It's gettin' busy.

The date for the BAE Half Marathon looms for me. It's only three weeks away and I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep the pace I need for the sub two hour finish. I went out for a run on Sunday and had big plans for it. Amanda and I live about four miles from Sugar Hollow Park where there happens to be a nice cross country 5k course. My plan was to run to Sugar Hollow and maybe do the 5k course and run back. I got to the first intersection for the Target shopping center, which was about a quarter to half mile from the park, and decided that was a good place to turn around and head back home.

My entire run was on Highway 11, which most days is a pretty busy road, but late Sunday mornings, it's a ghost town. There were some cars on the road, but not anywhere near the volume that you regularly see. The route was good in that the first part of the run is mostly downhill, with one downhill being about a half mile, so coming back was very challenging. I felt like I stayed on my 8-9 minute per mile mark, but I could tell I slowed on the hills.

The whole trip was around 7.5 miles and I ran it in 56:47, which I don't consider a bad time at all. I figure that my early miles were fairly quick-paced. Again, I felt pretty good after my run, but do I think I could run for another 6 miles? I'm not sure. I didn't feel THAT good after Sunday's run, but if the half were that day, I would've done it. Probably not under two hours though.

This weekend is the 12th Annual 12 Hours of the Hill of Truth mountain bike race in Knoxville. Every year some friends and I take a team to this race, Granny's Rotten Teeth. We do pretty good every year, finishing mid-pack to somewhere near the top. Last year's weather was terrible so the lack of attendance and our aversion to quitting put us in the top spot. Needless to say, a couple of my running days will be substituted for some riding days this week. Which also means that the first blog for next week will either be about the bike race or will wait until I get to run again.

One of the nice guys

Today's post will deviate a bit from my usual banter about the condition of my legs or my progress with training. Instead I want to dedicate today's post to Bill Collie, a fellow cyclist who passed away last week while riding.

I didn't know Bill extremely well, in fact, he knew my older brother much better having grown up going to the same schools and graduating together. I would talk to Bill at random rides and bike races where I would see him at the beginning and end, while he rode away from me during. He was quiet and soft spoken off the bike, but on the bike, he was an animal. Dropping most, if not all, of the competition despite his not-so-noticeable setbacks with his heart condition. Regardless of how soft spoken he was or how angry he made you while trying to keep his wheel, you couldn't help but like the guy. And, judging from last night's services in Wise, there were possibly thousands more that felt the same way.

When I arrived at the church, the line to get into the doors stretched down to the end of the block. After an hour of standing, I made my way into the church. When I came out I saw the line had grown to stretch to the end of the block, down the next sidewalk, across the road and almost reached the intersection of Main St. and Birchfield Rd.

To be such a quiet and soft spoken guy, seems Bill had a profound effect on so many people. One of the truly nice guys in the world and he will be missed, no matter how well you knew him.

Running with Dogs

For those of you who are familiar with my circle of mountain bike pals and their blogs, the title of this blog may look familiar, but I couldn't think of any better post titles. So after reading my post, head on over to a similarly named blog for some mountain bike talk.

There isn't much to write about since my weekend consisted of mountain biking instead of running. I did get out for a run on Monday though. Amanda texted me while I was at work asking if I wanted to go to Sugar Hollow Park. The park is only about five minutes from our house and has lots of nice trails, a dog park and a paved walking path. Amanda has been walking the path recently and is doing really well with her distance. She is having some shoe problems too, so we may have a Foot RX date soon so we can get some shoes for our ailing feets.

So Amanda and I loaded up the dogs and headed out to the park after work. We decided that since Pacino (the older dog of the two) is a little more docile and way less A.D.D than Sofie (the younger one) that I would run with Sofie and she would walk with Pacino. It worked out pretty well and Sofie did an excellent job running with me. Early in our run she had a tendency to run across my path to greet other dogs or people, and once almost sent me face first into the dirt. Once she got in the groove of the run, we had fun.

