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There is no TRY

[Editor - how dare my guest blogger use that as a title!?? That really steams my Yoda soda!]

There is only oppressive heat and high humidity.

That means its corporate challenge week! There will not be an official TRY run this Tuesday June 22^nd as the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge will be taking place on the parkway. Good luck to anyone participating!! As usual, it looks to be one of the hotter and more humid days we will see all year so make sure you hydrate accordingly and don’t push too hard. It’s a short race but running in the heat still gets dangerous and it’s really not worth hurting yourself to shave a few seconds off your time. Don’t feel bad about reeling it in if you’re not feeling 100% there won’t be many PRs out there. And remember there are plenty of other races coming up for a shot at redemption and most of them actually have timing chips. See Terry’s mountain goat recap for more thoughts on why you shouldn’t worry about running this race too hard.

In the past we’ve done meetups after the race and a lot of times head over to the outside bar at Retreat to hang out although we could probably decide as a group what to do and where to go tomorrow [editor - today]. There are generally a lot of runners out post-race so don’t feel bad about slumming it and not showering first – changing into a dry shirt is a good idea though. The Lockheed tent is one of the bigger ones and close to the t-shirt pickup so that would be a good place to meet other tryers. If you can’t find us, Terry should have his phone after the race (right Terry? [editor - of course!]) and we usually do a scavenger hunt to look for anyone we know that will be there. If you know where your tent will be and want to hang out or at least talk about how your race went let us know as well.

RELAY TRYERS – A big thank you to everyone that participated in the Relay For Life! The event seemed to be a great success and Terry did a phenomenal job organizing again this year. Plenty of late night runners and extra effort by the early birds (evening and morning) as well. There has been a lot of positive feedback about the “runners” at the event and having the cowbell lap as an official part of the festivities was a very visible example of the influence our group has had on the event as a whole. Terry you deserve all the credit for putting this together and getting us all involved. Hopefully it’s gratifying for you to see that your efforts to make the event more fun for everyone involved are paying off! Also, a few members of the herd made the local news…more famous TRYERS! Guest TRYERs Laura and Sam were on a clip of the event on Channel 10 Sunday morning and Terry is now famous for his role as a talking cow.

And lastly, congratulations to Aaron and Kelly for taking part in both the Relay and Green Lakes Triathlon this weekend! I’m not sure what happened at the race but I think Kelly exceeded expectations and Aaron has a story? Anyway, great job guys. Much more impressive than sleeping for 13 hrs straight which is what I did. [Editor - I'm not sure I've woken up yet?]

Mutiny on the Parkway

[Editor - This weeks entry and new poll on the right (please vote!) were written by a guest. So, if you notice higher quality content and better humor, you are not mistaken.]

After years of plotting and scheming my diabolical takeover of the TRY blog is nearing completion. Muhahaha

Now if only I had admin privileges…

We’re going to mix it up a little with the intervals this week cause I’m in charge and I say so. The run will be a combination of ¼ and ½ intervals.

1 mile warm up followed by:

½ fast ½ recovery

¼ fast, ¼ recovery

¼ fast ¼ recovery

½ fast ½ recovery

Up to this point we’ve always done ½ mile recovery after our intervals no matter what the length…however, in the interest of keeping the run at 4 miles while still fitting in four quality intervals I shortened the recovery time after the shorter intervals. I’m confident we can all handle this.

That last ½ interval is going to suck but just think of it as the annoying last .5 in the 3.5 mile corporate challenge. We’re trying to train our bodies to endure inhuman amounts of pain here and churning out a strong ½ late in the run will do just that! Or just do another ¼ if you really want. Okay, inhuman pain was an exaggeration but we are trying to get used to running fast when we are already tired so we run faster in races. Especially races that are randomly .4 miles longer than they should be.

Speaking of the corporate challenge, it’s next week! Tuesday (6/22) so for most of us this will be the last speed workout before the race.

This may be a goal race for some of you or just a stepping stone on your way to greater (or longer?) things. Who knows, you may find yourself running on another continent. Either way, don’t go to the usual spot to meet next Tuesday at 5:30. You won’t get a parking space and TRY won’t be there. But if you are at the race we usually meet up before or after the run and there will be a blog entry with info on that next week.

Lastly, Friday is the relay for life. There’s still time to sign up or donate to your favorite TRYers website:

Click here to visit my PERSONAL page.

What, what’s that you say…I’m not what? I’m not your favorite TRYer?

Fine.

