Return to Huntsville State Park

The plan was to run 12 miles or so in Huntsville State Park this morning to prepare for Hogs Hunt 25k trail run that will be in the park May 16th. Missed a turn and just ran the Dogwood trail back to the Nature Center to get in more like 9.5 miles instead of 12. We'll have to make the difference up next Sunday :-)!!!!

Technologically Challenged

Yesterday I started messing around with downloading my Garmin data into SportTracks. I can then download the data from SportTracks into Buckeye Outdoors Training Site which has RSS feeds to display my data here, on Facebook and lots of other cool places I'm sure. Thanks to the Crazy Runner for giving me the idea to totally automate my running.

I've been downloading my Garmin workouts to the Garmin Training Center since 2006 and posting to Runners World since 2007 so I'm not sure if I'm going to be changing yet....running in tandem for now. The no entry option with the SportTracks to Buckeye combo seems sweet. Looks like Buckeye has lots of other features that I need to investigate.

I put together a nice 4 day running streak this week; plan on running trails in Huntsville tomorrow as well as the next 2 weekends for my Hogs Hunt 25k training.

I Run, You Run, We All Run.....

....for the post race all you can eat Blue Bell ice cream of course at the 31st annual Blue Bell Fun Run 10k Saturday morning in Brenham. Of course I swim, you swim.... would've been more appropriate this year as it rained the entire time I was out running. This was my first race that it actually rained during the event. Pretty amazing given all the races I've run.

"We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." Forrest Gump

I left The Woodlands a little after 6 Saturday morning with dry conditions. Seventy miles later approaching the race start line it started raining. Weather conditions got worse with lightening; the race start was ultimately delayed an hour and fifteen minutes until the lightening threat passed. I opted to wear a running hat and left the Garmin in my bag for this race. I think both proved wise decisions. I got my first 2 mile times but didn't get any other splits after that due to the fact that the race director had to reroute the course due to part of it being under water. I think they did a great job of pulling off this event when so many Saturday events were cancelled.

The course was changed to an out and back so whatever uphill/downhills we had going out we had the exact opposite coming back. Unfortunately the headwind seemed worse coming back; at one point I was dealing with a headwind, rain coming right at me, and uphill terrain. I think I slowed down somewhat on the 2nd half but got into a pace where I could make it uphill without having to walk before getting to the downhill portion of the rolling hills.

I wound up running 49:00 flat; that's over 3 minutes slower than my 10k PR that I ran just 7 weeks earlier in Houston. My training hasn't been what it was through mid January marathon training plus I'm a good five pounds heavier as well. Gonna start counting calories in and calories burned tomorrow. Hogs Hunt 25k will be here before I know it.

2010 Penciled In

Very light pencil at that. The only definete for 2010 so far is Goofy's Challenge in January. With some time to kill, I just pencilled in 2010 road trips. Kinda cool how it worked out to be an even numbered year with only odd numbered month events so far.

Other than getting my 3 1/2 marathon states in to keep me on my 50 states by the time I'm 50 goal, I've got a 10k and another 1/2 in California scheduled (it's a big enough state to get 2 events in). With Jessica and Dean Laws relocating to the Boulder area to run their own Chik-Fil-A, hopefully we'll get a group together to do the 50 thousand plus Bolder Boulder 10k next Memorial Day. The reason for the other California 1/2 is to get the Coast to Coast Challenge medal that Disney started offering last year for Orlando and Anaheim event finishes in the same year.

Not Much Running Lately

I got in one easy run last week and have one as well so far this week. Doing yardwork as well as being on the road with the Easter holiday has my mileage way down. It was good getting out there this evening even if it was only a 4 mile run.



Just saw Ryan Hall's last hard workout before Boston. He is such a fluid runner..... makes it seem effortless while clocking 4 minute miles. I'm sure he'll have a great Boston marathon.

Muddy Trails 5Kish

I ran a 5k here in Creekside village here in The Woodlands this afternoon. I went out way too fast and wound up run/walking the last 2 miles. Mile 2 seems to be short by about 1/4 of a mile based on my Garmin time and other facebook chatter that I've seen about the total course being short.
My mile plus warmup pace was actually faster than my race pace. Not sure what happened but had a fun time. They had boiled crawfish after the race so that was cool. The race shirt was a technical shirt....another good deal.
Miles per my Garmin were:
0.96 6:52 (7:09 pace)
0.76 6:52 (9:00 pace)
1.06 9:37 (9:03 pace)
0.13 0:58 (7:18 pace)
I ran/walked both the 2nd and 3rd miles so would expect those times to be close.
Hopefully I'll get out the door tomorrow for a run with Waldo.