PLANET3RRY

This is going to be a week in review for my running. It’ll be short and sweet and riddled with injury and other pain-like experience that I had… some good, some not-so-good.

So join me…

Last Tuesday, in the morning, I had one of my Nature’s Do Not Call Episodes and in the house of all places. However, I was in the kitchen and wasn’t sure that I would make to the bathroom without calling out “Pilot to Bombardier, Pilot to Bombardier, BOMBS AWAY!” So, I am moving quickly, but not too quickly (if you know what I mean). Well, I swing around our sofa in the living room and the Piano bench is out away from the piano and my left pinky toe WHACKS the bench. I wanted to scream but if I had screamed, I would have lost bowel control… that would not be good (but at least I would be in the house and not running somewhere).

So, I am in excruciating pain, but nothing appears to be broken. It’s red and scraped, but I can walk on it. In fact, I get finished sending the kids to the pool that I sorta “forget” about my foot. In fact, I kinda forget enough not even tell My Lovely and Talented Wife about… after all nothing is broken and if it was, what could anyone do?

I skipped running at work that day because it was Terry Day and I figured that I would let whatever damage heal a little before I ran on it. During the day, it wasn’t all that bad. It was sore, but not making me limp. So, I decided to run on it that evening at Lakeshore. I could do a 2.1 mile loop and bail if I needed.

When I took my shoe off in the car at Lakeshore, my toe was swollen. It wasn’t tender and I could more my toe around okay, but I ended up taping the pinky toe with some packaging tape that was in the car. I did run one loop in 20:32 with little to no discomfort. I ended up only running one loop because I was running late and I felt lazy.

and my make shift first aid job

So after the Tuesday run I tried to run over the weekend, but I couldn’t get out of the house. I was trying to aim for a run with the dog at the trail park near my house, but our Au Pair wasn’t working this past weekend, so no such luck and it did give the more time for my foot to heal.

Monday
My foot had healed enough over the weekend, that i felt comfortable attempting some speed work. After all, I have officially dubbed Monday Speedwork day and I wanted to keep that going. It was kind of cold, so I decided to run at the track just in case something did go wrong, I wouldn’t have far to limp.

I chose to do 400 meter repeats with a 200 meter recovery in between. I was about to run a total of 4 intervals with the final being at 1:31 or a 6 minute pace. I can tell you that I was hurting at the end and just trying to will myself to the finish line.

However, last night and today, I was starting to feel the pain from the speed workout. I’m not talking about sore muscles. I am talking about my left ankle being sore, enough to remind me it’s there but not enough to debilitate me. In fact, I ran today at lunch. Today’s run was with a Heart Rate Monitor and it was about the most perfect easy run I have done in a long time. The HRM was really useful to keep me from slipping into my Tempo pace, and thus in essence doing 2 speed days in a row and wearing my myself down and leaving me prone to injury more than what I am I capable of just by breathing.

Today’s 4 miler was done in 38:09 and where I to guess my 10k and 5k time, I would have to say that my 10k time would be near a 54:15 (8:45 pace) and my 5k time would be near 25 minutes. I still have 20 days until the Spring Racing Season’s first 5k Race, the Spring Sprint (you can get information on my left sidebar <—- )

I will make today a 2-fer and run again after work. I would like to do another 4 at a super easy pace. Depending on how it works out I might go on 3rd Creek. If I wasn’t such a slacker and a horrible friend, I would have thought before NOW to ask Soon-To-Be-Dr. David to run with me.

I mentioned yesterday that I was a little dinged up. And I was, but I found a miracle cure: Running Shoes. When I put on my running shoes yesterday before running (and I almost considered NOT running) the pain almost instantly went away. I was really amazed.

Once I was running, there were a handful of other things that arose. I had twisted my ankle pretty severely on Tuesday, I believe and it was making itself known during my run. I was having a weird light pain on the bottom of my foot, near the heel, something I had never felt before. It wasn’t a problem and did go away after a while. My Blister didn’t cause any problems, so that should take care of itself.

On Wednesday (shoe-less day), I could not move fast at all, it seemed like I was crawling an based on my relative split times, I was close to a minute and a half slower per mile the last 2 miles. And what was worse was that I felt slow and I felt like I was struggling.

Thursday’s run was much different. I did feel like I was going slower, in that I had more in me and could run at a faster pace, but even though my perception was that I was going slower, my pace was telling a different story. The loop at Lakeshore (where I ran) is 2.1 miles and has every terrain imaginable. There are flat areas, hills, big hills, steep hills with turns, gradual hills, downhills. It the variety pack in running routes. I was able to keep a consistent 9:03 average pace for the first two loops and then an 8:45 average pace for the last loop.

