PLANET3RRY

Other use for a treadmill. CLICK HERE

I was able to crank out 3.1 miles on the treadmill in 27 minutes last night. I thought that I could go for four, but no-could-do. I did do specific negative splits on the miles with a quick catch my breath in between the miles. I ended up feeling pretty strong after the run and I smelled pretty strong too.

Since I was able to get 3 speedy miles (instead of 5 Trail miles) I designated Friday as my rest day. So that meant no swimming at lunch.

Looks like we only have one more week for the baby. 6am Friday morning unless the baby comes early. So that means that I should be able to have a “normal” workout week next week barring any scheduling conflict with our babysitters. Actually, Jen's mom will be here, so that should work in my favor. Woo-Hoo!

As for tomorrow, I think I am going to pencil in 10 miles tomorrow. I think because I won't be able to run next week and then some… so if I can get some mileage in to “carry me” over those days when there is limited running or working out… mainly because of lack of sleep! We will see.

On another running topic. Sunday is our Adopt-a-Road day for the Knoxville Track Club and am going to try to do that and help volunteer. I think it would be fun and would only take two hours. THe nice thing about the KTC is that if you volunteer at most events you get a coupon good towards having your entry fee waived. 3 coupons covers most of the races. I have 2 now, but did not get one for Expo, so maybe I can get that coupon as well.

I just got finished running on the treadmill… 3.2 miles in 27:00. It was TOUGH to just make it that far, I am not conditioned to be a hamster! Crap! I mean the first 1.2 miles was set at 8:30 pace and it was all I could do to keep that pace. I had to stop the treadmill and get some water and stretch. It was bad. I managed to crank out the rest of the distance with some trouble. I ended running the last 1/2 mile at excessive speeds… the first 0.2 mile was at a 7:30 pace, then up to a 7:00 minute pace and then the last 0.2 of a mile was at a 5:30 pace! My leg rotation was OUT OF CONTROL!!!! It BAFFLES me how the Elite can run at that speed for 2 friggin' hours. I thought that my nuts and bolts were going to shake loose and I would fall apart. I survived though and it was pretty rewarding.

I am actually backing up my USB drive I call Da Kruza, it's a SanDisk 1GB USB drive and it has been over a month since I have backed it up. It holds most of my life on it as in my homemade Excel Calenders from 1997 to present, running log, jenandterry.com, Jen's Mary Kay website, my photography, video, ALL of the fonts I download (for convenience)etc. It still has 27 minutes to copy to the desktop, then I'll burn it. But I am listening to Our CD Collection, all 500+ CDs that I ripped to the computer… I use Musicmatch to store my MP3s and right now have an AutoDJ playlist of 1500 tracks. Most of them aren't worth listening to as they are Artist's “C” and “D” songs, but enough played to have me post this blog, hence the title.

The first couple of songs reminded me of when I was in Charlottesville getting my Nuclear Engineering Degree:
“Nearly Lost You” from the Singles Soundtrack
“Gett Off” by Prince - a little early for Cville AND I prefer Violet the Organ Grinder, but it was a significant song when I was there
“Tukka Yoot's Riddim” - US3 the second song off the US3 album that released Cantaloop. I went to see them with UB40 with Jo Ann Foltz and her roommate
“Down” - 311

and to boot, I am drinking some Rolling Rock I found (THANK Goodness - I need it after the run) in the downstairs fridge. Gray and I would go to Macados on the Corner where they had $2.95 Rolling Rock Pictures ALL DAY EVERY DAY. That is what I thought you paid for pitchers of beer because that is all that we drink. Can you imagine my surprise when I learned the REAL price of pitchers of beer???

Miles for May = 202.5

Last night was my first time that I ran since Feb 24th, almost a whole month because of the pneumonia. My short session on the treadmill was:
1 mile walk at 20min pace
0.25 mile at 12 min pace
0.50 mile at 10min pace
0.25 mile at 12min pace
1 mile walk at 20min pace

I wouldn't say that it was difficult, but being on R&R for that long the body has to be reminded… “oh yeah, we run.” I feel fine today, I think the pollen in the trees are giving me a little run in my nostrils, but nothing bad.

My appointment for the final chest Xray is on April 5th, so I don't want to go 100% until the doctor clears me. I'll probably not go any faster than a 10min pace and probably not run more than 4 miles in any one session. I'm going to run again on Thursday!

We had a little care with Jen today which required a trip to the doctor's office. Everything is A-Okay and we even got to see Baby Incognito again and more pictures! Incognito was asleep or at least sleepy because he/she was yawning (or maybe swallowing). So our next (scheduled) trip to the Doctor's is April 6th.

UT is on Spring Break right now, so I haven't had to tutor this week… nice break.

As a cure for my sore legs I ran 3 mile yesterday on the dreadmill at a nice 9:30 pace. This would be a faster pace that what is prescribed for how I want to perform in the Knoxville Marathon, but 10:08 pace is a little slow for me on the treadmill, err, I mean dreadmill. I managed to get through the work out in 28 and 1/2 minutes just fine. In fact, the soreness was gone after the first mile and I wanted to run faster, but discipline my young grasshopper, discipline. I do watch the movie Without Limits which is about Steve Prefontaine and that does provide a bit of motivation for staying on pace.

