Run for the Deaf 5k 05.01.2010

As for the actual race itself, the Run for the Deaf did not disappoint for a great run and venue! The weather held off (i.e. Storms that pounded Middle Tennessee) and it was cool and calm for the run. Now while I still had to stop for just a short bit just before mile 3, I was pretty pleased at my overall run. I am not exactly sure why my 5k runs have been so poor (i.e. I have had to walk in the last 3) physically, but mentally I feel fine. I am curious if it’s a residual effect of the marathon runs in Late 2008 and in 2009, or it’s a flag that something else is wrong. Who knows…

So my unofficial time for the Run for the Deaf was 24:58 (net Terry-Time from Start Line to Finish) but it’s going to be slightly over 25 minutes I know, but my split times were: 7:39, 8:02 and for the last 1.1 which included two short walk breaks was 9:17 for a total of 24:58. I didn’t win any Age Group awards, since I stayed for those, but I did win a DOOR PRIZE! Scored me a CASE of water! I think that makes my Door Prize winning at this race about 50%!

Rittenhouse Half-Marathon 4.24.2010

My Official time for the Rittenhouse Half Marathon was 2:16:28 and I finished 30 0ut 0f 36… and they didn’t have Age Groups, but I finished 23 out of 26 in the Male Finishers. I was on a 2hr finishing pace for the first 4 miles. My downfall came to a Rookie Mistake that I did the day before (Never Eat Anything New the Day Before Race Day). I ate something that wasn’t actually “new” to me, but given my current diet, it was “new” and thus had an adverse reaction. I have been on a Gluten Free Diet for almost 3 years now, and in addition, I have been on a Casein-Reduced diet as well. Reduced basically means that I’ll still eat Chocolate and Sherbet and a few other things that have Casein (Milk Protein) but never anything in high concentration. Well, as a reward for The Elder’s trip for a checkup at the hospital, the reward was a Frosty from Wendy’s. Seeing that the Wendy’s that they would be purchasing said dairy treat at the one just down the block from my office, I said “Get Me One!”

Excited about the cold, casein-rich Frosty, I ate without even thinking of any residual effects for the next day. After all, I have had plenty of Frostys in my lifetime, so what would odd about it now? Nothing, other than the fact that it made my stomach feel like a lead weight around mile 4 and that shortly after mile 10, I was hoping that I would just expel whatever was hating me that day from either end… at this point… I didn’t care. I just wanted to feel better. Nothing ended up happening and around mile 11, I was feeling okay… tired, but okay. I had been taking walk-breaks as needed but I was finding that after Mile 10, my walk breaks were becoming less frequent, even when I running a challenging part of the course. So, I knew that my sluggishness was stomach related and not fatigue related.

In the last mile, there was no one ahead of me, and I had distanced myself from the runner behind me, who just before Mile 12, had caught up with me as I wasn’t sure of the Course and stopped and back-tracked about 0.1 of a mile. I was going to make the best of whatever was left. As part of my normal race strategy, I had the last 0.25 mile or so planned out on where I would start accelerating to the finish. Not exactly sure how “fast” I got in the last 0.15 miles, but it FELT like a sprint. I knew that I wasn’t going to even be close to my goal time for that race (sub 2hr), but it was a RACE and every second counts!

The nice thing about this Half Marathon is that you get a Finisher’s Medal, so I didn’t walk away empty handed (didn’t win a door prize either). Usually only the Mega Halfs (or in this case the Micro Halfs) which can afford the medals will have them, but sometimes the Micro Halfs will have something for the Runners. This was my first time running the course and I really enjoyed the course itself, which is part through the town/city of Harriman and part on the back country roads. When you were on the country roads, the shoulders on the road were ample enough that traffic didn’t seem like it was going to plow into you. Plus, the Rittenhouse race having the support of the Harriman Police, there were plenty of patrol cars on the course. The water stops seems nicely laid out according to  difficult parts of the course. There were mile markers, but they were at not uniform places along the course, which for my run that day was probably a good thing so that I wouldn’t be obsessing about my mile times every split.

I would probably run the Rittenhouse Half Marathon again, but with it being in late April, it does have some competition with other events on that particular weekend or being close to a spring Marathon.

This will be last planned race until the July 3rd Fireball 5k Classic, which I may or may not run. This will also be the start of a transition period between Spring Running and Summer Running which I will focus on less distance and more speed and with the opening of the UT pool, I’ll include some brick workouts (run, swim) at lunchtime. Maybe even sneak in a sprint triathlon if I can. Who knows.