Hmmmm, I did some calculations on an estimated marathon time and it looks like I should be able to run a 4:05 or so marathon if conditions are right. Of course, if conditions aren’t good, then who knows… skies the limit on the high end. If I had a really good day, then I could break 4 hours, but that’s speculation at this point.

In our household, we have “The List”, and if you want to do anything it needs to get on “The List”, and especially with 2 kids, the “The List” is very important. Now toss in 4 more adults in your house and “The List” goes out the window, unless you are my wife. My lovely and talented wife was able to schedule the whole Christmas Eve and Christmas day including full meals and a church service both days. Now with Lolo and Lola (Grandpa and Grandma in Tagalog), you can't pass up the free in house babysitting. So we didn't! My brother Chris was out and about shopping. Jen and Melanie (her sis) were also out shopping. It was on the schedule for me to run from 2-4 and be back in time for Church at 5.

A few things were left off the list such as the neighborhood luminaries (I have pictures) that needed to be set up for the evening along with a few other minor things. It ended up being that I did not leave until 2:15 and I debated WHERE to run. There is Concord Park, which is very close to my house and is all single track trails. I didn't think that I wanted an arduous run on Christmas Eve and the other strike against it was that even though I have it mapped out for mileage, I wouldn't know until I got home and looked it up. There is Lakeshore, which I have talked about before. I can easily do 2.2 mile laps and they have a little bit of everything (hills and flat) but it's a 20+ minute drive. I could also choose Alcoa Greenway, but again, a long drive and not a loop, so I would have to really know what I am doing before I get out on the course. I need to learn to like the Campbell Station Greenway and the Turkey Creek Greenway (both of which would be congested).

I ended up doing Lakeshore and with the time constraint figured I could do 3 laps without going over in time. This would just mean that I would have to take a shorter shower when I got home. I loaded up my MP3 player with Phedippidations and took off for a nice 3 lap scamper. I know that my first lap was around 18 minutes and change, but my watch has lost the lap splits since I ran… oh well. I did 3 laps, each progressively slower than the previous, but that is okay because I was able to go the 6.6 miles and was not sore for the rest of the evening or on Christmas day. THAT is a good sign. I probably ran the 6.6 in about 58-59 minutes or so… whatever that works out to be pace wise.

I know that I won't be able to get the runs that I want to this week. Although Pete and Janet are coming to town and that might mean that I can get a “super duper” long run on Saturday. Perhaps even run the New Year's 5k and tack on another 8-10 miles. I think that would work out real well. Depends on Church related activities and all that good stuff. I'll blog on the rest of Christmas Eve over on the family site since it deals mostly with E the Elder. I'll need to put my Christmas Loot and stuff real soon. So we will see.

Today was the day of all rest. After a not so grueling week, at least on paper, I had to take today off and I can already feel the healing.

Jen mentioned this morning that I might have had a not so perky run yesterday because of the two medicines that were injected into my body. How smart! It definitely could have been a variable in why my run seemed so… arduous. Anyway, a day removed from the shots and exercise is well worth it, rest days make you stronger, which is why most training programs have take 2-3 rest days a week.

So that means that I should make some concerted effort to run tomorrow. Perhaps 4 laps over at Lakeshore for a 8.8 total. Or maybe a trail run at Concord Park where the leaves will be changing. Nah, the photographic opportunities maybe to much of a distraction. We'll see though. Something will come of it.

Tennessee is playing Notre Dame tomorrow at 2:30 on NBC, that should be a fun time. UT's great defense with a stumbling offense makes for some trying time. Just this week after Spurrier handed Fulmer his lunch, the offensive coordinator took a different assistant job and let Phillip with the play calling. So here is the real test on whether it was all Randy's fault or if there is something up with the players and their inability to shine like their supposed to. Virginia is at Temple, so that won't be shown around here. Furman is at Georgia Southern, a typically difficult Southern Conference game. Green Bay is hosting the Steelers and looks like it will be televised here, I guess it depends on when Tennessee is playing Cleveland, so I might be able to watch some of that game as well.

Sunday was by no means a good running day. Even though I got in 5.4 miles, it was rather a pathetic attempt and scampering with my feet. My intention was to run at least 10 miles to get in a good long run and help with my overall aerobic fitness. It probably didn't help that I wasn't the best eater over the weekend… I think I was a little malnurished and had a few Grolsch to celebrate the football games

Sunday

Sunday was such a crappy run. I went from wanting to run 10 miles, to 8.8 miles, to barely finishing 2 laps at Lakeshore. Then I went to Concord Park on my way home after getting some Powerade, thinking it would help. 2 minutes into my run and I had to stop… ugh

SO today I wasn't sure what I would do. After all, it is my regular speed day. Well, to change things up, I took a different route. Actually a harder route than normal because there is a big hill right at the 1.1 mile mark. Sure enough, it wasn't all that bad.

