PLANET3RRY

I wasn’t really expecting much out of the race and my finishing time showed it: 26:21

Despite having one of my slowest 5k times in recent memory, I was pleased with my technical approach to the race. The Scholar’s Run isn’t known for it’s gentle rolling hills. In fact, on the tougher part of the course, you past by a cemetery, just in case you can’t make it up the hill and just need to roll over and expire. Funny… another race in the area has the same setup… curious.

So, what’s so special about a slow time but technically pleasing to someone… Negative Splits… bay-beee. And for those that aren’t familiar with Runner’s Jargon, a “Negative Split” is when you run a certain distance (a split) faster than the previous one. Typically in marathons, you’ll say you ran a negative split if you ran the first half of the marathon faster than the first half. In 5ks, you usually have to run all 3 (or 4 if you are counting that last 0.1 and using your average pace). So in my case, I went from 8:42 min/mi to a 8:32 min/mi and to a 8:30 min/mi with the last 0.1 having a kick of 36 sec which averages to a 6:00 min/mi pace.

So although I wasn’t anywhere near the awards for my age group, nor anywhere close to a time that I would find satisfactory for my historical performance, I did walk away from the race with the hunger of racing again. A spark, once again, lighting the fire of focusing on the race and training ahead. I am 13 weeks out from Flying Monkey and still unknown if I will be wearing a bib at that event or not.

I am looking forward to my race tomorrow… although I don’t necessarily expect wonderful things to happen, it will nice to be in a “race” to get the “race mentality” back. That is what might be lacking from my inability to finish putting a plan together and sticking to it.

Speaking of running, I cranked out 9 miles in the afternoon heat on Tuesday. This was a complete violation of the 10% Rule, which is something that I really don’t hold to as a “Rule” but something more like a measuring stick. Given the heat, the lack of training and the benefit of experience I knew pretty much my plan of attack when it came to running those 9 miles. I knew that I wouldn’t last in terms of running because I hadn’t run much… or really… none at all this month and the heat and humid was pretty bad… not horrible, but not a walk run in the park. With a bunch of running broken up with strategic walking, I managed the 9 miles in about 1:45 or so for an average 11:40 min/mi. I had planned to run about 3-4 miles on Thursday but Plan A was shot-down by Scheduling Scud Missles and Plan B was botched because of Propoganda and other disillusionment tactics. But tomorrow… Scholar’s Run 5k with a cool down run in the wooded area behind Maryville College.

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The Elder starts school next week. Yes, Tennessee starts early. But don’t worry, even WITH the extra early start Tennessee is usually battling Alabama for a couple of things besides on the 3rd Saturday in October and that is usually who is NOT the last on the list for Healthiest State and School Test Scores. In East Tennessee, they don’t really have “snow days” mainly because of the changing climate, it doesn’t snow here anymore and if it does, it’s melted by noon. No, we have “Flu Days” and “We Are Predicting Ice In the Morning Days”. So, while we start early, we get out a little earlier, but we have our reasons!

And while The Elder is going to school for the first day, I will be flying to Rhode Island. I am going to RI for business and will only be there overnight. I have a presentation on Tuesday morning for a bunch of OSHA officials. I would try to explain it, but you’d get a bruise from when your head would hit the keyboard.

For the past 3 weeks, our household has been under viral attack. And from reading some blogs and Facebook updates, there seems to be alot of it going around. It first started with The Elder becoming lethargic, decrease appetite and then a big fever. What is tricky about the virus at our house is that it was simulating a 12-24hr virus. Roughly every 12 hours, the fever would come, break and then subside to the point where the patient was feeling MUCH better, only to have it come back again.

And it didn’t last just 1 or 2 days, no, this was a 5-6 day bug! And not sure about the incubating period either, because it seemed to be that The Younger’s ailment did not manifest until AFTER The Elder was feeling much better. This way, instead of having TWO side kids, you get ONE side kid for twice as long. yay. whoopie…. bleh.