Anyway, I’ll entertain Guess My Time, Win Crap guesses if you want to play for the Run for the Deaf 5k…

Guess My Time and Win Crap Rules and Regulations:

1. All you have to do is guess my OFFICIAL finishing time for the race. I will provide some numbers below to help you base your calculation. Official Times will be what is recorded by the race officials. If I am not able to get that time, then I will use my watch time.
2. You can enter as many times as you want, however, your Guess with the latest timestamp on it will be your official guess.
3. Entries with a timestamp later than the advertised race Start Time will not count.
4. You can leave a Guess a number of different ways, thanks to today’s technology. You can leave a comment on my blog www.planet3rry.com, leave a comment on my Facebook post of the contest, leave a comment on my Twitter account, either direct message or mention is fine (I recommend using the hash #GMTWC, so it’s easier to find) or you can email me your time as well.
5. Winners, if I do not already have your postal address, will have to submit a mailing address for the Winning Crap, but beware… that does open you up to things such as Christmas Cards, Free Trial Sizes of embarrassing items and anything else that I deem to be humorous to me. I think past winners can testify that I am all bark and no bite when it comes to the “embarrassing stuff”.
6. In the case of ties, I will award the time with earliest time stamp, going down to the picosecond if I must.
7. If by some chance you guess my time exactly, you will win The Craptastic Prize!

So what exactly will I win?

That remains to be determined but it’ll be items that I have lying around. While I am not going to be giving away anything as cool as an iPad or something like that, it will be marginally useful. Primarily it’ll be things that won’t cost me much to ship. The Craptastic Prize will be in the form of a gift card from a store of my choosing with an amount of my choosing. It will be in addition too the regular Guess My Time, Win Crap prizes!

Race History and other race information

Race: Run for the Deaf 5

2009 Results
Number of Finishers: 233
Overall winner: Ron Manis 18:20

My Finish Times

Race Date/My Times/Overall Place/Age Place

May-08-1999    22:29    054|173    6|9
May-11-2002    29:07    100|154    10|10
May-08-2004    22:28    026|121    2|11
May-07-2005    24:01    038|111    1|3
May-03-2008    23:27    052|204    10|14

Course Map – I made one on Gmap-Pedometer

Terry’s Finishing times for 5ks since 2004

Race                  Date        Time
Spring Sprint         Apr-3-2004  24:03
Run for the Deaf      May-8-2004  22:28
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2004  22:57
Scholar's Run         Aug-21-2004 24:57
Run for the Deaf      May-7-2005  24:01
Scholar's Run         Aug-20-2005 24:36
Reindeer Run          Dec-4-2005  23:14
Scholar's Run         Aug-19-2006 25:12
Farragut Fall Classic Sep-23-2006 22:08
Spring Sprint         Apr-14-2007 23:46
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2007 23:32
Reindeer Run          Dec-2-2007  22:33
Spring Sprint         Apr-12-2008 24:12
Ribbon Run            Apr-19-2008 24:10
Run for the Deaf      May-3-2008  23:27
Fireball Classic      Jul-3-2008  26:23
Scholar's Run         Aug-16-2008 24:58
Ribbon Run            Apr-16-2009 24:11
Scholar's Run         Aug-18-2009 26:21
Run for the Schools   Apr-10-2010 27:12
Run for Autism        Apr-17-2010 26:22

I got to race early enough so that I could get a nice pre-race warm up in before reporting to race start. At race start, I saw that quite a bit of the fast runners were there in the front, so that I knew getting an age group award was out of the window for this race. And that was actually a stress that I didn’t have to carry the burden over the race.

The race started and it’s a nice downhill start. Although this is tough on the legs, it’s easier on the psyche and lungs as you pick up speed for the race. As I mentioned before, parts of Island Home is “Level Flat” not “Knoxville Flat”. Apart from the Start/Finish, the race is a combination of “Level-Flat” and “Knoxville Flat”.

Mile 1

So with a down hill start and the rest of the mile is flat. It’s really easy to go out fast. This is great if you are going for a PR time. However, if you are unexperienced, you’ll be out like at the 1/2 mile mark like the kid that was running ahead of me, then his friends caught up and he said “I’m Done” and proceeded to walk.

