Just get out the door already.....

"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."
--T.S. Eliot,Nobel laureate in literature

It was dark at 7:30 by the time I finally got out the door for my run this New Years Eve. But I got out the door and got in a quick 5 miler to wrap up 2008. 1314.6 miles per my training log at Runners World. I'll make my 2009 debut tomorrow afternoon running the Nature Trail with the Rainbow Chupacabras.

2008 Year in Review

In my mind, 2008 was the year of the marathon for me. Looking at the results, it doesn't seem to be that way at all though. Stretching out the Great Alaskan Maritime Marathon into 3 seperate events, I completed 12 races this year. I PR'd at the Chicago Marathon and ran a 10 miler PR by default as Ten for Texas was my first race at that distance.

2008 was also the year of the achilles for me as I reinjured my left achilles tendon in early February and nursed it for most of the year. I do think I found a solution to my problem with custom orthotics that I started running in late in the year. Time will tell.

Here are the distances and months:
2 5k's {May and June}
1 5 miler {June}
1 9k {January}
1 10k {June}
1 10 miler {November}
4 1/2 marathons {January, February, April, June}
1 marathon {October}
1 200+ mile relay race [23.4 miles total for me] {February}

February and April races were run injured; no fun at all.
No March, July, August, September, or December races. Guess that's where the marathon training took up all my time and miles!

I'm looking forward to running the Houston Marathon next month and getting back to shorter distances for the remainder of 2009. The latter part of 2009 will have me running long again prepping for my January 2010 39.3 mile Goofy challenge weekend in Orlando.

My Running Window is Narrowing

I finally showed up for a Woodlands Fit Saturday morning run. I was teased Saturday morning about being a closeted warm weather loving runner because I hadn't shown up the prior 2 Saturday mornings opting instead to run later in the day when the temperatures were a little warmer. Well Saturday definetely proved that I'm not a warm weather runner. My shoes were soaked after running 21 miles in 70 degree 90 percent humidity weather. As I was also reminded that I don't run in the dark, I guess it has to be daylight between 55 and 65 degrees for me to run. I also don't like treadmills so I wonder how many days of the year I can run with all these limits???
I need to run 30 miles this week to average 25 miles per week for the year. Not bad considering my weekly mileage for the first half of the year with the achilles issues. 2006 was the first year that I tracked my mileage and I averaged 22 miles per week in 2006 and 23 in 2007. Pretty consistent the past 3 years I'd say.

The Science of Running

I just thought I was putting one foot in front of the other. After watching this clip of New Balance's 1063 I realize how much is really going on with each step.

New Balance has already come out with a replacement model for the 1062 that I just purchased back in May this year. I ordered the new model from New Balance Tampa to see if it was a "must have" model or if the 1062 suited me better. The 1063 seems to be alright but I went ahead and purchased 2 more pairs of the 1062 from Road Runner Sports on sale with an additional 15% off and free shipping. I still find the 1060 model of the line to be the most comfortable; although later models don't seem to break down as fast as the 1060 has.

I missed my scheduled track workout Tuesday after convincing myself that it was ok to skip out. I packed my workout bag with warm clothes for the workout, even remembered the right sports drink powder, valet key and had tights and a long sleeve shirt hat and gloves for the workout. What I forgot/left on the bathroom counter were the sweats for pre and post workout. I decided to head home to get them instead of heading to the workout directly from work. Once I got home that was it and I missed the workout; cold temps and pain in my neck all day long got the better of me. Wednesday morning I just added a towel to my workout gear that I had packed the day before. I hadn't really paid attention to the weather; I got out around noon for my run in tights and a long sleeve shirt to find Tuesday's 40 degree temps replaced by temps in the 60s and humid. I was way overdressed and sweat profusely while running. Thursday I ran in shorts and a sleeveless running shirt but was still soaked after my run with temps making it to the 70s. My last long run before Houston this Saturday has forecast high temps near 80; sweating's good for you right?

The Wetlands are Wet Again

Ooops I did it again..... slept in that is. I got out the door about half an hour earlier than I did last weekend Saturday. I had tentatively planned to run down Branch Crossing and do the Alden Bridge loop to get close to 12 miles in. The light on Woodlands Parkway at Branch Crossing had just turned green when I ran past it. I would've had to wait on cars to cross so I just kept going down Woodlands Parkway. I then decided to head on to Flintridge and get in some of the George Mitchell Nature preserve trails and then head back to get close to 12 miles.

I hadn't run in the Mitchell preserve since Hurricane Ike a few months ago. Lots of trees were down but The Woodlands Community Association had the trails all clear. I noticed a couple of new signs since I'd last been in there. They had a sign for "Bike Trails" and later I saw on for "West Trail." I stayed on the "Trail Loop" passing by the sign for "The Wetlands". Father's Day morning was when a few of us took the Wetlands trail in hopes of finding a connection to trails at Creekside Village, the newest village here in The Woodlands. We ended up getting lost for awhile and managed to find thorny vines and chiggers instead of connecting trails. I was right at 6 miles when I saw the "West Trail" sign so I took that to see where it would go. It only went about a tenth of a mile and stopped where the creek banks were too high to cross over. I turned around and retraced my route to get in a 12.2 mile run.

Sneaux Day

Many areas along the I-10 corridor experienced snow for the first time in quite awhile this past week. It was the earliest snowfall on record for many of those areas. All I got was some snow mixed with rain that didn't stick to anything as the temps were still too warm when the moisture came through. Watching people just east of me try to drive in that mess the next morning made me grateful for this; I know at a younger age I would've loved to see the stuff stick.

I let the dogs stay in Wednesday morning as the high was forecast to remain in the 40's . I worked til lunch and then ran my 5 miler on the treadmill at work before heading home to check on the dogs. Treadmill running is ok every once in awhile but I definetely prefer being out running.

Windy Track Workout

We somehow managed to dodge rain again last night at our Tuesday track workout at College Park. It was pretty windy as a cold front came through yesterday evening. After about a 2 mile warmup and no drills, we ran 4 1600's. Another mile to cool down and then stretch and I was on my way home nice and warm. I believe I'll get my 5 miles in today on the treadmill; 60% chance of rain and lunchtime temp below 40 in the forecast.

