PLANET3RRY

Susan from I Run For My Life is running her second Marathon this weekend. The St. Jude’s Marathon in Memphis. What makes this special is that she is had dedicated her race to Elijah, a personal friend of her’s who is going through chemotherapy for a second time. What makes it special is that Elijah is 6 and will turn 7 on December 1st, which just happens to coincide with the marathon!! And he just came home from the hospital!

Susan has been raising money for the St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital and now the raising money and training is complete, it’s now time to put the shoes on the asphalt and RUN! (technically you can still donate )

I know that She and I have crossover readers, but if you don’t read her blog on a regular basis, I encourage you to go over there and leave a word of encouragement.

On top of all this, she is well primed to totally destroy her previous PR time of 5:38:15 she ran at the Little Rock Marathon on March 4, 2007.

It’s Race week and I am gearing up for some fabulous prizes in the Guess My Time contest for Autumnfest 8k held on Thanksgiving (US Holiday) this coming up Thursday. I haven’t decided what I am going to offer yet, but I will have the prize and the official rules in an upcoming post.

But first onto today’s bleh run. I was emailing one of my friends who recently ran a marathon on her comment that she had a bad run. A really pathetic run of less than 5 miles that left her a little depressed. Why could I run a marathon but then have such a horrible run. Well, it’s a normal occurrence, form my observation. There is a point in the recovery process from a long run or marathon causes this. I don’t have anything but personal experience to back this up, but it’s something that I do see.

Sometimes, it’s not very dramatic but sometimes, like my friend’s run and like my run today it’s very pronounce. I mean, why could have a great 8 mile 2-fer on Thursday at a 8:30 average mile pace and then totally bonk on today’s run?

It started out okay, because I had I good 8:30 pace for about the first mile, but then something uncharacteristic happened, I stopped at around the 1.5 mile and stood there for a minute. That’s not a good sign. I pushed forward until the 2.67 mile marker where I stopped to walk. I actually stopped and admired the river, the current and the leaves and trash in the water for about 3-5 minutes. Just hanging out. Not really doing anything.

This was supposed to be a course familiarization run for Thursday’s race as most of the course is run on Neyland Drive and the UT campus. My last mile was a 12:25 average, but I have to confess that I walked some of it. This put my 3.91 mile run at 39:55 or a 10:08 average pace. And before you go into… “I’d kill for a time like that”… remember that speed is relative. So it’s like a 12:30 pace, if you are used to an 11:00 mile pace or a 13:30 pace if you are used to a 12:00 min pace. Although they are all Apples, they are different varieties.

I’m just hoping that this is a one time deal, that it’s out of my system. I am scheduling a run for Wednesday to run the last part of the course, which will include a finish line simulation to get me ready for Thursday morning.

On another note, thanks to Ms. ShirleyPerly for confirming that my legs are probably NOT broken and that it’s really just muscle soreness. I ran the other part of my Thursday run in the shoes that I was thinking caused the initial onset and I had no new muscle pain. I would expect for the pain to reoccur in intensity with the accused shoes, but alas, my legs were fine post run. Therefore, I am NOT excommunicating my Harmony shoes from my running congregation. In fact, they are the ideal shoes for Thursday’s Run.

Terry went down to Georgia, he was looking for a PR to set.
He was in a bind ‘cos he was way behind: he was willin’ to take a bet.

Whether it’s your first, your 10th or your 100th, you will never leave a marathon without learning something. Sometimes it’s about you as a person, sometimes it’s about your running but after 26.2 miles you don’t away with nothing. You also can learn just as much from what you did right as from what you did wrong.

What I did right

Staying on the Plan: I had my plan and stuck to it. Even at the beginning when I wasn’t hitting the 9:00 pace, I didn’t worry and soon enough I was in a 9:15 pace that carried me through the first 20 miles. I didn’t sweat it when I was being passed by runners or I would runners ahead of me that appeared as if they shouldn’t be faster than me. So even though my plan didn’t unfold like I wanted it to, I did not readjust my strategy during the early parts of the race, I let it play out for the first few miles.

Gloves and my form: After I took my gloves off I proceeded to carry them, thinking I might need them again. I did, just not in the fashion that I thought. Towards the last 8 miles, I started to use the gloves as reminders for my form. What I noticed was that when I would carry one in each hand, my shoulders were relaxed. The Rule of Thumb for running form is to pretend you are holding a potato chip between your thumb and index finger. Instead of pretending to have potato chips, I was holding the gloves in this way and that relaxed my shoulders, reducing the tension in my body and helping with keeping my form in the last few miles.