Monday

Much better and I went up the Lake Loudon hill much faster (my preception) than ever before. It wasn't the fastest overall day, but it was pretty darn good

A funny thing happened today. My goggles disappeared before my very eyes. One moment they were there and the next minute they were gone. I found a lap lane and set my stuff down so that I could put on my swimcap and when I went to put my goggles on, they were gone. Even if they had fallen in the water, they couldn't have gone anywhere that quickly. Thank goodness I have a crappy pair that hurts my nos in my swimbag or else I wouldn't have been able to do many laps. This just means that I will have to shell out some more bucks for a pair of goggles… sigh… working out can be expensive.

I got run yesterday with Beer Boy. We decided since he is recovering from poison ivy, that we would run the Lakeshore Greenway despite the heat. Turned out to be a good run. We ended up running the 2.1 mile loop twice with negative splits on the two laps. I am sore today from the run, since it had been 2 weeks since my last run. Listed below is it the time splits.

Here is an aerial photo where I have superimposed my running route. THe route runs right at 2.2 and has all the elements that you need. Plus it has a lot of people on it during the warmer months, so you feel safe and there are different people to look at while running.

Oh i forgot:
Miles for May = 19.7
Miles for 2005 = 178.7

It wasn't my intention to run fast yesterday, but I did. I was even lucky that I got a chance to run yesterday because of the poor weather that we were having. but as luck would have it, it cleared up at the last second and although it wa overcast and chilly, it made it a good day to run. The venue for yesterday was Lakeshore greenway. Lakeshore is a 2.2 mile greenway that encloses a local minimum security mental institution in addition to 3 baseball fields, UT's practice golf greens, and AYSO soccer field. It is also right next to a water treatment plant, which in the summer makes the runners go little faster around that area. The nice thing about Lakeshore is that it has all types of terrain. Flat, gradual incline, sharp decline, curves, steep inclines… I mean everything and it makes it a great training run. At only 2.2 miles per lap, you can ration out water/gel in between splits. I once did 10 laps around Lakeshore, but that was a little much. Here are my split times from yesterday:

I had my Eargoggles on with my MP3 playing some of my motivational running songs. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that I did so well. My fear is that I ran too fast for Thursday before a race. It is a common faux pas to do a hard work out on Thursday night before a Saturday morning race. You only have 36 hours of recovery before the race. So with that in mind, I ditched going swimming. I want to have my legs in prime shape for tomorrow. Race time 8am!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO PAUL & ZOE VELAS. Believe it or not, they are 4 years old today! WOW!

First and foremost, Eric took about 5 steps on his own last Friday night. In addition he also went from a sitting to a standing position. Since then, he has done nothing! He stands some and can cruise around the furniture and other inanimate objects. He will also walk if you let him hold onto your fingers, but the bottom line is that he can still travel faster crawling. So, he’ll get stronger and more dexterity on his feet and then start running, maybe at a 5k pace.

As for my running, I had a running packed Saturday. First of all, I volunteered at the Sept 11th Memorial 5k race in Knoxville. I was out on the course calling out split times at the mile 1 and 2 markers. After that, I went to lakeshore greenway and ran 4 loops which is 8.8 miles. It was pretty darn hot and for the 4th loop, I took some predetermined walk breaks. There was no other way that I would have made it for that last loop. Right when I was getting back to the Xterra, Solange called me and asked if I wanted to go running in the afternoon. “Sounds good to me!”. So I went and picked up Eric, went home, Eric and I napped and then made it out to Solange’s where she and I ran 5 miles. I have taken Sunday and Monday off, but I plan on running today.

I had fun with computers this weekend. The parts that I ordered came in and I started moving programs and files on Friday night, so that the parts would be ready for some construction. I found out that night that the old AGP cards (video) did not fit into the new motherboard, so that meant that Saturday I would have to go out and get a new video card. When I went out on Saturday, before I ran with Solange, I picked up a video card and a new hard drive. when I got home that night, the video card was the wrong type, UGH! Also, I ended up giving up that night at trying to format the new hard drive. No matter what I did, the software would not initialize. After a couple of hours on Sunday, the hard drive FINALLY formatted and was ready to load the OS. I went back to CompUSA to exchange the video card which worked when I got it home. SO I was able to put together Jen’s computer up and running and is now a lot faster with more memory. My computer is still in pieces right now. I am wrestling with the motherboard not booting up when I attach the old DVD and CDRW drive to the motherboard! Computers make our life easier… yeah right!