Just one more long run before Houston

That was what finally got me out the door Saturday afternoon right before 1:00. It didn't hurt that the afternoon weather was totally awesome for a long training run. My original plan was to run the early run and regular run with the Blue/Green Woodlands Fit group to get in my 20 miles. Looking at their maps/routes Friday evening I realized that I would be running closer to 21 miles than my scheduled 20. I also knew that they would be running much faster than my training pace as I try to run my long runs at least a minute per mile slower than my target marathon pace. They seem to run a race every Saturday morning. So snoozing once when the 4 o'clock alarm went off and then turning it off and catching more zzzzzz's was pretty much a no brainer. The Weather Channel also had the 4 am temps in the 30s.

I ran the same route that I ran the weekend before Thanksgiving; one big loop out my front door registered 19.2 miles. Unlike my pre turkey day run, Saturday's went fine for a training run. I ate more in the morning this time and didn't run out of gas the last few miles of the run.

Training for Chicago and piggybacking Houston has gotten to be a long training season for this half marathon runner. I'm looking forward to wrapping up what has turned into a long training stretch of way too many long runs over 15 miles. I definetely am a fan of the half marathon and look forward to returning to that distance in 2009.

December in Houston

Just back from a 5 mile run. 78 degrees and 60% humidity had me sweating like a summers day in most other parts of the country. Of course a summers day here in Houston would have my shoes squeeking from being soaked 2 miles into the run. The next 2 days should have highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s which should be our coldest weather of the season to date. This drastic change in weather conditions is what worries me most about the Houston marathon next month. However, it is totally out of my hands; just gotta hope for optimal weather conditions.

We ran 4 800s at interval pace at the track last night with a lap jog recovery in between 800s. We then ran a 3200 at threshold pace; was a nice, solid workout.

I came into the week fresh as I missed both my Thursday and Saturday long runs last week as I was out of town. I brought the running gear with me but just didn't get out the door. At least I got in a runner's core routine workout over the weekend.

Failure to Launch

Failing to plan is planning to fail....
I woke up at 4 yesterday morning in order to pack and hit the road to my moms for 6. I packed the running close; have to get a 20 mile long run in sometime this weekend. Yesterdays 10 mile run never happened. I got to my moms around 10:30; family came over for lunch. It was after 4:30 by the time they all left and I didn't particularly feel like running. Plus I hurt the top of my right foot horsing around with my 14 year old nephew. So I soaked the right foot in ice a couple of times last night. It's feeling fine this morning. I briefly considered doing the 20 this morning but think I'll wait and get it in tomorrow morning. It's definetely more important to get in the 20 long run than worry about the missed 10.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Trying to watch what I eat with my annual physical taking place Monday morning.

So far so good

A week and a half into running in my custom orthotics and everything seems to be going well. Last night was my 2nd track session with them; I completed 12 400's all within 1:28 to 1:32. That's very consistent for me. Before the workout, coach Dana mentioned that if anyone was running the 5 mile Thanksgiving race here in The Woodlands, they may want to do only 2 or 3 400s last night. In the middle of the 2nd 400, I briefly considered running the 5 miler in order to not have to run anymore in the cold last night. Unfortunately I'm heading out of town around 6 tomorrow morning so the Run thru the Woods race will have to go on without me. I ran it last year for the first time and headed out of town after and didn't get to Thanksgiving lunch until 3:30. Maybe next year.
I've got my first 20 miler on the schedule for this Saturday. It will be a solo run as I'll still be at my moms; she turns 71 Saturday so gotta hang around for that!!!! Gotta love the Garmin for running in unfamiliar territory; just turn it on and go.

Ten for Houston

Now that the 10 miles for Texas race in The Woodlands is behind me, my sights are once again on the Houston marathon. In the month or so since the Chicago marathon, I've managed to somehow put on a quick 10 pounds. Starting post race in Chicago, I had the "I just ran a marathon so I can eat anything" mentality plus I was on vacation up there. The eating just carried on when I got back home. Halloween definetely didn't help as everyone brought their leftover candy or their kid's candy surplus to the office. I spent several days post Halloween trick or treating. Leftovers from coworkers' group lunches in the office, birthday celebrations, United Way kickoff party, and company this past weekend all contributed to the 10. So, with the help of fitday.com, I kicked off my 10 pounds for Houston campaign. I would like to be at or below my Chicago weight come January.

My custom orthotics came in late last week; I ran my first run in them yesterday. I can definetely feel the difference (not sure if its a good or bad difference); I'll see how they do at the track tonight. 6-8 600's are on the schedule tonight. I got the orthotics in order to help balance my weight more evenly and hopefully take care of my recurring achilles issues.

I wore the orthotics in my work shoes after running yesterday. I put them in another pair of street shoes today; they squeek really bad in those shoes so I put my running shoe inserts in the street shoes instead. I'll have to experiment with which shoes I can wear them; I've got inserts all over the place after just 2 days. Will definetely be interesting.

Ten for Texas

This morning I was able to run The Woodlands 10 mile race for the first time. I had conflicts with either training or other races the past 2 years. A cold front came through last night; weather channel temperature was 52 when I woke up at 5:30 this morning. Other than being a bit breezy at times, race conditions were near perfect. I ran a fairly consistent pace throughout the 10 miles with my mile paces falling between 7:07 and 7:26. Total time per my Garmin was 1:13:43; official chip times have not been released yet. The good news is that based on today's result my marathon predicted time per the McMillan Running calculator is 3:26:20. That gives me a 4 minute cushion for my Boston qualifying marathon time. We need similiar weather here in Houston January 18th for the marathon!

Remaining 16 States Recap

For me last week was one of those times when you discover that the internet can be dangerous. I had a spur of the moment flight booking for my 35th state this coming February.

