the adventure lives on

Hubig Pie Run

2012-02-08T02:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I ran what is fast becoming my favorite lunchtime CBD/French Quarter route. Well I guess its now CBD/FQ/Faubourg Marigny route as I cross into the Marigny after hitting Esplanade at the back of the quarter.

While I have run this route a couple of times and have noted the Hubig Pie factory on Dauphine street, I never experienced the sweet aroma of pies baking while running. I swear I gained a couple of pounds just taking in the smell of sweetness while I ran down Royal, a block off but the wind blowing the smell my way. On the way back, I passed right in front of the factory but the smell had faded.

Mission accomplished. I got in a good 7+ mile weekday run and put my Sunday non motivated 10 mile run behind me.

Clydesdale Motivation

2012-02-05T18:21:00.000-08:00

This Sunday was my 3rd consecutive weekend long training run. Mileage today was 10 miles; it was just one of those days where I never got comfortable running. If I hadn't run an out and back run, I probably would have cut the run short. Legs were fine.... I just never got into a groove.

A big motivating factor for me since the Louisiana Half last month was my realization that I could have completed in the Clydesdale division for the race. The Tammany trace has a horse trail along with running/walking and biking. I smile everytime I see the horse trail signs.

Toto didn't tell me Kansas had hills

2012-02-01T17:49:00.000-08:00

This should be interesting after months of pancake flat training and races. I look forward to the challenge in Leavenworth, Kansas May 20th!

January is in the books

2012-02-01T17:36:00.000-08:00

I hate to spoil a good thing by committing it to writing but I seemed to have finally turned the corner with my achilles tendonitits issues that have plagued me the past few months. Two weeks now of much less pain and I've been able to increase the miles. I wound up with 88 miles for the month; 12 miles short of an ultra race for you 100 mile racers out there. 27 miles more than the 61 that I logged in January 2011. That puts me on pace for a 1,000 mile year. That hasn't happened the past 2 (or is it 3) years.

I'll take it.

It seems like winter has thrown in the towel for the moment at least. After several roller coaster weeks of hot and then cold weather, its been really mild (and humid) the past week. Makes you think we are in a different J month, say June compared to January. Nah, I'd love to have this mild weather in June.

Registered for state number 46

2012-01-20T07:31:00.000-08:00

I will be visiting Kansas for the first time ever (I think) to run state number 46 May 20th. This will mark my third time flying into Kansas City International airport to travel to a race. I believe that breaks a tie for the arrival airport for races for me! Not to be outdone by arrivals, I will be departing out of Baton Rouge for the first time for a race. Given the fact that I'm not much further from Baton Rouge's airport than New Orleans and that I'd be connecting with either airport, price was the deciding factor in my selecting Baton Rouge.

I'll be running Five Trails Half Marathon in Leavenworth, Kansas. It is a small event run on a loop course with easy parking. I am leaning towards smaller races with efficient race logistics these days. While Rock n Roll and Disney type large events with transportation needed to and/or from the start and finish are exciting and appealing, I go through phases where events where trying to not get lost due to so few participants on the coursse are just as appealing.

Inaugural Louisiana Half Marathon

2012-01-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

Wow. No posts in November or December..... except for a weekend training run the first weekend in November my posting and weekend running for that time period lines up perfectly.

My 2011 fall running season can best be described as how not to train for a half marathon. The good news is that I ran on average 3 times a week for much of the fall. The not so good news is that I averaged 5 miles on those runs. Not bad for the general public.....not good for training for mid to long distance races.

After completing the 3rd annual Jazz Half (my 2nd consecutive) the last weekend in October, I looked forward to having plenty of time to train properly for the Louisiana Half. That didn't happen. I blamed myself for lack of motivation; however, I believe things may turn around for my next training session which just began. I have been having Achilles issues since May of last year. I've had these issues before and they seem to linger for what seems like forever, resolving themself on their own timetable. While the Achilles is just tender to the touch and sensitive when both walking and running, it is not an acute injury that will keep you from running altogether. As such, my training the past few months has been on the light side but still there; when co-workers comment that I'm walking funny, I know its time to back off the running.

I was really pleased with the Louisiana Marathon/Half experience this past weekend. The race was marketed as an alternative for those that did not get into Houston. For me, it was a better experience than Houston as I'm presently on the smaller events kick. My biggest complaint about the event is that they advertised no day of race pickup so I had to drive the expo Saturday to pick up my race packet and then back for the race Sunday morning. I realize they want you at the expo to view sponsors stuff and all, but you go to enough of these expos and they really all start to look alike.

The weather for the weekend was made to order for runners in my opinion. It was in the mid 30s at the start and around 45 when I finished nearly 2 hours later. I believe my splits below indicate my level of training/fitness was good for almost 10 miles. The last 5k was tough for me.

Mile 1 9:25
Mile 2 8:55
Mile 3 8:43
Mile 4 8:59
Mile 5 8:58 4&5 were tracked together on my splits and included a potty break
Mile 6 8:17 thanks to the much appreciated potty break
Mile 7 8:46
Mile 8 8:34
Mile 9 9:02
Mile 10 9:33
Mile 11 9:16
Mile 12 9:11
Mile 13 9:42
Last .1 1:05
Chip time: 1:58:17

Half marathon 63 is in the books. Just 37 more 1/2's to meet the Half 2 Run group's 100 half marathon challenge. Well maybe just 35 as I believe 25k's count as well!

Jazz Half Marathon

2011-10-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

When I signed up for this race in early March, my training was going really well. I intended to challenge my PR on this fast, flat course in New Orleans. Two months later after completin.g back to back halfs, my training fell off the side of a cliff with work and later moving taking huge chunks of my time. Add in achilles tendonitis in both legs and my weekly mileage dropped to single digits.

Since moving back to Louisiana early August, I had logged one weekend long run along with 2 half marathons prior to this race. Since the Gulf Coast 1/2 3 weeks prior to this weekend, I had 4 5 mile weekday runs. With all that said, I was totally pleased with my time of 1:55 in this race. The weather was to my liking with start temps in the lower 50s. There was a brisk 10-20 mph wind but with the course being looped, there were head, tail and cross winds. I definetely can deal with wind better than heat.

The start and finish were moved to near Lafayette Square this year. This gave more room for the post race party; otherwise, the course was the same as last year's course.

With the Louisiana Marathon and Half 11 weeks away, I'm ready to start training properly for this upcoming race. I'm now officially down to one house and am pretty much done with getting settled in so no excuses for those weekend long runs!

Thanks to the New Orleans Saints 55 point beatdown on the Indianapolis Colts, I'm now registered for Rock N Roll New Orleans in early March. I don't think competitor envisioned a 55 point spread when coming up with their promotion for discounted registration the day after Saints games. $1 per point netted me a 1/2 marathon registration under $40. The savings have been capped at $21 for future discounts.

Gulf Coast Half Marathon Louisiana Northshore

2011-10-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

After traveling 4465 miles in straight line distance for the Bupa Great North Run last month, this past Sunday's half marathon in Fontainebleau State Park was a wake up in your own bed event for me.

With 1149 finishers Sunday, the field was much smaller than the 54,000 runners registered for the GNR. I am favoring smaller events these days; there were plenty of runners around me the entire race.

Estimating a 12 week intermediate half marathon training plan at 225-250 miles, I logged just over 100 miles for the 12 weeks leading up to this race. The lack of training came back to haunt me around the 8 mile mark, a little earlier than last months GNR but understandable given the warmer weather conditions and abundant sunshine.

All in all, it was a great race for my 61st half marathon. It was my first race in Louisiana outside of New Orleans.

Next up is the Jazz half in New Orleans the last Saturday this month.

Bupa Great North Run

2011-09-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

Just back from my first trip to England where I ran in the Bupa Great North Run September 18th. This race is currently the world's largest half marathon with a maximum capacity of 54,000 runners. A general lottery is held for race entries as well as many entries being reserved for runners racing money for various charities.

I must admit that the trip was poorly organized on my part as I was pre occupied for the months leading up to the race buying and selling houses and relocating from Texas to Louisiana for work. Once my actual move date was nailed down and my move completed in early August, I decided in mid August that I would indeed make the trip for the race.

I first learned of this huge race in northern England in October last year. I wore my race shirt for the Jazz Half Marathon that I had just completed on my flight back to Houston from New Orleans. The guy seated next to me was returning to England after vacationing in New Orleans. Seeing my race shirt, he told me about the Newcastle race and how difficult it was to secure a spot in the event.

Once I got home, I researched the race and noted the lottery opening date on my calendar. I entered the lottery not confident that I would be selected. So as luck would have it, my entry was successful when the lottery was held in January. Once selected, I booked a race transfer package that included lodging for the night prior to the race. Not knowing anything about the area, I just blindly selected a place based on website descriptions (and price of course).

Reviving my trip planning seven months after being entered into the race and having one nights lodging booked, I booked a Wednesday to Wednesday flight from New Orleans to London with United or Continental (can you really tell these days?). I bought a book on England earlier in the year to help with my planning. Based on the 7 days I would be in England, I booked a couple of nights in a hotel in Bath for my first 2 days and then 3 nights in London post race. A week before the trip and I had nothing booked for travel within England.

Friday before leaving, I decided to purchase a 4 day rail pass for my travel within England. Thanks goodness for 2 day Fedex shipping as I received the pass the day before my flight.

I arrived at the airport Wednesday afternoon for my 5:20 pm flight and all was going well until my flight was cancelled due to a mechanical problem right when we were supposed to start the boarding process. As instructed, I got my bag from baggage claim and proceeded to the ticketing counter along with the rest of the passengers to figure out new transportation. Louis Armstrong is not a large airport and not much flight activity occurs after 5:00. It seemed that most people were heading home with flight plans for the following day. I got lucky and was put on an American flight at 7:00 connection to London through Dallas instead of my original flight connecting through DC.

After going through a long customs line to get into England, I had my rail pass activated and was on my way to Bath. My hotel was very old with a tiny, slanted 2nd floor by England count (3rd floor to us Americans) room with a private external bathroom. It was within a half mile of the train station.

After a great 2 day stay, I caught a 9:00 train to Darlington where I would determine how I would make it to my lodging booked way back in February. After the 7 hour train ride, I arrived in Darlington and sought information on local transportation options. Prior to heading to England, I looked into renting a vehicle. The problem I encountered was that no car rental companies were open on Sunday. I needed to return the car Sunday post race in order to travel to London on the 4th day of my 4 day rail pass.

With no car rental agency in sight of the train station, I opted for a train to Bishop Auckland in order to get somewhat closer to my lodging. Once arriving at the BA unmanned station, I walked over to the nearest business and one of the employees graciously called a cab company for me. My Verizon cell phone was in paperweight mode the entire trip as Verizon's platform does not work at all in England.

Almost 40 quid later, I was at the bed and breakfast. I then had the issue of figuring out a way to get to the shuttle bus pickup area in Dunham the next morning for the race. Another couple staying at the bed and breakfast offered me a ride to the bus the next morning so I was set for the race.

I had breakfast race morning at 6; at 7:30 we caught a bus to the race start. The race atmosphere was fantastic; many runners were dressed in costume. After the elite wheelchair and elite women's start, we got underway after the Red Angels did a flyover.

Like Alaska, weather was fantastic; course was nice; training was lacking. Severly. I thought my training for my mid June Alaska race was off, training for this race was practically non existent.

12 week leadup in 4 week increments:

First 4 weeks: 32 miles
Second 4 weeks: 11 miles
Third 4 weeks: 41 miles

Mile splits show the lack of training in the later miles:

Mile 1 8:54
Mile 2 8:39
Mile 3 8:38
Mile 4 8:44
Mile 5-6 17:02
Mile 7 8:49
Mile 8 8:36
Mile 9-10 20:01
Mile 11-12 19:35
Mile 13.1 9:21
Total 1:57

Post race, I got my checked bag, changed in a portolet and caught the shuttle bus back to Durham. Once in Durham, I ran around looking for a taxi. I finally went to a hotel and had them order me a taxi to get back to the bed and breakfast. I had the taxi wait at the b&b while I retrieved my luggage and then continued my fare to the train station in Darlington. Total fare was over 100 quid. Yikes.

After the long train trip to London, I caught the tube to my hotel. After sitting for so long post race, I hobbled around the remainder of my trip. Yeah, lack of training had alot to do with that as well.

All in all, it could have been a much better planned trip but it was another successful run for me. This was my first run outside of the United States. There are no eminent plans for a second international run.

Mayor's Half Marathon

2011-09-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

I ran my 2nd half marathon in Alaska June 18th, this time in Anchorage. 90+ days later here is my race report (at least what I remember).

Weather was nice; course was nice; race would have been nicer had I trained adequately. I still had some benefits from my training earlier in the year for my back to back halfs; the mileage in my 12 week training period was:

First 4 weeks: 100 miles
Second 4 weeks: 80 miles
Third 4 weeks: 50 miles

There was a definete lack of a build up or the longest taper period I have ever done! My time by mile shows the lack of conditioning aka the tank being empty the last few miles:

Mile 1 8:34
Mile 2 7:57
Mile 3 8:03
Mile 4 7:58
Mile 5 7:51
Mile 6 7:32
Mile 7 8:01
Mile 8 8:23
Mile 9 9:07
Mile 10 8:34
Mile 11 8:40
Mile 12 9:25
Mile 13 11:09
Total time 1:51

I spent a week post race on a well organized tour booked through an Alaskan travel company. Transfers were all taken care of, tours booked, lodging secured. All I had to do was show up. After spending a day in Anchorage, I visited Kenai Fjords and Denali National parks. Portions of my transportation was via the Alaskan railroad, a very scenic travel method!

First double digit run since June 18th

2011-09-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I ran 10.01 miles as my final/only long training run before Bupa Great North Run this coming Sunday. It was the first time that I hit double digits since running Mayor's Half Marathon in Anchorage back in June. Little did I know how much undertrained I would be going into GNR compared to Mayors as my training for Mayors was less than stellar.

Basically my mileage came crashing to a halt after my back to back half weekend April 30th/May 1st. Work responsibilites in May followed by a work relocation zapped most of my free time. Hopefully I will be down to one house in about a month. I also hope to continue my increased training as I have two Louisiana half marathons next month.

I run like a Paw Paw

2011-06-12T06:43:00.000-07:00

2 days after my 47th birthday, I was blessed with 2 grandchildren. They arrived a few weeks early so have spent time in the Special Care unit. James came home Monday and hopefully Emmaleigh will be joining him shortly.

I'll be joining them as well; well, I'll be getting closer to them at least. I'm relocating back to the New Orleans area after almost 6 years of running The Woodlands.

Emmaleigh Grace

James Patrick

13.1 Chicago

2011-06-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

After running over 50 half marathons in 45 states, I no longer have many "race firsts" in events these days. Yesterday morning at 13.1 chicago I did not receive an official race time for the first time. Only 130 of the 5000 or so participants received official times as the course was red flagged around 1:45 into the race. The red flag was changed to black a couple of miles later at about the 11.5 mile mark for me. I was able to finish the race and did receive a race medal.

The event started under yellow flag conditions in the mid 70s and balmy. Shining sun and not much shade on lakeshore made for tough running. The course reminded me of the Gary Bjorklund 1/2 course in Duluth MN that is run along Lake Superior vs Lake Michigan in Chicago.

Weather aside, 13.1 chicago seemed much better organized than reports I'd heard of other 13.1 events. Packet pickup was in a local running store within walking distance of the L. Shuttle transportation to and from the start/finish went very smoothly. I just would have liked to have had the need to check warmups but it just wasn't meant to be.

When I registered for this race, I had visions of training hard in an attempt to PR on a flat fast course. Work got in the way of training, so I'm not disappointed with the warm weather. I run another half in 2 weeks. Weather in Anchorage should be cooler than yesterday!

Mile 1 8:54
Mile 2 8:16
Mile 3 8:04
Mile 4 9:04
Mile 5 9:20
Mile 6 10:53
Mile 7 7:47 looks like this mile was short?
Mile 8 10:50
Mile 9 11:03
Mile 10 11:04
Mile 11 10:28
Mile 12 12:04
Mile 13.1 11:39

Total unofficial time: 2:09. My previous time May 1st in Lincoln was 1:49.