This past week was The Younger’s turn for being Down and Out. Actually he started earlier in the week… maybe Tuesday or so. Each day, high fever, but not “too” high. Well, except for when My lovely and Talented Wife said that The Younger had a temperature of “105″ and I about peed my pants. She calmly said “oops, I meant 101.5″. Okay, so I did have a little leak. As a statistician, I have a degree (haha) certifying that know the proper techniques to manipulate numbers to make them say what I want them to say. And while in some cases 105 and 101.5 might not be statistically different (unless you want them to be… wink wink), when it comes to core body temperatures, you don’t [I'll use the word "Clown" here, but I am thinking of something allot less... entertaining] around.

The Younger was already a little nuclear power unit as it was when the fever was at it’s peak. There was about 30 minutes when I just set my coffee on him to keep it warm. But (thankfully) there was never a time when we needed to toss him into a tub filled with ice. The Younger did get some nasal congestion which The Elder did not. It could be that The Younger does have a lower threshold for allergies, so it may have been a result of that. And the cutest thing, in all this sickness, was The Younger talking with a stuffed up nose.

“Dabby, I neeb my mebicine”

and while there was some amusement in hearing him snore, I wasn’t happy that he wasn’t getting good air. But now, he is better. So, I imagine that it will one of the adult’s turn to get sick… stupid virus.

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Like I had mentioned in a previous post, may have been last month, was that I had was (or that I had) recording some audio for my podcast Gravity@1053′, which I did, But since I didn’t get it posted, things have changed, so I need to re-record some audio and will get something posted “soon” (which means, maybe later, maybe never, but I want to).

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As much as I would LOVE to run in this weekend’s 5k, I am just not ready. In fact, I haven’t even started training for anything… partly because that training plan that I have been “talking” about for months now… is still just “talk”. OH CRAP! I just remembered… this is a SPECIAL 5k this weekend! It’s the Scholar’s Run 5k! It’s the ONE race that I have done EVERY year since I became a runner in 1998. I can’t just DUMP it. Oh, just GREAT! I sure hope that I can still preregister. maybe I can do it online or something. be right back…

[INTERLUDE]

10 minutes later…

Okay, so I CAN register on-line through Wednesday and it looks like it will be $15 plus a fee, which I assume will be less than Day-of-Race which is $18. So, I will register tonight after I make sure that things are in order for me to run it. This way, I will still be eligible for the Triple Crown Door Prizes at the Reindeer Run in December, which is a good thing.

When it comes to the History of Terry’s Running, the Scholar’s Run 5k is the last race that I have done every year since 1998 (when I officially became a Runner). There have been births, deaths, pulled hamstrings, weddings, etc, but yet in the later part of August, I have been able to make it to the starting line on the Maryville College campus for the Scholar’s Run

The Scholar’s Run is part of the Ruby Tuesday’s Triple Crown of Running, and that’s the restaurant Ruby Tuesday, their headquarters is in Maryville. And having such a great sponsor is great for the runners because in the Goody Bags/Race Packets they always have good stuff. This year it was a sports bottle… I thought I would hate it, but I LOVE it. It’s made from hard plastic so I can squeeze it, so I have to use vacuum action to get liquid out, so I get a small amount each drink time and so the drink lasts a long time.

Anyway, this year’s race, as in years past, is the Fall debut race for me. I don’t expect a whole lot from my race time, but I give it a good effort to “kick off” the fall training season. This was also the first race in 2006 that I made a podcast from my running. Oh, and this year, this was the debut race for ASD Athletes!

I am going not going to go into great detail on every aspect of the race. It wasn’t my fastest race but it was MUCH better than the Fireball 5k race. And even though I wasn’t really trained for the race, and that I have been running for sometime now, the thought of running this 5k race still got me excited. I went from just wanting to finish the race, to making it into a speed workout, to actually thinking about race strategy and finally to running it with the intent of attacking the course (lots of hills) and making a good workout of the event and if by the Mile 1 split, I was doing well, I would actually “race” the race.

My Split times for the Scholar’s Run were

Mile 1 & 2: (I seem to have misplaced my times – my new watch isn’t that high tech)
Finish 24:58
average pace: 8:04

This finishing time was good enough to put me in the Top Half of Finishers 103 out of 262, but in my Age Group, I was forced back to 16th (out of 26)! The first top 7 were faster than my PR and the top 11 in my age group were faster than the Terry Anticipated Time of 23:35.

Although I wasn’t all that excited at the 24:58, I did leave everything out on the course and so I couldn’t have really asked for more. So that gives me an idea of my base race pace and from there I can expand on my training for the two marathons this fall.

