PLANET3RRY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Welcome again to my running blog, this weekend was a kick-off of sorts as I officially begun an 18 week training program for the 2006 Knoxville Marathon whose second running will be on March 26th. In my previous attempt at an 18 week training program, I swore that I would never ever do that again. It was for the Richmond Marathon that I started an 18 week program, 18 weeks out from the second weekend in November is in July… hot dry, hot, boiling and slightly warm July. I have found, that for me, 16 weeks is works for me, 12 is too little, 18 too much… 16 is Terry's Goldilock's Marathon Training timeline.

We met in the Bi-lo parking lot in sub freezing temperatures for our first group long run, oh, I mean official group long run. In this inaugural training run, there was close to 15-20 people bound up in a variety of running garb to protect themselves from the artic chill that covered the sheltered Third Creek greenway. The training runs were to be separated by “beginner” and “advanced” and with this first meeting, it was hard to distinguish who fell into which group. But that doesn't really matter, we're all going for the same goal.

I was thinking, Chickamauga last week, perhaps the advanced running distance of 10 miles would be a little long, but on the other hand, it's just a recovery run. Perhaps that was my downfall… just a recovery run… because my recovery runs turn into freakin' tempo runs. History did repeat itself and now I wonder if my Thursday speed run (Autumnfest 8k) will be too much of a reach and will I truly be ready for my 5k on December 4th when at 2:21:55 (if it starts on time) my 4 year old 5k PR will fall.

We had a little kick off party before we actually ran. Jason A collected vital information from us, I think to guilt us when we don't show up, nah, probably just to remind us incase we forget that we are running a marathon in a few weeks. There was a great variety of paces that people wanted to run, but it turns out that 4 hour pacer for the marathon, Pete, was going to run 9:00 minute miles. Oooo, that's where I want to be (see, I already forgot it was a recovery run) but I wasn't warm enough to actually start at that pace, also, I had a full bladder.

We finally took off and I began to wonder if I had enough clothes to protect my skin from the elements. I had opted for my Almost Tights in lieu of just shorts. I couldn't remember my Rules of Thumbs on cold weather running. Anyway, I had hat, gloves, LS coolmax, SS cotton shirt, NB climalyte top, Almost tights, compression shorts, coolmax socks and my GT2080 and that did the trip.

For the first 0.5 mile, I was mentally out of running, my bladder was taking too much of my cognitive thinking. I was looking around for a good place for me to sidestep into the brush and relieve myself. Now, I am not too shy about states of nakedness, but, at 7:45 in the cold cold morning… I didn't want anyone in the apartments that border the greenway to decide that I was some sort of perv and call the cops (although I probably could out run them). To my delight, I found the small trail that was sheltered from the apartments, so I could, well, become lighter.

I was now back with Jill B. Jill B's current marathon PR is 6 hours, 27 minutes… her goal is to break 6 hours. More on her in future posts. I had the privilege of running with her for about a quarter mile before I took off in search of the 9:00 min pace group. So, to get up with them, I had to run a sub-9 for a while to get there. After about 20 minutes, out on Tyson Greenway, I caught up with them: Pete, Ann and Angie. And thank goodness because I was getting a small cramp in the stomach and my legs were getting heavy. I was a little out of breathe and it took me about 1/2 mile to get up back to level where I could converse with my fellow runner. We made it to the halfway point right at the 45 minutes or so, Pete was right on target. Sweet!

On the way back, the effects of Chickamauga were taking their toll. Angie was also hurting overall and so I held back with her to get her through the distance. Attending and encouraging her was a distance to the fact that my muscles where being replaced with iron, heavy heavy iron, with rust. Finally we made it back to the parking lot… somewhere around 10 miles, I am recording 10.5, as that is what my software program that I use, USAphotomaps, says it was. There were two Garmins on the course and one said 10.5 and the other 10.2, but neither was with our group (I think), so I will go with what I have. It'll all average out in the end. We did about a 9:00 minute pace

I felt good after the run, but my legs were toast, they were like concrete posts and the drive home did not help either. I think the little stretching helped, but my legs hurt ALL day and night. I used my massager (that should get its own post) to help speed up my recovery and Sunday, they do feel much much better, so… that means that I can run tomorrow. Sweet!

