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

We purchase a double stroller for the kids back in 2007, which I have taken on a number of different runs with me (including the 2007 and 2008 Worldwide Half Marathon) and some family excursions. Here’s a picture of the kids in the stroller on the 3rd Creek Greenway sometime in 2008.

We Like Running with Daddy

Well, on January 16 when I took the kids out on Third Creek Greenway from the Bearden Entrance to Tyson Park (2.5 miles one-way) where they can play on the nice big City of Knoxville playground. On the way back, I noticed that with about 1 mile to go, the stroller wanted to pull to the right. This was odd because The Elder was sitting on the left side and Vector Theory would suggest that it would pull to the left. I thought that it might have been a tire issue, with the right back tire having less pressure (thus creating more friction) and slowing that side down.

When we got back to the parking lot, we went over to look at the map of the Greenway and I showed the kids, where we were and where we went, etc. Then, when I went to leave, the kids seat dropped… how odd.

Getting back to the van, I took a closer look at the stroller and found a couple of places where it had broken:

EGADS! It’s pretty DARN broken there at the weld. I am not sure that even Duct Tape could fix it at this point. Looking at it with an engineer eye, I figured that it could be disassembled and the broken tubes could be replaced. I thought that the manufacturer would be able to supply the pieces for me, either for free or for a low-low cost.

So, I went hunting for the Dreamer Design website…

The first site that I found was for Stroller Ideas, where the had this to say about Dreamer Design Strollers…

“Dreamer Design does just that “Dreams to Design”. With years of Jogging Stroller experience behind their creative team, they have taken all the requests from parents over the years and turned them into an AWESOME stroller line. They back up our product line with a 20 year warranty and include features that no one else offers. The extra foot brake for added safety and the all weather canopy included with the purchase, just to name a few. From their creative research team to our customer service staff, your buying a name that says quality and strollers from the heart.”

and then when I went to the

Dreamer Design website… this is what is there:

Yeah! So now I am screwed! I can’t get any help from the Manufacturer… there are “no” spare parts. I’d basically have to buy a used one and gouge that one for parts, or just buy a new stroller. It totally sucks! The little glimmer of Optimism’s Flame is that now that The Younger can ride his bike, I can him with me on shorter runs. There is also the possibility of using a “not-really-for-running” stroller for The Elder while the The Younger follows behind. But the traffic on 3rd Creek is a little too much for them right now.

2009 Flying Monkey Marathon Race Report

Date 11.22.2009

Location: Percy Warner Park, Antioch TN

Abstract

This was my second consecutive running of this race, and while I was excited about the event, I was grossly undertrained. With low motivation in August, when training was supposed to start, to a sliced heel in September and then in early November, a mysterious chest congestion which produced some amount of phelghm, I hardly was able to train like I wanted, or how I should! Regardless, I was signed up, even pleading after the race had filled up to capacity to be an entrant, so I was going to run the race even if was the death of me. [ed. Note since I am writing this, I did not die, although I would have been nice monkey fodder if they knew my state on the course]. The race was a nice tie-in to our trip to California, we were flying out of Nashville and so we would be in Nashville the day before our flight which, in theory, should make the flight easier for the whole family.

Pre-Race

Having the advantage of running this race previously, I knew when and where the race start would take place. This logistic point would be very important, as when I go to the race site, I had about 4 minutes until race start. We used reward points to stay at our hotel, which was actually the second time that I had used points to stay at a hotel for a race.

At the hotel, I got ready for the race and did most of my pre-race ritual. I tossed my clothes that I was going to use in the race near my race bag. I pinned my gels (4 ACCEL gels 2-Key Lime, 2-Orange) to my shorts. I found that I had to do this the night before, because doing that when you are rushing around doing this leads to getting poked with the safety pins!

Race Morning

There’s always anxiety and anticipation on race morning… and for a while, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t under trained for this race. I was having delusions of grandeur of coming in under my bib number (#438) at 4 hours sub-38 minutes. Then I was distracted with having to get the kids ready to take me to the race. I felt pretty decent about the amount of food that I ate for breakfast… which was mainly oatmeal, but I had saved some chicken for some protein.