Mile 1 in 6:58

That, by the way, is a big forecasted PR pace for me. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hold on to that pace, but my in situ race plans changed to hold on to that pace. In Marathons, the common Rule of Thumb is don’t go out to fast… which is on the money because it’s a long race and going out to fast is costly. However in shorter races, if you want to get a PR, you have to go out fast! The trick is finding that threshold which you can go out fast yet still maintain your endurance to carry you. If you go out fast, your body “feels” that speed, so when you “slow down” your body relaxes but that new speed may be faster than what you would have been running had you tried to start the race at a conservative pace and tried to get faster over the course. It’s easier to slow down at the end of the race, then it is to speed up. A consequence is that if you go out to fast, you exhaust your Kick at the end of the race.

Mile 2

I tried to hit a rhythm with my strides and breathing. I was far enough ahead in the mass of runners that I had little traffic in front of me, and I tried, as we rounded corners or curvy streets to take the shortest distance from point to point, even if it meant I was running on the other side of the street.

I could feel that I was starting to slow just a little and I wasn’t sure what the last little hill of the Second mile would do to me.

Mile 2 in 7:33

I remained steady up the hill, but it was tough to maintain that speed afterwards. Once back on the Level Flat Street, I could nothing more than try to keep my pace going. I was fading. With 1/2 mile to go, I was praying for a shoelace to come untied so that I could take a break. A quick look at my watch and I knew that I would finish somewhere under 24 minutes, even with a teeny-tiny stop. I moved along.

The finish is a 2 tier up hill with the first tier being shorter/steeper than the second teir. Neither of them are monster hills but you do have to work at them. Before the race, I had practiced my Race Finish, looking at landmarks that I would use to begin my final approach into the Finishing Chute. There was the Speed Limit 25 sign that I would use to start to accelerate. Then there was the rug that Duct Taped to the Road to cover a pot hole that would be the final kick. I had no energy left for either. I had gone out too fast and I had no Kick left at the end.

I was actually relying on people to shout out to friends and family running that they could “catch” the guy in blue for motivation to encourage me to run faster. For the last 15 steps, I did sprint, or do my best sprint imitation. After finishing, I had to lie down in the grass with a bottle of water to catch my breath.

23:27 Official Time
52 Out of 204 Finishers
10 Out of 14 Age Groupers (35-39)

I was fairly pleased with my result. My personal goal time was 23:30, which I was pretty close at getting, although, I wasn’t exactly happy at HOW I got it with the fast first mile. I was hoping for a little more evenly paced race. But What Can You Do?

I did win a Door Prize – Papa John’s Large One Topping Pizza… so with a decent Race Shirt and a Free Pizza Coupon, I didn’t walk away empty handed.

After my Run on Tuesday, I took Wednesday & Thursday as rest days. Mainly because my legs were sore from the run and I didn’t want to over tax them for my race on Saturday. I did today (Friday), swim 800m in the pool. That was nice and refreshing. I was able to work out my legs without the pounding, plus the distance wasn’t too tiring either.

My Upcoming 5k is the Run For The Deaf. This is one of my favorite races. 1) It’s run on Island Home, South of the Tennessee River and is just gorgeous. Not only is the scenery really nice, there are sections of the race that are totally flat… not “Knoxville Flat” but “level flat”. I had been hoping to use this race to attempt at my PR time, but with missing most of February with a sickness, I had a late start. Based on my last two 5k times, I would venture into a Sub 24 pretty easily, but an attack on 21:56 would be a little far fetched (although not totally impossible). The other reason why this is one of my favorite races is that the race profits go to support the Tennessee School for the Deaf. Now, I don’t personally know anyone who is deaf and without being able to communicate with them, I get REALLY uncomfortable, because I don’t want to be rude (or look stupid). But I think this is an awesome resource for those with this disability. Back in 2000-2001, I was a soccer referee for a short time and had the privileged of reffing some of the games for TSD. I was totally amazed, thus when I was able to do this particular 5k, I enjoyed it enough to put it as a “regular” on my annual races.

I generally do fairly well (personally) in this race. I’ve finished in 22:29 and 22:28 on two different occasions. My last running of it in 2005, I finished 24:01 and actually WON my age group with that “relatively” slow time. Although with it being the only race in the area now, I don’t expect that I will fare in my age group as well. I look at the 2007 results and based on my estimated finishing time of 23:30, there would be 7 people ahead of me in this year’s Age Group Males 35-39. But they do have door prizes and I might win one of those!