She was there with me to witness my one minute crushing of my fastest 5k time on the cross country course out there. I've never been able to run it faster than 28:09, but Monday I ran it in 27:01. It's not distance related, but it is a good indicator that I'm getting some nice running legs. So that time puts me at nine minutes per mile, and if I can do that for 13.1 miles I will be below my self-imposed two hour time limit with three minutes to spare. I even felt good enough after the run to run back down to the dog park where Amanda and Pacino were hanging out with about 30 other dogs. I had a feeling that Sofie wouldn't be much for playing or running since we just blasted a 5k, but she had buckets of energy left.

I did find that I got into a good groove earlier in Monday's run than I have in previous runs. I felt like my stride and pace was the most comfortable it had been since I started. Yep, I'm getting the hang of it!

#BeatCancer

Since my last post, I haven't been running much. Heck, I hadn't ran at all since then! I skipped out on running for the weekend for some bike riding. I have a bike race around the bend, so I need to keep my riding skills honed in for it. Twelve hours at Haw Ridge demands some attention!

Despite my lack of running over the weekend, I do plan to get a couple of running days in this week so I can stay on track. I'm hoping that by the end of the month I can be at or close to running ten miles. I think I'm on track for that.

That's about all the news I have for now. I do want to remind all you tweeters out there that Paypal is donating $0.05 to Livestrong for every #BeatCancer you tweet. So tweet now and tweet often to make it a big paycheck for cancer research!

Piney Flats...not very flat.

I realize it has been a few days since I've written, but fear not my friends, I have not left. I normally write before work, but for the past several days, the hustle and bustle of work have slid into my normal blog time, besides, I have two runs under my belt since my last post.

Monday I ventured out another run by myself. I wanted to get at least 40 minutes of runtime in, regardless of the distance of that 40 minutes, so I set out on run around the great city of Bristol, Tennessee. I started a block away from my office and found a nice loop that I can one day add to. It was much easier to find my stride and pace on Monday. I think I'm really getting the hang of this running thing. When I started, I felt like I had run for hours ten minutes in, but now, after ten minutes, I feel like I've just warmed up. That's a pretty good feeling considering I don't like running all that much.

I managed to only get about 35 minutes of running in on Monday. When I finished, I was curious as to how far I had run, so when I got back to my car I decided to re-trace my route. Turns out, in my 35 minute run I had managed to cover four miles. Not too bad and right at my usual pace for a 5k. It was nice knowing that I kept that pace for an extra mile.

Yesterday, Chris and I met up at Piney Flats Bike Shop for a run. We started from there because I had to pick up a part for my ailing bike. After some route discussion with Eric Davis, one of the shop employees (I use the word employee loosely here), pointed us in the direction of a route that was right at five miles with a few hills. So Chris and I tied our shoes tight, started our timers and headed out on our newfound route.

Eric wasn't kidding, the route had several hills. A couple of them were very gradual and the rest were like climbing stairs. It was a tough run. We managed to run five very hilly miles in 47 minutes. A time I don't consider too bad considering the terrain.

I can say that since I've started running, I haven't run the same route twice. Not sure how that has happened, but it has and believe me, it wasn't intentional. Maybe that's why it's becoming so easy to get started...new scenery. When I'm on the bike, whether it's the mountain bike or the road bike, I rarely find myself in unfamiliar territory. But after yesterday's run in Piney Flats, I will go back to run that route again. It was challenging, but fun.

Running solo

Since I've started running I've tried to keep some company with me. I've gone with the dogs, Ironman Chris Dillow, but on Saturday I went by myself. My plan was to go to Sugar Hollow to run the cross country course a couple of times. The course is very hilly and about 5k, mostly on grass and sidewalk. It was kinda hot, but not muggy so I thought I could get 10k in easily. Being by myself, my pace was probably a little faster than it should have been so I wore down pretty quickly.

I've realized that I run a lot better when I have someone to run with. Chris and I ran about six miles last week and I didn't really have much trouble with it. The last bit hurt, but I got through it much better than running by myself. I need to find a good pace to run so I'll be enlisting some running partners to help pace me, plus it's nice to have some conversation to pass the time. I've seen people run with iPods, but I can't do it. I like to hear my feet hit the ground. Today, I'll be by myself again, hopefully finding my pace on my own.