I had been listening to a podcast that was talking about increasing speed during swimming isn’t always about power, it’s about swimming efficiently. The same thing is true for running. Having the right form, even if you are slowing down or hitting the wall, will conserve energy than running with poor form. So, by running with proper form, you can get further than if you ran with poor form.

What I did wrong

Food: I don’t think that I carbo loaded enough during the week and as My Lovely and Talented Wife pointed out, the night before. Also, in the morning I made some oatmeal and a waffle for the trip down. When I finally got off the interstate, I was actually hungry again. I could have eaten alot more oatmeal to keep me full during the trip down. I hadn’t made that long of a trip (1.5 hours) for a race before.

The level of soreness that I had on Sunday and Monday has been very surprising. I am sore, but not to the extent that I have been at other marathons. I have been walking without hobbling, I can walk straight downstairs (although it’s sore). I am very surprised at this because my legs from top to bottom were sore during the later stages of the race AND I sat in the car for 2 hours to drive back.

My conclusion is food related. That I had enough strength in my leg muscles that the distance wasn’t the problem, but that I didn’t have enough fuel in them to last. I only had about 20 miles worth of life in my legs, then managed to get 5 more miles out them, but then it was over. I have run other marathon where I only lasted until mile 16 and then it was a struggle until then.

What I Learned

So even though I didn’t eat enough on race day, I think the oveall change in my diet this year made up some of the difference on Saturday. One key thing to my diet has been drinking a vitamin enriched smoothie every morning consisting of Flax Oil (Omega 3,6&9), Frozen Blueberries, Soy Milk, and the Vitamin Smoothie Powder. Since I have been on the Gluten Free diet, my snacking has dropped some. Where I might have 2 donuts in the morning 2-3 times a week, I don’t do that anymore and some of the gluten food that is here at work are left untouched by me. Don’t get me wrong, I still eat my fair share of candy bars and other taste-good-bad-for-you stuff, it’s just now, I am more conscious about it.

I also added a tweak to my “Marathon Survival Mode.” When my legs start to fatigue to the point that I can’t go on, I stop to do a simple leg stretch that I learned at the 2002 Mardi Gras Marathon. From a standing position, you squat down (as if you were going to lay an egg) and stay there for about 5-10 seconds, then straighten from the waist and move to a position were you are touching your toes (or close to it). Then stand straight up and continue running. The first time that I did this at Chickamauga, I didn’t drop down as far and it felt pretty good. I’m thinking that given my inflexibility there is a threshold for how far I can go to where it changes from stretching the muscles to putting extra tension on the muscles.

Speculation

I went back to my logbook and my average mileage for the last 14 weeks was 18.5 miles with weeks 11 & 12 being the highest at 29.10 and 29.25 miles respectively. This is very good news for me and breaking the 4 hour barrier. If I can run a 4:08 marathon with minimal discomfort (so far I have taken no pain medication) on an average of 18.5 miles a week, if I could train at the proper 30-40 miles per week, I would really do well.

The two questions are How Well? and When?. I’d have to start with When first. I do have to recover from this marathon first, this was not a training run. I did push myself and I am recovering and so I would need at least 4 weeks to fully recover and probably no more than 6 weeks. Now, I wouldn’t be sedentary during this time, I would be on a 4 or 6 week training schedule with another medium to long run (about 16 mile) thrown in there and then a taper.  That would put me in Mid December to Late December, maybe even Early January.

Looking in my region, not many races fit in those parameters. 4 weeks out (Dec 8th) are: Huntsville, AL; Kiawah Island, SC; or Charlotte, NC and there is nothing really close anytime soon after that. I’ve decided that since I am prone to pneumonia in the late winter (feb/mar) that I wouldn’t train for a Feb or March marathon. I would participate in one if everything was right, but I’m not going to plan on a late fall/early spring marathon. It wouldn’t be until April or May that I would even look at the schedule for a pre-summer marathon.

Now, how well do I think I could do? I’d have to say around a 3:58. If I was able to get in good training like I have been up to Chickamauga, I’d say around 3:55. I think I could go out a little faster and hang on to the pace longer as well.

So on my quest for 50 States & DC and Boston Qualifying, I completed my 5th State (VA, SC, LA, TN, GA) and I only have to shave 52:39 off my marathon time to qualify for Boston.

It has been a busy week of running for me. I was able to run 4 out of the 5 lunch day runs, which usually is just 3, so that was pretty nice.

Monday
I only had one rest day from my 20 miler and took  Monday as an easy run day. However, my 9:07 average pace was not something I would consider easy. It felt easy enough but I was really thinking that 9:45 would be a lot  easier.

Tuesday
Rest Day.

