Category: Running

Marathon selected; training plan in place

I had not planned an official marathon for the fall since we had planned to move to Argentina about the time I wanted to run a race. A couple of weeks ago it was decided that we would not be going to Argentina until early next year. That left the fall open to scheduling a race.

Mississippi Coast Marathon
I looked through Marathon Guide to help me pick a race. My requirements were that it be a Saturday race and that it be within a couple of hours of some place I am going to be in my travels for the fall. I also needed a race late enough in the year to get a full 16 week training plan going. In the past I might have been able to shave a couple of weeks off a plan and not be too set back, but this year my running has been less than stellar. I have been running enough to stay in shape, but not enough to say that I am ready to consider a marathon a few weeks out.

The Mississippi Coast Marathon fits everything I needed. In fact, a full training plan allows me to start today and finish 16 weeks from now running the race. It is run on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I have not made my travel schedule that far out (boy am I behind), but I do know the plans are to spend Thanksgiving with my parents and some friends in Pensacola, FL. This marathon is about 2 hours from Pensacola.

Training Schedule
I chose the same training plan I had last year. It is a computer generated plan from Runner’s World. I will be running 3 days a week and cross training the rest. The mileage is a bit higher than the plan I chose last year, by just a couple of miles a week.

Last year I did not have any time goals since I had never run a marathon before. My only goal was to have fun. Now that I have a time to beat, 4:32:10, I have specific training pace goals for each of my runs. These should be reachable goals. May be too easy right now. Today I ran 1:50 per mile faster than the training plan called for.

Pre-race Plans
I am thinking of going over on Friday afternoon so that I can get a good night’s rest going into the race. Then if any family wants to come over and see the race on Saturday, they can get up and just drive over for the finish. Not sure if any are interested in that.

What to expect?
As a way to get myself back into blogging and keep myself motivated with the running, I will try to give you a weekly re-cap on my running like I did last year heading into the big weekend.

Packing up

We are still in Mexico packing up our things and getting ready for the big move. Fortunately we are doing this in stages. If you don’t already know, we are moving to Argentina. The plan was to be there in October, but it works out that January will be a better time for us to make the move.

When we left Mexico back in August of last year, we packed up most of our stuff and put it in a storage room. We did not know where we were going next at that time. There was a possibility that we would be staying in Mexico, but not in this area. It made sense to not sell all our furniture until we knew what part of the country, or world, we were going to next. Now that we know where we are going, we need to get rid of this stuff. Most of it is impersonal household items like couches, fans, trash cans and office supplies. Having been apart from these items over the last year, it seems to be a bit easier to put a price on something and watch it walk away.

Currently we are just selling to our friends. Later this week we open the floodgates to the general public. There is still a lot of processing to do to get ready for the opening of the garage sell on Friday. Coupled with that, we are preparing for a camp next week. There is a lot to fill our time with this week that could throw us off our goal of being packed up before camp starts on Tuesday.

As I said, this move is in stages. After this packing up time we will be taking what is left back to the US and putting it in storage there. We will continue to travel throughout the fall and then figure out how to get the necessary items into a few suitcases and start flapping our wings towards Argentina.

Among the things I have enjoyed doing while back in town is running on some of the same roads and paths that have become so familiar in my running career. I have not logged a lot of miles since being back, but I have enjoyed them.

ASDathletes.org

A couple of weeks ago I ran a 10K race in Knoxville with Terry Higgins. Terry is the founder of ASD Athletes. ASD  Athletes is an organization that helps promote wellness and life skills opportunities through athletics to young people with autism.

Autism can manifest itself in different ways. According to the ASDa website there are 5 different disorders that are on the autism scale. These disorders mainly affect the individual in areas of communication, social interaction and behavior. ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Someone who is autistic is said to be “on the spectrum” based on which of the 5 disorders they have.

While people affected with autism are limited in different ways concerning communication and behavior, they often have unbridled athletic ability. Athletics are an area where an autistic person can excell.