Review of my 16 remaining states:
States with top 25 half marathons as listed in various publications: 3 [WV, MA, DE]
States close enough for potential back to back halfs: 7 [ND, SD, NE, KS, IA] [RI, CT]
States that I should have gotten when I lived in New Orleans: 1 [MS]
States with National Parks that I'd like to visit: 3 [MT, OR, WY]
States with LSU football away game same weekend: 1 [WA]
States other than above: 1 [HI]

I opted for the other than above state and booked what I've been told is a pretty cheap nonstop round trip flight to Honolulu last Thursday. I'll be participating in the Run for the Whales half marathon along the scenic coast of south Maui Saturday, February 7th. It looks to be a nice local around 500 participant event from what I've seen on the website. It should be a nice change from the 33,000 plus runners that were in Chicago and the 18,000 expected in Houston.

At some point, I'm going to have to knock out all those midwestern states with no big races. Just looking briefly at races in those states, there does appear to be potential to get another Saturday/Sunday back to back trip in. I've really enjoyed the 2 back to back races that I've done so far.

Tonights track workout has 8-12 400s on the schedule. Hopefully the weather will cooperate as there is a 70% rain chance out there. I should opt for the 8 as I've got the 10 for Texas 10 mile race on my schedule Saturday morning. Should be great racing weather Saturday.

Back to the Track

I participated in my first speed training workout at College Park last night for the first time since early February. The February workout was a 3k time trial that ended up being run with hail at the end. I did something to my left achilles that slowed me down for 3 months. Chicago training started right around the time my achilles was feeling better; with Chicago being my first marathon in a couple of years I opted for adding only distance and not speed to my workouts.

Post Chicago recovery and my achilles are once again somewhat tender. Tight calves are the primary cause; I'm taking the time to stretch after every run these days. The workout last night was 5 1600's near my 10k pace or 7:20 miles. Being away from speed training for most of the year resulted in my losing my sense of pace. I ended up shadowing Tommy Rice for the first 4 as we had the same goal pace. I paced the last on my own and felt comfortable keeping the pace after doing the previous 4. All 5 were done within plus or minus 3 seconds of the goal pace so I was pleased. I was also able to get out of bed without limping this morning which is always a good thing.

Grave Concerns

I just found Amby Burfoot's article in the December 2008 Runners World issue. The subheading "Most days, on my noontime run, I don't worry about dying" won't apply to me today. I don't know that I'll worry, but the thought will certainly be there today. Today is the first anniversary of the death of Ryan Shay at least years US olympic marathon trials the day before the NYC marathon. In yesterday's NYC marathon, one runner died after completing the marathon and 2 other runners suffered heart attacks.

New York City Marathon

Congratulations to Marilson Gomes dos Santos for winning the New York City Marathon again this year. I ran NYC in 2006, the first year that dos Santos won NYC and had my closest brush with an elite runner that year. I was staying at one of the 2 host hotels. After walking what seemed like forever to get to my UPS baggage gear truck in Central Park after the race, I walked back to the hotel to get cleaned up. A group of us crowded into the elevator to get upstairs; on our way up I learned that dos Santos and his manager were on the elevator with us and that dos Santos had won the marathon. He actually got off on the same floor as me and was staying a few doors down. That was my second elite runner siting that weekend. On a carriage ride in Central Park, my niece, a friend of hers, and I saw 2004 Olympic marathon gold medal winner Stefano Baldini doing pick ups the Saturday morning before the marathon.

Run For Your Life

While at work yesterday afternoon I realized that I'd have to wake up around 4:30 this morning to get 4 miles in before the 12 mile group run from Lukes Locker at Marketstreet. So the house was dark early last night and I watched the Run For Your Life documentary. If you've ever run NYC or have any interest in its history, it's a good watch. The world's longest urinal brought back memories of my 2006 stay in the NYC start village on Staten Island.

My 16 miles turned into 17 this morning. Weather was in the mid 50s with 100% humidity; not bad weather for Houston. There was some fog out there.

Week 7 of Houston Marathon training

I got back on track training Monday morning after taking last weekend off. I ran my 4 planned runs of 4, 8, 4, and 8 miles Monday-Thursday of this week without incident. They were all a little faster than planned.... blame that on the nice weather that we've been having. I have started running from work during lunch due to the shorter days this time of year.

Today wraps up October 2008 running for me; 110 miles is the final count. Not too bad giving taper and recovery weeks most of the month. November calls for 174 miles; I believe that will be the most miles I've run in a month if that happens. I happened to look at my Garmin a little over 5.5 miles into my 8 mile run today and couldn't help thinking that I'd be finished with the run if I were training for a half vs a full marathon. Still not sold on these full marathons :-)

The plan is to run 16 miles Saturday morning. I may have my custom orthotics by then.

Week 2 of Chicago Marathon Recovery......

.... trumps week 6 of Houston Marathon training.

I'm headed out of town for the weekend and am not packing the running stuff. I started the week following week 6 of my Houston marathon training plan. Earlier this week I thought I'd do some preventive maintenance as both my Achilles tendons were somewhat tender but not very painful. I've been down that road before and normally just run until I wake up one morning and walking is unbearable. I'm then out for at least 6 months battling Achilles tendonitis. I went to a chiropractor Tuesday with the intention of getting custom orthotics to hopefully address whatever is causing the Achilles pain. I found out that not only my calves were tight (which I pretty much knew) but the muscles/tendons whatever along the bottom of my feet were tight as well. So I got electric stim and ultrasound twice this week as well as deep tissue massage. I'm hurting more now than before I went in for the maintenance. It is a muscle soreness and not injury type pain but pain nonetheless.

My foot test did reveal that orthotics should help balance my feet pressure to where it should be which should help keep me less tight. So I should have custom orthotics sometime next week.

Even with the 2 chiro visits and a deep tissue massage from Ute Wednesday evening, I did manage to get in my first 3 scheduled workouts this week and part of the 4th last night. I stopped at 4.5 miles as it was too dark. I'll resume running Monday.

For those training in the Houston area, this should be the best weather of the season Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Week 6 of Houston Marathon training

Quote of the week:
"Hard work doesn't guarantee you anything, but without it, you don't stand a chance." Pat Riley

Schedule for the week:
Monday -3
Tuesday - 7
Wednesday - 3
Thursday - 7
Saturday - 10

This is week 6 of one of Hal Higdon's intermediate marathon training programs. Lets hope this week is uneventful. It was upon completion of week 6 when I was training for Chicago back in July that I came down with shingles. The forecast temps for the week actually look to be fallish here in Houston. Should be pleasant.