Wednesday
I could tell from the start that this was going to be a speedy day. My legs weren’t sore anymore from the 20 miler  and I went out with a fury. Although the fury didn’t last very long my 8:01 average pace over the 4 mile course was enough to please the inner speed demon

Thursday
I was hoping to get around 13 miles in for the day. Soon-To-Be-Doctor David had to cancel on me and other things came up so I didn’t run after work. I was able to get in a 5 mile Tempo session (8:17 average pace). I wasn’t happy with the speed. Let me clarify, I was happy with the numbers, but I was not happy that I ran that fast. I came off a long run the Saturday before and now my body thinks that it can runs these excessive speeds everyday. That only leads to one thing my friends, injury.

Friday
Not too sure if I was going to get any longer distances for the week  and so I was eyeing my 5 mile course. However, I didn’t give myself enough time and had to settle for my 4.32 mile course. I did try to slow down this run. After my sub-9 (8:52) first mile, I tried to slow down and that worked, kind of. I had an 9:03 average pace for the run, still not slow enough.

I do need to decide on whether to commit to November or December marathon or just not run one this fall. I have a feeling that I am more of a Fall Marathon kind of guy. Actually I am an Anytime Marathon kind of guy. I would run any and all marathons I could get to the starting line regardless of time. Now that I know how to survive a marathon with little to no training (but with an okay running base, ref: 2002 Mardi Gras Marathon), I would run them if could be there. However, I think that the weather/sickness variables are more in my favor in the fall and that if I try to train for a marathon in early spring (such as March/April) that I set myself up (but not guarantee) getting sick.

So now… I have to sit down and give a little think about what to run.

I got this from Marathon Central about Fox Cities Marathon in northeast Wisconsin being closed 2-1/2 hours into the race. Like, they told runners to stop and take shelter due to lightening and bad weather, but not everyone got the message. It makes it worse that some of the runners did not hear the message and were able to finish and receive medals, finishing times, etc while the runners who did stop watched them as they were being transported to the Finish Line. Fox Cities should do some major gift giving for next year's race to counteract this bad publicity. Read the write up here.

I was IMing with Devaney about his upcoming marathon Honolulu Marathon on December 11th and about a strategy that he could use to approach his training. He has (as of Monday) purchased a second home in Wilmington and plans to move down there this summer with Andy. He already has one house that is in a state of repair (so to speak), but his new house is all but immaculate and is ready to live in while the other fixer-upper is fixed up. His dilemma is that he has never trained for a marathon by himself. When he ran his first marathon back in 2001, he was part of the Aids Marathon group that was training, at the time, for the Marine Corp Marathon. This charity offers expert coaching, as well as organized long runs on the weekend to build up the mileage needed to complete the marathon. Most of the people are first time marathoners and sometime first time runners for that matter. Anyway, there is organized training whether you use it or not… it gives you an incentive to get out there and run on the weekends.

So Devaney's dilemma is that he has no official race group, as he is purchasing his own way to Honolulu. Also, he is in the middle of the relocation as well. I have kept asking him for the past two weeks, whether he has started running yet. HE PROMISES me that he is purchasing new runner shoes this week and will start running this sunday on the 29th.

I fit into this marathon training because I was the one who made up a schedule for his long runs so that he could be ready to go on December 11th. It actually started with finding a half marathon in Wilmington in November that would be a perfect pre-marathon practice, so to speak. In that he can use the race as a gage on the marathon will go and the race being four weeks out, will have plenty of recovery time that the racing will not hurt him. Since he has running experience, he can do that without any fear. The only thing would be a running injury, but really, that is always on the horizon. I mean, who gets pneumonia 3 weeks before a marathon?

So I hope that I have given him a schedule that he will stick to without missing much. It's a 28 week program that starts him from scratch and builds up to the mileage needed. I don't have him doing more than three 20 mile or more runs, the longest is only 22 miles. I follow the reasoning that the longer you are out running the more susceptible you are to injury, so you are better off stopping your long runs based on time rather than trying for exact mileage, say 24 or 26 miles. Plus, I don't think that he'll go out and want to run 20+ miles by himself more than a couple of times. Maybe so because he has an ambitious and acheivable time goal but he will have to hold himself accountable for the midweek runs.

He wants me to host another Mr. Arfns Marathon this February. The First Mr. Arfns Marathon was actually created because of Devaney back in 2001. His training was having him running 26 miles on Sept 30, 2001 which was the Sunday after my 30th birthday. So to accommodate the fact that he needed to run that mileage and I was training for Richmond, I created the Mr. Arfns Marathon that ran from Volunteer Landing to the Wal-mart in Turkey Creek. It turned out to be really nice and we had people join us for various distances along the course. I think that a Mr. Arfns Run (as I called it) would be in order for the first part of February as I am in training for the 2nd annual Knoxville Marathon in March. So, I might have to gen-up a course and see how it goes.