Even though we “sorta” knew where the race was, we still used the GPS to get us there. I was getting pretty nervous as the estimated GPS arrival time was getting dangerously close to the race start time… and I had to use the bathroom (just #1).

My Lovely and Talented wife drove me through the parking, up to where the bridge was which connected to the race festivities. I hopped out of the van, said a few quick good-byes and headed to get my stuff.

I somewhere around 4 minutes from the time that I left the van until the race gun went off. I hurried to the registration table, got my goods and my bib number. Being in a state park does hold some advantages. There’s basically hundreds of places to use the bathroom.

The weather wasn’t fore-casted to be all that great, possible rain, but it was surely overcast and the temperature not all that warm… just about perfect for a marathon. The race director was warning us runners (although he is foolish to run as well) of all the hazards of the park and running… so I knew that it would be just a few seconds. And it was, because we were off!

Mile 1 “Who is the more foolish? The fool or the fool that follows?”

I probably had one of the best starts to the marathon that I ever had. I wasn’t shooting off like a rocket, since I wasn’t planning on making any crazy attempts at a course PR. The first ½ to ¾ of a mile is long reprieve of being relatively flat, that probably helped too.

Mile 4 “Battling against that is more like… suicide”

I had another delusion since I had started off so well, that even up the first section of hills, I felt steady in my pace. I knew that the split times would vary from mile to mile, given the hills, but I felt great. At least for the first 8 or 9 miles

Mile 13.1 “Will he finish where he begins?”

As the race started, I decided that I would make race strategy would be to run the first half of the marathon as best as I could, trying to keep a 10:30ish pace. I had even factored in some time buffer time so that my goal time to cross the half-way time would be near 2:30. Then, I would change strategies and switch to the run-walk.

Crossing at 2:34 and knowing that I was past the point where I would be able to hold up my desired pace. I decided to do a 4 minute walk/ 1 minute walk and somehow, I was able to set my watch’s interval timer to do this. So, there I was… 4 minutes run, 1 minute walk and I was still in great spirits even knowing that I would be past 5 hours.

Mile 15 “Curse my blasted circuits, I wasn’t fast enough”

There’s one difficulty with the run-walk method… when you are really hurting, it’s hard to transition from the walk back to the run. I’m not a huge fan of switching from running to slowing down to a walk, especially on a hilly course, because it makes up hills longer and down hills harder on the knees. However, I wasn’t not going to deny myself of any walk breaks… so if I was in “run” mode and came to a water stop, I was walking through to refill my bottle… and if my watch signaled that it was time to walk just after the water stop… oh well.

Mile 20 “I won’t give up! I am not afraid!” “Oh, you will be, you WILL BE!”

The proverbial Wall of Mile 20 had come much earlier, but still there is something special about reaching the 20 mile mark. It’s the end of the warm-up for the 10k that you are running! And while this spot of a marathon has it’s own evil influence over the psyche of runners, I look to a different sci-fi movie as my mantra for Mile 20, The Matrix.

When Neo is finding out if he is “The One” (a similar title that Qui-Gonn Jin heralded Anakin, in The Phantom Menace) , he is an apartment room which children who see to have some special abilities. One of the kids is bending a spoon with their thought which leads to the phrase “There is no spoon”. Hence, at Mile 20, “There is no Wall”.

Mile 22 “The circle is now complete, when I left you I was the apprentice. Now I Am the Master!”

The Mile 22 marker is one of my favorite signs. Double-Deuce! Only 4 miles away… and it’s at this point that you can start to estimate finishing time. I knew that it wasn’t going to be anything to write home about, but still a refreshing sight.

One thing that I hadn’t expected was that I was well hydrated. Despite being deep into the race, I had an urge to use the bathroom that did not go away after a mile or two. Again, I took advantage of being in a State Park.