I did find out that when we are in Orlando for Sylvia’s National Debut, there will be a babysitter available for Saturday morning. This means that I get to run a race in Orlando! Ironically, it is the Disney Marathon weekend that particular weekend and there is a 5k. Unfortunately, it would be like $20-25 registration plus parking at the Park. Hell, no. I found another race that is only $18 if I preregister and it not too far from us. It is the New Year Resolution 5K - Northlake Park 5K Series at Lake Nona. It has been flurry/snowing here off and on all morning and afternoon. There is no stickage, although it has been very cold, so if there was stickage then it would not melt. Which is usually the case here in Knoxville, it snows after a couple of 37-40 degree days, so there is little accumulation. Of course, we only need the threat of ice here to shut down a handful of county schools.

Tomorrow I will be in DC for the day on business. We are going to the Department of Labor to see the people who oversee the projects that we do. We are flying on Independence Air which is run by Atlantic Coast Airlines. Now that we have a new baby on the way, I am going to rearrange the website. This should only affect some of the bookmarks that you have made. I will update our Error Message to indicate some of the new links. am hoping to have that changed before Christmas. Some of it would have been done today, but it is taken too long to update the picture album links… if only my computer at home worked!

Friday is here, WOO-HOO. Jen and I are going to dinner since I was busy on Tuesday. I think that I will try to have a Rolling Rock when i am out (Theme 33). Now that’s an interesting name for a blog… hmm, but it would really only be good for a year. We’ll see.

Eric is really going the distance now on walking. He is staying up much longer although he still walks pretty slow, I know that will come with time. Eric must of had a little stomach bug yesterday, because during dinner, we had a major “blowout”. I was a silent one, because I never heard it, I was just alerted to it from the foul stench that emanating from Eric’s vicinity. Sure enough, he blew out the side of diaper, leaving a huge mess in his booster chair. I must admit that this is SO much better than when he leaves a floater in the tub. The bad thing was that I had to hold him, like he was radioactive, because he wanted to swing his legs to cling to me, uh no. Anyway, the situation was cleaned up and everyone was happy.

I ran 5.1 miles yesterday on the treadmill. Most of it at an easy pace. I really did not want to do any major speedwork since I have the Big south Fork race on saturday. I finished the month of September with 95.0 miles. I was hoping to break the 100 mile mark for the month, but I didn’t. However, September’s mileage was my second highest mileage per month. The only month that I have ran more was October of 2000 when I ran 107.7 miles.

I have been looking for a compact, light and inexpensive digital camera to take to Samoa. Unfortunately, I have found about 7 to choose from which 3 are too expensive (>$150). The ones that I like run about $130 ish on eBay. We’ll see. I’d love to upload pictures while I am there, but I am not sure what my computer situation will be.

09.24.04 - The engine is stalling
I thought that I should get something in here before the weekend. I am not sure how much time I will have to update my site Saturday and Sunday. When I am on the computer, I am going to concentrate on updating Eric’s picture albums. It has been way too long since I update his pictures, he is so different.

UT’s homecoming is this weekend, which means the game is par-per-view. So the Higgins’ household will not be watching it, just listening to it on the radio. Maybe the UVA game will be on in the afternoon… just not here. We’ll have a SEC game before an ACC game, go figure.

I picked up another tutor for Tuesdays. The only drawback is that it is at 5pm, which means I have a 1 hour break between sessions. This was the time that I could out and get in some running with enough time to get showered and less stinky before my 7pm session. Technically, I could get out for an hour on the track since I will be adjacent to it, but, I truly won’t have an hour. Oh well, I need the money more than the miles.

I ran 3.1 miles last night on the treadmill and it turn out to be pretty tough. I was covered in sweat and was not able to keep up the pace I wanted or thought that I could handle. On my intervals, my tempo was slow. Not sure what that means, I guess since I don’t race more 5ks, that my speed has gone down. Although I was pleased with my pace of my 5 mile runs on Monday and Tuesday. Tomorrow, I will be having a long early morning run, although tomorrow it will be just 10 miles. It should be really comfortable at 5:30, so that will make it NICE!

I am thinking about getting another digital camera, so that I have one to take to American Samoa in November. I am looking at something in the mid grade range that is compact. So far I have looked at Canon’s digital Elph and Casio’s Exilim. Both are small and compact with reasonable features. I am thinking that I only need somewhere around 2 megapixels, that way it will keep the price down. If I can get 3 great, but I’d rather invest in the memory card and an extra battery than better resolutions. The income I receive for my professional photography prints is still zero.

I am going to look at Kelty kid carriers tomorrow as well as used bikes. I’d like to get a beater bike for when I ride the bus and I want to get a carrier to stick Eric in if I want to hike or volunteer at races. Lucky for me, the bike store near my house is having a sale and Blue Ridge Mountain Sports is two doors down! Jen has a customer appreciation day at one of the local nail salons, so Eric and I will be hanging out for most of the day.

08/13/04
My first week at UT is over and was very quiet. I guess the best thing was that I ate out for lunch everyday without much of a worry. Of course, next week, it will a bagged lunch and all that jazz, but this week was a reward. Next week, I will really dig into some of the American Samoa information. Maybe then I will find out when we are going.

I did some speed work last night on the treadmill. While Jen was at her Mary Kay meeting and Eric had gone to sleep, I put in the movie Without Limits and put in about 2 miles. I can tell that I am out of race shape. I was planning on trying to race for the Scholars Run. I think now I will only run it as training and not go full board. I think that I have to run some distance that day. I should put my training schedule online. Tomorrow, I am going to be running around 10-12 miles, whatever feel comfortable. The weather is so nice this week, I should run in the afternoon when it is warmer, but I’m planning on being out the door at 6:30am for the little jaunt.

The Olympics start today, the Google logo, which changes infrequently is very cool!