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Believe it or not, I think I have an interesting post to post, I just keep not completing it. So, this will have to hold it's place for now until I can do that one up, nice and proper.

Tonight - chance of rain - but rather low by TRY time. BUT, it looks like it could be very windy - like 20 mile per hour winds from the west? Coming off the lake with nothing to break it up? That will blow!

What else is timely but not being talked about lately? How about that heat we've been having? After the cold spring? WOW! I doubt you've noticed but it has made it seem EXTRA HOT! And how about a shout out to all the mothers in the world? They certainly have been under-mentioned lately.

That's it.

Hello and Goodbye

Kudos to the people bringing new people out to TRY. I have a couple people pending to come out, but at this point wonder if they will ever actually show up? I can only beg them so much before leaving it in their hands to decide for themselves. The group has morphed a lot over the years and would not exist at this point if newer people had not been brought in to replenish the ranks. The counter to that is that I'm always sad when someone who has been around and enjoyed the group has to leave us. The next departure is going to be Bobcat as she heads to a better job and a warmer climate. This week will be the last chance she has to come out to TRY, so please make it out if you can to give her a proper send off. As part of that, the after hours activity will take the group to The Village Burger for some family friendly dining and bad burger puns. Bobcat is on the hook to be there, so plan to join in if you can. (Hopefully a new person or two will be able to be there as well and continue to bond with the group. Bobcat's uniqueness may be impossible to replace? But we won't know until we try, right?! ;-)

My two favorite lines to use when someone is leaving may both from "Married With Children", from what I remember...
Peg is going away on a trip and asks if Al will miss her. Al shrugs and replies "I won't know until you leave?" Brutally honest and well worded! (Definitely from MWC as I can picture the scene.)

The second and my favorite one I cannot exactly picture so may be from somewhere else? In this case I would say "Bobcat. We'll be so miserable without you, that it'll almost be like you are still here!" A perfect backhanded compliment to use on any friend that is moving away! :-/

I have a couple "real" posts in my mind that I need to work on before they are ready to publish. So know that I haven't abandoned thinking about what to post to TRY. Look forward to a post on Topricin the possible wonder cream. Also another one on something about my experiences of getting my hands dirty and truly helping to organize a 5K event.

For the workout - you've been doing a good job of finding like minded runners for sharing workouts with. Keep that up. We have some Mountain Goat-ers on their final week before the race...perhaps taking it a bit easy? (Depends on long terms goals as well, of course) We have plenty of others still building up due to the late break in spring weather. Choose wisely and stay within your own limits. Your running goals cannot be achieved in a single workout, but sure can be derailed!

Also - a PSA that tickets can and will be given out on the Onondaga Lake Parkway as you are speeding from Liverpool towards Destiny mall. The speed limit changes later than instinct tells you and it is natural to be going faster than you should be as you accelerate out of the village. (If you do get a ticket, it helps to have a daddy that will bail you out and do the messy work for you... If you do not have a doting father, it is even more important to obey all traffic control devices!) Go fast in your intervals, but slow in the village speed zones.

Boston Anyone?

Terry hasn't had the time to put something clever on the blog, so you are stuck with another boring post.

Did anyone watch or follow the Boston Marathon today?  I spent some time this morning following the race.  The elite athletes are amazing.  The men's winner ran the last 5k in 14:40, and the women's winner ran the last 5k in 16:40.  The leg turnover is so quick...it is amazing and exciting to watch.  I don't think I could keep up with any of them for long.  I'm just glad to see another year safely completed!

Back to Syracuse...last week's turnout was great!  We had a big group and a new face (welcome to the group, Christin!).  It was great to see everyone come out and run what worked for them.  Some of us ran pickups, others ran hills, and yet another group did straight running.  We also celebrated Timmy's birthday after the workout.  Thanks for showing up with smiling faces and supporting each other :)

Tomorrow looks like it might clear up just in time for the run.  Currently, 5:30 looks to be rain free, a little windy, and mid 50s.  It is a decent forecast for April.

I have 1 hour on the agenda again with 3 x 6 min pickups.  For others who are ramping up the speed, I recommend 4 miles with 4 x 0.25 miles or hills for the Mountain Goat training gang.  If you are building distance, make sure to continue to push yourself, but do it safely.  The general rule is 10%...don't add more that 10% distance or speed in a week.  This will help keep you injury free!

If you have any questions on what to attempt, feel free to ask any of the more experienced members of the group.  Many members have been doing this for a long time and like to help.

--Kelly :)

Spring is Here!

As Terry posted over the weekend, spring has arrived in CNY!  Tomorrow's forecast is 60 degrees.  This is the perfect time to come out and get back into shape :)

For those of you who haven't been running, come out and get back into it with a couple miles.  If you have been slowly building, use this week to add some distance to your run.  If you feel tired, slow your pace a little so you can safely add that mileage.

