Since I have a history of being pretty active I leapfrogged a little bit in the start of my marathon training. Where normally I would have taken longer to build up to 25-mile weeks, I did it in just over a month.

Now I’m going to stick with that distance and build gradually up to the 26.2 marathon distance. That is after an easy week next week to give my legs a little rest.

I’ve started doing a little speed work in at least one run a week. Timed intervals seem to work best for me and they did wonders for my training when I was racing bicycles. There’s nothing like suffering through a long interval to make you wonder what exactly it is your doing.

On a lighter note, my new training partner has uplifted some of my morning runs. She’s great. When we start out she’s always ready to go and full of excitement. In the van on the way to the trail she’s overly excited hopping from seat to seat ready to run.

Dogs make great running partners. In this case my two-year-old Chocolate Lab, Tootsie, leads me down the trail a couple of mornings a week. She’s new to this whole running thing so I’m taking it easy on her. No more than a few miles at first, and I let her dictate the pace for the most part at the end of the runs. She seems to be fine at the end of the run even ready for more, but I’m still going to get her checked out by the vet this week just to make sure she’s up for it.

I’ve built my long run up to 10 miles now and will probably stick at that distance for a couple of weeks. Plus I’ve gotten my training plan all together building up to the marathon.
There are lots of options when you start planning for a marathon. Some say you can do it only running three days a week, others want you to stop running and walk every few miles.
I’m sure all of these plans can be successful if you follow them all the way through.
I looked over several plans on the Internet and in books and magazines. I finally put one together that made me comfortable looking over it. Most of the modern training plans follow a periodization type outline.

In this type of plan you build your base, then you work on strength, then on speed sticking to each category for 3-6 weeks. Some newer plans have you swap the strength and speed portion of the plan, but since this is my first marathon I’m going to stick to what I know will work.

At the end you start decreasing your miles in a taper, hope everything falls together and you peak just in time for your marathon, or whatever else your planning for.I’ve followed the same type of plans while training on bikes and when you hit that peak at just the right time it feels pretty good. It’s a lot of hard work while building up to it but even that feels good sometimes.

I’ve run a few times at Cross Timbers in the last month. Hopefully being familiar with the course will give me a little edge if nothing else it might take off a bit of the nervousness.
On the other hand being familiar with the course might be cause to get a little more nervous.

CHRIS JENNINGS / HERALD DEMOCRAT
Scott Conrad gets the Sherman football field ready for Fridays's homecoming game against Wichita Falls Rider Wednesday afternoon. The previous weeks paint is gone after the field is mowed so it is re-painted before every home game.

CHRIS JENNINGS / HERALD DEMOCRAT
Scott Conrad gets the Sherman football field ready for Fridays's homecoming game against Wichita Falls Rider Wednesday afternoon. The previous weeks paint is gone after the field is mowed so it is re-painted before every home game.

A couple of random links for the day.

Can I borrow your camel?

Would you like a cup of tea?

Sometimes people are just plain stupid!

Saturday night we somehow managed to get both kids out of the house overnight. My son was on a camping trip and my daughter was spending the night with her grandmother and great aunt. Woo hoo. What were we to do? Well we went to a movie, then out to dinner. The movie was Talladega Nights and the dinner was Long John Silvers. I know it doesn't seem very exciting. So I had to spice it up a little.

We had coupons for LJS, but they were expired by about 3 months. I said I didn't care. I was going to try and use them. I know, I'm a trouble maker. The girl behind the counter took them and didn't even look at the date. Man we are such rebels. When she asked if I wanted chicken or fish though I got nervous and said fish, I wanted chicken.

Heather said we were going to get sick because of our miscreant deed. Next time we get rid of the kids for a night I'm gonna try and sneak into a movie.

The other day I told my wife I wrote a good morning column for the paper. She mentioned that while others had mentioned their significant others in their Good Mornings I had never mentioned her in any of mine. I guess that's because I don't really write very many. She persisted and convinced me, by holding dinner at ransom, to write a Good Morning about her.

My wife and I share an interesting relationship. We've been married for what seems like 20 years and we are both pretty sarcastic people and jokers in general. Case in point her nickname for me is stupid, mine for her is the same. Now before anybody calls Dr. Phil and tells him about our messed up relationship I need to say that my wife loves me, I am sure of it. I know this because I can't sit on the couch without her sliding over and trying to cuddle with me. When she does this I usually cringe and ask her what she thinks she's doing. Then as I start to think about where my next meal is coming from and just sit there.

A couple of years ago I called a girl I worked with stupid and felt guilty, like I was cheating on my wife. Never again. From now on my wife is my only stupid.

Sometimes as I sit on the couch I see her coming and can tell she wants to cuddle. I'll wait until the last possible second then get up. This drives her crazy and sometimes she'll chase me around the house wanting a hug. About the time she catches me the dog, who's nickname is also stupid, sees what's going on and realizes that we must be asking her to play so she squeezes between us, tail wagging and a smile on her face.

So there you go honey, I wrote a good morning about you and even alluded to the fact that you cook a decent meal. Now, if you will just leave me alone and stop making green beans things will be alright.

Oh yeah, I suppose I should say I love you.

CHRIS JENNINGS / HERALD DEMOCRAT
Baseball players Blake Starkey and Austin Chandler and basketball players Stormy Lynch and Laura Griffin stand motionless as Dillingham intermediate students walk past a living tableau exhibit put on by Mrs. Newman's theater arts class Wednesday afternoon. The theater students were required to remain motionless demonstrating several different activities as students passed through the hallways on their way to classes.