Recovery

I'm not sure if it was the post race ice bath or walking around alot Sunday and Monday or some combination, but the recovery for this marathon so far has gone much smoother than my previous two. I also had a deep tissue massage 32 hours after which seemed to help somewhat. It's always a good thing to not have surgery involved in the week after your marathon!

I ran a little over 4 miles last night. It was my first run since Sunday. I started out really slow and felt great so I ran a couple of miles quicker than marathon pace. I finished running the last 2 miles somewhere between the 2 previous paces.

I plan on running 8-10 miles tomorrow morning at around a 9 minute pace. Next week I hope to jump back into my marathon training as Houston is now 13 weeks away. I still prefer the half distance to the full but plan on running the full in Houston to attempt to qualify for Boston once again.

How's that for running form?

I obviously missed that photographer along the Chicago Marathon course. I must've been making sure my feet were still there.

The Day After the Marathon

Chicago Marathon

I left downtown Chicago this morning for O'Hare airport; finally seasonable temperatures arrived with a front that came through last night. I wore long sleeves and a light jacket walking to the CTA station in temps that were in the mid 50s. The rest of the weekend trip was spent in short sleeves. It turned out to be a great trip and race despite the above average temperatures.

Pre race forecast/taper/global market meltdown....

I've heard that taper jitters can cause one to imagine things but the week leading up to the Chicago marathon was anything but normal. What started as an ideal race forecast 1o days out ended up with summer like race day conditions. The daily increases in the forecast temperatures were a mirror reflection of the tumble that started in US markets and soon hit global markets.
I controlled the part of the race week equation that I could for the most part. I ran scheduled 3 and 4 miles run here in The Woodlands before heading to Chicago. Saturday morning in Chicago I planned to run 2 miles but that turned into almost 3 as I went out farther than I planned. My Saturday run was around 8:30, right about the time that I would be starting the marathon the next day. The sun was very much out by that time and I got the sense that it was going to be warm Sunday.
As far as the weather forecast, I knew exactly what should have been done. Given less than ideal race conditions, you must adjust your race plan to take into account the weather conditions. In practice, it just isn't so easy to do that. What I kept coming back to leading up to race day was that I put in 18 weeks of training and wasn't going to let warmer than ideal weather stand in the way of all that training. I finally decided that I was going to attempt a slower race due to the weather while watching the 10 pm local weather forecast Saturday evening. That ended up working well for 3 or so miles.


Race morning.....

My only other 2 marathon experiences were for the Disneyworld and New York City marathons. Both of those marathons have remote start areas where I was bussed to a start village and had to wait hours before the races actually began. Chicago is much more runner friendly in this regard. It definetely was for me as I stayed at the Chicago Hilton, which was the host hotel that is located less than a mile from both the start and finish lines. This would have even been nicer if race morning temps had been cooler as initially predicted. I left the hotel around 7 am and walked through Grant Park to get to Lakeshore Drive in order to access my corral for the race. While there were lots of people moving around, it never felt really crowded. I was very comfortable in a sleeveless shirt and race shorts before the race started; that's never a good sign for me. I find it always better to be cold waiting for the race to start; either way I'm usually sweating by the end of the first mile.
As I was sitting on the curb in my corral, I saw the pace groups enter and decided that I would start behind the 3:45 group and attempt to follow them. My right quad had been bothering me all week and I didn't want to push it if I wasn't going to BQ in Chicago anyway.
I felt good when the race started. I followed the 3:45 group for the first mile as planned. I ended up running an 8:15 mile 1 and felt fine. Somewhere between miles 2 and 3 I ran closer to the 3:45 group; the pace group seemed way crowded and I found it difficult to keep any kind of rhythm going with that many people all trying run together. At the 5k point I decided to get ahead of the group to see if it would be less crowded. It was and I ended up just running what felt comfortable for the next 10 miles or so. Comfortable turned out to be 7:20s, 7:30s, and 7: 40s up to the 1/2 marathon point. This part of the race was more shaded than not as alot of it was downtown with building shadows.
At the 1/2 marathon point, I checked the total time on my watch and it looked like I was on pace for a 3:30 marathon. That was later confirmed by my 1/2 email confirmation that I received with a 1/2 pace of 7:56. The next 4 miles were run at the same pace although I found that I had to work somewhat at keeping the pace. I remembered thinking at mile 16 that there was no way that I could run 10 more miles at this pace. By that time there was little shade and lots of direct sunlight. My right quad felt a little sore by then; it had been fine up to that point which was somewhat surprising given that it felt sore all week.
Looking at my splits, I thought I had slowed alot sooner and alot worse than I actually did. I had 2 11 minute miles after mile 20. One has a porta potty stop and the other was me walking while eating sport beans. I ran/walked the last 1 1/2 miles with someone that was also struggling. We would run 2 minutes and then walk 1. By this point, the mile markers seemed so far apart. Once we got to mile 26 I just kept going as I felt a slight rush knowing that I only had .2 miles to go. I ended up finishing right under 3:47.

Various notables from Chicago......

I didn't really notice looking at the course map but probably should have but there were way too many turns on the course. I'm surprised my Garmin only registered 26.68 miles as there was no way that I could possibly run the tangents given all the runners and all the turns.

Pace groups are a good idea but they were way too crowded at the start. Once I decided to run ahead of the 3:45 group, I ended up running through the 3:40 group around mile 5. Both groups took up almost the whole width of the course making it difficult to pass. Both groups passed me again in the last 10k of the race. However, by that time the groups had really thinned out. I think alot of those people also tried to go for their original marathon goals.

The crowd support for Chicago equaled NYC in places but was not consistent the entire course. Its always great to have people out there supporting you and the crowd really was an uplift in places.