Next week the Long Run venue is at Anchor Park (about 1 mile from my house)!

I got more running Stuff in my head, more on that in the future…

Upcoming Races:
11/24 Autumnfest 8k (Knoxville, TN), Goal time 37:30
12/04 Reindeer Run 5k (Maryville, TN), Goal time 21:55
01/28 Calhoun's 10 miler (Loudon, TN)
02/18 Strawplain's 1/2 marathon (Strawberry Plains, TN)
03/26 Covenant Health 2nd Annual Knoxville Marathon,Goal time 3:59:59
(indicates potential Personal Record for distance)

On Saturday, I decided that I would run in my neighborhood very early in the morning. I didn't make it out very early, nor did I stay in my neighborhood. I ended up running out of my neighborhood and up to Kingston Pike, then up to Old Colony (3 miles) then back down through the high school parking lot, around to the ATM machine where I picked up some loot to take to the yard sales. From there back to my subdivision and then home.

I had wanted to leave at 5:45, right when the first light was out but didn't make it out until 6:15. I decided that I would run for about an hour and that going out on my local long distance course would be much more entertaining than in my subdivision and the UberHill course.

[Begin PSA] If you run alone or even run with people but might be running alone, then you need wear identification. No ifs, ands or buts. In the past, I have used my drivers license with a sticky note with my phone number on it, even if I am in the neighboorhood. About 300 house and only 5 might be able to identify me. Last Spring, I spent the $20 to get a Road ID leg bracelet. It's a velcro bracelet that holds an engraved steel plate that has some limited, but important information. There are different versions, but really is a must. Actually, if you are allergic to anything, you should even run it in races, just incase you aren't conscious to alert medical professionals about any allergies. So there! [End PSA]

So I strapped on my RoadID, my MP3 players (man, I need a new one) and took off. I barely made it a mile when I stepped on something that was like a rock. I tried to dislodge it in stride, but it was in there pretty tight, so I stopped to check it out. Turns out that it was not a rock at all, but a 1/2 inch screw that was in the road. Luckily it didn't punch through the sole of the shoe, but was still rather scary… really need to get an upto date tetanus shot.

I made it out to the turn around point in 24:57 where I stopped and caught my breath. I also found a secluded spot in someone's yard because I had to relieve myself… 'runners: yeah we're a little different.' I made it back to the house in 30:53 with little fanfare other than stopping at the ATM. My whole trip wound up to be 6.6 miles which I covered in 55:50 minutes. Split details are below.

Other good running news is that I might be able to hit the road both Tuesday and Thursday, so we will see. Thursday for sure, but maybe something good on Tuesday. Although the heat has been pretty bad, maybe a jaunt through Concord Park might be in store!

It finally came to pass… I finally got out to run and boy did I ever. I had an hour and a half to run which would give me time to get back to the car, get my stuff, go shower, go get my tutoring stuff and get to my appointment. I suited up in a coolmax t-shirt that I made as a training shirt for the Virginia Creeper Marathon in 2003. (Much care needs to be used when ironing on the Iron-on tshirt designs onto a “polyester” type Coolmax shirt). Even though the day was fairly warm and comfortable, I still put on a long-sleeved shirt just for precautionary measures.

My plan was to start at the Ag Campus Bridge, hop onto 3rd Creek Greenway and take that to either West hills High School or continue onto the Super Bi-Lo. I hadn't really thought about how far I would go or how long it would take me, I just wanted to run. And of course, I started out a little quickly, my first 0.62 miles was completed in 5:53 which corresponds to a 9:30 min mile. Not bad, that would be marathon pace for me had I ran at Knoxville. I ran through Tyson Park a little faster, closer to a 9:08 min mile and had to stop to rest, that pace was just too fast at this point. After taking the breather, I made it to the turn around point (3.4 mile) at a 9:30 pace. Once at the Bi-lo, my mouth was dry as could be and I stopped for about 4-5 minutes to regain my composure. I took off fast again, a 9:05 pace, but settled into a very comfortable and easy 10:17 pace. I finished the back section of my course in a positive split, but once I started thinking about how far I had gone, I was surprised. Finished 6.8 miles in 1:08:25. I was very happy that I completed the 10k distance without too much turmoil after not running in forever. This workout would put me at a 1hr 2 min 10k (6.2 miles), which is the distance of the Expo 10k in May that I am running in memory of my Grandmother. My goal for that race to run a sub-50, which means that I have to run better than an 8:04 min mile average which I think I can do but doubt that I could touch my 10k PR of 48:06 (2000)

