Scholar's Run         Aug-16-2008 24:58
Ribbon Run            Apr-16-2009 24:11
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2009 26:21
Run for the Schools   Apr-10-2010 27:12

No one played the Guess My Time contest, which given its lateness in posting… makes sense. So, I am posting this week’s contest later today so that people who want to win will have ample time to actually play.

As for the Run for Schools 5k Results (2010, Other Sponsor, if you want to look it up):

Official Finishing Time: 27:12

Overall Finish 113|881

Age Group Finish: 09|40

There were a number of things about the race that just wasn’t in my favor, perhaps I’ll write up a race report on it soon.

Guess My Time and Win Crap Rules and Regulations:

1)All you have to do is guess my OFFICIAL finishing time for the race. I will provide some numbers below to help you base your calculation. Official Times will be what is recorded by the race officials. If I am not able to get that time, then I will use my watch time.

2)You can enter as many times as you want, however, your Guess with the latest timestamp on it will be your official guess.

3)Entries with a timestamp later than the advertised race Start Time will not count.

4)You can leave a Guess a number of different ways, thanks to today’s technology. You can leave a comment on my blog www.planet3rry.com, leave a comment on my Facebook post of the contest, leave a comment on my Twitter account, either direct message or mention is fine (I recommend using the hash #GMTWC, so it’s easier to find) or you can email me your time as well.

5)Winners, if I do not already have your postal address, will have to submit a mailing address for the Winning Crap, but beware… that does open you up to things such as Christmas Cards, Free Trial Sizes of embarrassing items and anything else that I deem to be humorous to me. I think past winners can testify that I am all bark and no bite when it comes to the “embarrassing stuff”.

6)In the case of ties, I will award the time with earliest time stamp, going down to the picosecond if I must.

7)If by some chance you guess my time exactly, you will win The Craptastic Prize!

So what exactly will I win?

That remains to be determined but it’ll be items that I have lying around. While I am not going to be giving away anything as cool as an iPad or something like that, it will be marginally useful. Primarily it’ll be things that won’t cost me much to ship. The Craptastic Prize will be in the form of a gift card from a store of my choosing with an amount of my choosing. It will be in addition too the regular Guess My Time, Win Crap prizes!

Race History and other race information

Race: Run for the Schools 5k

2009 Results

Number of Finishers: 276

Overall winner: Andy Baksa 15:24.0

Course Map

Approximate Map of last 0.65mi (inside the Knoxville Zoo) with Elevation Map via Gmap-Pedometer

Terry’s Finishing times for 5ks since 2004

Race                  Date        Time
Spring Sprint         Apr-3-2004  24:03
Run for the Deaf      May-8-2004  22:28
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2004  22:57
Scholar's Run         Aug-21-2004 24:57
Run for the Deaf      May-7-2005  24:01
Scholar's Run         Aug-20-2005 24:36
Reindeer Run          Dec-4-2005  23:14
Scholar's Run         Aug-19-2006 25:12
Farragut Fall Classic Sep-23-2006 22:08
Spring Sprint         Apr-14-2007 23:46
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2007 23:32
Reindeer Run          Dec-2-2007  22:33
Spring Sprint         Apr-12-2008 24:12
Ribbon Run            Apr-19-2008 24:10
Run for the Deaf      May-3-2008  23:27
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2008  26:23
Scholar's Run         Aug-16-2008 24:58
Ribbon Run            Apr-16-2009 24:11
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2009 26:21

The Whitestone 30k is a road race whose START/FINISH is at the Whitestone Inn in Paint Rock, TN. I had ran it back in 2002, but given it’s distance and date (traditionally, a Sunday) I hadn’t put it on my racing calendar. But this year, since I am not running a Spring Marathon, but instead training for a PR time at the 1/2 marathon distance on April 24 in Harriman, TN, I thought this would be a very good endurance run, since I just had run Strawplains Half Marathon just 2 weeks prior.

Like all the races that I know ahead of time that I am going to run, I will volunteer for any pre-race duties. Seeing that this was a training run and a longer distance, there would be little chance of me placing in my age-group, I wouldn’t need any warm-up and as long as I got to the starting line, I’d be fine. Bobby Holcombe was the race director for the event and emailing him saying that I could volunteer for anything pre-race that I’d be more than happy to help. My reply was that most things were covered, but a few people including myself would be on the “reserve/back-up list” in case there was a need for something. I could handle that, just fine.