I had read alot on the Chicago message boards about Garmins not being reliable downtown. I didn't have much of a problem with mine.
My Garmin results:
Date:10/12/2008 8:02 AM

Garmin
Mile Distance Time Total Time Pace
1 1.07 Mi 8:15 8:15 7:43
2-3 1.94 Mi 16:43 24:58 8:38
4 1.07 Mi 7:56 32:54 7:25
5 1.01 Mi 7:49 40:43 7:45
6 1.02 Mi 7:55 48:38 7:46
7 1 Mi 7:40 56:18 7:40
8 1.02 Mi 7:47 1:04:05 7:38
9 1.01 Mi 7:45 1:11:50 7:41
10 1.01 Mi 7:48 1:19:38 7:44
11 1.01 Mi 7:52 1:27:30 7:48
12 1.02 Mi 7:51 1:35:21 7:42
13 1.04 Mi 7:55 1:43:16 7:37
14 1.02 Mi 8:06 1:51:22 7:57
15 1.01 Mi 7:46 1:59:08 7:42
16 1 Mi 7:59 2:07:07 7:59
17 1.02 Mi 8:07 2:15:14 7:58
18 1.01 Mi 8:47 2:24:01 8:42
19 1.02 Mi 8:33 2:32:34 8:23
20 1.03 Mi 8:55 2:41:29 8:40
21 1.03 Mi 11:28 2:52:57 11:08
22 1.03 Mi 9:20 3:02:17 9:04
23 1.01 Mi 10:34 3:12:51 10:28
24 1.03 Mi 10:51 3:23:42 10:33
25 1.01 Mi 11:08 3:34:50 11:02
26 1.02 Mi 10:12 3:45:02 10:00
26.2 0.23 Mi 1:51 3:46:53 8:03

5-Day Forecast for ZIP Code 60605

Thursday 68° F 58° F 20° C 14° C Clear
Friday 70° F 56° F 21° C 13° C Partly Cloudy
Saturday 74° F 59° F 23° C 15° C Partly Cloudy
Sunday 74° F 61° F 23° C 16° C Partly Cloudy
Monday 70° F 52° F 21° C 11° C T-storms 30% chance of precipitation

Looks like the yellow flagged forecast is sticking. Just gotta figure out what I'm gonna stick with.

I know you shouldn't do anything different race week but Ute was back after being off for a month so I got my second massage within a week yesterday evening. I have one running day less than my normal schedule based on the taper plan that I'm following so it seemed to fit just fine in the plan. Time will tell.

Chasing Sun Tuesday

I went out around 7pm for a 3 mile run. Kept it easy right where I was supposed to be around 9 minute miles. Got a little dark on me during the end.
I got an email from the Chicago Marathon updating the weather conditions. The present forecast has the event yellow flagged, which means less than ideal conditions for marathon running. Recommended actions are to slow down/be prepared for worsening conditions.
Not sure what I'm gonna do now. Of course the best thing would be for the weather forecast to be wrong and have the course green flagged with ideal conditions. It's tough to decide to back off after enduring 18 months of training.

Homeland Security Copycat?

Event Alert System table:

Is it me or does the above Event Alert System table look eerily similiar and just as useless as the homeland security advisory system below. It would be nice if temperatures/dewpoints/humidity levels were associated with the different color groups.

Temperature's Rising

Here's the latest weather underground race day forecast for Chicago:

Saturday Night and Sunday
Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of showers. Lows in the upper 50s. Highs in the mid 70s.

Thats a 10 degree increase in the Saturday lows and a 15 or so degree increase in the Sunday high from just last Friday. At this rate it could be balmy on Sunday.

I think I've learned that weather is something that you can't control. You just gotta take what you're given and adjust your race plan accordingly. I definetely got the can't control part down; it's the adjust your race plan accordingly that I need to work on.

Week in Review

Date Type Distance Time Pace

10/4/2008 Long 8.02 Mi 1:11:55 8:59

10/2/2008 Easy 4.01 Mi 36:02 9:00

10/1/2008 Easy 6.01 Mi 52:20 8:43

9/30/2008 Tempo 4.04 Mi 33:31 8:18

9/29/2008 Easy 4.02 Mi 36:12 9:01

Week 2 of tapering went pretty much as planned; only hitch was Tuesday's faster than planned pace so we'll call that a tempo run and leave it at that. I had a deep tissue massage at Massage Envy early yesterday afternoon that was pretty intense. I felt good going into it but felt like I got beat up during it. Feeling good now so I'm sure it will help in the long run.....

Race week calls for easy runs of 4, 3, and 2 miles before the marathon Sunday. It's looking like they'll be on Tuesday, Thursday, and either Friday evening or Saturday morning. I plan on getting another massage Wednesday evening as well. Ute is back from her vacation and subsequent Hurricane Ike extended time off.

Last Long Run

I got my last long run in this morning before Chicago. Temps were nice in the 60s but humidity was in the 90s. My shorts were soaked even with me only running 8 miles this morning. All I have now is 9 miles spread over 3 days next week before the marathon next Sunday.

Chicago 10 Day Weather Forecast

The extended forecast for Chicago has race day, Sunday October 12th with lows in the upper 40s and a high of 60 with few showers. I'll take this one as is, realizing predicting weather 10 days out is pretty dicey.

10 for Texas Postponed until November 15th

The latest word on The Woodlands 10 mile race is that it has been postponed until I recover from the Chicago marathon because I really wanted to run it. Well that and Hurricane Ike has made the originally scheduled date of October 18th unsafe due to debris still in the area and large vehicles moving in the area clearing said debris.

But in any event it looks like I will be able to get my first 10 for Texas race in this year. I passed on running the 2006 race as I had my last long run that weekend before the New York City marathon. I was out of town running back to back half marathons in Baltimore and Atlantic City the weekend of last years race. Unfortunately alot of people planning on running the race on October 18th will be running either the full or half marathon of Elite Racing's inaugural Rock n Roll San Antonio on the rescheduled weekend.

I got in 6 miles yesterday during lunch. I hadn't run from work during lunch since I got shingles back in July. What a difference a couple of months makes in the weather. It was awesome running weather yesterday.