Back to Back Half Marathon Weekend Version 2011

2011-05-03T02:10:00.000-07:00

With only 7 states remaining in my 50 state half marathon quest, finding opportunities to pick up 2 new states over a weekend is becoming more difficult. I had these 2 states and races in my sites for a few years and was just waiting for the end of April and beginning of May Saturday/Sunday dates to line up correctly with the calendar.
Drake Relays half marathon is held every year the last Saturday in April as part of the Drake Relays. The Lincoln half marathon is a companion half held in conjuntion with the Lincoln marathon the first Sunday in May. So for 2011, I was able to run the 2 events Saturday, April 30th and Sunday, May 1st and pick up states 44 and 45.

Race week brought me some weather related news regarding my online running log. After not being able to access Buckeye Outdoors website for a couple of days, the following message appeared in the website Thursday evening:

Buckeye Outdoors has suffered a major outage. A series of electrical storms first knocked out the backup servers that were located at the backup up location. Then the unthinkable happened 4 days later and a second electrical storm caused an extended power outage at the datacenter where the primary Buckeye Outdoors servers are hosted. The current situation is pretty grimm and I'm despritly trying to recover the data that has been lost. If I am un able to recover the data I will put the application back online but right now I am holding out hope and I even might send the Hard Disks to a data recovery place.

And I thought running in the rain was my biggest weather related issue!

After starting out using nothing to record miles in my first marathon to using a stopwatch to click miles in my first few half marathons before getting a Timex watch with lap features to getting my first Garmin back in 2006, keeping mileage logs has become more and more important to me. So hearing the above news that the one place that had all my marathon and half marathon results plus other distance PR times had lost all data was somewhat troubling. However, Thursday evening was my normal start packing for a race weekend time so I did my normal post final training run laundry routine and started gathering items for my back to back running weekend. When running a single race while traveling, I don't pack my Garmin charger; for a double race weekend, I packed the charger to make sure I'd have enough battery for both races. With a wet Saturday forecast for Des Moines, I also packed 2 of everything (including running shoes) in case everything got soaked Saturday.

As 2 pairs of my size 13's could probably fill a carry on bag alone, I packed in a bigger bag and took advantage of my Continental One Pass elite access for the first time by checking a bag for free. After completing my packing for the most part, I headed to bed after 11 knowing that Friday would be a busy traveling day for me. I woke up early Friday with Waldo wanting his early morning breakfast as usual. After feeding him, I decided to get something out of the freezer for myself. I then discovered that my freezer was not nearly as cold as it should be; food was partially thawing out. After noticing frost in the back of my frost free unit, I got online and tried troubleshooting the problem. Around 4:00 in the morning, I was removing the back panel of my unit and cleaning stuff out with a brush and my vacuum cleaner attachment. I then replugged the unit and tried to get a little more sleep. After not much luck sleeping more and as much luck with the unit cooling down, I unplugged the unit and emptied out the freezer. I just left the kitchen with the refrigerator pulled out in pieces; this would become a Sunday evening project!

I dropped Waldo off at Cozy Paws on the way to the airport. Cozy Paws is really convenient and is a great alternative to more exclusive cage free dog boarding facilities that are further out in Conroe and don't do as well with problem pooches. You'd think with a picture with Caesar that they could handle dogs better. Just saying.....

I then made my way to IAH for a mid morning flight to Kansas City. A hassle free flight and a smooth car rental had me on my way for the 3 hour drive to Des Moines right around 1:00PM. I drove straight to packet pickup on Drake campus and then checked into the Hyatt Place downtown for my night in Des Moines. When I started unpacking, I discovered that my Garmin was nowhere to be found. Charger was there but turns out my Garmin was back in my dining room hundreds of miles away.

Saturday morning was cloudy and 56 with light rain having passed through the area earlier. With no Garmin to record my data (that may be eventually be lost with all my other data) I found myself without a watch for the first time since running the Great Alaskan Maritime Marathon cruise with the Bingham/Hadfield no need for speed gang. On that cruise, the running catch was to try and run your events at the same pace without using a watch in order to emphasize consistency versus speed (so I found out I'm neither fast nor consistent that week). Having run a half marathon in Juneau without a watch gave me some confidence heading into this event.

My one concern of going out too fast proved to be valid and would come back to kick me in the butt later in the race. One thing about the Drake field; well two things about the Drake field. Being held in conjuction with the Drake relays with high school,college, and open divisions competing at track and field events, there were true athletes all around the area and entered in the event. The other thing was with a 2 1/2 hour time limit, you only had serious race walkers and runners that could maintain an 11:30 pace.

The only clock I saw was at the finish line. Mile markers were painted on the ground so weren't easy to spot. Some miles had volunteers calling out times but many did not. I started a few seconds after the gun so the times called out were pretty close to accurate. I ran the first 5 miles at an 8 minute per mile pace. The warmer weather, hillier than anticipated conditions quickly did me in and I found myself walking up quite a few hills later in the race. The route was quite beautiful; things were starting to bloom and it was a pleasant although tough course. After mile 5, I got a timer that called out a 1:25 time at mile 10 which was about 8:30 pace for me. The last 3 miles were at a 10 minute pace to put me at 1:55 for the finish. I could have pushed through but was holding back for Sunday's race.

After finishing, I got my medal and some post race food and headed back to the hotel to clean up and make another 3 hour drive west to Lincoln for Sunday's race. The early morning rain brought in a front that had me driving into 30 mile hour headwinds the entire drive. I arrived around 4 in Lincoln; checked into the Cornhusker (sounded like the appropriate place to stay on my only night ever in Nebraska) and made my way to the expo. The expo, restaurants, the start and finish line were all within walking distance of the hotel which was convenient. It was very windy Saturday and felt cooler than Des Moines.

Sunday morning brought weather in the lower 40s and calmer winds. I walked to the race area, checked my bag and lined up right in front of the 9:00 pace sign. The Des Moines hills had me somewhat concerned about what hills Lincoln would throw at me. I had read that Lincoln would have narrowing barricades at the start to attempt to spread out the race before the course narrowed around mile 6. With that said, it took me over 10 minutes to start post gun and didn't help much with the course narrowing later in the event. While the narrowing barricades was a nice attempt, it failed mostly because people lined up in the wrong spots. When you pass walkers walking 3 abreast within the first 2 miles of the race you know that the honor system just doesn't work. If you're going to attempt to spread out the race, use a seeded corral system to accomplish the task. I've run the Chicago marathon with 4 times as many people that didn't feel nearly as crowded as Lincoln was the entire 13.1 miles.

I was surprised that much of Linclon was run on a sidewalk starting around mile 6. A field of 10,000 running on a sidewalk made for a very crowded event. I was feeling great Sunday and was passing lots of runners. My times/splits are below:

Location	Race Time	Time of Day	Overall Place	Division Place	Sex Place
Time	1:49:36	8:59:52	1040/7212	72/235	694/2410
15K Split	1:18:10	8:28:26	1121/7190	75/235	732/2405
10K Split	52:40	8:02:57	1240/7212	79/235	791/2410
5K SPLIT	27:27	7:37:43	1697/7206	96/235	997/2408
ChipStart	11:48	7:10:17	2332/7212	117/235	1186/2410
GunStart	00:00	6:58:29

My pace by split was 8:51, 8:29, 8:24 and 8:21. I felt strong the entire race but did tire by having to weave through runners the entire race.

The finish on the 50 yard line of Memorial Stadium was nice. Having a bigger race field than Drake, Lincoln had more spectators along the route. The finish area in the stadium was congested with spectators as well. Post race was another quick clean up and then hit the road for another 3 hour drive back to Kansas City. I got home about an hour later than planned due to storm delays. Plugged in the refrigerator and its working fine.....so far. Still no verdict on the Buckeye data recovery. Garmin is ready to run again. My quads not so much....ready for a post race massage.

With a Lincoln 1/2 finish on the 50 yard line of Memorial Stadium......

2011-04-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to have to pull out my LSU dri fit gear for this race on May 1st!

Mile 9 or so of NYC Half

2011-04-20T18:06:00.000-07:00

nyc half

2011-03-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

The Comeback Continues
While still not PR race ready, I ran the NYC half marathon Sunday morning just 4 weeks after running my first half marathon of the year in Austin. Less weight, more training miles, and much cooler weather resulted in my knocking almost 18 minutes off my Austin time. That put me at 1:52:24; within 25 seconds of running a 1:51 something. 1:51:xx is the only time that I have yet to run between 1:39 and 2:00 hours. Oh well, this was only my second 1:52:xx time, my first coming way back in 2001 with my 2nd ever half marathon.

The Expo
The expo was held Thursday through Saturday at the Metropolitan Pavillion in lower Manhattan. Prior to traveling, I discovered that mapquest now has (may not be new at all but it was new to me) mass transit directions in addition to walking and driving so I printed out subway routes for every place I planned to visit while in NYC. Subway got me to the expo with no issues.

I received an email earlier in the week that we would receive a bracelet at the expo that needed to be worn at all times until after the race. I think nyrr's were worried about bandits running due to the low volume of runners in the tri state area that got accepted via the lottery process.

The expo looked like all others, actually probably smaller than many. It looked like they were getting ready for press conferences or something so I just picked up my packet and got out asap. I didn't see any power bars at the expo (the one thing I forgot to pack) so I headed over to a Sports Authority across the street and got a power bar and clif shot blocks for the race.

Race Morning
I reviewed my subway directions before heading to bed early Saturday evening. The travel to the start involved a transfer between lines and it seemed easy enough. I got on the N train per the directions and noticed on the stop map in the car that we only had one more stop before the end of the line. Turns out weekend work had the N train stopping at the very next station. So I wind up from starting at the hotel at 45th street on 59th street at the end of the line when I needed to get up to 95th street to the start.

A very nice subway worker was giving directions for the few people around at 5:30 in the morning that needed to get some place. I might add that I was the only person that had slept the night before. Everyone else looked to be headed home from a night out. I was leery about taking the workers advice to head back to 42nd street, take a shuttle to grand central and then catch the 6 train up to 95th street. I got back on the subway (which was still sitting at the end of the line) and waited for it to leave. After a couple of minutes I decided not to wait and to just walk the 35 plus blocks to the start. The directions from the hotel were 3.6 miles so I knew it would be no farther than that. I ran into a few other people making the same walk up 5th avenue so the walk passed quickly.

I got to the start with plenty of time to check my bag. Race morning weather was in the mid 30s so I checked a warm up suit for post race and had gloves, a skull cap and a throw away sweatshirt for the 45 minute wait in the corrals.

After announcing a star studded field that included Ryan Hall and Meb (just Meb) and several other American and international runners we were underway. The race started in central park and ran a loop and a 1/2 through central park. I would say the hills were Huntsville State Park comparable with nothing too steep or too long but definetely hilly. That took us to mile 8 where we exited Central Park on 7th avenue and headed straight down Broadway through Times Square to 42nd street. Race trivia; The NYC half and New Years Eve are the only 2 times of the year that Times Square is closed to traffic. 42nd avenue west took us to the end of Manhattan on West? drive. After a quick right hand turn and loop to the finish we had 3 miles to the finish. Turning right there was a pretty strong headwind and I was glad that you could immediately see the turn. I smiled knowing that I would get a tailwind the 3 miles to the flat finish.

My split times per the NYRR website:
5k: 27:51
10k: 54:55 (27:04)
15k: 1:21:21 (26:26)
20k: 1:47:16 (25:55)

No blow up miles and I started somewhat slow not knowing how hilly the park would be and got gradually faster.

Back to dieting and more miles to get ready for back to back 1/2's in Iowa and Nebraska in 6 weeks.

As far as the elites, Caroline Rotich of Kenya and Mo Farah of Great Britain won the 2011 NYC Half! Americans Kara Goucher and Galen Rupp were third.

Rodeo Run 10k

2011-03-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

This was my 3rd consecutive Rodeo Run. This also made the 2nd Rodeo Run in a row that I was coming off an injury. Last year, I was recovering from a TFL injury when I ran this race.

This race has a nice post race party and a festive atmosphere. The first part of the course runs on the rodeo parade route. There are lots of spectators there that are lined up waiting for the parade to start.

Coming off the Austin 1/2 marathon finish the Sunday prior to this Saturday morning race, I felt much more confident at this distance. I had my race packet mailed to me this year so the challenge was not to lose my bib number and d-chip prior to the race. I managed to find the race packet buried under my kithchen table the night before the race.

The weather for this year's event was warm. I remember wearing a long sleeve running shirt and gloves the year before; no gloves required this year and short sleeves were in order. The race went well; I made my way around the post race party and then headed home.

I'm looking forward to running my 4th consecutive Rodeo Run next year. Hopefully I'll start a new tradition of showing up injury free!

Austin Half Marathon

2011-03-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

My first race back post calf tear came a bit earlier in my return to running than I would have liked. I registered for the Austin 1/2 marathon prior to my injury. I ran a 2011 high mileage run of 8 miles at Huntsville State Park a week prior to Austin. Conquering Huntsville hills and trails gave me enough confidence that I knew that I could complete Austin.
Race expo lines were not bad at all. I've seen enough expo's to where I pretty much am ready to go once I get my race gear.
Race day weather was on the warm side. One advantage to this is that there was no need to check a bag. I lined up farther back than I normally would to ensure that I didn't start too fast. I ran the race without any problems until I ran out of gas between miles 9 and 10. After that, it was a lot of run walking but I managed to finish marathon number 54. It sure beat the feeling I had of my first half marathon DNS in San Antonio a few months earlier.

Catching Up

2011-02-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
My last post was in mid December while I was recovering from my torn calf muscle. I was able to close 2010 out with my first post injury run on December 30th. I started back with 2 mile runs the first week, upping my mileage by a mile each week for the first 4 weeks. I ran 4 days every week for the first 4 weeks. Cold weather and back pain hit and my weekly run total dropped to twice a week. I have made it to 6 miles on a single run. Back pain at bay now and warmer weather, I will attempt to run an easy 10 miles tomorrow at Huntsville State Park. This will be my first run in Huntsville since early September. I signed up for the Austin 1/2 marathon February 20th before my injury last year. This will be a slow run/walk race for me.

Lottery Luck
I was notified in December that my lottery entry into the NYC 1/2 marathon on March 20th was successful. My lottery luck continued this month as I was informed that my application to take part in the 2011 Bupa Great North Run via the general ballot was successful. So September 18th I will be running my first international event in Newcastle Upon Tynes, England. This will be my first trip to England.

I learned of the Great North Run in October last year on a flight from New Orleans to Houston after running the Jazz Half Marathon. The guy sitting next to me in the plane was returning to England after a vacation in New Orleans. I had my race shirt on and we got to talking about running and he told me about this half marathon in northern England with 54,000 runners. I looked it up online when I got home and made a note to enter the general ballot when the application window opened. With over 100,000 applicants and some (not sure how many but quite a few I believe) of the 54,000 slots going to charity fundraisers and other specific lotteries I didn't think my chances of getting in were very good. But I'm in so am now planning a fall trip to England. At least the language barrier should be manageable.

Two lotteries and I'm out big bucks. I think I need to try PowerBall to actually win a lottery and have money coming in!!!!!!

Start Spreading the News,

2010-12-17T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving today. Well not quite today but I found out this week that I got picked in the New York City 1/2 marathon lottery earlier this week. So I will be heading up to New York City late March for another half marathon.

The NYC 1/2 marathon course runs around Central Park for the first 8 miles or so of the race before heading south down Broadway to finish in lower Manhattan. I'm looking forward to enjoying the Central Park miles next March compared to my last run in Central Park. For the 2006 NYC Marathon, the last few miles were run around and near Central Park; by that point in the race, I just wanted it to be done and suffered through those miles for the most part.

It's interesting that NYRR has the same trainwreck on its hands regarding the 1/2 lottery that Houston had earlier this year. I suppose the fact that races need to institute lotteries is an encouraging sign regarding the fitness/activity level of people. It is just unfortunate that not everyone can get in and run all of these events. The good thing is that there are several options available out there.

Today marks the 6 weeks of no running point due to my torn right calf muscle. I saw my doctor today and will start doing exercises to rehab my calf this week. If all goes as planned, I should be able to start running again in 2 weeks. That's a good thing because counting the NYC lottery that I got into, I've added four races to my 2011 spring/summer calendar in this 6 week no running period.

I signed up for the 3rd consecutive year for the Conoco Philips Rodeo Run 10k here in Houston in late February. I decided to add another Conoco Philips sponsored event to my calendar as well. This one's a little farther away than Houston as I'm going to head up to Anchorage in June to run the Mayor's 1/2 marathon. I also signed up for the Lincoln 1/2 marathon in early May. That event will be the 2nd leg of my back to back 1/2 weekend for 2011. The first 1/2 will be the Drake Relays 1/2 April 30th; just waiting for registration to open for that event.