One of the neat things about volunteering at Knoxville Track Club events, is that you get a Volunteer Voucher, which in essence is good for $5 in KTC money. That is, you can apply vouchers when purchasing KTC apparel or race entry fees for KTC events, or exchanging it for that race’s shirt (because it is so cool, or NOT white!). When you volunteer outside of Knox County, you get 2 of them! Well, with my volunteering at Strawplains, I had 9 coupons, which is worth $45 in KTC Land. It just so happened to be that Whitestone 30k was $45 for Day of Race registration! So, I didn’t have to pay a nickel to run the 30k! However, there were NO t-shirts for Day of Race entrants and I am waiting for the email saying that my shirt is ready.

I arrived on-site and proceeded to find Volunteer Check-In and Day of Race Registration. Wasn’t difficult at all, and still being early it went fast as well. When I checked in, everything was “covered” so I didn’t really have anything to do… I could just take my 2 coupons and head out for the race. But that’s shooting fish in a barrel and I’m not really programmed to work that way anyway. I’d still volunteer is there were NO coupons, but I appreciate the coupons though! Registration (usually a good pre-race activity) was fine, so I headed out to see if there was anything that I could to help outside. I wandered over to the KTC trailer and found people pulling out tables for the water stations. I jumped right in and helped get those tables into a pick-up to be taken out to the course. Then I started loading another truck with cones, Mile Markers, and Race In Progress signs.

I was beginning to shape up that the guy, Dave, was going to be alone in putting out the road markers, so I grabbed a map and hopped into the truck. The Whitestone 30k course wraps around itself depending on where you are. That is, there are certain chunks of roadway that you run over 3 times with different directions at the intersections depending on how far you are in the race. As a result some of the Mile Markers, are near 100ft of each other, so when it came to looking for the markings for these, if we found one, we knew the other was close. We had about 45 minutes to get all the Mile Markers, Cones and Race in Progress signs out there and for the most part it went pretty smoothly. We did calculate that given the race start that we’d be behind in getting everything out before the race actually started. Most of the Mile Markers weren’t an issue because even the immortal Elite Runners could never run that fast that we couldn’t put the 12 mile marker on the road before they would get there… they’d have to be running at a World Record pace of 1:00 mi/min.

Given our location (near Mile 11) and the time, we might have an issue with the 6 mile marker not being out on the course in time. After we put down Mile 12 marker, we started seeing some of the runners and the Police stopped traffic. We were close enough to some of the Mile Markers, that Dave took one in one direction and I took the other. While setting up the Mile Marker I had, # I think, I saw my friend THE Stewart Ellington, who at the time was in second overall, but there was a relay aspect to this race, so that might have just been a relay person ahead of him. I got to cheer him as he passed and then I ran back to the truck. THE Stewart Ellington ended up placing 1st in this race, and actually in alot of races around here… I joke with him that he better watchout because during the race I’ll be behind him chasing him down. Of course his pace is like 5 and some change… mine, eh…

So as we proceeded to head back, we saw the bulk of runners and Dave was talking with the people he knew as we went by. It was really cool because he knows some of the personally, he would tell me an interesting fact about them, which was cool. But we both TOTALLY missed the Mile 17 marker! So we kept going to put the Mile 18 mile marker down and then I asked him if he could take me to the Race Start before he went back to put down Mile 17. He dropped me off and I ran to my car where I put on my number and got what I would need for the race. When I got to the top of the hill, there was no one around… I found the line I assumed that was used for the Starting Line, leisurely got all my gear together, looked at the time and started the stopwatch. My watch said 8:56 when I started so that was +26 minutes into the race, if it had started right on time at 8:30 and the time was accurate.

The Race start is an Exciting downhill start… steep and windy down the parking lot and entrance to Whitestone Inn. I had just passed where my car was when I remembered: OH I DON’T HAVE MY WATERBOTTLE! Seeing that I had some inside of me just 3 days earlier that “Hated The World”, I was worried that I would be dehydrated during the race, so having that water bottle was of utmost importance! And that backtracking to the car was the best diversion ever… I would have been DOA if I hadn’t gone back and gotten it.

Miles 1-5

The first couple of miles, was just trying to find a pace that wasn’t too strenuous. The only thing was that I was DEAD LAST… I was 20+ minutes BEHIND the patrol car, so knowing that just made me WANT to run fast. But I know that had I done that I would be paying for it big time later in the race. This was the longest distance since the Flying Monkey Marathon in November 2009, so I wasn’t sure how long I was going to last. Plus hitting the Wall around Mile 9 of the Strawplains Half Marathon just 2 weeks prior, I wasn’t sure where that Wall would be for a 18.7 mile course… maybe 11, maybe 15… maybe 8? Who Knew?