September was a great running month

Monthly Distances

September: 156.6 Mi
August: 129.4 Mi
July: 94.9 Mi
June: 125.3 Mi
May: 109.2 Mi

September may have been my highest mileage month ever as I was in the high mileage portion of training for my 3rd marathon. The drop off in mileage in July was due to me being out of commission the last half of the month with shingles. The high mileage in the latter part of August made up for my missing the first week of August. October mileage is up in the air as I'm just going to listen to my body and recover from Chicago before getting back into marathon training for Houston.

I'm starting to fill in my 2009 race calendar. I hope to get in at least 3 states in my 50 state quest. We'll have to see what airfare looks like for 2009; I have a feeling the days of $200 and under fares are gone.

Chicago Confirmation Brochure

I waited on service for my car this morning so had time to read my Confirmation Brochure and Ticket that I received in the mail sometime last week from the Chicago Marathon folks. The most interesting thing I noted was the fact that there will be 20 full aid stations on the course this year. It looks like alot of these will be less than a mile apart near the end. I don't normally pass up a hydration station on a course but 20 seems a bit like overkill for 26.2 miles. Just one more thing to plan out pre-race for me now.

The other interesting thing I noted about the course is that there will be digital clocks every mile, every 5k, and at the 1/2 marathon point. The clock time will start with the elites at 7:55 am so I don't know what good they will do me based on when I finally get across the start line but they will be out there.

I got 4 miles at a 9 minute pace in after work yesterday before taking Dotty in for a vet appointment at Best Friends last night. She has a cyst on her back; its been there over 5 years now but recently got irritated and got a little infected. She's on antibiotics and got a topical cream and should be fine.

Sunday Reset

Yesterday I wrapped up week 16 of Chicago training with a 12 mile long run. The whole week had faster than planned average paces; I'll blame that on hurricane/no power stress. Total mileage for last week was 31 miles in my first taper week. I had power when I got home from work Friday afternoon.

Total mileage this week is scheduled to be 26 miles including an 8 mile long run Saturday morning.

Fight On

With Joe McKnight fleeing Louisiana for the other LA, LSU's had to rely on Charles Scott and its stable of running backs. Not such a bad deal upon further review.

Still powerless, I did not have the opportunity to watch the USC/Oregon State game last night. However, finding out the result of the game this morning has definetely been the highlight of Day 14 without power. Its still early in the 2008 season and the media darlings have plenty of time to get back in the BCS championship game but they've now left themselves with little room for error.

Last night brought another easy running at too fast a pace. Well at least I was consistent being too fast all week. I will slow down to my proper long run pace tomorrow morning.

Clean Laundry and a Nights Rest with Power

The latest and greatest estimate from Centerpoint Energy is that 80% of the power in my zip code (which has now been lumped into another zip code [does Centerpoint even know that we are up here/that they have wires here]) will be restored by Sunday the 28th. This will be my 3rd Saturday of no ESPN College Football Gameday followed by a day of college football games. Regarding the Sunday estimate; I'll believe it when it happens considering the fact that the company providing this estimate planned for only 1 million outages in its service territory that has over 2 million customers in the direct path of the frickin hurricane. Not to mention the fact that they made a conscious decision back in 2006 to forego tree trimming maintenance in order to cut costs. But who's complaining..... cooler weather and lower humidity is forecast through the weekend.

I've been running my weekday runs faster than I should so far this week due to hurricane induced stress. I hope to take my last double digit run pre Chicago easier Saturday morning; 12 miles is the distance per my plan.

I did laundry for the first time since the storm; running 5 days a week plus cleaning the yard left lots of dirty smelly clothes that accumulated over the past 12 days. I also slept with power for the first time since Ike; it was nice not to hear generators humming in the background. I plan on being back home in the primitive zone now through Sunday given the change in weather conditions. Special thanks to Sara and Beth for coming by yesterday afternoon with a generator in tow; I had already decided to leave last night and get laundry done. I'll just wait it out now without the gen option; it's gotta be soon....... right?

They Just Won't Guarantee Which Sunday.....

CenterPoint: Most customers will have power by Sunday

09:25 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 24, 2008
By KATHERINE SATHER / KHOU.com Staff

HOUSTON – CenterPoint Energy officials today said most customers would have their power restored by Sunday.

The company has restored power to 75 percent of its customer base. With 1.58 million customers restored, only 600,000 remained without power. Most of these are people living in eastern areas of service.

Officials said they underestimated the outages Ike would cause. They predicted about 1 million people would lose power, but Ike more than doubled those figures. As a result the company says it did not have enough manpower originally to make the mass repairs.

Yet CEO David McClanahan said restoration efforts were going well.

“We’ve restored power to over 1.5 million customers in nine days,” McClanahan said at an afternoon press conference. “I think that’s quite an accomplishment.”

He estimated the cost of restoration would be $350 million to $500 million.

“What we do is we recover these costs after the fact,” McClanahan said. “And we recover it over let’s say 14 or 15 years. Based on that kind of recovery period this will be between $1 and $2 per month on our customer.”

“Obviously we don’t like to see any increase, but it’s not a huge impact,” he said.

Company spokesperson Tom Standish said this is “very much a tree outage,” caused by falling trees becoming entangled in power lines.

Officials confirm that in 2006 the company realized it should trim more trees in the area, but chose not to spend the money.

Standish said thousands of crew members are working to clear downed trees and restore power.

“By this coming Sunday all of the major infrastructure work … will be done,” Standish said. “For the most part all of the people in this area will have their power restored. Now that’s not everybody.”

Standish said if you notice everyone else’s lights are on but yours, call CenterPoint.

“Let us know,” Standish said. “We are going to be going door-to-door.”

McClanahan said he realizes some people would like recovery efforts to progress faster.

“About this time last week after our initial assessment of the damage, we said by today we were going to have 50 to 75 percent of our service restored,” he said. “Well in fact we have achieved the high end of that estimate and so we feel good about that.”

As of Thursday evening,Texas New Mexico Power has restored 83 percent of its customers back, while Sam Houston had restored power to 95 percent.