So I know now that I need to focus on my speed work and intervals. I am 6 weeks out and it seems that my body has remembered some of the long distances that I did earlier or else I never would have made it that far yesterday. I have a Sprint Triathlon on the 24th and there is a 5k on May 7th that I want to run to gage how far I have come and how much more training I need to do. Hopefully, I can get back out on the road tomorrow, I would like to run the 5 miles in my neighborhood because I can gage what kind of shape I truly am by how much of the hills I have to walk.

Since on Tuesday/Thursday right now I do not get home until after 10pm, therefore I have no interaction with Eric, so I live vicariously through Jen. The cute stories about Eric yesterday was that he was excited when she came to pick him up from preschool. Eric doesn't usually get excited when someone there is to take him home (not even me). But when he saw her, he pointed and got excited. Also, at home, he came up to Jen gave her a big hug and then gave her a kiss. Very Sweet. I left this morning before he woke up and so when he woke up he was calling for me and started getting upset when I wasn't there.

Today Jen and Eric are going to the Knoxville Zoo with another mom and kid. Tomorrow, Jen has her good friend from Furman, Greg and his wife Jessica from Elijay, Ga coming to see and stay with us. This is good timing because Saturday is our belated birthday for Jen and Solange at the Velas' house. Should be a good time.

I am meeting with Dr. Guess this afternoon to discuss possible working on a paper. So that should be cool.

Upcoming Race: May 24th Trideltathon(800m/6mile/3mile), Knoxville “Color battles Cloth”
Current Mileage for April: 6.8 miles
Total Mileage for 2005: 141.2

Saturday morning I had planed my long run for the marathon training, a nice 22.5 mile trek around the eastern part of West Knoxville, down through downtown then through campus and back. I started a little late around 8:15 instead of 7:30 like I originally had planned. I had three layers of shirts on, one polyester coolmax, one cotton coolmax and one microfiber fleece shirt. In addition, I had on a cool max hat, my knit gloves and some strategically placed bandages to prevent bleeding. The temperature was a balmy 31, fore casted to reach 49 for a daytime high. Because of this, I opted for the runner shorts as opposed to my 'Almost Tights' that I have for cold weather. My rule of Thumb is that if the temperature is in the 30s (or below) then I wear the tights, if not it's shorts. However, since it was going to get warmer, I figured the shorts, which would be cold at first, would be a better choice. So with my MP3 Player cued up and ready, I proceeded to take the leg of the out-and-back heading East. I made it through one song on my MP3 player before the battery ran out!

I had planned running East for the first part of the course, because I would be having to cross Kingston Pike a couple of times on this side of my course. Kingston Pike is the heart of Knoxville or rather a vein/artery because EVERYTHING is off of Kingston Pike. So, I wanted to get across the street with as little traffic as possible.

I made it out to the West End Church of Christ, my turn around point (mile 7) in 1:13:23 (1 hr 13 min). I felt pretty strong at this point, I was warm, but not overheated. I wasn't that hungry, nor was I very thirsty - I only brought some money to buy water at Weigels on the way back. I headed back, stopping at Weigels and made it back to the car (mile 14) in 1:11:52, OOOHHH a negative split. Sweet! I took about six minutes to swap the battery of the MP3 player, drink some water and load up my Carbo gels (Cytomax) which will be the gels offered at the Knoxville marathon. This was the first time that I had used them, so it was an experiment to see if I would have any adverse reaction to them. They are pretty sweet tasting, but no reactions.