Also on Saturday, I am going to get the rest of my supplies to work on the flower gardens and vegetable garden. I had around 15 starter plants go wild, but then all but one died… *sigh*

Sunday, is up in the air, but I have 3 people who are having birthdays… What date is 9 months back from May 4th? Hmmmm…

As the name suggests, the 5k race goes to benefit the Tennessee School for the Deaf and is run on the island home section of Knoxville. For those of you who ran the marathon, part of the marathon course is on the same streets, right around the 21-22 mile mark.

I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to do since I had ran hard on Thursday and just the fact of limited training. I went out and ran a warm-up one mile run to get my engine up and running. I did a variety of tempo run and 50m strides to loosen up my legs. I made it back to the race start so that I could line up for the race. The nice thing to see at this race is the number of people who are signing to one another… something that I do not know how to do. It is customary to play the national anthem before the start of our road races here in Knoxville. Well, at this race, they have someone signing the national anthem… very cool. During the milling around before the guns went off , I tried to size up my competition in my age group around me. There was a number of men who were obviously 45-50+ and not too many that looked close to my age group. And who am I to guess ages, I don't look like I belong to the 30-34 age group. There was one person who looked liked he “could” be in my age group, so I decided to pace behind to him and see what happens.

THe gun went off and we cruised down the downhill start, turning left at the guard shack, the rest of the mile would be flat right until the 1 mile marker. My “target” was right in front of me and was able to keep up pretty well for the first 1/2 mile until I realized that he was running alot easier than I was… this meant that I would be unable to pace with him.

One of the secrets to getting a PR time in a short distance race is to start out fast. I don't mean sprint, but I mean faster than what is comfortable. The reason is that you will be getting distance between you and other runner behind you so that when you do slow down your relative velocity will be such that the other runners cannot make up the distance in the short distance left in the race. Now, if you bonk and have to walk, that is a different story, BUT if you go out running quickly and the have a healthy jog at the end, you'll generally do better than being consistent.

Anyway, I started out fast. I turned the first mile in 7:03 min and the hill at the mile marker didn't help me much. I slowed down some on the long downhill and took water at the 1.5 spot. It actually hurt to take the water, since it threw my whole rhythm off but I recovered. At the mile 2 split my time was 15:05, mile 2 was a whole mile slower. I would have to crank out a sub 7 mile to get a PR for today. Well, I wasn't shooting for a PR at this race anyway… so to save the suspense… I did not PR.

The last 0.2 mile of the race is a uphill finish which is something that I enjoy because I know it is the end and I can crank out the energy if I need it. As I turned to go up the hill, I saw someone almost at the halfway mark and it was my quest to pass him. As I came on the 3 mile mark, I saw that the time was 23 something and now my goal changed to passing the runner AND coming in under 24 minutes. I was able to pass the runner with about 250 ft left on the course and not only was passing him but was accelerating as well. I locked my eyes on the timer and it read 23:54… 55… 56… 57… and I cranked up the juice. Focusing on the timer, trying to get to the white strip… 23:59… 24:00 (Crap!)… FINISH.

In the finisher's chute, I tried to catch my breath, give up my bib strip and get some water. I had to walk a bit to catch my breath, but I headed to the gym for food and the awards. It ended being that I won a door prize! WOO HOO! It was some organizer thingies that are definitely not very masculine… so I gave them to Jen, but I was happy to win something… after all it might have been the only thing I might be winning today.

Interesting enough, none of the local hotshots were there. The overall Male winner was a 15yo and the over all female winner was a 12yo.. go figure. Anyway, on to the 30-34 male group. So the count up went as follows: “With a time of 28…” SWEET… that means that I either came in first or second! “And in Second place with a time of 26..” OH HELL YEAH! I won my age group with a measly time of 24:01 and was the recipientof a NICE marble plaque and a certificate.

My Split Time:

Note: The split times are MY watch times and the Finish time is the OFFICIAL time, so they might (and are) off by a few seconds because I start my watch when I cross the start line not at the gun.

You can check out the photo album Here

This was Jen’s first Mother’s day (as a mother to human children, not ferrets) this past Sunday. The weather was nice and so I hope that she enjoyed it. I got her a gft certificate to her favorite massage place (can’t go wrong there) and Eric got her a picture frame that has a clay impression of his monsterous foot, now preserved for all of time.

This past Saturday, I ran in the Race for the Deaf 5k in which I finished in 22:28 which was sufficient enough to get 2nd place in my age group. I won a mug from the Tennessee School for the Deaf and a certificate noting my accomplishment.