The Forgotten

9/22/2008

Letter to CenterPoint Customers

September 22, 2008

Dear Residents:

As you know, Hurricane Ike made a direct hit on Galveston, Texas, and devastated the entire Houston region the morning of Sept. 13. Most Entergy and CenterPoint customers lost electricity for at least five days, and some, unfortunately, for longer.

We have received many calls, e-mails and messages from residents in CenterPoint’s service area who are disappointed that their power has not been restored as of today. We share your disappointment and send this letter to provide as much information as we can related to the power situation.

While it may be frustrating to see that much of The Woodlands has already had power restored, it is important to understand that The Woodlands is served by two electric companies: Entergy and CenterPoint. Entergy is a smaller company than CenterPoint, with power grids north of here and has been able to restore a majority of its customers. CenterPoint is a much larger company, with power grids south of The Woodlands, with The Woodlands being at the far north boundary of its service region.

In the 5,000-square mile service area centered around Houston, CenterPoint has about 50,000 miles of power lines—a great deal of infrastructure that was susceptible to the high winds and downed trees. Nearly 93 percent, or 2.15 million customers, lost power. CenterPoint is working to restore power to key facilities vital to health and safety, such as water treatment plants, hospitals and other public service facilities, and then focuses on restoring power to the greatest number of customers in the least amount of time across their territory, regardless of geographic location. CenterPoint is regulated by the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

Leaders of the Community Associations have contacted CenterPoint and made every effort to get additional information. State Senator Tommy Williams and Representative Rob Eissler, along with leaders of the Community Associations and The Woodlands Township, have been contacting CenterPoint to make sure that CenterPoint knows that there are thousands of homes in The Woodlands still without power, and to make sure that CenterPoint does not forget us. We have been staunch advocates on behalf of our residents. According to CenterPoint, restoration for customers in zip codes 77380, 77382 and 77389 is estimated (not guaranteed) after Sept. 25. CenterPoint reports that they are working in their entire service area simultaneously and because of different levels of damage, some areas may come up before others.

We assure you that we have not forgotten about you. As some of our newest residents in The Woodlands, you are of utmost importance to us. Unfortunately, we cannot control the effects of Hurricane Ike, and we are asking for your patience in waiting for power to be restored. To make the wait a small bit easier, residents may visit any fire station in The Woodlands to recharge cell phones or laptops.

If you have further questions, please call our office at 281.210.3800, and know that we are doing everything within our power to work with CenterPoint to restore your electricity as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Joel Deretchin,
President, The Woodlands Association

Welcome to the Primitive Zone....

....powered..... un no power..... sponsored by Centerpoint Energy. Day 9 of no power at home due to Hurricane Ike. Weather has been gradually getting more humid and warmer. My subdivision is starting to look like a ghost town as people are gradually bugging out. Centerpoint Energy is still estimating power restoration for 80% of my zip code AFTER Thursday, September 25th. Underground lines do little good if overhead lines are what feeds them.

At least I've got power at work. Thanks for all the kind offers for a place to stay. I would be gone if it weren't for my 2 dogs. They are a handful and need me there to see about them.

Yesterday I completed my final 20 mile long run before Chicago. I ran with Scott and Barbara for the full 20. Jessica and Alan ran the first 14 miles with us. Running with others was a great boost and made the 20 go by fast.

I got an email Friday evening with my BIB number for Chicago: 6330. Seems like a winning number to me!!!

Surviving Ike

2 trees near the kitchen windows fell over the fence early on clearing the way for the pine tree to fall on the roof over the kitchen and entrance hallway.
The one branch of the pine tree that punctured through the roof.
Waldo posing near the new hill of sod created by the 2 trees falling.
Centurion Tree Service's crane lifting the pine tree off the house with ease.

I'm on Day 6 of no power brought on with the passing of Hurricane Ike over The Woodlands here in Texas. No power 2 weeks ago with heat and humidity would have been almost unbearable. However, we were blessed with an awesome cool front the day after Ike that cooled us off greatly. I've heard that my zip code should have power restored sometime tomorrow. I'm charging up stuff here at work before heading back to the primitive zone for the evening.

I lost power between 1:30 and 2:00 am Saturday morning before Ike even made landfall on the Texas coast. After waking up Saturday morning, I noticed that my 2 trees near my kitchen window had blown onto my fence from a north to south direction. I looked out the window a few minutes later and there was a pine tree that had fallen on my roof where those 2 trees originally stood. Shortly after that, I heard a dripping noise so I went up in the attic to explore. After discovering one branch that had punctured the roof, I put a bucket to try and capture water leaking. While in my garage looking for a nail to secure the bucket to a rafter in the attic, I came across a turtle sandbox that I bought for Waldo to use as a pool this summer. I abandoned the nail in the rafter idea for the turtle covering more ground and got my neighbor's assistance in getting the turtle secured across 2x4's up in the attic. I then placed a bucket in the turtle and made frequent trips to the attic to bail water from the turtle using the bucket. Thanks to the turtle, the inside of my house had little water damage.

This would've been a great week to take a break from the running but this is my last high mileage week before Chicago. So I've been logging the miles that according to my schedule and should get in my 20-21 miler this Saturday before starting my taper. My cold is starting to get better as well.

1 Month 1 Day til Chicago

At least thats what the ticker factory countdown I set up way back when is now showing. Lets see how many more hurricanes we can squeeze in from now until then. It looks like I'll be doing storm support here in Texas next week post Ike. Of course, hurricanes have minds of their own and I could be pleasantly surprised (think westerly track....no more north in it).

1 month and1 day is also plenty of time to get rid of this cold that I've somehow picked up. I'm still taking B6, B12, and zinc daily since I got shingles so you'd think my immune system would be iron clad. Could be hurricane fatigue. It hasnt impacted by running yet so just need it to go away.

2 Down 1 to Go

I ran my 2nd 20 miler in my Chicago marathon training plan this morning. I believe the weather was around 5 degrees or so cooler and less humid than what its been. I don't think my shoes even squeaked during the 2o miles.