I made it through 2 songs before my MP3 player stopped playing. Since MP3 players do not use that much energy to play, I usually use AA from other devices (mainly Eric's toys) that have stopped working, but the batteries still have a little life in them. This way I can get the maximum out of the batteries before they reach the Battery Recycle Heaven. Other than having the earbuds in my ear, not having the music was not much of a problem. Seeing that my current MP3 player only holds about 1 hour of songs, I would have been listening to the same songs over and over. I almost bought an MP3 player this christmas to relieve this problem, but chose not too and now regret it slightly.

When it comes to running for a long time, I do a lot of thinking and about a lot of different things. I think about running, of course, and about what shoes I will need or what I am going to wear at the marathon. I also think about my next few training runs and how fast/long they need to be. I try to also think about things going on in my life and things I need to do. This time I was creating some songs/poetry in my head. I also take the time to pray while I am running, since there are little distractions on my long runs, I can think about those that need my prayers and am able to concentrate on their needs.

I finished the 8.5 mile loop in 1:25 which is a pace faster (10:07) than the earlier legs. So my run went well. I ran the entire distance by myself and was able to survive - during the marathon I will have 999 other marathon runners. My average pace for the 22.5 miles was 10:16, although slower than I would prefer, the negative splits encourages me that I will be able to run faster race day. My legs weren't that sore right afterwards. My legs were getting sore that night and thanks to Jen P they barely hurt on Sunday. Today, I can still tell that I worked out hard on Saturday, but they are in good shape right now.

Eric is talking more and more. He is saying “What's that” when curious about something. Jen has him pointing to her stomach and saying “Baby”. He has a runny nose and we are trying to keep him from getting sick. We tried to get video of him doing “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” but he KNOWS what the camera does!

I am on my 10th day of scanning my hard drive, so nothing new on the website yet. I am thinking that I will break down and buy a new hard drive, but I have so much time invested in that hard drive. Even Jen hits “Fix It” when she sees that the pop up window has come up.

Okay, from my last post, I was a few minutes late to check out and get to Lunch. All was okay though. We sat as a Pink Generator unit at Lunch: Janie & Jody, Kim & Dan, Elba, Carina and Jen & Terry. After lunch we went for the closing session of the debut again by Cheryl Warfield. I have pictures which are still embedded in the camera and have yet to be downloaded. Cheryl is a great speaker and was very motivating to everyone in the audience. We said our goodbyes and hopped in the car to travel to Tallahassee.

Sunday, we traveled to New Orleans via Interstate 10. Nothing of monumental interest during our travels to New Orleans. When we got into the city, I took the wrong exit to the hotel. Well, wrong isn’t the correct word, let’s try inconvenient. For those of you who have not been to the Crescent City, the steets that run primarily North/South are two lanes, but those that run East/West are mainly one-way streets. So, if you miss your turn, you may have to drive around a bit to get to back to where you want to be. As was the case for the HI Express. Once we made it there, we valeted our car and brought up our bags. The room we had overlooked Cardonelet Street, which turns into Bourbon Street on the otherside of Canal. For a Holiday Inn Express it was a spacious room, but that has more to due to the fact that the buildings in NO are quite old and larger than today’s standards. We ended up getting a pizza for the night since the places near us were already closed and we didn’t want to venture out into the city that night. When Jen went to register, I found a Wal-mart close to the convention center and you know you are in New Orleans when the Wal-mart has one whole row dedicated to hard alcohol. Not the mixer, but the actual hard stuff, Beam, Bacardi, etc…

Monday morning we walked to the convention center as to avoid getting the car from valet and thereby being obligated to tip. Not that we do not tip, in fact we feel obligated to tip everytime but we don’t want to handover our money right away. So we walked. Eric was in the backpack carrier that we borrowed from Marty & Solange. He loved being in that thing and it made it much easier for walking around and having two hands free. We dropped Mommy off at the convention center and we went to the aquarium. I also have pictures of the aquarium which are also on the camera still. Eric seemed to enjoy the Aquarium but it was more like a play area for him. I think if was a little older he would like the fish as well. After the aquarium, we went down and around the Riverwalk on the Mighty Mississippi. Jen got a ride home and after me going out to find food and the nearby restuarants had closed, we decided to order a pizza and salad… we are in New Orleans and we are eating pizza and not cajun? For SHAME!