For those who have been running and don't need a longer run, I recommend doing 2-4 quarter mile repeats over 4 miles.  I have 1 hour on the calendar if anyone wants to go a little further.  If my legs feel good, I will do 5 x 3 min pickups with 1 min rest.

As usual, please tailor your workout to your fitness at this time of the year.  You want to make sure to build slowly to avoid injury.  My workouts are a little more aggressive right now since we have been building for 9 months, and no one should feel that they need to be as crazy as me.  Always run what is right for you!

Don't forget to check out Terry's posts on Facebook about maple syrup, a couple of local races that he supports, and baseball opening day on Thursday.

--Kelly :)

Dusting It Off

No thanks to Mother Nature, it's time to dust off the ol' blog and get ready for regular posts starting next week. Many of you have long had your key race entries bought or key races picked out and know what your goals are, running-wise, for 2015. For you others that run more with the weather, it's time to start thinking about some goals. Whether that be a new race, a new distance, a new pace, weight-loss, or just more consistency in your training, it has been proven that having a goal can help you perform better. It helps even more if you write down. And for most people, even more, if you let someone else know. Something about the writing it down process or the sharing it process tricks your mind into being more accountable. So, for your goalless TRYers out there, use the next week to think of a goal for your 2015 running season. As for a certain birthday girl - I'm sure her response to this will be: "I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don't have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya... it feels phenomenal." Phenomenal or not, Sue, have a fricken goal this year, OK?

I had assumed I was going to be able to do recruiting for these in person, but I guess not. There were two races I planned on helping out with this spring, but fate conspired against me. One that I have helped for a few years - the "Making Tracks for Celiacs", would surely not line up with a race in my new neighborhood, would it? The "Paint Westvale Purple" 5K Run/Walk and Kids Dash needed some simple web help and just another person to help with ideas, so I offered to help out. It goes half a block from my second wife's new house, and supports Relay For Life, so it seemed like a no brainer. They wanted to avoid Easter so moved 2 weeks later into the month and moved to a Sunday just to see if that would work better. After committing to be on the committee for that I found out that MTFC moved a week early, and also decided to try out a Sunday. So, darn-it-all if they didn't pick the same day after being a full 3 weeks apart last year. They are both on Sunday, April 26th. So, I'm sad. But have to stick to the one I fully agreed to help with - the "PWP" one in the neighborhood. (They picked their date first, being another deciding factor for me.)

I recommend either race to people - the MTFC is a trail (field) run at Jamesville Beach Park. Website is here: Click on "Syracuse, NY" You've heard about this one in years past, so I'm not going to push it this year. If you have questions I'll be glad to answer them as well as I can.

The PWP is a mostly flat road race with lots of gift certificates available for age group awards - such that a few of you  could win $10 or $15 prizes (or more) just by coming out and running an average race for you. There are 30+ age group awards, and counting, available. They are really pushing making this a community event and have 3-4 groups lined up for on course music and entertainment. A sung national anthem, and better than average free food lined up on race day. This will be the third annual event and they are really hoping it becomes a spring staple. Website is here. (Let me know any critiques you have of the website. I want to make it better for next year, so any thoughts are appreciated.)

I selfishly recommend either race, but my heart and time are being spent on PWP, so that is where I'll be on the 26th. It would be great if some of you could join in. If you don't want to run, there are still volunteer spots available - or even just swing on by to cheer. (They plan to have 40+ cowbells on the course already - I wonder where they got a hold of that many bells?!, but could always use more, right?)

Let me know if you have questions. If you decide to run either, it's best to sign up soon to guarantee t-shirts and what not.

That's A Wrap

Tonight is the final Tuesday of the running season at OLP. Meet at 5 for a 5:05 start. Something I forgot and forgot to mention last week - a light or flashy light is not a bad idea since it will be dark by the time you finish. As with last week - we are shattering weather records for the warmest ending of a TRY season! Lucky. Due to darkness the post run cool down walk is cancelled again. Please just safely finish with your group and get safely to your cars.

From the informal survey and responses, it would seem that a Wednesday night group run under the Lights on the Lake is not happening. So, consider this a friendly reminder that both Wednesday night and Thursday nights are available from 5 - 9 PM to get out there on foot and take in the lights at your leisure. Thursday night is dog night, so you'll have some extra obstacles then but still should be plenty suitable to a walk or jog. Just remember to be extra polite either night if you jog - as that is not what the night is intended for. Give the walkers and the dogs right of way.