I did not run this race with Terry as a fund raiser for ASDa, but I did try to help promote the cause by wearing an ASDa shirt. They do have an event coming up in the next couple of weeks that is a fund raiser for them. They are the beneficiaries for the Tellico Sprint Triathlon on June 21. ASDa is looking for volunteers to help them with promotion of the event and sponsors to help raise money for their efforts.

Please take some time to visit the ASDa website and see how you can help Terry and his efforts to bring a physical outlet to people who may be limited in one area, but can excell in another.

Long run to start the day

I have been in training for a 10K race in Knoxville coming up next weekend. The training has not been going overly well. While I have continued to run, and probably gotten faster, my times are pretty pitiful. I have gained a bit of weight since being home over the last year. I have to figure out a way to keep that at bay. I think I have stopped the increase, but I have not been going back down yet. A couple of dozen extra pounds are really making it hard to run.

I may still be able to PR next weekend, which was the goal of doing the race, but I don’t think I can hit the time I was going for. I am going to adjust my goal, but still shoot for a PR.

Yesterday I got a chance for a nice long run as prescribed in my training plan. This was the first time to do a long run in my home town. It was amazing to me how small the town is when broken down to an 8 mile run. I was able to make a loop out of the top left quadrant of town and do the distance.

While my speed is not great, it was fun to run around town yesterday. It was a great way to start a very busy and fun-packed day.

Camping days of spring

Last week we took three days of our time at home to do a little camping. We had a great time at Blackwater River State Park. As much fun as the camping was, the preparation was fun too.

We were wanting to do some canoing on this trip, but did not want to pay the price of a canoe rental. I have a friend with a kayak who said I could borrow it at any time. I took him up on it and picked it up a couple of days before heading out. At church on Sunday I asked another friend who I thought had a kayak if I could borrow his. He no longer has it, but recommended another friend who had a canoe. I called the canoe friend to find out that his canoe is in disrepair. He gave me a name of another friend that might have one I could borrow.

We checked around and did not find another canoe, but the man with the busted canoe said he had a couple of kayaks I could have if I wanted them. Not just have for the trip, but have as in “take out of my back yard and don’t return with them.” Though they are not in great shape, I think I can do something with them.

The morning we were planning to leave I called another friend to borrow a couple extra life jackets. I knew he would have them. Doug has everything. He offered the use of his canoe too. Great! For a family with small kids, canoes work out better than kayaks. So we ended up with one good canoe and one good kayak for the trip.

After Dad and I got the boats to the house along with all the needed equipment we had to figure out how to get them both strapped to the top of the van. In the process we forgot to transfer the life jackets from his truck to my van. That caused a frustrated hour and a half trip to town to buy some life jackets. Took time out of our play time to do that. But we ended up good and tired by the time the afternoon was over. We probably would not have played much more in the water.

Monday we got camp set up and grilled hamburgers. That night was a great night for looking at the stars, but the trees were too tall around the camp ground area. All we could see were stars right above us. We had not explored the area well before it got dark on Monday. We did not know that there was a large parking area just a couple hundred yards from the campsite that we could have easily seen the stars from. Then, of course, the next night it was cloudy and we could not see any stars.

Tuesday we at a sausage casserole cooked in the dutch oven. A man named Bob Sharp in Utah bought me that oven as a gift about 12 years ago. We have had some good meals out of it. Lunch was sandwiches as we prepared to go to the river. For supper we had some great steak and a cake baked in the dutch oven. I am out of practice on baking in the dutch oven. I burned the cake a bit. But it was still edible.

Tuesday morning I also went running. I found a nice 2 mile section on the Juniper Creek Trail to do an out and back course giving me 4 miles. A wrong turn here and there and I ended up running almost 5 miles. I got to get up close and personal with an indigo snake too. It was about 5 feet long. They can get up to 8.5 feet in length.

Wednesday we had pancakes and went hiking. Lunch was sandwiches eaten while lounging in the hammock I made last week.

We had a great time. It was fun to turn off the electronic world for a couple of days.

Pictures to follow when I finally pull them off the camera.