Tuesday we got the car and drove Jen to the convention center. Eric and I went to Melairie to go shopping at a running store that I saw back in 2002. It was boring other than fact that they had some B&W candid pictures of Steve Prefontaine. We didn’t really go anywhere else exciting, but back to the hotel. I suited Eric up in the kid carrier and went to the French Quarter. We walked down Bourbon Street and down to Jackson Square back to Canal and then stopped for lunch. I got the Po’Boy that I had wanted… crawfish to boot. That evening we went to Landry’s Seafood Restaurant for dinner, I had another Po’boy and some Abita, so I had a Lousiana dinner. Jen had Oysters and Eric, well, I forgot… he usually eats off of our plate.

Wednesday, Leadership ended and we made it halfway to Orlando. We stayed at Hampton Inn since they had internet and laundry. We had bought Eric 3 new outfits while in New Orleans because the diapers he had kept leaking (Huggies). Despite that we were out of clean clothes for him. Eric had discovered that if he stuck his hand in his mouth far enough, it would cause him to gag. So the clothes he was wearing had vomit all over them plus his carseat. Thursday, we made it back to Orlando and had a 2 hour delay at the airport before arriving in Knoxville very very late.

Friday, I had to go to work. So, I totally slept through the alarms and arrived late. I would have updated this blog then but I was inundated in American Samoa report work, which is what I should be doing now. Friday night, doesn’t seem like we did anything for the evening. Jen did turn it into a date night by putting in the movie Elf. I feel asleep about halfway into the movie after eating a lot of popcorn.

Saturday, in the morning Marty and I ran a little less than 17 miles for our Knoxville Marathon training. The last 5-6 miles where pretty tough, but also the hilliest part of the course we took. At Panera, I was sad that they got rid of their Cinn-ful Crunch Trio combo, but happy that they brought back their Chocolate Chip bagels. I love chocolate and the thought of chocolate bread was (at one time) replusive, same thing with other bread-like substance such as chocolate pancakes. Call me crazy. Well, I am over that now. I make Chocolate Chip/Peanut Butter pancakes now (thanks Gray and Laurie) and I prefer chocolate chip bagels (thanks Jen P) over everything except for Panera’s Cinnamon Crunch bagel. We went to the Pugh’s for dinner that night. The appetizer consisted of Venison poppers which were jalepeno pepper hulls with venison and cream cheese wrapped in bacon. YUMMY! The main course was venison and chicken soft tacos with all the fixins and desert was pumpkin cheesecake. Eric and William are buddies, so there was plenty of mayhem going on in the house. Jen did have an allergic reaction to the Pugh’s cat and had to take a benadyrll that evening, so we knew that Jen might not wake up early the next morning

Sunday, after church, Jen and I started getting our end of the year finances together and making our Quicken actually reflect more of our accounts today. I started to rip all of our audio CDs so that I would have all of them on the computer. This was something that I had started in May while I was still in school. Lately, I have been wanting to make mixed tapes for the Civic, so I thought that if I could burn a CD that was 45 minutes long, I could make a cassette tape much much easier that way. If all I had to do was drag and drop the songs into a CD then I could just play the CD, hit record and walk away. No more changing out CDs or anything. The problem was to get the CDs into MP3 format. The new computer was fast at ripping the CDs. When I did it while in school, I could get a ripping speed of around 6x faster than recording it real time. So a 6 minute song would take 1 minute to rip. Well, the new compter was ripping CDs at speeds excess of 18x which made ripping a whole CD take about a minute or less.