Mile 24 “Help Me Obi-wan Kenobi, you are my only hope!”

This was probably my worst mile from an attitude point of view. I knew the terrain ahead, I knew how I was feeling and was starting to lose focus on the race. At this point, I was alone on the course, with no runners ahead that I could see. I started to get myself focused on the finish, despite the fact that I wasn’t going to finish with the time that I wanted, I was still going to go through my normal finish ritual.

Mile 25 “The Force is strong with this one”

There’s one volunteer that you pass twice that you enjoy seeing. He gets to see you early and at the end. So when you see him the second time, you know that you are close to the finish line. It also helps

Mile 26 “Echo Base, this is Rogue 2, I found [him]. Repeat, I found [him]

Mile Splits

1 – 10:19

2 – 10:45

3 – 11:46

4 – 12:14

5 – 10:58

6 – 12:41

7 – 10:22

8 – 12:05

9 – 11:16

10 – 12:16

11 – 11:55

12 – 11:58

13 – 14:23

13.1 – 2:34:35

14 – 13:17

15 – 14:00

16 – 11:59

17 – 13:38

18 – 14:37

19 – 12:56

20 – 16:17

21 – 13:52

22 – 13:39

23 – 13:05

24 – 11:22

25 – 11:57

26 – 13:14

26.2 – 5:31:58

I also have the audio version of the race report to edit as well. That is sitting on my iRiver as well… I am such a slacker. GEEZ!

I am not sure how much I will get done. I am going to a free ABA Training workshop here in Knoxville from 1-4pm which means that I will be at work for half-day. Work is the only place that I can get a block of time to do stuff. The Younger is always wanting to “Get on my shoulders” or lately, play Lightsavers Lightsabers. And I know there will be a time when he won’t want to do any of that, because his Old Man is a freaking idiot! I think that is the same time that aliens come an suck out his brain until he is roughly 20 or so. The Elder is wanting me to play the “real” races or games on the Playstation 2. He is more than capable of doing the practice races (for the CARS game) but I think the stress of racing against other competitors is a little much right now. This too will pass and he won’t want me to play for him and I will get stuck off on the sidelines. That is when I will be able to blog more.

Plus, apart from the Race Reports, I do have some other stuff to write about, that well, 140 characters just doesn’t do it justice… so those are in sitting in my Creative Repository until I get some time.

I’ve been listening to B97.5 which is Knoxville’s Official Christmas Radio Station since the beginning of the month. They play Delilah from 7 – midnight and last night was a rerun from earlier in the month, which is the second time that I have heard a rerun of one of her shows. Of course when it comes to traditional commercial radio stations, there is a limited pool of Christmas songs to play. They do make up for it by playing the same Christmas song but from a different artist, but it is Christmas music. I now need to watch A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation as part of the Terry Traditional Christmas. I’ll eventually get to the Black & White Classics too…

Flying Monkeys: I finished the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon in the SLOWEST time ever for a marathon, a 5:31:58. I am not upset with this at ALL. Because you have to remember that I ran this on 11/22/2009 and the last time that I had ran was on 11/06/2009 because of sickness! I was in a good mental (other than being a marathon maniac) form for the entire race, I almost had to be in order to survive. My legs weren’t all that happy with me though… I don’t have the audio recorded yet, but am working on the outline of what I want to say about the marathon.

The day after the marathon, we flew to California (LA Area) for My Lovely and Talented Wife’s Sister’s wedding. We missed our first flight which left the rest of the day to waiting lists and mayhem, but we finally made it to California, after a couple of stops across the country. I was there, not only as part of the wedding family, and that The Younger was the Ring Bearer in the wedding, but I was shooting parts of the wedding events where the “professional” photographer wouldn’t be. There was actually a time where I filled in for the Professional Photographer while he was busy somewhere else. I brought Stella (my Canon DSLR) and AV-1 (1980s 35mm SLR) along with my hand held digital camera. The fun part was being the Interviewer for Melanie-In-Law and Joe-In-Law for a pre-wedding interview. So, I had my camcorder with me as well! I am now in the process of consolidating my pictures along with My Talented and Lovely Wife’s pictures so that I can send the Married Couple their pictures.