Click here to view the TEAM page for Lockheed Martin

Happy [Belated] Flag Day!!

Get out there and wave what Betsy Ross gave ya!


[Editor - here is the first look at the new cowbells available now!]

Is There A Doctor In The House - a Prescription for Fun

We will step the intervals up another notch this week before starting over with shorter intervals again next week. Time for our first mile repeats of the year:
Mile warmup
Mile at speed
1/2 Mile recovery
Mile at speed
1/2 Mile cool down
So, two miles at speed in the midst of a four mile run.

I should have done this part before -- I think a few of you will find this useful:
For anyone curious about what a GPS watch provides you or who has been thinking about a GPS watch - here is what the output looks like. (Assuming I've opened up the permissions properly.) I put off getting a GPS watch for a couple years, but once I received mine as a gift, there was no going back. It provides distance, pace, elevation (so-so quality -- can't truly trust the elevation but it gives you a rough idea), heart rate (with optional strap), and a great google map summary of your workout. If you glance around at what happened during the Paige's run, you can clearly see where we took a quick breather later in the race and I can clearly see that I was overheating/overstressing...because my heart rate just kept climbing. I'm surprised to see how high my heart rate ended up. Normally it would not do that at the paces we were running. (Which allows me to think about my race day preparation and execution and attempt to figure out what went wrong.)

GPS watches are still expensive, but I highly recommend them. The online summary is great (and a free feature to use), it helps you manage your pace during races or long runs, and allows you to not have to measure/map out runs ahead of time. Especially while traveling, it's great to just be able to run out the door and trust the watch to know when I've covered the distance I wanted to cover.

About the Paige's Butterfly Race -- this was on facebook on Sunday, so not much new here for those who saw the pictures:
It all started by seeing a brief mention of the race and fun 'centipede division' in a weekly work email distribution. I noticed the blurb, forwarded it to some co-working TRYers and asked simply 'are you thinking what I'm thinking?' Turns out that some others were intrigued. Some recruiting/re-recruiting/begging later and we had our 5 team members. There was some behind the scenes brainstorming for theme ideas and finally a vote on which version to use.

The team trusted me when I said the costume would be all set. And with some major help from my consigliere Catherine and her sister, I showed up with two bags full of costumes. The set-up was confusing and hectic (some volunteers weren't able to tell us where to go, so it took a while to figure it out on our own)...I started handing out props and clothing and bless their hearts, they just kept putting them on. So an ordinary group of runners became Dr Dre, Doc Halladay, Dr McDreamy, Dr Pepper, and Dr Seuss (mispelled).



Dr Seuss and Dr Pepper did a great job setting the pace and picking our path, while the three in lab coats did a great job of not slowing them down too much. We made quite a scene and kept getting our pictures taken whether we wanted them or not. A murmur swept through the crowd whenever we walked or ran through...as we stood out a bit.

For our efforts we won the centipede competition race as well as the costume contest.


But more importantly we won Paige's parents thanks. They thanked us for our creativity and for adding so much fun to their event.



And I'll end with this thought -- one of the team members was heard saying "I've never ran a race for fun, before". Which reminded me -- it's important to have fun once in a while. So, if you've never ran a race for fun before, think about it. Find a fun race to do, whether it be a concept or a location, and run it below your pace. Look around. Enjoy the scenery. Enjoy the crowd. You just might like it! And you never know just how far that fun will take you. You might even end up being famous for it. :-)



A special thanks to the Centipediatricians. For trusting me. And for not just playing along, but for playing it up. You won the crowd! You were awesome.

Kinda Funny

I'm a couple hours away from Syracuse at my families this morning...waking up at 5:30...to rain. So, I had to laugh that after almost unbearable heat and days of beautiful sunshine, that Tuesday morning would start with rain. Figures. But we certainly need some, so hopefully Syracuse is getting it as well. (Doppler map shows its much lighter there, but seems to be hitting.)

Reminder -- for the LM team, signs up are due in a couple days for the Corporate Challenge. I assume thats true for others as well.

This weekend is Paige's Butterfly Run. It's one of the "Syrathon" races and one I have never done. Some TRYers have joined with me on a "Centipede" team where we will run linked together -- should be worth a laugh if you happen to be doing the race yourself or want to be downtown for an early start on the taste-of-Syracuse.

Tonight -- should be really nice TRY-time weather conditions. Let's step it up with some Memorial Day cookout burning off 1/2 mile intervals. Probably will do three 1/2 mile on portions embedded in a 4 mile run.

That's it...I need to drive back to the Cuse!