Monday, Martin Luther King Day, No Work for me. Most of the day was spent getting the finances in order so that we can afford to stay in our house. We are moving to an all (or almost all) Cash basis. The credit cards didn’t get us in trouble but they do make our finances must thinner. So this way we allocate what we spend money on and stick to it. Plus, it will curb all the crap that we buy that ends up cluttering the house. I finished with ripping the CD except for like 5 albums and the CD singles that I have. I am not sure that I will rip those, except for a few CD singles that sound better than the album version. One strange incident on Sunday, while Eric and I went to get gas, two cops pulled into the gas station where I was. I watched them from the Xterra as they were talking with a gentleman inside the store. As luck would have it, the gas station ran out of gas while I was filling the Xterra. I can usually get 16-17 gallons into the Xterra unless it is bone dry. After 8.5 gallons, it stopped, completely. So I went went to go get my receipt from the pay at the pump, but nothing came out. So now I was forced to go inside. As I tried to go inside, the cops were having their conversion right in the door way which made it harder to get around. Nothing exciting happened but it was rather weird.

12.23.04 through 12.26.04
We made it through the stomach bug right before Christmas. In fact, I found what turned out to be liquid gold… Propel. As if water wasn’t already healthy, Gatorade, a few years ago, made “fitness water.” you know, water with a little flavor and few minerals, jack up the price and wah-la. [For those of you who read Dilbert, I also buy bags of soil but not bottles of air... yet.] We feared that Jen had become very dehydrated from the stomach bug that she was unable to drink very much. I had gone to Kroger to get some Powerade and while milling around the beverage isle, I saw Propel. Hmmm, I thought, flavored, but not sweet and it’s not carbonated. So, I gambled about $4.5 that these 4 plastic urns would carry the nectar that Jen’s body and Baby Incognito would desire. [Editors Note: Now that is the 2nd trimester, I might changed the name, maybe]

And it turned out to be a success! Propel was what Jen needed. I knew all that schooling would come in handle to make an educated guess. Anyway, on the 23rd, I had to leave work a little earlier than planned so that we wouldn’t leave too late. After all, Eric is handfull these days. We left around 6pm, I had wanted to get through the mountains before dark because I was worried about ice. There was no need. The only thing that was a real problem was Eric’s ears and the change in elevation. We made it to Loris, very very early on the 24th, around 1am or so.

Now the plan at the Palomares household for Christmas is to stay up late until midnight then a frenzy of focused paper tearing commences as you begin to inventory all the loot that you got. We tried to nap Eric a few times during the day since his schedule was all topsy-turvy from the trip.

Eric was a little tired at midnight, but he did enjoy the mayhem around him. He seemed to like ripping the paper, which was evident from back home where he will tear pieces of paper to very small particles.

Christmas morning I ran around Loris in some colder weather. I put on my “almost tights” since it was sooooo cold, in the mid 30s which is arctic for the Beach area. I mapped out my route that I took and found out that I ran 13.8 miles through out town in a time of 2:16. I guess that time is okay, but I was running for 8 minutes and walking for 1 and my pace was only a 9:53 mile. That puts me at a 4:16 marathon which is depressing. I will have to run again today when Jen gets home.

we saw The Jordans (Kip, Joy, Caleb and Rachel) that even which was my first attempt at a pecan pie. I tried to make it with a graham cracker crust and it was a flop. The filling wasn’t that bad, but the crust just sucked. I will have to use my Grandmother’s secret pie crust recipe. Everyone else in household watched a movie.

We went to the new Tanger outlet malls with Mommy P. Our mission was to look for some boots for Jen P. My mission was to go to the Old Navy Outlet and not blow a wad of cash. I only bought one shirt for 6.99, but my weakness was at the GAP outlet. Since Jen has been in Mary Kay, the outward image is important and needless to say, the first chapter of Dr. Phil’s book essentially says the same thing. Oh yeah, and so does the Fly Lady (Sink Reflections). So, I have been trying to also portray a more professional image when I leave the house, as I am a surrogate consultant, but seriously, I am the CEE of the household. That is Chief (because I have some small percentage american indian - blackfoot tribe - in me) Executive (because we have to have important sounding names, I could think of a few fun ones) Encourager (because as a MK husband, that is my biggest contribution that I can make). “My income is your income” - Jen P. So why wouldn’t I want her to be prosperous?? Anyway, I found nice stuff at the Bass Outlet that I really like.