Blogging Paying Off

2010-11-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

2 days shy of the mid point of my 6 week no running let the right calf muscle heal itself sentence and I'm looking forward to being able to run again before 2010 comes to an end. So far I've resisted the temptation to sign up for every spring 2011 event in site as I am often guilty of doing when not able to run.

Call it a senior moment but I am glad that I was able to look back to my blog a year ago to determine that the left calf muscle that I pulled a year ago this week was just that and not the right. Reading the post, I was reminded that I'd woken up with a cramp on the same muscle earlier in the week. That's good news as hopefully this 2nd tear of my right calf won't be a recurring issue.

Looking at my Buckeye Outdoors log, I was able to determine that I probably initially strained my right calf a little over 10 weeks ago on an 8 mile run in the hills at Huntsville State Park. It was my first run after the Disneyland 1/2 and I felt great so I really pushed myself on the hills. 2 days later around 2 miles into another hill run, this time on Flintridge, is when I first felt the strain. I took it easy the rest of that run but never seemed to recover from that initial strain. Compression socks got me through 10 for Texas and the Jazz Half before the right calf finally tore not quite 2 miles into an easy paced mostly flat surface run.

Speaking of compression socks, they have been an important part of my 2010 running season, not to mention quite the fashion statement. Prior to wearing them in my last 2 fall races, I wore them earlier in the year when my calves were feeling tight. I've been wearing them on just my right leg for the past week and they seem to really help with my calf muscle. Hopefully its helping the healing process as well.

Just Think What Might Happen if I Actually Played Tennis

2010-11-12T19:21:00.000-08:00

So I just did a little internet research (gotta love the internet) and discovered that the common name for my injury is "tennis leg" as it apparantly is a common injury in tennis players. Last year I was diagnosed with tennis elbow after riding mountain bikes on Huntsville State Park trails. Now that I think about it, maybe avoiding HSP may be the solution to all my tennis related injuries as "tennis leg" is also associated with hill running.
I received my MRI results today; it shows a tear on the medial head of the gastroc muscle which is the inside middle part of the lower leg aka my right calf muscle. I've been told no running for 6 weeks and I'll probably have to wear a boot as walking has been painful the past week.

May have lost this battle, live to fight another day.

2010-11-10T13:14:00.000-08:00

Country music is awesome for inspiratonal quotes.

Still waiting to get the results of my MRI yesterday morning. I've pretty much, 99.99%, decided that I'll spectate Sunday's Rock n Roll San Antonio marathon and 1/2. Walking is still painful so results or no results this weekend is pretty much a no-go.

I've already started reviewing my mileage for 2010 since I'm not running these days. Based on a Higdon 12 week intermediate half marathon training plan, I've determined I wasn't "race ready" for any of my 2010 half marathons. As expected, the most closest to "race ready" was for the Disneyland 1/2. I'll post the numbers in future posts.

Top Ten Signs You're Not Going to Win the New York City Marathon.

2010-11-09T13:11:00.000-08:00

MRI is scheduled for tomorrow morning

2010-11-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

After nursing my right calf since right after Labor Day weekend, I think I may have finally torn it. I was less than 2 miles into an easy run at a pace right under 10 minutes when I felt a sharp pain in my calf. I ended up hopping 4 or 5 steps before finally putting some pressure on my right side. Walking was really slow and not comfortable. Thankfully, I was able to ride a bike 2 miles back to Ricos. This is the same calf that I tore back in 1998.
With RnR San Antonio looming this Sunday, looks like I'm going to have my first ever 1/2 marathon DNS after 53 successful attempts. I've only had 2 previous DNS, both at the 5k distance, the latest coming at the beginning of this year.

Jazz Half Marathon

2010-11-07T07:12:00.000-08:00

Since moving to The Woodlands from the New Orleans area post Katrina, I always look forward to returning to the city that I called home for some 15 years. The year following Katrina, I returned to NOLA for the 2006 Crescent City Classic 10k. I returned in 2007 for the Mardi Gras 1/2 marathon (before it became a competitor Rock n Roll event). In 2008 I ran the Jackson Day 9k race the weekend of the BCS Championship game where LSU beat Ohio State to win its 3rd National Championship.

I didn't make it for any 2009 races; for 2010, I signed up for the 2nd edition of the Jazz Half, a stand alone local 1/2 event. There were around 2,000 runners; hopefully this race will continue to grow. I came into this race not race ready but confiident that I could complete the 13.1 mile distance. A trigger point in my right calf kept me from running regularly for 2 months leading up to the race. Like 10 for Texas 3 weeks earlier, I was good for the first 7 miles and then my conditioning/lack of kicked in. I finished with a 2:02 - an injury PR run, a NOLA run PW.

My son ran this race as well. I was able to see him for the first tenth of a mile or so as he ran a 1:44 PR. The post race party was typical NOLA. Beer truck, red beans and rice and/or jambayla, hot dogs, Blue Bell ice cream were all there as well as a couple of bands. My first events away from NOLA had me confused as my running started in NOLA and this type of post race party spread is typical for all races, 5k's on up to marathons.

Hopefully I can run a future version of this event when I'm race ready.

Another 2010 finish in compression socks.

Ten for Texas

2010-10-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

5 weeks after running the Disneyland 1/2 marathon, I ran Ten for Texas with a knot in my right calf muscle. I would have it diagnosed as a trigger point the week following the race. I put on Sore No More and compression socks to help support the calf during the ten mile run. My mileage in the 5 weeks leading up to the event was really low; I was resting my legs thinking that with rest my calf would heal itself.

My average pace per mile for the 10 miles dropped off after mile 7:

1 8:01
2 8:01
3 7:54
4 7:47
5 7:41
6 7:52
7 7:44
8 8:29
9 8:30
10 8:31

I used average pace as the actual mile markers were way off for the race.

Ready to Wrap up my Fall Racing

2010-10-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

What started as a promising fall racing season with a Labor Day half marathon quickly stalled back into low mileage weeks. I took the week off after Disneyland due to a stomach bug. Halfway through my second run the following week I got a knot in my right calf. 4 weeks and 2 deep tissue massages later and knot still there, I saw my chiropractor and was diagnosed with a trigger point. I had an acupuncture treatment on the calf that immediately relieved the knot. 2 miles into a run the next day the knot was back. I had my 2nd acupuncture treatment earlier this week and haven't run yet. So far the knot isn't back but I'm kinda afraid to run on it.
I only have 2 remaining races left on my schedule. If I were elite, I'd pull a Ryan Hall and scratch the races. I will run both remaining 1/2's (well run and walk I'm sure given my present fitness status) and then have 3 months before my next race.
Here's hoping for a better 2011.

Disneyland Half Marathon

2010-09-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

The trip to Anaheim for the Disneyland Half Marathon marked my return to California for the first time in a little over 5 years. The 2005 trip was to San Francisco to run the half in nice cool July weather. Who knew that Disney was keeping track of that and designed the medal to mark my return to Cali..... Oh yeah, they were also celebrating the 5th anniversary of the race as well.

The race also marked my return to the 1:4x:xx race times. My 1:46 and change finish made 1:46 the most popular finish time for my 52 half marathons that I've run to date. 5 of those (more 5's....wow) 1:46 finish times put it ahead of all my other finishes. My per mile pace remained within a 7:44 to 8:27 range. I started out somewhat conservative and kept increasing my average pace up until about the 10 mile mark. After that point, I just held on for the last 5k to the finish. One thing I noted was that I had no "blow up" miles; my early 1/2 marathons always had a mile at some point in the middle where I had a 10 minute or so mile. I definetely have become more consistent with my pacing.

I wrapped up my first Disney Coast to Coast Challenge with this race. I ran the Goofy Challenge in Orlando in January for the first leg of the C2C. I think this will be a first and done C2C. I think Disney is realizing (by dismal registration numbers) that they are pricing themselves out of the market. At this point, an international event (Disneyland Paris, Tokyo, or Hong Kong) would be required to get my attention.

The finish line being set up Friday afternoon.

Running through Angel Stadium was a nice change in the last half of the race.

Part of The Woodlands Coast 2 Coast finishers

2011 Race Calendar Starting to Shape Up

2010-08-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

With the fall 2010 racing season set to begin, my 2011 race schedule is in full swing as well. Other than being held hostage by the NYC 1/2 marathon lottery (I didn't realize the lottery remained open until mid November) the first 6 months of 2011 are pretty much booked. Of course, I haven't registered for some of these races as registration hasn't opened yet for the smaller events and others have beat the clock price increases that haven't yet occurred.

Here's the remainder of my 2010 and a tentative 2011 schedule to date:

September 5th - Disneyland 1/2 Marathon. This trip to Anaheim will complete my 2010 Coast to Coast Challenge. Having completed the Goofy Challenge in Orlando in January, I will get my Disney bling fix en masse: 5 medals for 3 races.

October 9th - Ten for Texas. Yes, I can stay home for Columbus Day weekend for a change. And yes, 10 miles will be fewer miles than the 26.2 I've racked up over the prior 2 CD weekends (Chicago Marathon in 2008 and Hartford/Boston 1/2's in 2009).

October 30th - Jazz Half. I've got a Friday night flight into New Orleans and a Saturday afternoon flight out so it will be a quick visit with family and friends. It'll be interesting to see how many Halloween costumes show up for the 2nd annual half event.

November 14th - San Antonio Rock n Roll 1/2. I ran San Antonio the year before competitor took over the event. This will be my first RNR event in quite some time.

February 20th - Austin 1/2. I've run the Austin 1/2 once before. I had a less than memorable race experience as I was suffereing with achilles tendonitis coming into the race. The Austin hills did nothing to help the situation.

April 30th - Drake Relays 1/2. This will be the front end of my 2011 back to back 1/2 weekend.

May 1st - Lincoln 1/2. This will be the back end of my b2b 1/2 weekend. Omaha will most likely be my flight destination as it is located between Des Moines and Lincoln and also appears to have the cheapest flights of the 3 cities.

June 4th - 13.1 Chicago. This was a spur of the moment race registration earlier this week. A $30 fee and a course similiar to the Chicago Half Marathon made me jump.

That's the plan as of now. Races that may happen, depending on lottery luck and whether or not the event occurs again are:

March 20th - NYC 1/2. If this race doesn't happen, I may consider City-Pier-City 1/2 in the Hague, the Netherlands. This would be my first race not on US soil.

June 18th - Mayor's 1/2. An Alaskan repeat with a first time visit to Anchorage and a week long post race tour include Kenai Fjord and Denali National Parks may or may not happen this year. I will most likely decide if this is a go by year end.

October - Disney Wine & Dine 1/2. If Disney brings this race back, I may sign up for it. Always up for a visit to Orlando; would take a couple of extra days to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter over at Universal.

13.1 Race Series

2010-08-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

I signed up for my first 13.1 race series event this morning. Even with active.com taking their pound of flesh, I charged less than $40 to my credit card with the special discount for the first 100 signees. I'll be running the 13.1 Chicago Marathon on Saturday, June 4th next year. The course is mostly an out and back on Lake Shore Drive prety mostly the same route used by the older and bigger Chicago Half Marathon held in September.

I've heard less than stellar comments regarding the 13.1 Race Series events; hopefully, this 3rd edition in Chicago will have all the kinks worked out. At any rate, it sounds like a great excuse for eating more deep dish pizza!

Saturday Night's Alright for Running

2010-08-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

I missed my early morning 5 miler so I had an early evening 5 miler instead. Less than a mile into the run, I had already had 2 flying insects fly into my mouth. Oh my! Good thing I was able to spit them out because I'd hate to have to swallow a spider to catch the fly.

Getting Caught in the Rain

2010-08-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

I drove over to the Saints Simon and Jude overflow parking lot to run the Nature Trail last night. I watched the 6 o'clock local weather before heading out the door and I swear I heard Gene Norman say that the storms north of us had no chance of making it down to us but seeing them was encouraging in that we'd have a good chance for rain tomorrow.
The weather didn't seem as hot when I headed out around 7:00. About 3 miles into my 7 mile loop, it started to thunder and lightening pretty bad. At that point, the only option I had was to just continue. With 2 miles to go, the sky opened up and cats and dogs fell to the ground. I was already soaked before the rain started so it actually felt refreshing. I only wished I had a hat to keep the rain out of my eyes.
Not long after the rain started I got the Pina Colada song stuck in my head; it is still with me this morning. Ugh.

Enough with the Heat

2010-08-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

After having a good week of running (and thinking that I was actually adjusting to running in hot, humid weather), I had a run last night that had me questioning why I would ever want to run ever again. I heard in this morning's weather forecast that this August is shaping up to be the hottest August ever on record here in the Houston area.
Late yesterday afternoon, there were a few pop up showers here in The Woodlands. They weren't big enough showers to really drop the temps any but just made it one big outdoor sauna. I had a 5 mile run on the schedule so I headed to run the hills of Flintridge. There was no movement in the air at all; in some places on the concrete pathways, you could just feel heat radiating all around you. It was so hot, my garmin threw in the towel at the 4 mile mark and just toggled repeatedly between the 3 display screens. It looked like it was still capturing data from the run but I couldn't make it stop toggling. At the end of the run, the On/Off button didn't shut it off. I used the mode/reset button combination to successfully turn it off. When I downloaded the data, all that showed up was the first 4 miles of the run.
With the heat advisory still in effect, I will be running the mileage on my training plan but just taking it alot slower. Still hoping for that cool California weather in 2 1/2 weeks!

No Excuses Copycat Edition

2010-08-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

Well the good news is that there's lots more running than blogging going on these days. The last half of July was spent with more skipped long run weekend due to falling off a ladder and visiting my mom. I know, there are no roads in Ville Platte so it was not possible for me to get a run in while visiting. The ladder fall was the more legit of the 2 excuses; I actually banged my right shin on the ladder itself so had some swelling there to deal with.

Reading K's July 31 post over at Running Towards Him, I got motivated for the first time this year. I know its still early to call it a trend, but I have logged almost 50 miles this month. I was actually feeling good on my 7 mile Nature Trail loop run this past Wednesday evening.

With the dog days of summer upon us, my dog has found a way to keep cool.

My lawn isn't getting much coverage with him blocking the water the entire sprinkler cycle time. That's ok.... as long as he keeps cool. He had a touch of heat illness the week before. He didn't want to eat or go for a walk for the first time ever.....a few days inside and major spoilage and he's back to normal.

Missoula Half Marathon

2010-07-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

This is the 3rd consecutive year that I've worked a week plus long vacation into a state running trip. 2008 was the Great Alaskan Maritime Marathon cruise and 2009 was a 3 Hawaiian island adventure. My 2010 trip was a tour of 3 National Parks with the Missoula 1/2 Marathon tucked in between.

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone North Entrance Roosevelt Arch

I flew into Bozeman, Montana Tuesday morning and drove to Yellowstone's north entrance near Gardiner, MT. My first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs in the Northwest corner of the Grand Loop:

Travertine at Mammoth Terraces

After a mile hike of boardwalk and asphalt trails, I headed to the Canyon Village area to check into my base camp for the next 2 nights at Cascade Lodge:

After checking in and grabbing a bite to eat, I proceeded to drive to the North Rim trails of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The first trail I took was the short but 600 foot drop via switchbacks trail to the brink of the Lower Falls. I took a pic of the trail the next morning while hiking the South Rim trails.

Brink of Lower Falls Trail as seen from Uncle Toms Trail.

I then took in views of the Lower Falls from another steep drop in the Red Rock Point trail, followed by Lookout Point and Grand View overlooks.

View of Lower Falls from Red Rock Point

Wednesday was my biggest hiking day; I logged around 20 miles hiking. I also learned my first lesson of the trip: cotton socks don't mix with hiking. I ended up with blisters at the end of the day. Luckily, they didn't bother my 1/2 marathon run a few days later. I did an 8 mile hike that started at the Wapiti trailhead, going through Hayden Valley, Clear Lake, Lily Pad Lake and then joining the South Rim trails looping back to the car. There were a ton of interesting geothermal features between Clear and Lily Lakes. The sound of this one was pretty incredible.