The Jingle Bell Run is coming up on Saturday, November 22nd. You can save yourself 5 bucks by registering at Fleet Feet the day before. Rumblings say that at least a couple TRYers will be involved again this year as part of our festive tradition.

A Disturbing Trend

What better use of an extra hour than to prepare this weeks blog post early for once? For those of you in Arizona, you get this benefit for free!

This week and next week we will meet at 5:00 with the group run starting at 5:05. We lost an hour of light with the end of daylight saving time but we only move the start up by 30 minutes in order to keep as many people involved as we can. This does mean it will be quite dark by the time the run completes, so be smart, run with someone if you can, and we skip the final cool down walk to shave 5 minutes off the end of our routine. (Another good idea is to choose a shorter run but to do it at a higher intensity to maximize the time available.) Remember that the bathrooms get locked at 5 as well, so arrive before that if you want to get relief right before you run.

A personal story on why I probably will not be there this week (and next?): after a failed attempt to sign Joseph back up for swim lessons at the Y on any weeknight but Tuesday we need to find an open time that will work for taking him ourselves. Naively the only time that works for us will be an early Tuesday night slot that is currently set aside for TRY. I’ll provide an update in the FB comments once I know for sure as I still need to check open pool times and compare schedules.

Since those of you who want to run through the winter will have to soon consider some treadmill running I thought now is the perfect time to share this article on how to make treadmill runs equivalent to running outside. It gives advice on how to get equal effort out of a treadmill run, then gets confusing, then comes around to a surprising conclusion. I am going to make you read it for yourself just to enjoy the circular journey it takes you on. (It is sort of fascinating and it’s my attempt to “amaze my running buddies” as is suggested in the final sentence.)

Due to underestimating the popularity of the “Seneca 7” race, the TRY team missed out on getting in before it sold out on Friday morning. In a continuation of a disturbing trend, the time you have to sign up for these popular, capped entry, races decreases exponentially every year. (In this case it went from a 5 day window last year to about a 1 hour window this year.) This sucks on so many levels that as a natural procrastinator I am basically catatonic. (Damn you, Adam Duerr and all you "Punctual Pete's" out there!)

Do any you have experience with other races that you've done that sell out (either triathlons or popular races throughout the US) and what creative ways they are coming up with to make the sign ups more fair? OK, fair may not be the right concept – but more drawn out? Is there any solution being tested out? All I know of is to switch to a lottery system which has plenty of flaws in its own right. Is there any creative way around this?

Another side effect of this trend is that entry limited races are free to start to raise their prices, because why wouldn't they? The law of supply and demand is clearly out of whack here, so why not crank up the price until it somewhat balances out? If race directors and accountants at the Seneca 7 and the Boilermaker do not raise their prices significantly next year then they must fall somewhere on the scale of “lousy at their job” to “morons”. Every race is in the business of making money. Either for themselves or for a charity. To not take advantage of us participants to make more money just does not make sense.

I’ll work through the example for the Boilermaker since I’m so much more familiar with that one. Two years ago everyone got the early bird pricing of about $35 as it sold out in about 3 days. This spring they were smart enough to raise the price to what had been a mid-process price of $50 and it sold out in a few hours (at a gain of over 200 hundred grand). If nothing changes, then this year it will sell out within an hour or two. If I were them I would raise the price to $100 just to see what happens. At 14,000 runners that extra $50 is well over 700 hundred grand of pure profit (assuming they were already making at least a little money) just by snapping their fingers. If there is any concern about not selling out, then play a game of chicken with the participants and set the early bird price at $100 with some reductions built in for a couple months, then have an inflection point and start increasing the price again as the race day approaches. (So a “V” instead of a straight line increase that we are so used to races doing to increase early entry.) Really, it’s such a good idea that there is no way they don’t start doing something like that soon. And it SUCKS! There is really nothing we can do about it. If the race still easily sells out, then they can (and should!) just raise the price again for the next year. Their sole financial goal should be to find the price point that is just high enough to barely sell out the race. If they get backlash from the running community they can either pump some of that money back into the event or make their charitable contributions more evident. (Or in the Boilermakers case, if they don't actually want the money, they could say, "Here Utica, have $700,000 on us! Anyone still complaining?") Any race that sells out in less than a day clearly does not realize the value of their product. (Does Disney World charge over $100 a ticket because that is the minimum they need to be profitable and to keep you appropriately entertained for the day? Or have they figured out that just happens to be the “magic” price to keep the “kingdom” full to capacity at that point in the year and will raise their price as soon as demand is high enough again to warrant it? Since they are not running some sort of Mickey Mouse operation there, I’m almost positive it’s the latter.)

 This running boom is off the charts right now and we are about to start paying the price for it if we want to participate in the most sought after races. It's a disturbing trend. :-(