Future Forecast for Flying Monkey

Taper Madness is starting to creep in… I picked up my in-race fueling options today at lunch. The buffet includes Jelly Belly Sports Beans Lemon-Lime, Clif Shot Bloks (Margarita Flavored… extra salt, but no tequila though) and GU Chomps (which is new to me). I also picked up 4 Accel Gels (2 Lemon-Lime, 2 Orange) for that extra caloric intake. There will be GU gels out on the course, but I wanted to make sure that I had flavors that I liked. Only in desperation would I consume a Chocolate GU!

I also took a peek at the weather for Sunday. Looking pretty nice! The race is on Sunday, so a mild start and a high of 72 (which I assume won’t hit until the afternoon). The bonus will be the ‘partly cloudy’. Next to a strong thunderstorm (am I right 2010 Knoxville Marathon Runners??), the next worst thing is the unshielded Sun to drive the energy out of you faster than you can say, “Water, please.”

Even on a cold day, that medium sized star of ours can do some MAJOR damage. Drain your life out of you faster than Team Edward.

However, the weather is subject to change, but looks like a High Pressure System is over 4 corners as of this forecast snapshot, so that’s a good thing.

I haven’t decided if I am going to have a Guess My Time, Win Crap contest. Mainly, because I have such a slacker that the most recent winner a Mr. D. Peach, has yet to receive his winning loot, because I haven’t put it together yet. *sigh*

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

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 next contest for Guess My Time Win Crap will be later in May for the Expo 10k. More on that in the upcoming weeks. Thanks to all those that played.

This has been another successful contest from PRIZ3S a division of planet3rry.com

So, Here are the rules (in no particular order): Click on the Contest Arena of my website (Hint: It’s at the top of the website.) You’ll see the entry form… wait. IF the entry form is there, you can still play. If it’s not there… I can’t go for that… no can do. You’ll have to wait until the next contest.

So, you fill in the form. Send it in and wait patiently for the results. My guess is that they will post them later in the day. Of course, if I do that Twitter thing that all the cool kids are doing, then you might find out my time earlier. However, as with all of my crappy contests the official race time as published by the race entity or its affiliates will be the end all and be all of the results.

The Race: The 2009 Annual Flying Pig Marathon on May 3rd 2009 at 6:30 AST (Anticipated Start Time)

History: Haven’t run this one yet, but here are some times from my last few marathons…
Richmond Marathon, Nov-13-1999, 4:15:55
Richmond Marathon, Nov-18-2000 4:18:31
Myrtle Beach Marathon, Feb-17-2001 4:23:35
Richmond Marathon, Nov-10-2001 4:09:03
Mardi Gras Marathon, Feb-17-2002 4:38:14
Richmond Marathon, Nov-09-2002 4:27:06
Virginia Creeper Marathon, 03-30-2003 4:57:54
Myrtle Beach Marathon, Feb-19-2005 4:45:20
Knoxville Marathon, 03-26-2006 4:21:44
Chickamauga Marathon, Nov-10-2007 4:08:38
Rutledge Marathon, Nov-15-2008 4:50:52
Flying Monkey Marathon, Nov-23-2008 4:43:12

Guess Accuracy: This contest will be the Over/Under format, which means the closest time guessed over or under my official race time will be the winner of the contest. Should you fall within +/- 2 Seconds of the time, then your prize will either be upgraded or an extra prize will be included. Should your guess be 100% accurate, then you’ll get something even better! But it’s a secret at this point.

Official Entry: Your official entry time will be the time stamp on my email of your guess. You may enter more than once, but your most recent time will be your official Guess. IF for some reason you can’t use the comment form, you may use other methods to submit your guess. Check out Where To Find Me on the Right Side Bar, but there is no guarantee that your guess will make it… but I’m a pretty nice guy, I might let it slide.

Disclaimer: If you do win AND you want your prize AND if I don’t have it already, you must submit to me your mailing address so that I can send you the prize and/or prizes. This of course, will subject you such things as random mailings, holiday greetings and anything else that I might have in store for you. MUHAHAHAHA

Track Me:

You can also track my progress and your chances to win…(click here to sign up)

I was thinking that this contest would be different seeing that my designated goal time IS 4 hour and 45 minutes. It was kinda not fair to actually have people guess what my time would be… but while I was in room of “rest”, I thought… “It’s hard enough to guess the time, and I will axe (no, not ask) the provision that ‘whatever time is close enough (read: To Get a Winner)‘ and make them get it on the dot”. Now, I was thinking that I would cruel enough to get down to the THOUSANDTHS of a second, but that is too much of making me an a-hole that I thought… eh, I’ll go [HUGE GRIMACE] with only two significant digits.

So, Here are the rules (in no particular order): Click on the Contest Arena of my website. Hint: It’s at the top of the website next to the link to send in your gold to me for hard cash. You’ll see the entry form… wait. IF the entry form is there, you can still play. If it’s not there… I can’t go for that… no can do. You’ll have to wait until later in the month. I’ll make sure that your county public health department puts you on suicide watch until the next contest.

So, you fill in the form. Send it in and wait patiently for the results. My guess is that they will post them later in the day. Of course, if I do that Twitter thing that all the cool kids are doing, then you might find out my time earlier. But, I have been known to be a jokester in the past and could Twitter the “wrong” time. Hehe… that would be funny.

However, as with all of my crappy contests the official race time as published by the race entity or its affiliates will be the end all and be all of the results.

The Race: The 5th Annual Covenant Health Knoxville Marathon on March 29th 2009 at 7:30am AST (Anticipated Start Time)

History: Doesn’t really matter does it? My Goal Time is 4hour 45minutes and 00seconds. However, if you must know, my 2006 time was 4:21:44

Accuracy: Given the clairvoyant nature of my finishing time, you must Guess My Time exactly. Well, I might be persuaded to relax it to within one second… but that’s all the flexibility I am going to give!

Official Entry: Your official entry will be the time stamp on my email of your guess. You may enter more than once, but your most recent time will be your official Guess. IF for some reason you can’t use the comment form, you may use other methods to get to me. Check out Where To Find Me on the right Side Bar, but there is no guarantee that your guess will make it… but I’m a pretty nice guy, I might let it slide.

It felt great, I ran the entire way, non-stop and with ease. I need to see what my pace was, but it was in the 9-10min range. I’ll have 2-3 more runs in this quasi-Taper before the marathon. I did decide on a few things…

1. I am going to record the entire marathon: I’ll use it for an episode of Gravity@1053 and I will use it as my first episode for my, yet untitled, ASD Athletes podcast.
2. I will twitter during the marathon, maybe 3 or 4 times depending on how I can manage it. I am incredibly new at Twitter even though it’s been around forever (in techonology years)… We have a twitter set up for ASD Athletes, so I will use that one. @ASDAthletes
3. I am going to call the phoneline for The Extra Mile podcast and send in a recording while running of my Knoxville Marathon experience. If you are a podcaster and you would like me to call in and leave a comment for you use on your podcast. Please let me know what the number is and I will “put it on the list”. Use the Contact Me in the Top Menu Bar.

Also in the upcoming week, look for the GUESS MY TIME, WIN CRAP contest for the Knoxville Marathon. I will have to change the rules a little (and I can, because I am the supreme universe ruler of the GUESS MY TIME, WIN CRAP contests) since my time SHOULD be 4:45:00 as a result of my Volunteer Position of being a Pacer. I am thinking that we are going to have some sort of “target” or “percent” type contest. I have to think about. I also have to find some crap to give away too… more on that in a day or two.