Yesterday was a really long day and I did not get to see Eric at all. Poohey.

I made it into work at a decent hour yesterday, hopefully I am on schedule again. Seeing that I woke around 5:30 yesterday and today. Although today my eyes were very heavy and I proud that I did not fall back into bed for that extra 5 minutes (read 15 minutes) of sleep. Jen and I have a Free Trade coffee - French Roast in the rotation right now, that helps with the 5:30am sleepiness. Also, Jen earned a FREE under the cabinet CD/Radio player from Mary Kay, so I can now have a radio in the kitchen in the morning. To hear the inane conversation of the local radio stations does help with staying awake in the morning, it’s my daily dose of pop culture.

I started to plan my route for the Mr. Arfns Marathon, which is only a run that I started back in 2001 when my friend Devaney was training for the Marine Corp Marathon (His first). He came down to Knoxville for my birthday which happened to coincide with his Marathon Training, in fact, it was his long long training run. So as an incentive, I told him that I would run with him and so I constructed the Mr. Arfns Marathon that ran from Volunteer Landing to Faragut for a total of 26 miles. I even produced T-shirts for all of the runners, each shirt was unique. Funny thing though: I have yet to wear mine once. Regardless, we had 6 runners at the start and due to schedules, it was just me and Devaney at the end. We did a 4/1 run/walk routine, which is run for 4 minutes and walk for 1 minute and we did this at Devaney’s pace. Despite it being a slow pace for me, I think the experience is what allowed me to achieve my marathon PR time of 4:09 at Richmond that year. Anyway, this past December, one of the runners suggested that I should bring it back which I had been contemplating because I need a long run of 20+ mile for the Knoxville marathon training. So, yesterday, I started downloading jpg off of mappoint.com so that I can construct maps to figure out the actual course. I’ll then use a program called USA photo maps to figure out the distance so that I do not have to drive the course to find out the mileage. Although Knoxville has a strong running community (we have been called “Little New York” by Runner’s World) the roads here are not runner-friendly, hence our extensive but choppy Greenway system. The course is ran on some Greenway, some sidewalks, and some fend-for-yourself roadways but it will get me from one end of the city to the other with stops at convenient stores on the way. In 2001, we actually had a support crew of Jen and Andy that drove to places along the course with water and bagels. I am not sure if I will have that same support this year, so I want the route to run past these places so that I can replenish when it is necessary.

While thinking about my training runs for the marathon, I saw that my Church’s Blood Drive was on the 26th and that the Calhoun’s 10m was on the 29th. Since I wanted Calhoun’s to be a race rehearsal and warm-fuzzy, I have come to realize (the hard way) that when I give blood, I will not perform well at a race a few days after the donation. So that I can still give blood but also race Calhoun’s I decided yesterday that I would stop by Medic before I went to go tutor. It wasn’t a bad experience, although it was not a very good one. First of all, I was not prepared because I had on a long-sleeved tshirt AND a sweater. So I had to take my sweater off, so I was in a Umbro Tshirt and Corduroy pants (goofy lookin’). Next, I had a new employee, which she did a fine job, but when it came to declare that I had been out of the country to American Samoa, it took about 5 minutes to get the correct wording on the paperwork. Good news though, I do not have to mention it again (you usually have to declare leaving the country for 3 years). Next, I am usually a good bleeder. I have easy veins to find, but yesterday, it took me over 12 minutes to donate a pint. In fact, the lady had to come over after about 5 minutes to “fish” for a better connection into the vein. But I finished, I got my Tshirt, Cookies and soda and was off to tutor.

my second job that I have is that I tutor for the athletic department two nights a week. On Tuesdays, I am at the Math Lab and on Thursdays, I have appointments. In the Math Lab we get a variety of different classes. Most of the classes are the basic classes that the student has one or two questions about the homework. I have yet to have a student who is completely hopeless at learning the subject. I really enjoy tutoring and when Jen becomes a Elite Executive Sales Director and I can retire in two/three years, I would love to continue to tutor, it would be a great part time job.

So a new dilemma has arisen. In Feb, Jen is going to Myrtle Beach for a debut of some of her consultants and this falls on the same weekend as the Strawberry Plains Half-marathon. So, do I let Jen take Eric to Myrtle Beach, or do I watch Eric over the weekend and NOT run the race or do I go with them and run the Myrtle Beach Marathon as Dress Rehearsal for Knoxville (it would 4 weeks away, so I could run it slowly and be okay). I have run Myrtle before, so it would not be a new marathon and it would be $65 as opposed to like $12-15 for Strawplains.