Not running in place

So I'm having trouble getting the blog to link to the facebook fan page. It would be nice if I could have it automatically post to facebook via internet magic, but I always get the dreaded, "Something went wrong. We're working to fix it" message. Bullocks!

Yesterday was a bit of a milestone...I ran six miles. Yep, I'm around halfway to a half marathon and six miles is the longest distance I have ever run...without stopping. Chris and I ran at a leisurely pace that consisted of discussion topics ranging from vacations in Colombia to that old Mantracker show that came on one of the Discovery channels. Turns out we have great show ideas we will be pitching in the near future. Chris can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think our time for the entire run was 45ish minutes. It seemed like it went faster. I did feel pretty good after the run as well as during the run. I think I may be getting the hang of it, finally.

I have come to the realization that the shoes I am running with need to be replaced with shoes that I should be running with. My right arch felt like it was going to split in two when we finished. I am expecting to stop by the FootRX or Fleet Feet, whichever one I happen to be in the vicinity of when I remember my shoe problem, to get matched to a proper running shoe. I ran track for a bit in my earlier days of high school and wore a pair of Avia's. From what I recall, they were very comfortable shoes, so maybe that is my shoe match? I'll let the experts decide I guess.

It's getting much colder now which means that I will be tempted to do some training indoors on boring treadmills. I enjoy the outdoors, so I may have to suck it up, throw on the micro-fleece and run outside anyway. Really cold weather hurts my chest, but running inside is lame-o.

Calm before the storm

I guess I should report on my weekend with training and all. I will say that I did not get to do any research on charities over the weekend, but I did officially decide that I will be doing the Nashville Marathon in April. I hear that it's a good one, plus I have friends in Nashville that I haven't seen for a while.

The first phase of my training is to be able to run a half marathon. The whole enchilada is too much to think about this early in the training process, so my short-term goal is to be able to run 13.1 miles, preferably in two hours. If I can get a half down to two hours or less, then I think I can do 26.2 at or under four hours.

Chris Dillow and I did get to run for a bit on Saturday at the MSG Cyclocross race. I didn't really go for distance so much as I just wanted to work the soreness out of my legs from Day 1. For most of the weekend I've had a very sore and tight right calf, but it does feel much better today...just in time to start my first full week of training. Since I was able to run about four miles last Thursday, I'm going to do the same tomorrow, then try to add a mile or so to it on the next day I run. If I plan it right, I should be around 13ish miles by the time the BAE Half Marathon rolls around on November 13. Maybe I'll run some of it soon and invite all of my readers, so you can all see just how poorly I run!

Thanks for the support and keep those donations coming!

"Not My..." fans

Yesterday was my first official day of running. My plan was to meet "Ironman" Dillow at Steele Creek to run the Lakeside Trail which is about four miles. I got a text around 3 p.m. that said he wouldn't be making it, so I grabbed the next best running partners...my dogs. They have been staying inside quite a bit lately since the rain has moved in, so I thought it would be nice to get them out for some exercise.

The original plan with the dogs was to go to Sugar Hollow Park which is about five minutes from my house, but when wI pulled into the park, I noticed some John Battle Cross Country meet signs. So running there in the midst of hundreds of high school kids with two unruly dogs was out of the question. So, the dogs and I stuck to my original plan and went to Steele Creek instead.

It had rained earlier which cooled things down quite a bit, so I wore a long sleeve that I shed about halfway through my run. The run, however, was a nice assessment of my physical ability to run a marathon and I realized that I have a long way to go to make it 26.2 miles. Part of my training includes running a half marathon in November. Nate tells me that since I have some experience with endurance mountain bike racing and that I'm in pretty good shape already, that I should be able to train minimally for the half and complete it no problem. Here's to hoping he is right.

I did get to look up a few charities this morning with my breakfast and coffee. I still haven't decided which one to go to just yet, but I have some ideas. My facebook fan page is also getting some fans, which during my run yesterday I decided to dub them the "Not My..." fans. Thought it was catchy so I'm using it. So all of the Not My fans, please share my blog with your friends to help me with this endeavor.