My finish time was a 26:22 on a course that I had previous done a 24:12 and 24:11, so why the 2 minute difference? I have a speculation, but more on that later…

At the mile split, I knew I was in trouble because my 8:15ish pace FELT like 7:30 and so when Slower Feels Like Faster that is NOT a good thing. Close to Mile 2, I started to walk, just a short distance, then off to running again. I stopped again just before the 3 mile mark, hidden from the view of the finishline. I took the last 0.25 mile or so to bleed off any energy I might have left, it was a race anyhow! In the last 0.1 of a mile, I picked off 3 runners and the runner with the running stroller who passed me just a few minutes past.

I was not in all that of a happy place when I finished, so I went and got a bottle of water, a banana, got in my vehicle and headed home.

Nobody played the Guess My Time contest game, so I’ll guess that I’ll just contest for the Half marathon on 4/24/2010.

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

The Ribbon Run 5k was a new race to me. This was only the second year of it’s existence and I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was being sponsored by the Breakthrough Corporation which is trying to establish a facility and resources for Adults with autism, so this was a natural race for me to support.

This is what it looked like on race morning:

Yeah, wet weather. It wasn’t cold rain, but it wasn’t warm either. If you were running, you were fine, if you were standing around, you weren’t. Since I was already preregistered, I was going to run regardless. I was actually thinking that this race would be a better performance than last week’s Spring Sprint 5k since the course was billed as “relatively flat”.

The race itself wasn’t all that exciting. It appeared that there were few people because of the weather and we all waited at the theatre until race start.

We started the race under somewhat misting conditions. A large cell had just past and so we were getting the residuals of that. The gun goes off and I am running. Nice thing about a lean race is that there is no traffic… the worst thing is that you don’t know who to pace with. Now the first part was pretty cool because it was flat and a small race, you saw the leaders right in front of you. That was cool.

Not 0.25 mile into the race and my left shoelace came undone. I already tied them in a double knot, but the water must have made them “heavier” and thus the motion caused them to come apart (i.e. Vectors). So, I stop and tied my shoe, giving up about 5 spaces. I’m not too worried, it’s early in the race. Not 0.1 mile further, my RIGHT shoelace comes undone. Okay, now I am getting upset.

Anddddd, roughly at the 0.5 mile marker, my left shoelace comes undone… again. I’ve stopped now THREE times. I made the decision that were my shoes unravel again, I would take them off and run barefoot. I finished with my shoes on my feet.

Mile 1: 7:59

The course was pretty flat and run in an new neighborhood and then a well-established neighborhood. Had the weather been better, it would have been a little prettier.

Mile 2: 7:26

Apparently, the 7:26 mile had taken a toll on my legs as they started to feel heavy. It felt like I couldn’t run faster. I ended up pacing behind a lady that I knew that was around a 7:45ish pace based on what I knew. I stuck with her until the very end. I could tell that I was getting a little recharge and would use this at the end.

As I turned on the final approach, I saw a guy well ahead of me. I thought there was a remote chance that I could catch him and so I took off. I ended finishing up right behind him. I would have needed about another 50ft or so to actually pass him

Mile 3.1 8:40 (My unofficial time 24:05)

I figured that with the low turn out that I would maybe place in my Age group. Nope. The prizes were cool… they were handmade wooden trophies in the shape of the puzzle piece (the universal symbol of Autism). The Overall age group prizes were metal robots made out of various hardware parts by a kid with autism. They were VERY cool!

So, I was pretty bummed on both parts: Not having a great time and not placing. My goal time for this race was a 23:30 and so the unfraying laces were a hindrance to my goal. It would have been nice to place in my Age Group, but the 35-39 age group is so FREAKIN’ FAST, I’m not sure if I will break into the Top 3 anytime soon.

Official Results are not posted yet

This race was the first of two races this weekend. The second, the Trideltathon, was being held in less than 24 hours after the finish of this race.