08/19/04
You may or not have been able to tell from my website that I have been making some minor adjustments here and there. One big adjustment that I am making is the Update list on the bottom of this page will have active links to some of the pages that I have edited for easy surfing. I am also trying to uniform the style of all my HTML links through out my site. That is the links have the same color/style/font etc. This will take me a while for me to get it all worked out, but not unfathomable.

I am enjoying watching he Olympics on TV and am getting excited about the Track and Field events. I am especially excited about the Marathon and Triathlon. The track events are exciting, I prefer the 5k and lower, for some reason the 10k just isn’t as fun for me. My running is coming along nicely; I have the Scholar’s run scheduled for this weekend. My current PR for this race is 22:07 which was my 5k PR for sometime. However, they changed the course back in 2000 to something much more difficult. I prefer this course, but it is a good training course for speed and hill work. There is a killer hill near the end, which just not only is steep, but winds upward as well. The finish is slightly downhill, that makes it nice. I ran on the 18th at 5:15 in the morning around my neighborhood. This was the first time that I successfully made it out of bed at that hour to run. I managed 1.75 miles at a speed that I though was fast, but turned out to be slower pace than I thought (9 minute 1 second).

I have my sights eyeing the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville on December 20th. Now, we are going to be in Orlando early in January, which coincides with the Disney Marathon. I am wondering if that is something that I can do as well. Jen P told me that if I sold Mary Kay products for her the profits would go toward paying for entry fee. The fee is close to $100, which is expensive for marathons! Rocket City is only $30 if I pre-register. So if you want to help me, shop online at Jen’s Mary Kay website (24/7) and put in the comment: Terry’s Disney Marathon. You’ll get some great products to make you look and feel great and I’ll be able to run Disney. WIN-WIN for both of us.

You probably notices the weather picture to the right of the screen. This is the current weather in American Samoa. That way, when I am there, you can see the weather that I am up against. It stays in the lower 80s almost all year round. We should be out of there before the rainy season (Dec-Mar). I am hoping to get to the National Park that is there. I will, at some point do some running while I am there to keep my training up to date

I see that it has been over a month since I have updated this page. Shame on me. Well, let me get to it.

I finished the semester with a 4.0. Yes, my second 4.0 semester, ever. I got an A in my epidemiology and multivariate classes along with satisfactory in my non-grade classes. So school is going well. I just have to study for my retake of the comps this January. I am also working a the SCC for the holiday break, but we are closed the entire week of Christmas… WOO HOO.

Eric had been doing really well up until this week. He had a high fever this week and now has a cough and sore throat. The fever is gone but he is still uncomfortable. We are trying to keep him hydrated and as comfortable as possible. Hopefully he will be better for next week since we are having a bunch of people at our house for Christmas.

Running has been pretty good. With the ed of the semester, I have not ran much at all, I had wanted to run a PR time at Autumnfest, but no such luck, I did not have the training for it. The next Sunday I ran the Reindeer Run and I hit the wall at mile 2.2, but managed to finish with a decent time. In my defense, I had been sick since Thanksgiving and was just beginning to feel better. Most recently, I ran the Jingle Bell run here in Knoxville with john Fields and that was nice to get some more running in. Since Eric has been sick, I have not been able to get any running in at all during the week. I guess it is not a lost cause because I got a bug of some sort that I am trying to beat. Oh, well. that is about it for the most part.

Congratulations to John Devaney for finishing his 3rd marathon on December 14th in a time of 07:08:27.

Honolulu Marathon

I hope that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

10/27/03
I tried not to go another 2 weeks, but I think that is what it is destined to be. Oh well, at least then I have something to talk about.

First of all, Congratulations to Devaney for completing his SECOND marathon this past Sunday. He finished the Marine Corps Marathon despite the heat and being sick. He has an ambitious schedule to run another marathon in December, but this time in HAWAII!

As for my running, I ran the Run for the Pumpkins this past Sunday in a time of 24:01. This represents shaving 1:30 off of my previous 5k as I get back into racing form. I didn’t win anything in my age group for this race because the 3rd place person came in at 19:20 for my age group.

Eric is doing just fine. He is getting a little bigger, but most noticeably he has discovered his thumb. He is also strengthening his legs when we try to stand him up. He is getting closer to sitting up on his own, but that is still a few weeks away. He will be going in for his 4 month check up in 2 weeks where he will be getting his second round of shots. YUCK.

School is going well for me so far. Nothing too exciting on that front. Until next time…