It’s about time for me to pick up Eric, so I have to end this promptly. Jen is at an organizational workshop with some of the other MK directors. We really hope that we can fine tune our systems to be more efficient. We really need to find a babysitter, Eric is currently over at the neighbors who is always so sweet to watch him at the last moment, but it is not fair to her that we rely on her all the time. Although it is nice to be able to walk across the street to get him. Plus we trust her.

Hopefully my next update will be at the home computer… please wifi work this time…

12.11.04 Saturday Excursions
Today was very busy for the whole Higgins family. I woke up to what sounded like Eric throwing up. In the mornings, he has has congestion that drains which causes him to cough. So, I lay in the twilight of snoozing the alarms as Eric is hacking away. He doesn’t really wake up and so I don’t tend to him until 7am or so which is his normal wake up time. yes, he sleeps continuously for 12 hours. Jason Turner my buddy from forever said that his girl Lauren wakes up now mainly because she dreams now. I thought that was very interesting. Anyway, this morning about 6:30 it sounded like Eric cough some and the threw up. Well, he didn’t thank goodness and since I already committed him to wake up, he was up early.

Jen and I are battling a cold, well, I think all three of us are battling a cold of some sort. So, I let Jen sleep until 7:30 because she needed to get up for her Mary Kay Rally. We had gotten everything ready the night before and the food was in the Xterra, but the one thing that was missing was raffle tickets. I had taken some out, but Jen thought they were in there… sorry. Regardless, we got Jen a little late, only 15 minutes, to her rally. Of course 5 minutes after we went there the guests started showing up. Eric and I went to Kroger to get some tissues, since we were out and Eric and i have runny noses, we were in the market for snot rags. Eric and I played at the house for a few hours. Jen got a Christmas Gift/Business Expense - a laptop for her Mary Kay business. It will be her computer. The timing can’t be anymore perfect because I have to use her desktop computer while my computer’s motherboard will be replaced. So, I put some programs on that and started to transfer files

Eric and I then went on to Best Buy to return our phone system. The transaction went well although Best buy is a ZOO! I won’t go back until after Christmas. We went to Bi-Lo to get some First Rally Flowers for Jen. Eric didn’t quite make it back to the house before he was out. As we were passing the parking lot of Jen’s Training Center, she was leaving the parking lot! So we got home at the same time. She was able to share about her successful rally while I got my stuff to run with Marty Velas

Marty and I ran 12 miles along the Alcoa/Maryville Greenway. We had some flooding that we had to negotiate. I wish I had brought my camera because there were some neat water scenes. Other points of interest. We saw two clams, or clam like creatures, one dead fish on the greenway that didn’t stay with the receding water and one sassy crawfish. He was big and would have been great in a Po’ Boy. Marty antagonize him briefly and he stood his ground taking some swipes with his claws at Marty. He let him be, just wishing him well as we left. I had only wanted to do 10 miles since I figured that was about as far as I could go, but we did 12 instead. I hit the wall at mile 9.5, which was close to my estimate. I had to stretch every 0.5 miles after that. Marty was patient with me and we finished in less than 2 hours, including a negative split! My legs are sore and should be sleeping instead of typing this but oh well…

Jen and I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban this evening at the Dollar-Fifty Theatre. My price. I thought it was good. The new director stayed with the spirit of the first two movies but let allot out from the book. The third book is my favorite book and so i was a little disappointed at what was left out. Jen and I talked about it on the way home, but she did make the point that the books are getting bigger. I would hate to see how long the fifth book’s movie would be. Well, off to bed… maybe.

10.18.04 Carbon Dating
Eric is over his sickness. Thursday and Friday he was still very clingy and lethargic. I am not sure if I posted that Eric came home early on Thursday from preschool, but he did. Friday was pretty quiet… I forgot what we did. Sheesh.