Ms. Shirley Perly

of Humble Triathlete Fame

with her time of 25:00.000000000000000000000000000000

only 2 seconds off of my official finishing time of 24:58!

Swag will be sent this week once I confirm desired preferences… that’s right people when you win Crap from me… I go try to great lengths to make it the best better kinda good to not suck.

Race Report to follow when I am not doing 2 3 4 5 1,000,000 things.

That’s right… although I haven’t been blogging much lately with traveling and then a big ole “Hey, your Kid IS going to Kindergarten this year” Bomb being dropped. Oh, and our Resourceful and Reliable Au Pair went on vacation this week, because… we didn’t think The Elder would be in school this week… But that is a different post for a different day because…

IT’S RACE WEEK

It’s Race Week and it’s time for another contest! Here are the Rules:

1) Leave a time you think I will complete the Event as a comment to this post.

Event: Scholar’s Run 5k website

2) You can enter as many times as you want, but only your most recent entry will be your official guess

3) This will be an Over/Under format, meaning that you time will count whether your time is over or under my official time

4) You can enter as long as Comments are allowed for this post, which is typically through Race at some point

Scholar’s Run 5k is run at 8 am on SATURDAY AUGUST 16th

5) The Official Time as reported at the event website will be the End-all-Be-all result. Should no result be posted, then my watch time will be used

Results for this Event are (eventually) posted at: Parks & Recreation

6) Winners will have to send me their postal address to gain their prize. Giving me their address subjects them to such things as world domination, Christmas Cards, and other random items (and sometimes embarrassing items) sent to their homes.

7) There are no restriction for past winners… Enter and Win and Enter Again.

All submissions must be made as a comment unless you are technical incompetent, then I will accept other forms of submission such as carrier pigeon, smoke signals, tea leafs, chicken bones, etc

9) Is my favorite number, so I wanted the Rules to go to 9, so, uh, have fun!

The Crap Prize for which you are competing is:

A Bag, a box of Tea and a pack of Gum

Stuff to help you in your guess:

Last Five 5k Times:

Reindeer Run Dec-2-2007 5 k 22:33
Spring Sprint Apr-12-2008 5 k 24:12
Ribbon Run Apr-19-2008 5 k 24:10
Run for the Deaf May-3-2008 5 k 23:27
Fireball Classic Jul-03-2008 5 k 26:23

Historic Scholar’s Run Times:
Scholar’s Run Apr-24-1998 5 k 23:07
Scholar’s Run Aug-28-1999 5 k 22:07
Scholar’s Run Aug-26-2000 5 k 22:51
Scholar’s Run Aug-25-2001 5 k 24:24
Scholar’s Run Aug-24-2002 5 k 23:13
Scholar’s Run Aug-23-2003 5 k 27:36
Scholar’s Run Aug-21-2004 5 k 24:57
Scholar’s Run Aug-20-2005 5 k 24:36
Scholar’s Run Aug-19-2006 5 k 25:12
Scholar’s Run Aug-18-2007 5 k 23:32

Background: The Scholar's Run is a long standing (29th annual)local 5k race which is used to fund scholarships for 4 local runners for college. It is the sencond leg of the Ruby Tuesday's (HQ in Maryville, TN) Triple Crown of Racing. Traditionally, with RT being a sponsor, the race bags are often filled with some good stuff, more on that later. For me, this race is one of my favorites. It was the first race that I received any recognition for finishing in my age group. I received a ribbon for placing 5th, I could have had fourth, but the guy out sprint me at the end. Also, before they changed the course in 2001, it was the site of 2 PR records, 23:07 in 1998 and then 22:07 in 1999 (which held for 3 years). I enjoy the new course because of the brutal hills (I will analyze the hill structure soon) on the course.

Race Day: THe forecast for the day was going to be HOT HOT HOT and what compounded that was that the previous' nights low was not very low. So the temp at 7am when I got there was already high. Check-in was was organized, as always, I also was able to use the bathroom before the crowds (Thank goodness). I made two loops around the campus as warmups which was about 1.5 miles, but it gave me a chance to practice on the hill that you have to run at the beginning of the race and at the end of the race, so it is important to know what you are going to face. I stretched a bit before the gun went off and then jumped into the crowd, somewhere in the front 3rd of the starting group.