After heading back to Cascade Lodge for a quick break, I drove to Dunraven Pass and hiked 6 miles roundtrip to the top of Mt. Washburn. The views at the 10243 summit were pretty amazing. Unfortunately, the camera stayed in the car. I did have my cellphone camera to get a couple of shots. I then headed to the Lake Area of the Grand Loop where I hiked the Elephant Back and Storm Point Loop trails. Elephant Back climbed 800 feet to yield an incredible view of Yellowstone Lake and the Lake Hotel. That got me to 20 miles and blisters on both feet.

Grand Teton National Park

One of the reasons I hiked 20 miles the day before was to try and buy time to be able to head to the sister park of Yellowstone just south of it. As I checked out of Canyon Village that morning, I figured it would be a good day to head to GTNP to get in 6 miles or so hiking. I didn't want to go much farther due to the blister issues. I used Body Glide prior to putting on, yes, cotton socks again. After driving around in the park for a bit, I wound up at the Jenny Lake area and ended up hiking to the split of Cascade Canyon. I pretty much failed in my 6 mile max attempt as the round trip hike was right around 13 miles. Still, it was totally worth the extra miles to take in the great views of the mountains and waterfalls along the way.

After the hike, I headed back to Yellowstone to check in at the Old Faithful Inn for the next 2 nights of my trip. Friday morning I went on a ranger led hike to Fairy Falls in the Old Faithful area of the Grand Loop. I enjoyed the slower pace of the ranger led hike as well as the interpretive aspects provided by the ranger. The hike included a couple of geyers as well as a view of Grand Prismatic Spring. Following lunch, I hiked the Observation Point loop to see Old Faithful erupt away from the crowds. A quick trip to Artist Paint Pots in the Norris area wrapped up Friday and my Yellowstone hiking.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Artist Paint Pots
The Race

2010 continues to be the year of underwhelming races, uninspired training, and just a general running funk. The good news is that I completed running a 1/2 marathon in my 43rd state last Sunday at the "Runner's World Readers' Overall Top Ranked Marathon". I can't remember exactly how many times I heard or saw that phrase printed over the weekend but believe me it was milked for all it was worth. I really just had to scratch my head over that one and ask WHY? I don't think I'd rank the race in my top 10 1/2 marathon events that I've attended much less rank it anywhere near New York, Chicago, or heck, even Houston marathons. I don't know if the questions that led to the rankings were biased or what, but while not a bad event, this just wasn't anything to write home about.
One other factoid that was repeated several times by the 1/2 prerace announcer was the fact that Texas had the 5th most participants in the event. Considering how far Texas is from Montana, that is a pretty impressive stat for the Lone Star state.
I ended up getting my time back under 2 hours after 3 straight finishes over 2 hours. I was pleased considering I hadn't run a weekend long run since my Medicine Bow 1/2 marathon at the end of May.

Glacier National Park

Post race, I made the 2 plus hour drive from Missoula to Glacier National Park. I don't know if Glacier was so crowded because it is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, but the park just felt incredibly packed. I wasn't able to find a parking spot at the first 2 places I tried visiting when I first got into the park.

My plan for Glacier was to stay near the Lake McDonald area Sunday afternoon then drive to Logan Pass and beyond Monday for a longer hike. Not finding parking spots near Lake McD brought me up to Logan Pass on the Going to the Sun Road Sunday afternoon. Ever since driving the Road to Hana in Maui last year, I compare great drives to it. Going to the Sun Road is Montana's version of the Road to Hana. Driving along the mountainside afforded incredible views. I got up to Logan Pass, found a parking spot and attempting to hike a couple of trails in the area. Logan Pass was very crowded Sunday afternoon. The trails were over 90% snow covered so I didn't hike very much up there. I wasn't prepared to hike in snow so I just got a feel for the area and then decided to head back to Lake McDonald to check in at the Lodge there.

Lake McDonald Lodge view lakeside

The Lodge was built in the early 1900s before Going to the Sun road was complete. The Lodge faced the Lake as boat transportation was the primary means of transportation at the time. With GTTS road completed, you now enter the lodge from the rear.

As I drove to Logan Pass Sunday afternoon, I opted for a ranger led tour of Avalanche Lake in the Lake McDonald area Monday morning. Again, the ranger provided insight and led an enjoyable tour to the lake.

Tuesday was a travel day with me leaving Glacier at 6:00 am for a 5 plus hour drive to Bozeman. I then connected through Denver getting back to IAH in Houston after 10:30. All in all, a great trip to log by 43rd state. I've got 3 repeat states on tap for the rest of the year. 2 more states scheduled for 2011 on my quest to run them all!

On the Sidelines Again

2010-06-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

Less than 4 weeks til my next half marathon and I'm not running...... yet again. 2010 has not been so kind as far as running is concerned. My latest setback is a wicked head/chest cold. One minute Saturday afternoon I was fine and the next I was all stopped up. Got a sore throat that night and the cough started the next night. Trying to fight this off with over the counter decongestants. Hopefully I'll be back on the road in the next couple of days.

Houston We Have A Problem

2010-06-08T20:30:00.000-07:00

Day 2 into the Chevron Houston Marathon/Aramco Half Marathon announcement that they are going to a lottery system for the 2011 race and the locals are still buzzing. I personally have very little history with the Houston race but it seems like every year they seem to come up with some bonehead decision to top the prior year's bonehead decision.

From where I stand, it seems like the race has a real identity problem. Last year was the first year that the race put separate caps on the half and full marathons. The caps were at 11,000 each. Sounds reasonable so far, right? The bonehead factor with that was that they allowed transfers between events even after the cap was met for one of the races. So what happened last year, people wanting to run the half marathon after the half reached its cap of 11,000 simply signed up for the full and then paid the $10 administrative fee to switch from the full to the half. Every other race that I've seen with separate race caps do not allow transfers once an event has reached its capacity. I somewhat thought this was merely an oversight by the race last year; however, with the same caps in place this year and the same transfers between events allowed, it seems clear that Houston doesn't really want to cap the half at 11,000. With that said, I don't know if they don't think the marathon would hit the 11,000 mark on its own. Otherwise, I don't see why they would just not allow switching between events, similiar to how they experimented with allowing race transfers between individuals but discontinued that process.

Another solution to Houston's filling so fast would be to eliminate the half marathon. That is kind of hard to do this year as the race is once again the mens and womens US Half Marathon championship. It would be difficult to have a 1/2 championship without an actual 1/2 event. Once again, there is an identity crisis.

I initially planned on running 2011 Houston 1/2 marathon as most of my running group participates in the event every year. When the lottery was announced, my initial thought was should I sign up for the full lottery and have better odds of getting accepted versus the half lottery which one would expect would have far more entrants. Upon further review, I think I'll just sit Houston out again this year. Thanks Houston for keeping things interesting!

Medicine Bow Half Marathon

2010-06-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

I had about 10 weeks to train for Medicine Bow after running back to back half marathons in DC and Wilmington in mid March. My plan was to follow a 6 week training plan that was published in an earlier Runners World magazine article. That never happened. I did train and did most of my longer runs on trails and hills at Huntsville State Park, I never got overly excited about training for this race. I think alot of it had to do with the fact that I knew that it is nearly impossible to simulate high altitude conditions when you train at sea level. Its also difficult to find hills that seem to go on forever. There are plenty of difficult grade hills in the area but nothing that goes on as long as some of these hilly away races.

Air travel to Denver and the car drive to Cheyenne went smoothly. After checking in at the host hotel/expo/pasta dinner location, we made a 25 mile westerly drive to the start of the course at the Lincoln Monument exit between Laramie and Cheyenne. They had a sign at the exit indicating that this was the highest point on I-80 in Wyoming at just under 8700 feet. There was still snow on the ground in areas. We drove the entire course, something that I rarely do before a race. I learned that drving and running a course is a totally different experience.

We headed out before 5 race morning for the same rest area for a 6am race start. This is one of the local laid back races that I am starting to enjoy more and more. There was a flour line marking the start; no chips or timing mats to be found on this course. The course was an out and back and there was one aid station to serve you in both directions. I was initially concerned about having to navigate 2 cattle guards twice on the course; this turned out to not be an issue because I was walking by the time I approached the first cattle guard.

The course had a 4-5 mile downhill start going from 8700 feet down to 8100 feet before climbing back up to 8500 feet at the turnaround point. I knew within the first 2 miles that it was going to be a long day. Just running with the flow at the start, I was at about an 8:15 pace and my legs felt fine since I was going downhill but I definetely noticed that I was breathing harder than I should have been. Once the uphill started, I pretty much started walking. I mixed in some running but did more walking than running on the uphill portions of the course. There were very few flat areas on the course; you were either running downhill or uphill.

I think I finished this race the driest that I've been at any race. With a chilly 29 degree start and a 20 mph or so wind and dry conditions (and all the walking) my dri fit clothes actually wicked moisture as advertised.

Wyoming was my 42nd state that I've run a 1/2 or full marathon in. It was also my 50th half marathon that I've run. It was also a PW for me but a Wyoming PR for me!!!!!!!

Bolder Boulder 10K

2010-06-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

After having fewer than 300 participants run the Wyoming races Sunday, Memorial Day Monday had runners everywhere as over 50,000 people participated in the second largest 10K in the United States. The weather was much nicer than the largest 10K has July 4th weekend in Hotlanta I'd imagine.

We headed out early for the parking garage near the finish line. There was no absolutely no traffic driving to the finish area; the garage was almost empty as well. After hanging out in the car for awhile, we decided to find the Boulder bus that would take us to the start line. We probably walked at least 1/2 as far to get to the shuttle versus just walking to the start line. Walking directly definetely would have been quicker as the bus ride took awhile with traffic. No worries though as we were at the start with plenty of time to spare.

I'm not sure exactly how many corral starts Boulder had, but there were more than I'd ever seen for a race. They started within a minute of each other and that seemed to work fine in keeping the course moving. It was crowded the entire race but never clogged. I can definetely say that my own breathing limitations and not the course crowd is what slowed me down.

Another interesting thing about the Boulder course was the fact that both mile and kilometer markers were on the course. It got rather confusing as to where you were on the course as the mile/K number was visible before the mile/km designation. There were also timing mats at every mile marker.

We didn't stay for the Memorial Day tribute at 11:40 as we had an afternoon flight back to Houston and didn't want to get caught in post event traffic.

All in all, Bolder Boulder 10k was a fun race in a nice town.

El Chupacabra de Houston Nighttime 10k Trail Run

2010-05-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

I somehow let a month go by without a running update. Not much to report on the running front these days; I'm enjoying being injury free and am running a somewhat light 15-20 miles a week average these days. I ran my longest run since March on the trails at Huntsville State Park last Sunday.... a tough 10 miles in humid conditions with horseflies chasing most of the way. Horseflies can be persuasive motivation to continue moving forward.

Last night was a first for me. I ran a nighttime 10k trail run at Lake Houston Park in New Caney (TX). Now I've run a night race, a 10k and trail races before but never all three disciplines in the same event. I thought the race was well organized, especially being the first year for this event in the Houston area. The race organizers have had a similiar event near San Antonio the past couple of years.

I ran the first 5k of the race somewhat harder than I planned on running. My first mile was slower than I wanted due to the narrow trail and slower runners ahead of me. It wasn't worth the effort to pass people on this portion of the trail so I waited/conserved energy so that I could make my move when the trail opened up. My second mile was much faster given better running conditions and the fact that I could pass runners. When I hit the lap button at mile 2, I thought my average pace was 9:58. I picked up the pace even though in my mind I felt like I was running faster than a 10 minute pace. Turns out I was; at mile 3 I realized that I was at an 8:58 pace.... running without glasses at night makes 8's and 9's look identical.

I stopped at the halfway point and refilled my hand held water bottle (practicing for next week's 1/2 in Wyoming where you have to carry your own bottle). From that point to the finish I did a good mix of running and walking averaging around a 10 minute pace for the last 3 miles. My unofficial time was 1:01:01 per my Garmin. Definetely not my fastest 10k; actually pretty comparable to my 6 mile barathon times back in New Orleans. Different obstacles but just a much fun.

The post race party was excellent for the event. They had bar b que and lots of beer. I do believe this will become an annual event for me.

Next up is my continued economical travel. I run my 42nd state a week from today in Wyoming followed by my first Boulder Bolder 10k race in Colorado. It will be interesting to see if altitude in Boulder or darkness, humidity and trails is the tougher challenge.

Rocky Mountain.... How High????

2010-04-22T05:11:00.000-07:00

With a little over 5 weeks to go before my next half marathon, I decided to look up the elevation that I'll be dealing with for both the 1/2 in Wyoming Sunday and the 10k in Boulder the following day. (I was asked the day before as to the elevation and had a deer in the headlights look so figured I needed to educate myself.)

First the good news (well relatively good news).... Bolder Boulder has a max elevatin of 5391 and a min elevation of 5284. The Woodlands has an elevation of 160 so I'll be right around 5000 feet higher than I'm used to running. That really shouldn't be a problem as I'll be running at 8700 feet in Wyoming the day before. The trail 1/2 between Laramie and Cheyenne starts at 8700 feet with a nice descent to around 8100 feet before ascending back to around 8500 feet at the 1/2 turnaround. The last 5 miles should be pretty much all uphill gaining back the 600 feet descent that we got to enjoy the first 1/2 of the course.

8700 feet will be the highest elevation that I've run in to date. I started the Georgetown to Idaho Springs 1/2 just west of Denver back in 2007 at 8500 feet. That course had a 1000 foot descent to a finish in Idaho Springs. That race didn't go so well for me as I pulled a hamstring around mile 4. The other western event that comes to mind is the Race to Robie Creek 1/2 that I ran in 2007 as well in Idaho. That 1/2 started at an elevation of 2725, climbed to 4797 and then dropped to 3065 at the finish. Thats the only race where I had a nose bleed along the course. Yet another Rocky Mountain disaster.

So maybe I was better off with the deer in the headlights look when asked about the altitude I'll be facing at the end of next month. My goal is to finish around 2:10. This will keep Georgetown and Robie as my 2nd to last and PW times respectively. Of course that goal will be secondary to enjoying myself on the course and logging my 42nd state.

Buckeye Upgrade

2010-04-08T08:46:00.000-07:00

I was able to remember my login information and get back into the new and improved Buckeye Outdoors website. Its been about a year since I started using Buckeye as my training log for all my runs. I also went back and entered all my prior marathon and 1/2 marathon races in the Buckeye calendar.

Buckeye now uses garmin connect so that I can now download my run information directly from my Garmin into the Buckeye training log. The prior version required a download from Garmin to SportTracks (Zone 5 software) and then upload to Buckeye.

Syncing with Facebook and Twitter is now easier as well. This seems to be the case where new & improved is actually an improvement!

Buckeye Upgrades

2010-04-05T15:31:00.000-07:00

I guess the Buckeye Outdoor upgrade happened late on April 2nd as advertised on their website. None of my Buckeye sidebar boxes are presently visible on my blog; no PR's, no completed races, no upcoming races, no workouts. Hopefully there is a quick fix to get the information back. I've become spoiled with the no data entry required log maintenance that I've been able to do with Buckeye the past year or so.

6 Week Half Marathon Training Plan

2010-03-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

My April 2010 copy of Runner's World arrived before my back to back 1/2 marathons trip last week. I read most of it on the 3 hour flight to Baltimore. One of the more interesting articles was on a 6 week training plan for 5k, 10k and half marathon distances. One of the last things I read was proven true by me in both of my 1/2 events last weekend: "You can suck it up and finish a 5-K or 10-K on minimal mileage but you can't get away with that when you're running a half-marathon." Truer words have never been spoken!

I do plan on putting the 6 week 1/2 plan to good use for my upcoming Medicine Bow 1/2 marathon run at the end of May. I plan on taking the next few weeks building a decent running base and then will follow the RW 6 week program to prepare for the 1/2. Of course, there is no mention of running a 10-K the next day in the article because we all know serious runners wouldn't do that, right? Oh well....

How Much is Too Much?

2010-03-24T05:42:00.000-07:00

I just came across the following article on AOL Health regarding marathon running being linked to heart damage. At first, I thought it was justification for my decision to not run marathons anymore.....sticking to the 1/2 distance instead. However, reading the article, they refer to the 3 men that died in Detroit in October 2009. I believe these 3 men were all running the 1/2 marathon; I wish the article were more clear on exactly how much training is considered too much. This is a new study and much more research is required.

My body has recovered quite well from the weekend. I got in a quick 3 mile Flintridge hill run Monday evening and hope to get out for a run before the rain around lunchtime today. It's nice to be able to train again!