I ran on Saturday morning, but had to cut my 14 miles to 12.8 due to an “accident.” Only runners would really appreciate my dilemma and everyone else would think it was, er, icky. I was able to run the 12.8 with a 9:31 average mile pace, so that was a pleasant surprise. Later that morning, Pete and I did some yard work, he mowed and i put some fertilizer down. I would have liked to have gotten some seed down, but I missed my chance. We saw two wasp/hornet type anthropods that were eating a broken tree in my front yard. I will post the pictures when I download off Pete’s computer. I used some of Melalueca’s Prespot to kill them, as Prespot is an excellent ant killer. It worked, they stopped eating and began dying. I am anxious to find out what they were! Anyway, as a result of working outside, Pete was waylaid for the rest of the day with allergies. He’s just allergic to a little work.

We had a poop incident on Saturday afternoon. Eric, after making a deposit in his diaper, took it off and started to spread the joy around his crib. Need less to say there was a decontamination party with Pete and Janet cleaning Eric, Jen using Sol-U-guard to sanitize the crib and I was in charge of starting laundry (sheets, bumper guards, clothes…) After that incident, he was back to his old self. Jen and I were glad for Pete and Janet that Eric was back to his old self.

Janet, Jen and I went out to shop. I’m not sure all that we bought, but Eric got his Christmas present, the Incredi-block.

He really loves it. Cary Smith, whom I worked with at the SCC had gotten Peek-A-Block for her boy Jed and sung their praises.

UVA lost big this weekend. In their first real test to contend for their top 10 ranking, they were beat by a faster team. FSU was able to out gun UVA on about all fronts, they shut down their offense, they negated their defense, Hagans wasn’t as effective, Miller not as utilized, Lundy stopped, Big E got dinged up. UT on the other hand, escaped losing. After coming out strong in the first quarter, they had a lackluster rest of the game, even trailing for a part of it. Late TD sent them ahead of Ole miss and they came out of Oxford with a win. Had Eli still been there, errr, the result would have been different. Furman won, no details known.

09.27.04 - Weekend Update (so long Jimmy Fallon)
In some cases it seemed that the weekend went slowly and other times it seemed like it went fast. Funny how time is relative!

Saturday morning I got up around 5:45 and finally made it out to run at 6:15ish. I ran 10.25 miles around Farragut with a pretty fast time of 1:31, averaging an 8:58 pace. This is a whole minute faster per mile than I should have been going, but I wasn’t too upset. If my speed workouts (on Thursdays) aren’t going that great, I am getting some benefits from them. The run on Saturday was very easy, and I was not sore at all on Sunday. This weekend, I have the Big South Fork 17.5 mile Trail Run. We usually go camping this weekend, but because of Mary Kay and Eric logistics, we felt that it was better to forego the camping at this time and maybe try in the spring. I didn’t want my running to interfere too much anyway. This will be my 4th time that I have run the race and my PR for the course is 2hrs 51min. I think that I can do better than that this year and I can make it under 2:50.

I did not have a chance to put any pictures up, nor work on the website at all. If I had a larger USB drive, I could carry our whole jenandterry.com website on it and be able to edit it from - wherever. Currently, the website resides on my computer at home and my side of the website is on my flash drive since it is only 11 MB. I have been playing the eBay game to try to get one cheap, but so far I have been out bided each time.

Saturday, Jen had her customer appreciation day at LyLy Nails in Knoxville and so the boys were able to cause havoc by ourselves. Well, we didn’t cause to much trouble. After getting Jen set up with her table and stuff, we went to the bike store to check out the used bike sale. I am looking for a beater bike that I can take to school with little investment (in case it vanishes). We also went to Blue Ridge Mountain Sports to look at kid carriers for Eric. We found one from Kelty that was really nice. It was the Back Country model and Eric was having a blast in it.

Eric was walking more this weekend. I did get video of it that I can download off the camera, so hopefully, that will be up shortly. Of course, I have been saying that I would update the website for how long now? I know, I know.

UT won their homecoming game against Louisiana Tech. This particular game was pay per view in the area, so we listened to it on the radio. Sounds like we might have a better idea of who the quarterback is going to be now. UVA won again too. They are doing very well this season, winning under the radar. Furman lost this weekend, but just barely. They lost in overtime to Pittsburgh (Div I-A) team, whom they were leading by 14 points in the 4th quarter. Green Bay also lost, again, this weekend.