Work has been keeping me busy as well. I am in the process of creating another database that looks at ARRA construction and so I have been in the trials and tribulations of getting that worked out as well because on Thursday, I am traveling to Washington DC for work as well, 2 days of workshops. More airplanes…

I do have a race this weekend, the Reindeer Run 5k, this is one of my normal annual runs that I like to do. Usually since it follows a marathon in November, I don’t always run as fast as I “think” I should run it… but the door prizes are usually pretty good. It’s just a matter of winning some of them!

I’m dancing running in the Rain

It’s Race Week, and I have been getting anxious… more than I have in the past (except for 2009 Knoxville Marathon). The Race that I am running is the 4th Annual (A New Hope) Flying Monkey Marathon run in the “rolling” hills of Percy Warner Park just outside of Nashville, Tn. Like any of my marathons, I am very excited about it, but I am holding some reservation on getting too excited. When I get to excited, I get delusions of grandeur and when I get delusions of grandeur, I get stoopid. Usually this comes in the form of “temporarily forgetting” the amount of training that I have completed before a marathon. I have yet to train adequately for ANY of marathons, despite the passion for running them, I find myself not having enough time to get it all in. Sometimes it is that clever avoidance technique that has me miss runs or cut runs down in length. THIS time was supposed to be different. Oh, and it was… just not in a “good” way.

What was supposed to be around a 15-16 week multi-moderate distance (16-18 miles for long runs), ended up being a sporadic shorter distance 5-6 week training plan. With the “Taper” being NO running because of chest congestion issue that I didn’t want to inflame to pneumonia or something in that neighborhood. As of today’s chest x-ray (part of my annual physical exam) my lungs are clear and my symptoms are gone. I am being to believe that my issue was 50% cold and 50% allergies. While I did have a slight sore throat, I never had a fever, but was really tired for a number of days… one of which I slept close to 18 hours. I kept having a cough with some phelghm with little improvement. Last week, I did an overhaul of the kids bedroom, thinking that they were having allergy issues, and I felt better, but I still had the cough.

In running, there are a few Rules of Thumb that most people abide by. One of them is the 10% Rule, which is used for different aspects of running. I don’t necessary follow (but understand the logic and reasoning behind it) the 10% Rule for Weekly Mileage: Thou Shalt not increase weekly mileage by more than 10% of the previous week’s mileage or suffer the wrath of INJURY. I do follow the Sickness Rule… if your cold symptoms are Above the Neck, You Can Run; If Below, Don’t!

Since I still having the cough, I took an Allegy med late Sunday and in a few hours felt much better. Monday, I was feeling MUCH MUCH better, but I still had “The Cough”. On Wednesday (which is yesterday as I type this), I only had times where I felt the need to cough and the volume of phelghm was smaller and smaller. Today, I have only coughed once, with minimal results. Plus, verification from the doctor who not only saw my Chest X-ray, plus listened to my breathing said he couldn’t find anything. So, I feel that I am Free and Clear now. But where does that leave me?

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Over in the STRAT3GY MARATHON ROOM, the debate on “How to Run the Marathon” is being discussed. There are 3 different methods being debated. The consensus is that it will not “Be Raced” but that leaves the questions, ” How Shall it be Run?”