National Half and Caesar Rodney Half Marathons

2010-03-23T20:19:00.000-07:00

I ran my 41st state plus DC this past weekend. I added an extra day to what I would usually spend in order to take in some of Washington DC's monuments and memorials. It turned out to be a great weekend for running and just being out and about.

The SignUp: I can't recall exactly what focused my attention on running DC and DE last fall but I registered for both events mid November. The National Half (and marathon) has tiers of early bird discounts; I got in somewhere in the mid level.

The SetUp: Following the Disney Marathon (Goofy Challenge), I had 10 weeks to train for these back to back events. After running 39.3 miles in a weekend, I took it easy the first couple of weeks following Goofy. On my 7th post Goofy run, I went out for a short 5-6 mile run from work during the day towards the end of January. I started the run feeling fine but noticed a tightness near my hip about 2 miles into the run. By the time I finished the run, walking was even painful. I got in to see Dr Eric the same day and was diagnosed with a TFL pull. I really thought I would be able to shake the injury off within a week. A week turned into 6 weeks. End of January injury 6 weeks later put me feeling fine heading into these races but with little to no training. My total miles run in the 10 weeks was 65 over 16 runs. That's an average of 4 miles per run. My longest run in that time period was the Rodeo Run 10k race at the end of February. I was able to run that event fairly comfortably. My TFL tightened up after the race and i wasn't able to run for a few days after. A week later, running 3 legs in the Texas Independence Relay boosted my confidence that I would be able to complete the 2 1/2's. During the TIR, I was able to remain loose between running.

The week before the race, I decided that I would try to run both races at a 9:10 pace as that would put me at the 2 hour even mark. I really had nothing to base that goal on as I had no idea what to expect with so little training. Turns out I can run a 10k without training; after that, my races fell apart. If I had started out slower, I probably would've had a better overall race experience but I was for the most part pleased with my performances both days.

The National Half:
The start time for the race was 7:00; the metro started running at 5:00 Saturday morning in order to accomodate the runners. I stayed at the host hotel; the Renaissance M Street hotel was located north of the orange/blue metro line Foggy Bottom/GWU stop. I was 11 stops from the RFK Stadium/Armory station, the start and finish for the race. Having the start and finish right near the metro station made it really convenient. After checking my bag, I lined up around an 8 minute mile pace mark. Actually that is the corral that I was assigned when I registered for the race. I should've lined up farther back beyond the 9 minute mile pace mark. My mile splits were:

1       9:18
2        8:43
3        8:24
4        8:41
5        9:02
6-7 20:09
8         9:52
9       10:34
10      9:17
11      11:14
12      11:55
13.1   10:57

I remember thinking around miles 11 and 12 that I needed to take it easy because I had to do the same thing again in about 24 hours. Total time: 2:08:06.

Caesar Rodney Half:
After checking out of my DC hotel, I caught the metro to end of the green line and caught a bus to get back to BWI airport in order for me to pickup my rental car. The drive to Wilmington was easy with no traffic problems. $9 in road tolls and I was in downtown Wilmington at the CR host hotel. Packet pickup ended around 2:00 Saturday; I didn't arrive in Wilmington until around 5:00 so I picked my packet up race morning. The start and finish for the race was about 2 blocks away from the hotel; a very easy walk. There were no minute per mile pace markers to line up for this race; I played it smart and lined up further back than I normally would have lined up. This strategy proved helpful in keeping me from going out as fast as I had the day before.   My mile splits were:

1        9:14
2        9:42
3        8:52
4-5   18:31
6         9:04
7         9:26
8       10:44
9         9:56
10       9:22
11       9:26
12       9:39
13.1   10:47

Sunday's race was much more evenly paced compared to Saturday's quick start and slow finish. My total time Sunday was 2:04:38.

Hocus Focus: Can you identify the difference in the 2 US maps below? I ran 26.2 miles for this?

2010 Texas Independence Relay

2010-03-09T05:13:00.000-08:00

Team Thing 2 at San Jacinto Monument

I completed my 3rd Texas Independence Relay race this past weekend. My team of 12 combined with another 12 member team organized together opened up the race this year with a 6:00 AM start time in Gonzales, TX. 6:00 AM doesn't sound so bad; actually it was a little bit later start than my 2 Disney races that had 5 something AM starts. Only problem was the start line was some 2 1/2 hours away from where I live. I thought I had early mornings when I ran the Goofy Challenge as I was up at 3 AM each morning. I was up at 1 AM Saturday morning to get to a meeting area around 1:45 AM to drive on over to Gonzales.

TIR is definetely an endurance event. The running part of it is fun but the waiting to run time spent with fellow teammates is equally as fun. I was on my 3rd team in 3 years running. I didn't know any of my vanmates prior to running this year so it was great fun getting to know everyone over the 35 hour period that we ran together.

I'm not sure what next year holds for me in TIR. I ran 5 legs in 2008 for the inaugural TIR, 4 legs last year and 3 legs this year. With 40 legs and a maximum of 12 member per team, I can't run fewer than 3 legs. I ran fewer legs this year but had to take a day off work this year to recover; guess my age is starting to show! I slept a good part of the day yesterday and was probably still down on sleep time for the 3 day period Saturday-Monday.

The best news out of the weekend is that my TFL, while definetely not 100%, didn't get too tight on me after my first leg. I was able to complete my 2nd and 3rd legs around a 9:30 pace. Now I just need to rest more and I think I'll be fine to run my back to back 1/2's the 20th and 21st. I may just stick to the Beth Whitehead method of skipping all training runs and running events only.

An Unusual February

2010-03-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

Thankfully February has come to an end. My TFL muscle was out of commission the entire month; there was noticeable improvement towards the end of the month but running is still not happening like it should.

It is frustrating as February has historically been one of the more productive running months for me. I've run 9 of the 46 half marathons that I've run to date in February. My PRs at the 5k, 10k, and 1/2 marathon were also run in February.

To have logged only 4 runs for a total of less than 20 miles for the month is just not what I'm used to doing. The good news is that the TFL does feel much better, although a co-worker made the comment that I was limping this morning. Maybe I'm just getting used to the pain?????

Here's February results in Buckeye Outdoor Report format:

Running Summary

Runs: 4

Avg. Time: 00:41:30

Total Time: 02:46:02

Avg. Speed: 6.6 MPH

Avg. Mi Pace: 9:06

Avg. Dist.: 4.6 Mi

Total Dist.: 18.2 Mi

Avg. Cal. Burned: 575.7

Total Cal. Burned: 1727

2010 ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run 10k

2010-02-28T07:28:00.000-08:00

This was my 2nd year running the Rodeo Run 10k. I ran it last year setting a 45+ minute PR. It was the first time that I hit the "Crescent City Classic Free Poster" magic number. Back when I was living in New Orleans, the CCC gave out free race posters to the first race finishers. The cutoff for the free posters was usually around the 45 minute mark. I never came close to that time in NOLA so I was really excited to run a 45 minute time last year.
Fast forward to 2010 and I entered this years race with my right TFL muscle still not fully healed. My running to date in February has been 3 runs all around the 4 mile mark, all with discomfort either during the run or right after the run. I normally try to run a repeat race faster than my prior performance. This year I was trying to run 55 minutes. Race day saw lows in the 40s with the sun out. I ran 52 minutes this year and was very pleased. My TFL did not bother me at all during the race. It is somewhat tight now but not nearly as painful as it has been.
The Rodeo Run has become my favorite race. It occurs in a great time of year here in Houston. You get a built in audience for part of the course as you run on a portion of the Rodeo Parade. People lined up early for the parade are there to provide support. This years race raised $310,000 for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™ Educational Fund.

Airport Worker's Shadow Equals Six More Weeks of Winter?

2010-02-16T12:16:00.000-08:00

This could be the rental car at BWI airport that I'll be renting 4 weeks from Saturday to get me to my 2nd 1/2 marathon of the weekend in Wilmington, DE. Things should be thawed out by then. Right?

If my TFL muscle doesn't get better and fast, I'll have bigger problems than a frozen rental car. I ran pain free yesterday but the muscle got tight after I finished my run. I iced it right after running and slept with a heating pad on it last night.

What a Difference a Month Makes!

2010-02-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

The frozen tundra that was WDW last month looks pretty pleasant today!

Hurry Up TFL

2010-02-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

I attempted my first run last night after pulling my Tensor Faciae Latae muscle (right side) a week earlier on a 5 mile lunchtime run. The muscle seemed to be loosening up nicely throughout the week and by Wednesday I was feeling pretty good walking and moving around in general. My first mistake last night was that I forgot to tape the muscle with kinesio tape before running. I noticed pain a few steps into the run; it was by no means a 10 on a 1-10 pain scale but it remained a solid 6 throughout the almost 4 mile run. I think more time off is needed in order to speed recovery. Listen to thy body....
In the meantime, I bought my first video game console since Mattel electronics Intellivision unit in the late 70s. I'll try and keep occupied with Wii sports while my leg heals.

January is in the Books

2010-01-31T16:30:00.000-08:00

January Running Summary :

Runs: 11

Avg. Time: 01:09:06

Total Time: 12:40:08

Avg. Speed: 6.2 MPH

Avg. Mi Pace: 9:40

Avg. Dist.: 7.1 Mi

Total Dist.: 78.6 Mi

Avg. Cal. Burned: 627.6

Total Cal. Burned: 5648

Interesting totals for January; my total miles are split evenly between 39.3 race miles and 39.3 training miles. I limped out of January with a pulled TFL muscle on my Thursday lunch run. A visit to Dr Eric that same afternoon has me well on the way to being recovered.

I also had my first DNS race of the year. I did the wise thing listening to my body yesterday morning and not attempting to run or walk the Bill Crews Remission Run 5k with my leg not well. Here's to a healthy February!!!!

Black & Gold Alert

2010-01-28T08:38:00.000-08:00

I just received the following email from one of my NOLA friends. I didn't realize that the Super Bowl will be on the first weekend of Mardi Gras parades in the NOLA area.

New Orleans has exploded into a chaotic revelry unlike anything the city has ever seen before. Add in the fact that we'll be in the midst of Mardi Gras during the game and it's almost scary to think what could go down here on February 7, 2010 when the Saints are in Miami.

Here are some things we might see:

1. Alcohol shortages: All groceries, convenience stores and drug stores within a 100 mile radius of New Orleans will completely sell out of beer, wine and liquor. You should stock up at least a week in advance, otherwise you'll be stuck with soda and water.

2. Extreme noise: The sounds of 1.13 million cheering fans in metro New Orleans will reach more than 500 decibels. Hundreds of thousands of stomping feet will create shockwaves and tremors as far away as Houston and Atlanta .

3. Regional smoke screen and CO2 emissions: Smoke from barbecue pits, fireworks and bonfires will create a 250-mile long cloud in the sky that will be seen from satellites and on Google Earth. Tens of thousands of residents will boil seafood in their backyards and CO2 emissions from the burning propane tanks will create a hole in the ozone above New Orleans .

4. Total gridlock: The crowds of people trying to get to the French Quarter will back up traffic all the way to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. If you're driving in from the east, you'll likely have to park somewhere on Judge Perez in Chalmette and walk the rest of the way. The line to get into Pat O'Brien's will end somewhere in the Marigny and the spillover from Bourbon Street will run all the way to Decatur.

5. The city will use parking tickets to fund Nagin's world travels: The City of New Orleans Parking Enforcement will mark the day on the calendar and send out busloads of meter maids to issue thousands of tickets to those having a good time downtown. They'll use the proceeds to send Mayor Nagin on a luxury 13-day cruise down the Nile followed by a jaunt into space with Richard Branson.

6. New Orleans will put out 3 more port-o-lets: In response to the massive crowds, the city will put 3 more port-o-lets for a grand total of 12. This will increase ratio of toilets-to-people to an impressive 1 toilet per 24,000 visitors. The wait time to pee in the French Quarter will drop from five hours to only three.

7. Who Dat migration: Thousands of vehicles, mostly Chevy Silverados with fleur de lis stickers in the back windows, will make the trip down I-10 then head south on I-75 and I-95 to Miami . "Who Dat!" will be heard at dozens of gas stations along the way, which will also subsequently sell out of Bud Light. Much of the 862 miles of interstate between New Orleans and Miami will be littered with beer cans and chicken bones.

8. Thousands of televisions will need to be replaced: Country folk Who Dats on the north shore and in wooded areas surrounding New Orleans will shoot out their televisions in excitement.

BLACK AND GOLD IN THE SUPERBOWL, BABY!!!!!!

My Resolve for 2010

2010-01-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

As I missed out on making any New Years Resolutions this year (by this time in years past my resolutions were pretty much toast) I came across a simple line that will fuel my training for this year and maybe years to come:

The person I have to beat is the guy I was last week.

Simple yet challenging. If applied properly, I should see slow and steady improvement from week to week. We'll see how it goes. That means I need to eat fewer chips and salsa at Rico's tonight than I ate at Rico's last week for starters. Sounds simple enough.

2010 Walt Disney World Marathon Character Pictures

2010-01-19T16:25:00.000-08:00

The pony express arrived with my disposable camera pics from the 2010 Disney Marathon today. All 22 pics came out.....pretty awesome!!!!

Houston Marathon Baggage Claim

2010-01-17T14:21:00.000-08:00

I was asleep before 8 last night; my alarm woke me at 4 this morning so I could make it to the convention center in downtown Houston for my 5:30-11:30 baggage claim shift. This was only my 2nd baggage claim shift. This was much larger than the 5k event that I worked at DisneyWorld back in January 2008. There was a steady stream of runners checking bags from the very start at 5:30 until around 6:15. After that time, we got completely mobbed by tons of bags being checked. There were just piles of bags everywhere. Bags were all sorted by the time the lead marathoner finished.
Most runners were very polite and thanked us for being there. Unfortunately, with thousands of bags being checked, a few bag tags were separated from the bags and some bags were filed in the wrong numerical location. One runner got really upset when we couldn't locate his bag and directed him to the lost and found section. Dude, don't check a bag if its that important to you. Heck, even the airlines lose a bag every once inawhile.... and you pay them to lose your bag.
I have no plans for any 2011 Disney races so should be back to running the Houston 1/2 next year.

Goofy's Race and a Half Challenge

2010-01-15T11:35:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that its been almost a week now since I ran my longest combined weekend race miles ever. All soreness is now gone as are the arctic like temperatures that were in Orlando both race days.

My race training was not the best that I've had, well it was more like the worst marathon training that I've followed since my first marathon. With that said, I went into both races not trying to set a personal best but rather to have fun, cope with the weather conditions, and complete both events.

For the 1/2 marathon on Saturday, I wanted to run either a 1:51 or 1:54 time or anything under 2 hours but nothing faster than an 8:30 pace in order to keep me able to complete Sunday's marathon. Based on the email alerts I received from 4 points on the course, my pace was as even a pace as I can run. Here are the splits that I received:

5k 27:03 Predicted 1:54:07

10k 53:55 Predicted 1:53:44

15k 1:20:54 Predicted 1:53:47

Finish 1:54:22 net time 8:43 pace

Earlier in the week, I looked up the pace times that I needed in order to finish at 1:51 or 1:54 so I had a 8:30 or 8:45 pace in my mind during the race. As my pace got down to an 8:33 I realized about the 1/2 way mark of the race that I was not taking into account the fact that I wasn't running the tangents on the course and therefore my times would be off. I just decided to keep things above 8:30 and see how the race went.

Running in 37 degree weather and rain in Madison, MS last month helped prepare me for Saturday's race. I didn't even realize that I was wet Saturday until the race was over. The rain mixed with sleet and snow that we got Saturday morning was never really heavy but there was enough to have me wet (along with my own sweat I'm sure).

I waffled quite a bit when deciding on what gear to pack for race day. When the weather forecast was still calling for lows in the 30s and potential rain, I was going to wear compression socks and 1/4 tights with a short sleeve technical shirt. When 20s were thrown into the mix, I opted for full length tights and a long sleeve technical shirt. A skull cap was part of the plan either way. Standing in line at the expo Friday morning with northerners, I decided to run Saturday's race sans tights and just running shorts. That worked out fine; I opted to include the tights for Sunday's longer run.

My post race recovery plan Saturday included me doing a load of laundry with all of the race gear that I wore in Saturday's race in order to weat the same gear Sunday. $5 in laundry costs beat the $30 plus that the airlines are charging for checked bags these days. I also wore an active pair of running shoes as travel/walking shoes this trip as packing 2 pairs of size 13 shoes would not have left much room for anything else in my carryon bag. That part of the plan worked out great as well as I had fresh shoes to run in Sunday.