Being where I was on the course, when I approached MY mile 2, this was the Elite’s Mile 6, so I was being passed by some of the Elite Runners and some of the Relay Team. I did want to speed up as they passed, they made it look SOOO easy to run at that pace… I would sound like a herd of wild elephants or something.

When I approached the Split at Mile 2.5, which you pass by 3 times, I had to tell the Volunteers who were telling the runners at the Mile 6.5 point that I was just making my first pass! I filled my Water Bottle at every chance that I could to make sure that I stayed hydrated. Since I had helped set up the course, I already knew where the water stations were going to be located and so for Racing Dynamics, it made it easier to pace my water intake, trying to keep myself from dehydrating too quickly.

Right near the Mile 5 marker I saw the flashing lights of the patrol car who was following the last runner. At this point, I was relieved that I was now back “officially” within the course time cutoff.

Miles 6-12

For the next batch of miles, I felt pretty decent. I wasn’t pushing myself, but rather trying to stay evenly paced as best I could with the terrain. I was completely alone, there was no one ahead of me and the last runner was still behind, I really had no idea where I was in the race, other than next-to-last. Mile 8 of the course double backs on its self and it was here that I saw the tail end of runners, about 7 of them just starting Mile 9 and I was just beginning Mile 8. I tried to do some math to see if my pace would be enough to catch up with them before the finish line. I wasn’t sure… perhaps, but we hadn’t quite hit half-way and there were still Plenty O’Hills to worry about.

When I came to Mile 9, I could just make out the Police lights of the Last Runner, he was yet to start Mile 8. Good to know that he was still going steady-on. The runners ahead of me where out of side… still perhaps about a mile away, but with the hills and curves, I couldn’t see them. At Mile 10, I shifted my race strategy to incorporate some mandating walking (other than water stops). I could tell that I was consuming liquids WAY too fast, which for me means that if I continue at the same pace, I will end up Hitting the Wall and it falling on me. Using this strategy, I could at least defer The Wall to a later distance.

Starting at Mile 11, the course takes you back on the main road, which unfortunately is not sheltered from the elements. In my case, this was slightly beneficial because the cold wind was helping keep my core body temperature from rising too fast going up the hills. I was still able to maintain running for the most part, with walk breaks taken at specific locations (usually at the mid/end of a downhill).

Miles 13-Finish

I knew at this point that that personal finishing time (Terry Time) would be decent given the conditions, my training, etc but that the clock time would stink. I still figured that my pace was still overall faster than those that I saw at Mile 9, but I didn’t see them although there were hills and curves to obstruct my view. Knowing that I was basically running on this road right up until the finish line, I began to move into my Race Finish Mode. Even though there was no time goal involved (good that I didn’t have a Guess My Time, Win Crap contest), this was still a Race and unless it’s a “fun run” it’s ethical to beat 6 year olds and 80 year olds. My goal at this point was to maintain my pace, and to try to over take runners still on the course (which is a typical Race Strategy).

Around Mile 16 I started seeing a lot of vehicles coming from the direction of the Whitestone Inn. This could really only mean ONE thing… the Award Ceremony was over and people were leaving! And sure enough, that is what it was… runners…  rather “Finishers” leaving to head home and I’m still out there with just a few miles to go. I even saw the overall winner pass and wave to him and his wife and I wondered if it was weird that he saw me help setting up the course at “his” Mile 2 and that I was wearing a Race Bib and he was leaving at “my” Mile 17?

Just before I reached Mile 18, at the top of the hill, I could see another runner on the course. But damn was I tired! There wasn’t a whole lot in the take, but I did have one thing… motivation. I wanted… NEEDED to finish quickly. The uphill finish for this race is nothing to be trifled with even for those like me that actually “Like” hills! In the last 1/2 mile I shifted into a quick walk, fast pace run. While this is much more taxing on the body, it does provide a faster pace and at this point, it was do or die.

Not only is the uphill pretty steep, just to make it more “fun” there’s a number of curves associated with it. And it was here where I saw my chance to pick-off the weak of the herd. I pulled within 10-20 feet of the runner right in front of me waiting for the right time to move. The last part of the course is on a asphalt “trail” that leads up to the Inn and Chapel and maybe 0.1 of a mile… or little more… but, you have make a right turn from the parking lot onto to it. And that is when I made my move.