The first hill was rather easy, I was able to keep my current pace and thus pass many of the people who started off a little too fast. As we were leaving campus, I hit the 1 mile at 7:46 which was about what I felt I was running. It wasn't too difficult, but I knew that I was working. As you leave campus you turn right into another hill for about 0.3 of a mile, but then it's either flat or downhill for a while. I hit the 2nd mile at 15:41, a little slower mile, but knowing what was coming up, I was trying to conserve when I could. The last half mile is 80% hill and 20% flat, thank goodness the flat part is at the end, but the hill is nothing to snear at. I dug in deep to keep my feet moving up the hill. I know that I passed a bunch of people while on the turns of the hill, as I came to the top of the hill, I contemplated the runners in front of me that I could over take before the finish line. There was no 3 mile mark, but I think as I hit the last 0.15 miles is when I lengthened my stride and picked up the pace. I ended up passing 2 people before I finished in 24:36. Looking Back to what I was shooting for, I made it right on the money. I wanted to finish between 24:30 and 24:45! Here are my split times:

On a sad note, I didn't win any door prizes and I was not an group winner…

You can browse all of my race results on my running corner

I was excited to see that the swimming lanes were in the 50m configuration, this allows for less counting of laps and so it is easier to keep track of distance swam. I had bought some new goggles to replace the ones that were lost and then found. I scored a great deal at Wal-mart, they were $7 on clearance. I think I will have to go back to see if there are more left.

I ended up getting in 1200 meters today in roughly 30 or so minutes. There was one lap that everything was clicking, breathing, stroke and I was gliding in the water. If I had more time, I might have gone on for a little longer but I didn't want to wear myself out. After all, we have two bundles of energy at home!

Knoxville Marathon training will officially start on November 1st of this year. I will create my formal training schedule after I read the magazine article that Ray sent me (I did get it!). I am looking forward to NOT getting sick this year and having a great marathon. More to come on that in the next few weeks.

Next Race on the schedule is the Scholar's Run to be ran on August 20th. It is a challenging 5k with some “hills” on the course. I have a personal affection for this race, as it was my first 5k PR back in 1998 where I finished 5th in my age group. The next year, it was another PR (22:07) and I knocked off one minute from my personal course record. I have had decent showing at this race since then, mostly I use it as a gage for my fall speedwork, to see how slow I became after the summer months. It is part of the Ruby Tuesday's Triple Crown and makes me eligible for the triple crown prizes in December, also a nice incentive.

Prediction for this race is still in question… I would like to have a time less than 24:48 (8:00 min pace) but would really be happy with anything less than a 7:54 pace or a 24:30 time.

I have been trying to catch as much of the Olympics as I can. I totally missed the women’s marathon on sunday and was pretty bummed about that. I did catch some of the track heats last night as well as watching the US men’s take 1-2-3 in the 400m Final, that was pretty cool. One thing that I have noticed is that there appears to be more interest in the Olympics this week than last. One of the local radio stations morning DJs was saying how bored they were with the Olympics during the first week. Come this Monday and he was saying how he could not stop watching some of the events. Pretty funny if you ask me, more like a little hypocracy in action. The thing is that he has probably watched more than I have and I WANT to watch it all.

I finished the Scholar’s Run on Saturday with a respectable time. 24:57, 5th in my age group. My full results are here, if you are interested. I started off way too fast and then just crashed after the first mile. This at least tells me that I am not up to 5k racing shape yet and that I need some more work.

I have been in the process of over hauling the main side of the website, so there will probably be changes in the next week with some of the layout. I am thinking about making the background something different for my website as well, perhaps a different color or design.

Wouldn’t you know it? I made a nice entry last week but never uploaded it. Silly me

I have not heard about my comps yet, so no word on that front

All of my classes have met and I think this is going to be a very interesting semester albeit a tough one. Epidemiology will have me reading a lot and Multivariate will have me doing a lot of computer work. I talk more about them later.

I ran the Scholar’s Run last Saturday and it was my officially slowest time when running by myself. in my defense, the course is packed with some hills at the beginning and some at the end. So, I had that working against me. But the biggest thing was the lack O’ running since Eric has been born. So although the time was not very good, I didn’t mind.