While I had 2 specific goal times for Saturday's run, in the back of my mind I just wanted to finish Sunday's run faster than what I ran my first marathon in at Disney 10 years ago. Rounding up, I had a goal of finishing in under 5 hours. That goal was 1 1/2 hours slower than my Boston qualifying goal times that I had at Chicago and Houston for my last 2 marathons. Sunday morning started with temperatures in the 20s, a few degrees colder than Saturdays lows. However, while Saturday was rainy and overcast the entire morning, Sunday was clear and the sun helped warm the course post sunrise.

Kodak provided disposable cameras as part of our race goody bag this year. I didn't run with one for the 1/2 Saturday but did for the full. In fact, I stopped and took over 20 pictures along the course Sunday morning. Hopefully they all came out; I'll have them to post early next week. I managed to complete the marathon in 4:55..... 5 minutes to spare in my 5 hour goal. I also managed to avoid using any gel products during the marathon as they have been know to give my GI issues. I used some Clif shot blocks at the 1/2 way point of the race and also chomped on some frozen chocolate that was handed out at mile 23 of the race.

All in all it was a great race weekend. I had fun running 2 events even in weather conditions that were not quite ideal. Running Disney for my final marathon was a nice way to bookend my decade of running marathons with Disney as my first in 2000 and my last in 2010. I look forward to getting back to training and knocking out more states with 1/2 marathons later this year.

Oh yeah, here are my marathon splits as well. You can see that most characters and therefore pic stops occurred after the 10 mile mark:

5 mile 49:23 Predicted 4:18:57

10 mile 1:36:29 Predicted 4:12:58

13.1 mile 2:14:49 Predicted 4:29:38

20 mile 3:34:20 Predicted 4:40:58

Finish 4:55:29 net time 11:16 pace

Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel

2010-01-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

Tapering madness has definetely set in. I'm now over the weather; have decided to run in tights and long sleeves and just deal with whatever we get Saturday and Sunday mornings. Hopefully there won't be any flight issues and I can make it to the ESPN Club at the Boardwalk for the BCS Championship game Thursday evening.
I just got a link to a website that makes doubling up on states on a weekend well ... like shooting fish in a barrel. What will they think of next? Actually running the events for ya?

I'm So Over Winter

2010-01-04T19:36:00.000-08:00

Enough with the cold weather already!!!!
This weather is just a year off for my training. Last year I would've loved this weather for race day. I had completed a fall of marathon training and was ready to attempt a BQ run and got nothing but heat in both Chicago and Houston. Fast forward a year where my training has sucked since mid October and I have nothing but cold weather around me. Not to mention that both Chicago and even moreso Houston were races where you could roll out of bed and be at the start line compared to Disney this weekend where I'll be outside both Saturday and Sunday mornings in the cold for a couple of hours before the races start. Can you say Brrrrrrr.....
Any ice bath required will be as easy as jumping into the hotel pool. No need for ice with freezing weather.

The Decade in Review

2010-01-01T12:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday concluded my first long distance running decade. Prior to or shortly prior to the start of this decade, my longest run had been 6.2 miles or 10k.
My races completed this decade include 4 marathons, 2 25ks, 46 half marathons, 1 10 miler and 1 13k.
Prior to 2006, I have no idea how many miles I ran per year nor do I know how much mileage I put on my running shoes. My old shoe wear test was that if I got shin splints after a run, it was time for a new pair of shoes.
Going with the data I have, my 2006-2009 mileage is as follows:
2006 - 1146 miles
2007 - 1196 miles
2008 - 1298 miles
2009 - 1092 miles
2009 ended in a running slump for me. I'm not sure what the cause of this running funk is, but I am confident that I will work my way through it and get back running in 2010. Who knows, I may become a streaker this year!!!

I'll be on my way in 2 weeks

2009-12-24T05:48:00.000-08:00

It's hard to imagine but I'll be headed to the airport at this time 2 weeks from today. I'm looking for my umpteenth trip to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World as well as my 4th and 5th times I'll be running through Cinderella's castle as part of either the 1/2 or full marathon. 5th time running through the castle, 5th marathon, 10th anniversary of my 1st marathon and 1st run through the castle. Nice way to wrap up my first long distance running decade! And, no, not start my 2nd long distance running decade. Rather, a start to my mid distance only running!!!!

Speaking of wrapping up, I had to say goodbye to Dottie Sue Tuesday mornng. Her health had been in decline and it was time to put her down. She lived a great 15 years and 9 months; she was a calming influence at my side for the past 1/3 of my life. This is one of my favorite picture of her along with Waldo earlier this summer.

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful holiday season.

Tapering?

2009-12-21T06:22:00.000-08:00

I don't know that I can call this less than 3 week to race day period tapering as there hasn't been much mileage to be tapering from the past 3 months. Nonetheless, I ran a high mileage weekend logging 9 miles Saturday and 19 Sunday. I am confident at this point that I will meet my goal of completing both events next month. This wasn't the case 10 years ago when I was heading to the same place to compete in my very first marathon. I don't know what my training mileage was or how many miles I had on my race day shoes as I wasn't tracking mileage back then. I think I ran one run over 16 miles and paid for my lack of training dearly. I was the sorest after an event that I have ever been. I compounded the undertraining by returning to my hotel room and sleeping for a couple of hours immediately after the race. I'll be hitting the parks now post race to keep the muscles moving albeit very slowly this time around. Depending on the weather conditions and the way my body feels, an ice bath may be on tap as well. I'll leave that for a post race decision.
Speaking of weather, Houston had chamber of commerce days both Saturday and Sunday. I waited until 10 Saturday and noon Sunday to get out for my long runs. The temps were near 50 both days at the start of my runs.
I just need to make it through this next week without any additional weight gain. It'll be hard to do heading home for lots of sweets but hopefully I'll run enough to balance the additional food.

Taking it Inside

2009-12-15T05:51:00.000-08:00

With feeling finally returning to my extremities, I packed my gym bag for a treadmill workout yesterday. A nice evenly paced 10 minute per mile pace recovery run was what I needed after Saturday's 10k sprint and then run/walk struggle in Mississippi's cold and rainy weather Saturday. I plan to get another slow 4 miles on the treamill again this evening. Weather looks promising for my planned 21 miler this Saturday. This will be my longest distance run since January's Houston Marathon. No 20 Milers was my planned Goofy Challenge training this fall but since the high volume mid mileage plan has not been followed since early October I figure a 21 miler is in order.

MTC Half Marathon

2009-12-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

Saturday I ran my 46th half marathon in Madison Mississippi on a cold rainy morning. Mississippi is the 40th state that I have now run a 1/2 marathon or greater distance in since January 2000. If this were 1889, I would have completed my run at chasing states. However, its 2009 so I still have 10 states (and DC) to run before my goal is complete.

I've run races in colder conditions as well as wetter conditions, but this race was the coldest/wettest combination that I've run to date. Saturday morning started with a steady rain and 37 degree temperatures. The race start and finish was in the parking lot of Madison Central High School. I arrived about 45 minutes before the start of the race. I picked up my packet and went back to my rental car to wait for the start. I opted to run with thigh tights rather than full length tights due to the rainy weather. I wore a short sleeve shirt with a long sleeve shirt over it and a light shell to protect me from the rain. I wore a skull cap to protect my head/ears from the cold and wore a hat with a bill to protect me from the rain. I made a last minute decision to leave the Garmin in the car as it was raining a good bit and I didn't want to risk messing it up as it is not waterproof. I also wore gloves to keep my hands warm.

The race started on time in the parking lot. There were puddles covering the parking lot so my feet got a little wet right at the start of the race. My fingers and toes ended up being the coldest parts as I ran the 13.1 miles. The race course was a straight out and back on Highland Colony Parkway. This was only the 2nd long distance event that I've run without a watch. I really went out too fast and was pretty much done by the time I reached the turnaround point. Too bad there wasn't a relay option. I did a lot of walking on 2nd half of the course. I managed to finish in 1:57:56; I looked up the results today and I was 5 seconds out of a 3rd place age group finish. Amazing. This was also my first 1:57 finish in 46 attempts; I had several 1: 56 and 1:58 times but never a 1:57 before this weekend.

This trip to Jackson was incredibly similiar to my trip to Louisville back in April 2005. It was also a 1 night trip in rainy and cold conditions. Aside from running the race, I really had no desire to see anything else in the area as the weather was just so miserable. As predicted, I was delayed in both heading to Jackson and the return flight as well. Both problems were on the Houston end. On the bright side, I was able to print my return flight boarding pass when I arrived in Jackson as I fell within the 24 hour checkin time frame. I was also able to change my seat to the emergency exit row seat, giving me more room to stretch my legs on the flight home.

Now it's back to 3 solid weeks of training for my January 1/2 full combination.

Tis The Season

2009-12-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

Back in July and August I'd be licking my lips at the thought of getting to run in temps near 40 with a 90% chance of rain. Fast forward to now with my trying to get over a nasty cold, not so much looking forward to cold and rainy conditions. Of course, all rains are not created equal. Misty rain is most welcome to keep me cool. Sideways stinging rain will be a pain for any part of 13 miles. 90% chance throughout the day seems like I'll be getting some kind of rain. I may run my first race in a windbreaker or maybe even a garbage bag. If all these races were the same, there'd be no adventure.

Chances are I'll be delayed at some point in my air travel this trip. With rain expected tomorrow here in Houston on my flight to Jackson and thunderstorms predicted around my return flight home, delays seem likely. With this being the quick trip that it is, I may end up spending more time in airports than anywhere else. Even with delays, air travel rocks. I wonder how many 50 state runners would be around without air travel. Looking ahead, I mapquested a route from Texas to Rhode Island. I believe you cover 14 states on the trip which would take around 3 days driving 8 hours or so a day? Train travel? You'd have to leave Wednesday to make it in time for a Sunday race. Talk about eating vacation days!

Going Backwards

2009-12-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

A quick review of my monthly mileage in Buckeye confirmed my suspicion that my mileage has been decreasing since my marathon training began. My program began early September and these are my monthly run totals and mileage through the end of November:

September runs/miles: 19/121
October runs/miles: 13/83
November runs/miles: 12/77

The trend has continued with my December mileage at zero as of today. What started as a lack of motivation turned into an injury then turned into a cold that has really cut into my training. In the entire month of November I did not run twice the distance of what I'm going to run on the 9th and 10th of January. If there is good news, it is that I am better prepared at this point than I was for my first marathon 10 years ago. I also have a month to get in some quality training. I'll be running a 1/2 marathon in Jackson, Mississippi this Saturday and then no more races until the marathon weekend. Hopefully December numbers will look more like September than October or November.

The good news is that my legs are feeling fresh and injury free. Now I just need to get some miles in them.

GE Run Thru the Woods

2009-12-05T06:12:00.000-08:00

I just realized typing the title above that the Run Thru happened on Thur, Thanksgiving Day. Thru and Thur are typical typos for me....not sure if the name was intentionally made as such since its always on Thursday? probably just a coincidence.
As forecast, we had awesome running weather race morning. In my pre race post, I mentioned wanting to run smart to avoid injury in order to not miss any training for my upcoming January endurance weekend. More on that later.

With my family living in Louisiana, I only get to run this race every other year in order that I can make it back home in time for Thanksgiving lunch the years that my mom has everyone over. I ran this event for the first time in 2007 on an even colder morning. That year, around 4200 people participated in either a 1 mile kids run, a 5 mile run, a 3 mile teen run or a 3 mile walk. This year they had 5500 people participating. Pretty impressive for a home town event.

The local YMCA puts on this event. I have been able to obtain a Heart & Health Grant through my employer to further support the sponsor. This year we had seven people from my company participating in one of the events.

I ended up having a good race. I watched the kids 1 mile race which started 1/2 an hour before my 5 mile race. That put my warmup a little later than usual. I entered the start line area from the back right from my warmup. I weaved my way through lots of people to get at what I thought was a good starting area. In hindsight, I should have kept weaving a while longer. I often forget that these lower mileage events have lots of first time or people that don't run regularly. I spent probably my first 2 miles zig zagging through runners of many different paces before the race thinned out somewhat. About that time, I felt something rubbing both my achilles. Turns out it was the zippers from my running tights that were rubbing my skin. It wasn't a factor in a 5 mile race; it would've been raw had I run a half or full marathon. Simply tucking my socks under the tights would've solved the problem; this may come in handy for a future long distance event.

I ended up running a 37:57, 7:35 pace for the 5 miles. My pace was definetely slower than the Nike Human Race 10k that I ran in October. I finished that 6.2 miler at an average pace of 7:39 but I hobbled in at the end of that race with a pulled left calf muscle. I enjoyed the post race pancake breakfast, visited with friends and then headed home to pack for my Louisiana trip. I got back in town Sunday afternoon and ran a 5 miler that evening. My legs felt fine even though the weather was balmy Sunday. Monday morning I woke up with a sore throat and 6 days later I'm now hacking up colorful stuff. I have no miles logged since Sunday. My legs are ready to go but this cold/bronchial funk has me sidelined anyway.

I may try and run 5 miles or so Sunday just to see how things feel; I have a treadmill stress test scheduled Wednsesday morning that I should be able to keep. Friday I fly to Jackson, MS to run a 1/2 Saturday morning. Sounds like it will be another run smart event as I don't feel like I've trained enough to run this one all out either.

Michigan, Please Come Get Your Man

2009-11-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

Sore

2009-11-25T06:44:00.000-08:00

My 18 miler Sunday left me sore with tight calves and legs in general. I took Monday off but went for a 5 miler yesterday at lunch around Millbend loop from my office. My legs seemed to loosen up after a couple of miles into it which was a good thing. After cleaning up, I headed over to Lukes Locker to pickup my race packet for Thursday morning's 5 miler. It's gonna be racing weather tomorrow morning with lows expected near 40. I'm just not sure if my legs are up for an all out race. I need to try and listen to my body; put a bib number and/or a chip on me and it always seems to end up in an all out effort. Given the timing of the event in relation to my upcoming Goofy Challenge that may not be the smartest plan. An injury now would really set my training back.
After the run tomorrow and the post race pancake breakfast, it'll be another race to get home, get the dogs packed, and hit the roads to spend the holiday weekend with my mom. At least Thursday morning traffic will be a breeze compared to the nightmare traffic that will hit I-10 today into tonight.
I wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday.

No More, NO LES!!

2009-11-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

My weekend mileage plan was to run 16 miles yesterday morning at 5:30 starting at Lukes Locker with a couple of other Goofy Challenge runners. Well, I woke up at 4:30 and it was raining lightly so I opted to sleep in. The rain continued all day and then the @#$% LSU Ole Miss football game outcome put my run off until today.
I started out at 9:30 with 55 degree temps and sunny weather. Awesome weather for a training run. I ran out further than I should have so the 16 miles turned into 18.33. My left leg, mostly in the hip area, was hurting near the end of the run. I took an ice bath when I got back home and took it easy the rest of the day.
I have a 5 mile race Thanksgiving morning and then hope to get a long run in this weekend as well. Hopefully my legs will cooperate.

Help Me Make a Difference!

2009-11-18T14:25:00.000-08:00

Please help me make a difference in the lives of people with lung disease. On March 21st, I will be participating in the Citizens Bank Caesar Rodney Half Marathon. This race benefits the American Lung Association of Delaware. My goal is to complete the 13.1 mile run, but also to help raise money to fight lung disease and promote healthy lungs.

Your donation would be so greatly appreciated. Please help me help others! thank you.