Right as she was turning, I accelerated past her and started to churn my legs to make it up the hill. I probably got a 20-25 feet ahead of her before my legs said… “NO MORE” and I was forced to walk. However, my mind decided to drown out my Legs whining and I focused on the top of the hill where I could see the clock and just started moving as best as I could. And then, I crossed the finish line… “officially” in 3:49:48 as the 124 finisher out of 126. Looking at the finishing times, I could have potentially have come in 122, if I had just been 15 seconds faster…

The unofficial Terry Finish Time was 3:28:49, which ended up being roughly 21 mins difference… so perhaps the race started a tad late. Now, although the conditions would have been different had I started with the rest, my unofficial time would have put me around 108 out of 126. So overall, I was fine with my time, it was a training run after all anyway, but I was more pleased from my performance. I have said it before that I have learned MORE about my running style and strategies on races that have gone poorly than I do where I run races well.

Here’s a picture from the Whitestone Inn, just a few feet from the Start/Finish Line

Great view! Taken with Pi-Eleven (My Palm Pixi)

My last blog entry was the calendar for 2010 of what I want to run, what I may run and the things that I plan on running. Obvious I can’t do it all… there’s just not enough of me to go around. Plus, the cost for all of this would be outrageous!

I wasn’t sure, at first, what I wanted to do for a Spring Race. I am once again volunteering for the Knoxville Marathon and am staying as a course monitor this time and not a pacer. Perhaps in the future I might be ready to be a pacer again, but I’m going to be on the course this year. Without a clear Marathon to choose from, I looked toward a shorter distance… I thought perhaps I could work on the shorter distances, maybe even go for a new 5k PR time. I wasn’t quite exited about that, at least not in the spring, perhaps summer/autumn time. So that left me, with what to run?

The local racing scene here has a Winter series that culminates with the Knoxville Marathon distance. The first race is the Calhoun’s 10 miler, then Strawplains 1/2 marathon and then late-late February/Early March is the Whitestone 30k. So, it seemed to make sense to shoot for a goal race with some distance to it. And looking at the calendar, the Rittenhouse/Emory River Half-Marathon (don’t have an event URL yet) on 4/24 seemed to fit the bill perfectly. It’s far enough in the future to get some good workouts on my feet and it’s a (relatively) short enough distance to build up speed during that time.

The Summer months will be a periodization of shorter but faster work-outs. One, the weather is much too hot for the longer distances and the shorter workouts will also keep things interesting (I love the Ladders!). As the fall approaches, the race that I love to do is the Quad Cities Marathon… one, it’s really close to my birthday at the end September, plus I have a lot of family in the Quad Cities on my Late Biological father’s side. They know that I run and I am sure that I am a maniac… and they would be correct! The marathon runs through Moline, Il and Davenport/Bettendorf IA and Mile 20 is on Rock Island Arsenal… in fact its’ really close to the cemetery that Bob Tripp is buried. So this race has some very unique ties to it… but it doesn’t sit well with the school schedule and traveling to it, etc.

I have every intention of Running the Flying Monkey Marathon again this year! This year, I am registering EARLY to avoid having to worry about getting in! I’ll be bib #438 and will be shooting for a time 4hr 38min or faster! It’s not a race for the timid… if the Hills don’t kill you, the Flying Monkey’s sure will!

I could do both marathons, the Quad Cities (Late Sept) and then Flying Monkey (mid-Nov), but if I couldn’t do that combo… then I’d like to do Rocket City in Mid December. It’s 4hrs away and a little easier on the logistics. Where as a marathon PR at Flying Monkey would be difficult, I think a PR time at ROcket City would be doable, especially, if I could get serious about training in the Fall.

The other marathons highlighted are ones that might be able to make, if the timing works out.

On the morn of the day after I write this, I have the Whitestone 30k… a 18.7 mile run around some non-so-friendly hills around these parts. Should be fun… wonder how far I’ll get before I wear out. Maybe mile 11, maybe mile 18.6… who knows? To make things even more exciting, I had a stomach bug on Friday, that purged my system… which is nice because that’s less weight that I’ll have to carry, but it tends to dehydrate an individual. So we’ll see… I was going to have a Guess My Time, Win Crap contest, but honestly, I don’t think it would be fair to anyone right now… I’ll have it for some of the races this spring though… don’t you worry…

Legend:
The Races in BOLD are the ones that I have every intention on doing
The Races in GREEN are ones where I have a Time Goal in mind for that race
The Races in YELLOW are Marathons that I would contemplate doing if the logistics worked out
The other Races are ones that I would like to do, but I probably won’t because of time & cost, but I may volunteer at them

Local Knoxville area races can be found at the KTC Website
US Marathons can be found in a number of places, I usually go to Marathon Guide.com