1. Race It
2. Start Running and Hope for the Best
3. Tortoise and Hare method (Run-Walk)

You might think that this marathon situation is new to the Planet3rry Universe of Running, but you would be mistaken. I have encountered a very similar situation back in 2002. I was on a project in Lake Charles, LA when it went from going okay to “uh-oh”. The tritium clean-up we soon discover would take longer (it ended up being 3 weeks longer) and that left me the opportunity to run the Mardi Gras Marathon. Previous to the Mardi Gras Marathon, I had run the Strawplain Half-Marathon the week before and cumulative mileage for 2002 up to the Mardi Gras Marathon was 40 miles. I was in the “Rest” mode coming off my PR performance at the 2001 Richmond Marathon (November 2001). I was at the Mardi Gras Marathon where I perfected my “Marathon Survival Mode”. I knew that since I had little to no training, plus running with a friend for the first Half of the marathon, but by myself the rest of the way, that I would need to be “Slow and Steady” for the entire race. The course is ridiculously flat. Seriously, the ONLY incline that we went over was a man-made bridge that rose to 10′ or so over a culvert, which we ran over twice. Other than that, it is FLAT! But too much of one thing is not always good. While it was flat, you use the same muscles over and over and over, with no reprieve given from rolling (i.e. gentle) hills. So my deficit in training miles was also amplified from the fact that we were in New Orleans the night before. If there was any carbo-loading, it was from the sugar in the alcohol. Plus, we didn’t get to hotel until later in the evening early morning leaving the amount of sleep to a few hours. But, I one of the maxims that I use is that it is not the Night Before the Race where sleep is important, it’s the ‘Night BEFORE the Night Before’ the Race that counts.

Despite the fact that the Mile 4 water stop was grossly unmanned for the number of runners demanding water, nor the fact that at the Mile 9 water stop, it had either NEVER been staffed or had been abandoned because there were two 6-foot table with packages of cups and two trash cans of liquid for you to “Self-Serve”, I still had a decent first Half-marathon. By Mile 14 I was starving, which means “It’s TOO late for fueling, eat and wish for the best”, I started to succumb to the fatigue and began shifting into my survival mode. At first, it was purposely walking through water stops and food tables to maximize my intake of solids and liquids. At Mile 21, I had shifted into stopping to massage and stretch my legs after each water stop (now a mile apart). Near Mile 24, I had created a simple stretch routine that would give my legs a breather while being quick to perform it. And then at mile 26, I had gone through my Finish Line “procedure/technique” and knew the point where I could go “full throttle” to the Finish Line. My finish time was 4:38:14, which was a surprise to me since I knew that I wasn’t going to “race” it. My original Race Report of the Mardi Gras Marathon can be found here.

Here’s my Mile Split Times from last year’s Flying Monkey Marathon

I should match this with the Course Elevation Map!

So what does that leave me to believe that I can do? I am not too sure!

If the Hills don't kill you, the Monkeys WILL!

In this episode, I talk about my Flying Monkey (Harpeth Hills) Marathon training from the time frame of around 17 days from Race Day (11/22/2009). I try to address some of the issues that have been plaguing my running and strategies that I took for an abbreviated Training Plan. This will be my second running of the Flying Monkey marathon. Episode 27 will be about my Taper period and strategies for Race Day. I am anticipating having Episode 28 be a race report from the marathon itself, but that will depend on scheduling, as we are going to be traveling to California the day after the race for a week.

First of all, I am going to try to fit a 5mile run in on my way home. I will have to do this pretty early as the town of Farragut is having a Halloween Event tonight from 5-7pm. I am happy that they are putting one on because the other one, which is bigger and longer (read: more candy), is at Safety City in Knoxville. This one is much closer to my house!

Then, on Saturday, we are going to our Chiropractor’s Customer Appreciation day (read: free adjustments and candy) and I am either going to run THERE or run HOME. I haven’t decided yet. I “should” run there, so that I can get an adjustment afterward plus sample some of the goodies that will be there. Since we live in a Gluten Free house, we will be recycling our candy with gluten to the Trick or Treaters on Saturday. I am not sure how many people are going to be in our neighborhood because there is also a home University of Tennessee football game against the Cocks Gamecocks of South Carolina. And on top of that it’s at 7:45 EDT, which is prime Trick or Treating time.

Sunday morning, ASD Athletes will have a early morning volunteering stint with the Non-Commission Officer Academy (NCOA) at the Mill House 15k. And after that, I will try to run another 10-12 miles to get the simulation of a long run for the long run.