Dees States I Run

2009-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what causes this...may be a full moon or something in the air but it happened again this morning. For whatever reason, it dawned on me that I should check to see if they had Saturday/Sunday 1/2's in the DC/DE area. I knew that the National Marathon had a half and was sometime in March. A quick check at Half Marathons.net and before I knew it I was signed up for the National 1/2 Marathon in DC on March 20th and the Caesar Rodney Half Marathon in Wilmington, DE on March 21st. Well not quite signed up as registration hasn't opened yet for the DE event but hotel is booked so I'm practically there!
Airfare on Continental (to BWI) was right under $225, both races have host hotels with decent rates, I'll take the Metro into DC and then rent a car Saturday at BWI to drive to DE. I'm heading up a day earlier than I normally would to sightsee in DC as I haven't been there since the late 80s. Wow, time flies.
Going back to my October, CT/MA trip, this will be my 4th consecutive running trip where I'll be running 2 events on the same trip. January will have me doing the 1/2 on Saturday and then the full on Sunday in DisneyWorld, this DC/DE trip in March followed my a late May Sunday/Monday race weekend in Cheyenne, Wyoming and Boulder, Colorado.
For some reason, I was dreading my hill run all day yesterday. I did get out in what felt like the middle of the night at 7:00pm and got in a decent 4 mile run on Flintridge. I really should start running at lunchtime weekdays now that it gets dark so early.
Earlier this fall, I ran consecutive "W" states merely coincidental and now I'll be running my first "D" state and DC and will be wrapping up the "D"s all in the same weekend. I guess you run enough of these and patterns pop up everywhere.

USRA Half Marathon Series

2009-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

I received an email today for one of the races in a new half marathon series. This series along with the 131marathon series recently announced adds around 20 half marathons for 2010. USRA hopes to have 20-25 events by 2011. It's great to see the half marathon distance getting the attention that it deserves. I may have to end up doing some state repeats as Iowa is the only state where these new events are being held that I have not yet run.
I hope to get a run in tonight. My hip doesn't quite feel right but it's not intense pain. I think I just need to get out the door and get my training started again.

Meb doing the Late Show Top Ten

2009-11-09T09:47:00.000-08:00

I just saw this; just a week late. Funny stuff!!!

Rocky Raccoon 25k

2009-11-08T16:28:00.000-08:00

I ran my 2nd 25k Saturday morning on the trails in Huntsville State Park. I ran my first 25k on the same course at the Hogs Hunt race earlier this year. I'm happy to report that I got my 2nd 25k PR this year as I improved by time unofficially by about a minute and a half. 2 PR's at a new distance for me in the same year is pretty cool; even cooler is that running right under a 9:30 pace there is still plenty of room for future PRs, especially if I run a 25k on the road.

I let my HR soar today; according to the garmin data download, my max HR was 174 with an average HR of 160. Both of those numbers were off the charts (and not in a good way).

I saw a couple falls while on the course Saturday and heard of others comparing post race stories. I still have not fallen on a trail race or even training run. I'm convinced that my running gait is made for off road. While I look goofy with my high step on the road, I have no issue with roots on the trails.

I just realized today that the 25k distance is quite a bit further than the half distance that I'm used to racing. Where I would normally be in the clubhouse at 13.1 miles, I wasn't quite at 85% of the 25 distance Saturday morning. That extra 15% is pretty significant. My 2 25k's have gone pretty similiar to my 4 marathon distance events. I run out of gas before the end of these races. The last time that I ran 15.5 miles was for the Hogs Hunt event back in May. I'm thinking I need to get in at least one (probably more) long runs before my Disney challenge in January.

I had some nice lawn mowing recovery this afternoon followed by road/driveway sweeping. Gotta love that cross training!

Pre-formance

2009-11-05T16:16:00.000-08:00

Drinking my Cytomax Pre-formance energy drink before my slow short run tonight. I almost caught another cramp in my left calf again during the night. That would be the 3rd one in 3 weeks. I haven't changed my diet or anything recently and haven't had these kinds of night cramps in years prior to this round. I have been running with water for hydration more than sports drinks the past couple of months. I'm going to try more sports drinks to see if that helps.

Happy Halloween!!! Where were you 50 years ago?

2009-10-31T13:51:00.000-07:00

My parents were in the south end zone at this game. The guy in the suit running along the sideline starting around the 15 yard line or so lived a block down in the neighborhood where I grew up.

Hit the Trails 5k

2009-10-31T08:56:00.000-07:00

I ran a local 5k this morning here in The Woodlands. At $40 plus active .com fees, the race was Woodlands pricey for a 5k; however, the race was put on by Girls Run for a great cause! I learned of the event a couple of weeks ago from a company email. The plan was to get 5 of us to run to get a $1,000 heart & health grant through work to further benfit this great cause. Plan fell through and only 2 of us participated in the event. The plan is to get a grant for next year Girls Run events.
My Garmin decided to sleep in this morning. I had the dreaded low battery message when I went to put it on after finding my satellites. I ran it for my 1 mile warmup run; it died around .75 miles. I went ahead and removed my HR monitor when I got back from the warmup. My left calf let me know that it was there while I warmed up so the plan on the fly was to just have an easy run this morning.
The trails became the concrete after a heavy soaking rain Thursday put the trails under water. 3 loops in the parking lot wasn't so bad for a 5k; however, I can see why people are not big fans of the 3 loop Houston Half Marathon run on Allen Parkway.
I ended up with a 24:12 clock time. The first mile was around my warmup pace of 9:00; mile 2 was around 8:00 and the third loop was around 7:00. The calf felt a little tight but I didn't have the same sensation that happened last Saturday at mile 6 of the 10k.
Depending on how things feel tomorrow morning, I think I'll head up to Huntsville to get in some mileage there in preparation for next weekends Rocky Raccoon 25k Saturday morning. No sleeping in next Saturday with a 7:00 race start up in Huntsville State Park. I could get spoiled with 9:00 am local start times like todays.
I haven't entered today's mileage yet but I know that my marathon training is headed in the wrong direction this month. I logged 120 miles in September; I know I didn't break 100 this month. Too many races and no real motivation are dragging me down. November only has 2 races and hopefully awesome weather so the mileage should be back up.

Yet Another Rest Day

2009-10-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Before:

After:

Waldo and his stuffed pelican were fine when I left the living room to go get ready for work yesterday morning. The area needed to be roped off for a Crime Scene Investigation when I came back out. Pelican innards....stuffing, honking noise maker and what not were scattered about. I think it's time to order more toys.

I planned on running for the first time this week last night. It wasn't to be with rain coming down in buckets. I woke up with another cramp in my left calf during the night. I'll just have to take tomorrow morning's trail run easy and listen to the calf to avoid another pull. Not sure what's causing all the cramps.

13.1 Marathon series

2009-10-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

Flipping through the December 2009 issue of Running Times, I just came across an ad for 3 races part of a new series produced by US Road Sports & Entertainment Group out of Dallas. It looks like 4 of the 8 races will be inaugural events. With early entry fees starting at $55, the series looks to be competitively priced; lets hope it remains that way.
The apparent attempt to brand these events without the 1/2 designation may end up confusing the non running community. I still occasionally get the "How long is this marathon?" question from non runner friends. Calling this a 13.1 marathon will further muddy the waters.
Of the 8 events, I've run in all the states where they are being held. The one event I could possibly justify would be New York as that is the only state where I've run a full marathon but not a 1/2 or a 13.1 marathon!

Blame it on the Cheap Air

2009-10-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Oops I did it again. Last night I found airfare to Jackson, MS for under $70 on Continental as part of the price matching of Southwest's 72 hour fare sale. The sale window fit in perfectly with the Mississippi Track Club 1/2 Marathon in Madison, MS just north of Jackson. The 1/2 advertises itself as a no frills event; you can't beat the $17 registration fee. A quick trip to hotwire.com and I now have a rental car for around $25 after all fees. All I need now is 1 nights lodging. This trip may end up being cheaper than my Houston Marathon "trip" in January.
Staying on road, this will be my 6th half marathon and 6th new state for 2009. 5 of the 6 were not affiliated with a full marathon. All 5 of the half only events were under $60; 2 in the $50's, 2 in the $30's and this one at $17. I am finding events where the 1/2 is the featured race to be cheaper in general than 1/2's that are part of the full marathon event.
I will be picking up state 40 much sooner than anticipated but I still have my goal of completing number 50 on my 50th birthday.

Human Race Recovery

2009-10-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

Good news is that the calf pull was just that and nothing worse. I hobbled around the rest of the day Saturday but was walking normal again Sunday morning. My legs are still sore so I will not run until Thursday the earliest. I have a 5k on the calendar this Saturday morning which I know I shouldn't race but most probably will end up racing. Something about getting a bib number and a group of people together makes me want to run hard..... Rocky Raccoon 25k trail run is the following Saturday so I am getting some miles in but it's definetely not your conventional marathon training. That's ok as running a half and full combination over a weekend is not your conventional race so it should all work out in the end. That's what I keep telling myself.

Nike Human Race 10k

2009-10-24T08:06:00.000-07:00

What a great day for a race!

Lukes Locker put on a great free show this morning for The Woodlands runners. I would've run further than a 10k this morning without an organized event, but I decided to race the 10k since we had a course and runners and post race party.

I was having a good run until about mile 6 when my left calf muscle decided to lock up/tighten up/cramp on me. Driving home I remembered that I woke up in the middle of the night during the week with the calf cramping up on me. I was able to avoid a full out cramp but I guess it was enough for it to act up again while I was running. Despite the cramp, I ended up running an unofficial 48:17. Post race, they had a live band, coffee and breakfast, and even massages.

I will most likely skip running in Huntsville tomorrow depending on how the calf feels tomorrow morning. I'd like to get out there as Rocky Raccoon 25k is November 7th but if its bothering me there's no sense pushing it risking injury.

The Bigger Challenge?

2009-10-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

Interesting article from USA Today in the Sky. Prior to fees being institiuted for checking bags, I almost always checked a bag. With the liquid worries at TSA checkpoints, it was just easier to not deal with trying to carry on a bag. Start charging me to check a bag, and, yeah, I'm going to start carrying on my stuff. I have started sitting further back on the plane to ensure that there is still room in the overhead bins for my bag; before I always tried to sit as far forward as possible. Last in, first off made sense to me. I have found that earlier in, later off with bag in hand is actually quicker so I must thank the airlines for speeding up my travel experience.
Oh yeah, after going through the airport, the half marathon that I'm traveling to is usually a piece of cake!!!
For my January 2 run trip, I have decided that carrying on and doing laundry after my first race will be cheaper and more efficient than packing enough for the entire trip. Plus, it'll be nice recovery time between races.

Running Through Goofy

2009-10-14T06:08:00.000-07:00

If I was on the fence, my current training intensity has pretty much decided my Goofy fate. I have not been training to run a PR marathon. Orlando's January historical weather is reason enough to not expect favorable running conditions for the marathon. Add to that the 1/2 that I'll be running the day before and a marathon PR is not likely. So my training to date has been more of the surviving a 40 mile running weekend compared to racing 40 miles.

Now that I've decided to not push myself through Goofy, it would be nice to have a target race early next year. I am considering the 3M Half in Austin later in January. The course sounds much more to my liking than the 1/2 course associated with the Austin full mid February. Unfortunately, most of my local running buds will be doing the full and not the half only event. Oh well, it's not like I haven't traveled alone for a race before!!!!

My recovery and the Houston sucky weather are a good combination this week. This weekends weather looks like the best of the fall season here in Houston; it actually looks like fall temps!!! Who knows, I may even run Saturday and Sunday.

I updated my state map yesterday. 7 of the 11 remaining states being contiguous make a huge white hole in the northern midwest portion of the US. Current plans are for 2010 races in Wyoming in May and Montana in July. All other 2010 plans are currently repeat states.

Just One Run Short of Fabulous

2009-10-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

It is 40 and fabulous right? If that's the case I'm now one more state shy of hitting the big four 0 thanks to this weekends Massachusetts and Connecticut's cool and not-so-cool runnings.

Planes, trains and automobiles
This weeks travel to Boston and then Hartford and then Boston involved all 3 modes of travel. I rate them as follows:

Planes: D-
While all delays were supposedly weather related, I am really hating air travel these days for some reason. My Friday morning (was it the 13th? Sure seemed like it....) 11:05 AM flight that was due in Boston at 2:52 PM Houston time was delayed 4 1/2 hours. I was still on the ground at Bush IAH when I should have been in Boston driving towards Hartford. My initial travel plans had me picking up my Saturday morning race packet very close to the 7 PM Friday evening expo close in Hartford. Thankfully, Hartford had a race day pickup option. Many races don't offer such an option. Once our plane arrived from Philly via a weather related diverted stop and refueling in Lake Charles, LA and we boarded and on our way, we encountered yet another weather issue on our approach to Boston. 1/2 mile visibility turned into 1/4 mile which led to our circling in a holding pattern waiting for visibility to improve. I have never been so relieved to hear the "Welcome to Boston" greeting from the flight attendants once we landed as we could have easily been diverted to another airport. The return flight Sunday evening was slowed a half hour or so by headwinds from Boston all the way down to Jackson, Mississippi as well as a landing approach at IAH from a westerly direction due to Houston winds. Total planes lost time: 5 1/2 hours

Automobiles: C
Car rental shuttle from Logan to Hertz rental site rather quick. Very smooth rental process with my new Hertz Gold status thanks to a new company contract with Hertz! Kia Spectra more than adequate for my needs. Loving the Garmin nuvi GPS that was on its 3rd out of town trip with me. GPS does make solo navigating much easier than trying to read mapquest and drive at the same time. As I realized that Hartford pasta dinner wasn't going to happen I stopped at the Framingham rest/service area on the Mass turnpike around 9:30 PM. They actually had a pizza and pasta place there. Unfortunately all they had left was pizza so I opted for McD's grilled chicken and fries.
Made it out of Taxachusetts tolls right under $8.00. Not sure if I was in Mass or Connecticut when it happened.... nuvi showed me being 20 minutes from Hartford when I saw a red glow up ahead; made it up a hill and saw red brake lights.... 3 lanes worth... as far as I could see. Someone decided it was a good night to merge 3 lanes of interstate traffic into 1 lane on the right hand shoulder to restripe the lanes. Watched the 20 minute ETA time move up with real time as I crawled along with all the traffic. Orange cones eventually stopped and all 3 lanes were open. Made it to downtown Hartford without further incident. Checked in quickly at Crowne Plaza, moved car to CP garage and made my way up to my room with my bags. Got a call from the front desk 5 minutes later. They had my wallet downstairs. By this point had no idea how that happened. I either brought it to the front desk for some reason (didn't need it as my drivers license and credit cards were in my front pocket) or it fell off my lap when I got out of the car. It was in my lap for the toll booth stops I made thru Mass. Headed down and retrieved wallet after midnight, set alarm for 5:30 and caught a few hours sleep.

ING Hartford 1/2 Marathon:
The 1/2 was part of the full marathon weekend; a 5k was also offered as well. They had a total of 10,000 runners in all 3 events. I put on my warmup pants and a long sleeve T shirt and headed out the door to the XL center to pickup my packet. It was a short walk to XL. Of course forgot my race number that had been emailed to me earlier in the week and my drivers license. Got my packet and race shirt quickly and headed back to hotel to get ready. Warmups and T shirt weren't neeed as temps were in the 60s and humid. Headed out to Bushnell Park/race start in running gear with no need to check baggage.
Probably a combination of lack of sleep, poor fueling/carb loading and warmer temps had my heart rate higher than where I wanted it most of the race. Kept reining myself in..... telling myself that I had another 13.1 to run the next morning.
Finished in 1:50 and change with wet clothes and wet shoes. Had more clothes for the Boston 1/2 and another pair of shoes in the shoes that I wore for traveling. Post race food was provided by Whole Foods; great job by them. I headed back to hotel; applied some blow dryer heat to the shoes to jump start the drying process to try and run in the same shoes for Boston. Got out of downtown Hartford without too much difficulty; had to head west on I-84 a few miles and turn around once outside of race closures as full marathon had roads still closed.
Headed back to Logan to return the rental car and make it to Back Bay Fens in Boston.

Trains: A+
After returning the rental car, took Hertz bus to Logan terminal B to catch the MBTA blue train shuttle to the Airport T stop. Walked right into shuttle bus; bought my $4.00 round trip ticket and headed to Prudential center stop headed for the Boston Sheraton. MBTA station and Sheraton were both within Prudential Center. Didn't have to leave the block. Also noticed a Cheesecake Factory, PF Changs and food court on the walk to the Sheraton. Ate pasta at Cheesecake and took a nap; stretched legs a little and settled in for the night after getting directions to race start for the next morning.
Sunday morning warmups and sweatshirt came in handy with 40 degree temps. After walking a little out of the way by Fenway Park, I found the race start/packet pickup. I started to head back to the hotel after picking up my packet but realized it was too far to walk so I just stayed and checked a bag.
The Boston course was tougher than Hartford but the cooler temps more than compensated. It was a beautiful morning for a run through several Boston parks. I wound up running a 1:45; this was my 4th race run with a HR monitor; my HR was the most controlled that I had seen it. I chalk it up to cooler temps.
Grabbed post race lunch in Prudential Center and then headed to airport. Caught the end of the early NFL games and the beginning of the late games pre flight.