I’ve decided that I wasn’t going to have 2 contests… but I might give you TWO chances to win. Here’s the skinny: You can Guess My Time for either race or BOTH races. I’ll give you some statistics about the races below to help you make your Guess. The closest person to their respective finishing time will win. I’m not expecting a deluge of guesses based on last week’s contest, BUT should there be a tie of some sort, then I will come up with a great prize in addition to the one that I am about to describe (because I don’t have a picture).

Should you Guess the EXACT time, then I’ll add a BONUS gift because I can’t make this contest’s gift any cooler than it already is.

Guesses are to be made by leaving a comment to this post. Please keep it to this post because my bookkeeper is overworked and underpaid. I will put a link in the “usual” place in case you don’t want to guess now, but need a day to medidate.

Since, the races span two days, I will have to close comments on Saturday sometime. I don’t expect the Ribbon Run 5k results to post THAT day, but you never know.

So what crap-tastic price are you winning? Well, it’s a Planet3rry approved pad of Sticky Notes…. THAT’S right, from the presses of that Spam King, VistaPrint, a pad of highly fashionable sticky notes with “PLANET3RRY” emblazed on the top. Now, I didn’t have the funds to get the 24k embellishment, so it’s just paper.

******Information to use for your Guesses***************

Ribbon Run 5k – I have never run this race before, I don’t know what the course is going to be. I do know that it should be “rolling” hills around here… which to some translates to “Big Mofo Hills” to some. I am anticipating the course being easier than the Spring Sprint 5k from last week.

Although I have Never done this race here are some times of 5k pairings a week apart:

Love Your Library Mar-7-1998 5 k 24:12
Runnin’ O the Green Mar-14-1998 5 k 26:28

Ijams Nature Run Apr-11-1998 5 k 24:16
Dogwood Classic Apr-18-1998 5 k 24:35
Scholar’s Run Apr-24-1998 5 k 23:07

Greenways Apr-3-1999 5 k 25:29
Race for Ed Apr-10-1999 5 k 25:26

Gazebo Run Aug-21-1999 5 k 23:54
Scholar’s Run Aug-28-1999 5 k 22:07

Jingle Bell Jog Dec-4-1999 5 k 23:00
Jingle Bell Run Dec-11-1999 5 k 23:10

Reindeer Run Dec-7-2003 5 k 23:58
Jingle Bell Run Dec-13-2003 5 k 29:59

Trideltathon – This is a Sprint Triathlon that is run by the Delta Delta Delta (can I help ya, help ya, help ya?) sorority which goes to help East Tennessee Children’s Hospital (which has service both the boys). It’s a 400 meter (~1/4 mile) pool swim, 6 mile bike and a 3 mile run. I did this race for 7 years straight, often competing against my friend Gray, yeah… that’s Gray – Like the color. But in 2006, the streak ended and this is the first time that I have done it since 2005, when it was first race coming back from pneumonia.

So here’s the skinny on my Trideltathons:

May-3-1998
3.0 m 23:11
6 m-bike 22:16
400 m swim 14:28
Overall 59:55

May-2-1999
3.0 m 22:51
6 m-bike 2 01
400 m swim 11:05
Overall 53:57

Apr-2-2000
3.0 m 22:30
6 m-bike 20:51
400 m swim 10:26
Overall 53:48

Apr-29-2001
3.0 m 22:34
6 m-bike 19:37
400 m swim 10:06
Overall 52:17

Apr-28-2002
400 m swim 9:23
6 m-bike 22:33
3.0 m 23:56
Overall 55:51

Apr-26-2003
400 m swim 9:26
6 m-bike 24:20
3.0 m 28:28
Overall1:2:12

Apr-25-2004
400 m swim 9:57
6 m-bike 22:50
3.0 m 25:49
Overall 58:36

Apr-24-2005
3.0 m 22:56
6 m-bike 23:16
400 m swim 10:10
Overall 56:22