This assignment was kind of hard for me. I could not get a good angle and could not figure a good way to illustrate what was going on. Finally I shot a real slow shutter speed and got this. Ended up being 1/3 of a second at around f18, hand held.

I'll give you $20 if you jump off this bridge ;-)

Could you give me a hand please?

I was hanging out at Adrenaline and saw a flyer for the Fall Classic 5K trail run at Waterloo lake in Denison, not to be confused with the TMC/Diabetes Association 5K road race also held at Waterloo. The run is scheduled for October 21st and I immedatley decided I was going to run in that as my first organized run event. One problem, I was scheduled to work that weekend.

At first I was dissapointed then the wheels started turning. Maybe if there was not very much going on I could still run in it, take a picture during the run, change after the run and go back to whatever festival happens to be going on that weekend. Seems like a lot but I'm pretty confident I could pull it off.

Well as luck would have it the other photographer had a family engagement the next weekend so we switched. I now had the weekend free and am ready to roll or to better phrase it, run. Kind like fate, huh? There are a few other 10 kilometer and 15K runs I'm planning on doing before the big run. That should ease the nervousness factor about standing on a starting line. Even with my years of bicycle racing experience those wacky butterflies still like to visit before any new event.

A few of things that have helped ease my nervousness in the past are:

1. Sleep. Making sure your well rested in the days building up to the event will help counteract the restlesness most will experience the night before.
2. Go with a friend. Having someone there with you just to talk to can ease the jitters a little.
3. Pre-register. Getting rid of the hassle of registering on race day just gives you more time to get in the porta pottie line.

I know I said I was not going to try and race or break any records during my marathon and that my goal was just to finish, but I've had a change of mind. I've decided I need to set a goal If all I want to do is finish that's to vague, I'll never push myself during runs. Eventually I may not do some of the longer runs needed to build up to the 26.2 miles required of me. And that's just setting myself up for failure. I've had a couple of people tell me that they could tell that I was reaching out for help. They pledged to make sure they gave me enough of a hard time that I would stay on course. I wouldn't want to dissapoint the three people keeping up with me (mot counting my mother) so I've set an official time for my marathon.

My in a perfect world time is 4:30 hours. This will probably never happen but the lofty goal will make some of the harder runs easier. My realistc goal is 5:30 hours. This is the actuall goal that I will shoot for and be happy with at the end. My if all else fails time is 7:00 hours. This will be the goal I'll shoot for if something happens before the marathon or I get hurt but can still run during the marathon.

It's been almost four weeks since I started and now that my body is used to running again I've been able to get over the three mile mark as my longest run. I did 17 miles last week with a long 7 mile trail run at Eisenhower State Park on Saturday. I'm beginning feel better about this thing every week.

This piece of news makes me glad I don't have any goats.

"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."

Bob Dylan

I keep telling myself this, but it's hard to swallow sometimes.

Mark Hancock's take on what photojournalism is. This pretty much sums up exactly how I feel.

PhotoJournalism: What is a Photojournalist?

Dude can I borrow your phone?

This one was to good to pass up so I'm putting up two random links today.

Random link for the day.

Enjoy

CHRIS JENNINGS / HERALD DEMOCRAT
Members of the Eagle Patrol in Sherman's Boy Scout Troop 15 brave early morning showers to put out flags Monday morning. Labor Day is just one of the holidays the scouts put the flags out all over Sherman as a fund raiser for the troop. Money raised is used to help the troop buy equipment and pay fees for outings.

My son’s Boy Scout patrol had to put out flags EARLY Labor Day morning as part of one of the troops fundraisers. About 75 flags and two hours later we got to go home. Only to repeat the process in reverse later in the day as we picked up all the flags. The shot was taken using second curtain sync on the flash at a slow shutter speed to get a little motion blur.

CHRIS JENNINGS / HERALD DEMOCRAT
L-R, Terri and Tim Malek walk along the shore line of Lake Texoma Monday afternoon. The couple used a Monday off to do a little training for adventure racing.

We did ten miles at Crosstimbers on lake Texoma. I took very few pictures while on the trail but we walked the shore back, did a little bouldering, wading and what not. I had been taking a few photos along the shore and saw this large puddle and ran past them and into the puddle to get this shot. This was one of the last pictures I took that day since I was getting pretty tired.

It’s surprising that the first page of Google search results on the word smile has very little that might make me smile. There’s a link to a bank, an Internet hosting company, and a mathematics index.

On the plus side there is a link to a Not-for-profit, volunteer medical services organization that provides reconstructive facial surgery to indigent children and young adults called Operation Smile. In the ads on the right there is a link to a random act of kindness website .

On the second page there is a link to the 1975 film called Smile that got 7.5 stars out of 10 so it must have made somebody smile.

There have been studies done that have shown that smiling can make the brain produce endorphins that can reduce physical and emotional pain, and just make you feel better all over.

When I’m exercising I’m usually pretty intense and focused on what I’m doing. I’ve been conducting a little test over the past few days involving smiling. While I’m out running or riding my bike, I’ve been smiling. It works. Almost immediately I feel better.

It’s not enough to completely wipe away the pain, and it doesn’t make me superhuman, but it helps me get through it and at the end I feel better.

When I smile while I’m running or riding my bike it seems like I’m putting forth less of an effort. The plus side to this is that when I come across other people on the trail and they see me smiling it may just cause them to smile. After all smiling is contagious isn’t it?

Why don’t you try it, the next time your doing something and you find yourself intently focused on it try smiling. I bet as those endorphins start pumping you begin to develop a little bit of a different outlook.

Randomness for the day.