All in all a nice quick trip to pick up states 38 and 39. This has been my 3rd straight Columbus Day weekend where I've run 26.2 miles. Must be a popular time of year for races!!!!

It's Great to be a......

2009-10-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Gator Hater!!! I'll be geauxing gold on Saturday up in Boston. Extended forcast for Hartford Saturday morning has upper 40s for the low with a rain chance. Sunday morning in Boston mid 40s. Must remember to pack garbage bag/throw away clothes. Mid 50s in Washington state last month in drizzle was chilly.
No running this weekend at moms plus more eating than normal is not the best taper week plan but the trip had to be made. Should be a nice taper week of running then a quick trip to the northeast to pick up states 38 and 39!!!!!

Running Free

2009-09-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

I headed to Huntsville State Park Sunday morning for the first time in at least 6 weeks. A couple of miles into the ride I realized that I forgot my Garmin watch. Had shoes so I had a free day to not pay attention to the HR monitor. I ran a route that I was familiar with the distance and ran it pretty hard. My Friday run was without a HR monitor as well as I just used the Garmin 205 on a 6 mile run.
Saturday's run didn't happen. I spent the morning trying to get local channel 55 working with my digital rabbit ears. Ended up putting a step ladder outside and ran the ears through a window. Thank god the community association doesn't have a satellite view as this was behind a fence.

Hi tech:

Lo tech

Freezing frames didn't help ease the frustration watching LSU sleepwalk through its morning game with Mississippi State. Will another top 5 team go down this weekend?

Super Jock n Jill 1/2 Marathon

2009-09-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

This basically sums up the 4 days of weather that I experienced in Seattle this past Labor Day weekend. The above pic was taken driving from Redmond to Woodinville on Labor Day for the start of the Super Jock n Jill 1/2 marathon. Yucky weather for alot of outdoor activites but pretty darn awesome for running. It drizzled/misted most of the race and I don't believe the temps got out of the 50's.

There were quite a few rolling hills throughout the course with the signature hill/mountain coming about the half way mark during mile 7. This course had to have the most turns of any course that I've run. The Garmin download reminds me of spaghetti.

Given the cooler weather and overcast conditions, I ran 11 minutes faster than just 2 weeks earlier in West Virginia and wrapped up my 37th state in 1:42:48. This race was also timed with gun time only but it was announced prior to the race and there were signs to line up according to expected pace which led to a much smoother start than Parkersburg last month. Next up is Hartford and Boston on a Saturday/Sunday back to back Columbus Day weekend.

Non running trip highlights/lowlights:

Dropping off the pups/heading to Parking Cents/IAH security check/ and flight takeoff all went off as smoothly as possible.

First hiccup came at Alamo car rental counter in SeaTac; I had reserved 3 days at $21.61 per day (before all the outrageous add-ons) through a travel agency. When my flight settled down to a red eye flight I called the agency and requested a change from a 3pm return to a 10 pm return. Agency assured me my rate hadn't changed; Alamo wanted $115 for the additional 6 hours (before all the outrageous add-ons) which would have put those few hours costing more than the entire previous 3 days!!!! Consequently, if you have any questions about where anything is in SeaTac, let me know as I was in the airport for hours waiting for my flight (no way I was paying over $100 bucks additional). Of course Continental ended up adding a 3:55pm flight which was of course sold out. That was the 2nd of 4 return flights that I was on at some point in time.

Saturday evenings weather for the LSU/UW game only had a few sprinkles. UW does a much better job handling game day traffic in my opinion in that they charge to park on campus and offer free park n ride bus service from various locations in the area. I rode the bus and got in and out of the stadium area very quickly.

Redmond Town Center where I stayed reminded me very much of Market Street in The Woodlands. Microsoft's campus was located nearby. They even had a Saturday farmer's market just like Market Street.

I traveled sout to Mt Rainier National Park Sunday morning.

My trip ended up being mainly a driving trip from west to east throught the park as it rained pretty heavily most of the day. I did manage to get in one mile or so hike with a rain poncho on. Getting back to civilization earlier than normal due to the rainier conditions was a blessing in disguise as I missed a cell call but later got the message that my 15 1/2 older dog was having problems and needed someone to pick her up. Thanks a million to Sara and Dr Sarah for getting Dotty the attention that she needed.

I got a couple hours of sleep on the plane but not the restful night that I envisioned. Looking at a 11:45 PM departure and a 5:20 AM arrival, I hadn't factored in losing 2 hours with time zone changes so I spent most of the morning napping once I retrieved the pups.

Name that Run

2009-08-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

This weekend is the weekend after a race and the weekend before another race and the weekend before I start my January marathon training plan. So today's run was a recovery, taper, base building run. That's a mighty long name for a little ole 6 miles.

While today's weather was definetely nicer than the oven like weather we've been experiencing here in Houston the past couple of months, I still wouldn't call it NICE. My definition of nice involves temps another 30 degrees cooler, with cloud cover, and just the right amount of mist. Oh well I'll take what I can get.

Coach Les Miles and LSU Sports are tweeting to wear gold for this coming Saturday's game up in Washington. I guess with 10-20 thousand tiger fans expected to make the trip we may be looking at home field advantage.....

7 Days to College Colors Day

2009-08-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

Parkersburg News & Sentinel Half Marathon

2009-08-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

I ran the News & Sentinel Half Marathon in Parkersburg, West Virginia this past Saturday for my 36th state. I flew to Columbus, Ohio Friday morning and drove to Parkersburg to pick up my race packet and attend the Friday evening pasta dinner. The Parkersburg race is held annually in conjunction with Homecoming weekend. It's a festival type atmosphere; the Saturday race courses are either a 2 mile course or a 1/2 marathon course. The race participants consist of mostly locals and a handful of Kenyans that compete for the race prize money.

I added my times per mile as well as my average heart rate and comments to the Parkersburg course description of the race:

Mile 1 – the first mile is fast and furious; the crowd is excited and many runners will get caught up in this excitement. Mile two will fix that. There is a slight upgrade but finishes with a steep downhill to the end of mile one.

8:22 146 AHR My 1st mile time per the Garmin was 7:31. I didn’t realize that there wasn’t a timing mat at the start line until 12 hours later lying in bed in another state. Mile 1 was spent dodging walkers that were ahead of me; it would have been nice if there were markers with estimated pace per mile for people to line up (not that that stops people from lining up in the wrong place but it’s at least an attempt to get people sorted out properly.)

Mile 2 – begins on a flat stretch of road and winds around to the bridge and Rt. 68. Construction a few years ago changed this mile. There is a moderate upgrade on the bridge that changes to a significant upgrade to the exit ramp. This is a HILL by any name. This is a tough little section of the course. Your legs will know you have been on a hill.

8:08 157 AHR As advertised, there is a hill at mile 2; I just don’t see how they couldn’t have mentioned all those other HILLS that were to come…..

Mile 3 – is different too because of the past construction. This is good news - good news. You are past the "hill" and now you will meander downhill to Marrtown Road. Once on Marrtown, the downhill grade continues. ENJOY!

8:19 161 AHR I thought I read that I was past the hill and mile 3 was downhill. Didn’t happen. Could I have been on the wrong course???

Mile 4 – you are now traveling on Route 95 close to Ryanwood Village. You have entered the realm of rolling hills. Gihon/Rt. 95 is not a tough section of the race but there are a series of small to moderate "rolls." This is a nice section to find your pace. The excitement of the start has died down and the big hill is behind you so this is a good time to get comfortable, considering you are racing.

7:46 155 AHR At this point I was thinking that there was no end to hills in sight. We are running through rural residential sections at this point; lots of folks were outside watching us running.

Mile 5 – Ditto from mile four. You will be close to the golf course, but no time to stop for a quick nine. You are still on Gihon Rd. and it is still rolling. Good time to work on your pacing skills, too early to get excited though. Good news is there is a great water stop at mile six and you are almost there.

8:09 160 AHR The golf course was probably the most scenic part of the course. Prior to this section, I was thinking to myself that this wasn’t a top 25 half marathon course.

Mile 6 - is just before the Evangelical Methodist Church and this is a great water stop. These people are just happy. You are beyond the rolling Gihon and you will find some nice flat land for a while, but it does not last forever.

8:19 162 AHR Once again, no mention of the monster climb to the mile 6 marker. This makes Flintridge look flat. I didn’t realize that rollers could be so mountain like!

HEY YOU ARE HALF WAY!!!!!!

The unofficial plan that I had for the race was to run the first half at or below 150 HR. The plan worked for mile 1; by mile 6 the HR plan was beyond recovery. I was just going to monitor the HR and see how I did.

Mile 7 – Gihon Rd. has turned into Rayon Dr. (it is the same street) and there is a hill to climb. Personally, this is my least favorite hill. You are getting tired and this is a real hill. Tough it out because there is a nice flat stretch just ahead of it. Be ready for it though. Get a good drink at that great water stop at mile six.

8:39 162 AHR Maybe this was the mile 6 hill; I really have a hard time distinguishing what hills they try to emphasize as hills compared to the general terrain in these hilly places.

Mile 8 and Mile 9 - You have crossed a large intersection and found a nice downhill to Camden Ave. This section is flat and can be very fast. If you have held your pace okay, this may be a place to test your legs; Camden is a nice lengthy stretch where you may be able to pick up a little time and stretch out your stride. You are getting close to the crowds and the finish. It is almost time to get excited.

8:32 162 AHR I finally found flatness at the 8.5 mile mark and it was gone before I reached mile 9.

9:01 160 AHR Mile 9 wasn’t a tough part of the course but I was just tired. Plus there is no shade on the course and with an 8 am start the sun had things pretty warm by this point.

Mile 10 – You have turned right onto Division St. It is flat, but if the temperature is up, you will feel it here, not much shade and sometimes little air is moving. There is traffic again and you should notice a few more people on the course to cheer you on. You will cross the bridge headed back into downtown Parkersburg. The best thing about this mile is it leads you to mile 11 and almost home.

9:16 157 AHR The bridge headed back to Parkersburg is a definite incline. So much of an incline that it had me wondering if this was the mile 11 hill that I heard so much about.

Mile 11- finds you on Avery St.; this area is flat for the most part, with slight upgrades. Return runners and locals will be passing this spot knowing he/she is only one block from the finish line, but it will take him/her over two miles to get there! Good news is there are some shaded spots on this road.

Bad news is - OH NO!!! 13th St. HILL!!! "Good Grief super runners/walkers, what are we to do?" Even though this hill has a reputation, it is what it is, short and sweet. It is tough because your legs are tired, but there is a very nice downhill just beyond this demon that feels wonderful. You are less than two miles to finish, don’t give up hope now.

9:25 161 AHR The 13th street hill really was a short but very steep incline. I walked the entire steepness of it and still was under a 9:30 mile so it was very short.

Mile 12 – Construction moved the race onto 17th St. several years ago. Mile 12 is located at St. Mary’s Ave and 17th St. After a little zig and zag, you have a straight shot to Market St. and home. I thought the road looked like it had a slight upgrade, but it didn’t feel like it when I ran it. You decide. You will turn left onto Market St. and a perpetual downhill grade to finish. You are probably getting excited by now; you deserve it, you are almost here.

10:12 157 AHR Lots of walking going on here. Just wanting this puppy to end at this point.

Mile 13 – is located at 6th St. and Market. You can see, you can hear it, you can feel it, so go get it; the finish is downhill and fast. Leave nothing on the course and go for the gusto. I will leave the light on for you.

9:36 [8:32 pace for last 1.1 miles] 160 AHR I picked up the pace in the last half mile and ended up hitting my max HR of 173 for the race right near the end. The finish was downhill as advertised.

Total gun time (no net chip time) 1:53:47 max HR 173 AHR 158

Things That Make You Go Ahhhh

2009-08-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Parkersburg, WV forecast for this weekend calls for a high of 77 and lows around 60. Both of those are running about 20 degrees cooler than what we've been experiencing in the Houston area this summer. Woot!

Unfortunately, I have a feeling their hills will look somewhat like this to me:

I always say heat, hills, and humidity are best battled one on one. Its that combination that makes them a killer.

I plan on running an easy 4 miles this evening after work or tomorrow morning. My next run after that will be the half marathon in Parkersburg. I need to go home and see if I remember how to pack as its been over 6 months since my last running trip. Should be a great weekend!

Marathoning the Hansons' Way

2009-08-15T07:05:00.000-07:00

It's been over 7 months now since I signed up for the Goofy challenge at Walt DisneyWorld this coming January. Reality is starting to set in that I'll actually have to start marathon training at some point. I really have no desire to run a 20 mile training run so I think I'll look into the Hansons' Way training program. Gotta love a 16 mile max distance long run.

No matter what amount of training I do from this point out I will be better trained than the last time I ran the marathon at WDW. This January marks the 10th anniversary of my first marathon that was also run at WDW. Back then I had one dri fit shirt, didn't log my runs, didn't track shoe mileage and was totally in awe of the marathon distance. This time around will be only my 5th marathon but I no longer fear the distance. I do respect the distance but know that it can be conquered.

This morning's 12 mile run turned into 12.75. My average HR was right under 75% max so mission accomplished. This week will be easy low mileage stuff resting up for my 1/2 next Saturday morning in Parkersburg, WV. Hoping for cool weather!!!

New New Balances

2009-08-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

I've been running my training runs either in New Balance 1062s or 1063s these days. They've been fine for my training runs but I haven't decided what I'll be running my races in going forward. New Balance discontinued their 826 shoe model late last year without designating a replacement model. I've heard from various review that the 757 now 758 shoe is comparable to the 826. I ordered a pair of the 758s today to see if they will become my race day shoe of choice. Price at Online Shoes was around $90 with free shipping before a trip to coupon cabin got me an additional 20% off so can't really complain about the cost.

Natural Pain Relief

2009-08-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the final day of my steroid treatment for my tennis elbow. I also began using a natural gel called Sore No More to apply to my right elbow. I believe I received a sample of this stuff at the Canyonlands 1/2 in Moab, UT. I know it was somewhere out west..... after a while all these races and states start blending together. Anyways, I liked the sample so ordered a jar awhile back; the stuff really feels good on my elbow. Evidently it keeps on working too; as I sweat running on the treamill at lunch I could feel it warming up again. More so in the shower post run.
I checked out the Runner's World forums for the first time in awhile today. I discovered yet another online 1/2 support group, Half Fanatics. Um yeah..... I qualify as a 1/2 fanatic!!!!

Saved by the 10 Percent Rule

2009-08-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

This weekend's running came out looking nothing like what I had planned. Well at least Saturdays no running. I was planning on running the Run the Woodlands 5k series but slept in until almost 9.... very late indeed for me.
I was up before 6 this morning and headed up to Huntsville State Park for my long run. I had just finished my coffee when I saw flashing lights up ahead. There is construction in the area but it looked to me like the lights were right in the middle of the interstate. Turns out they were. I had to exit for a hundred yards or so and got right back on the interstate. They had cops at both the exit and entrance.... I wasn't sure what they were doing. A few miles later, a message board on the interstate was displaying an "Elderly missing" notice along with a license plate number and a while olds cutlas vehicle description. I guess they were rerouting traffic at the particular construction point to get a look at vehicles. Early Sunday morning didn't have much traffic. The message was still on the boards on my return to the Houston area.
I had originally planned on running 13 miles this weekend to get to my race mileage 2 weeks before my race. Next weekend will be a 12 mile week and then taper to race day. I carry 36 ounces of hydration wearing a fuel belt on my long run; that usually last me the 9 something miles that I've been running. Before hitting the trails this morning, I ran 2 miles on the roads at Huntsville State Park so that I could drink and then stop and pick up my fuel belt for the run. Running on the road was nice and I did notice that my speed is much faster on the road compared to the trails. It will be interesting to see how that translates in Parkersburg in less than 2 weeks.
Running the 2 miles before the trails and my normal 9.25 trail route got me 11.25 miles this morning. I decided to call it quits at 11 as I looked like I had fallen in the lake plus I had already exceeded a 10% increase in last weeks mileage. Next time I'll need to run any extra mileage before I hit the trails.
I won't be back to Huntsville for 5 or 6 weeks now as I've got next week running from home, Parkersburg 1/2 the next week, next week at home and the next week in Seattle. That will be my longest break from the trails in quite some time.