I ran well today despite having gastro issues about midway through the run. I found the nearest park with a restroom which was Falconwing. The men's door was locked (not sure if it was occupied or just locked) so I used the womens. I was able to resume the run and ended up running under 9:30 today. Thats closer to where I wanted my long run pace to be. My pace slowed somewhat when I ran a loop in the George Mitchell Preserve, my new favorite running place in The Woodlands.

Thanks Gustav

As of 4:30 pm yesterday afternoon, the number of outages (750,000) already known to have been caused by Gustav is the third highest in Entergy’s 95-year history. The only larger numbers were 1.1 million during Hurricane Katrina, which has been described as one of the worst natural disasters in American history, and 800,000 during Hurricane Rita, which occurred back-to-back in August and September of 2005.
A number of us Finance/Tax folks volunteered our services this past Sunday and Monday to help out in the Pinecroft Service Center with preparations to restore power post storm. Actually there was a miscommunication and the commitment is more like 7 to 10 days. So with one quick call to Almost Home this morning, I've got Waldo boarded for up to a week, Dottie Sue will be in the backyard with neighbors seeing about her and I will be headed somewhere in south Louisiana today to help support the storm restoration effort. And no, I will be nowhere near the actual wires, that would put restoration efforts behind instead of ahead.
It's hard to believe that its been 3 years post Katrina. My time here in The Woodlands has flown by. This should be an awesome experience for me. Playing with numbers all day in the Finance function of a company is so different than actually being out in the field. All of my family are currently without power; my mother and brother and his family are north of Lafayette in Ville Platte and my son and his wife are in Baton Rouge. Both locations are far inland so there was no flooding possibility for them but it is still a little unnerving not being able to communicate with them.
I do plan on taking my running gear with me. Hopefully, there will be time for me to get some mileage in over this next week.
Update: As of 5 a.m. this morning, Sept. 2, electrical power outages from Hurricane Gustav had reached more than 825,000, the second largest outage in company history, behind only Hurricane Katrina.

Killer Deep Tissue Massage

I ran a part road part trail run this morning in Burroughs Park. The first 2 miles was run on the road at an 8:10 pace while the last 4 miles was on trails at a much slower 9:45 pace for a 9:10 average pace.
After running, I had a deep tissue massage with a new massage therapist for me at Massage Envy. Kyle put a hurting to my legs; he made my hour sessions with Ute seem like fun. He suggested an hour session on just my legs; I'll have to wait and maybe do that post Chicago. One thing he did point out that I already know is that I need to stretch after every run. I tend to stretch after shorter distance runs but blow it off after running long.

Is It Fall Yet?

I've been following former Woodlands Fit Blue/Green runner Vince Gayman's summer trek from the west coast to the east coast starting earlier this summer. Vince and his wife have biked over 4,000 miles in 60 days. They started from Seattle and are somewhere in New Hampshire as of their latest post. While they've had heat and humidity, they have also had cooler weather as well. I found myself wishing for mid 30's at the start of the Chicago Marathon during the second half of my long run this morning. Actually anything under 60 degrees and 60% humidity would be awesome!!! We are nowhere near that here in north Houston.

This whole week has been a cutback week for me. I had a 12 mile run scheduled for this morning compared to the 20 miles that I ran last Saturday. I decided not to set an early alarm and wound up getting a 6:15 start this morning. I felt pretty good today; I'm pretty sure that I ran a negative split as the average pace for the run kept dropping; I don't track pace per mile but focus on my average pace instead. I ran into the other Fall Fit Chicago marathon runners around the 2 and 10 mile markers this morning. They also had a cutback in their mileage as well today and also opted to run from their homes instead of running the unofficial Woodlands Fall Fit run from Lukes Locker.

I took a quick ice bath when I got back and then cleaned up and watched the LSU/Appy State game. The 10 am start was the earliest start ever in the 80+ year history of Tiger Stadium. The early kickoff was due to preparations for Hurricane Gustav. The rest of my weekend will be impacted by Gustav as well as I will be assisting with checking in and preparing crews to be staged and ready for the storm.

Houston is my environmental chamber.....

I was just reading comments from the 3 US mens marathon runners and Ritz commented about how training in an environmental chamber at 100 degrees and 85 percent humidity was brutal. Kinda reminds me of the last couple of months on the road here.

The past 4 weeks I was supposed to run 16, 17, 12 and 19 mile long runs; I actually logged 0, 0, 0, and 14 miles. So with this weeks schedule calling for a 20 mile long run, I truly had no clue what I was going to end up running. The last time I ran 20 miles was in November 2006 in the NYC marathon. I decided early in the week to cut back my weekday training mileage in order to allow me to focus more on my weekend long run. That strategy paid off this weekend. I ran the first 5 1/2 miles on my own starting at 5 am. I made my way to the Sterling Ridge Y around 6 am and ran the 14 mile run loop with the Yellow Fall Fit group. (The blue green fall fitters have been doing stealth training the past couple of weeks I guess.) It got ugly the last 3-4 miles but I finished the 20 right around a 10:15 pace.

This morning I hit the trails at Huntsville State Park for a nice 7+ mile recovery run. Coach Sara grilled burgers after; an awesome unexpected post run treat!

This week is a cutback week for me; hopefully I'm back on schedule for Chicago now. Time will tell.

Lance Running Chicago

I checked out the Runner's World Discussions for the first time in a month or so and found a thread under the 2008 Chicago Marathon forum that Lance will be running Chicago this October. Based on the comments it seems runners in general are tiring of Lance. I ran NYC the first year Lance ran it and would not have known he was out on the course with me. I'm sure Chicago will be the same for my race; he'll just be one of the many thousands out there ahead of me. Personally, I believe the additional press is good for the sport.
Training has been steady this week; nothing spectacular but not totally sucking either. I still haven't jumped back on to my planned scheduled that was interrupted late July with my bout with shingles. I am trying cutting back on the scheduled weekday mileage to see if I can get in my scheduled weekend long runs. There's a 40% chance of rain here all weekend; hoping for the light drizzly stuff to keep things cool and comfortable.

Longest Distance Ever

Waldo ran his longest distance ever with me last night at the Nature Trail. I had a veterinary appointment with him at 6 last night at Best Friends. I wasn't planning on running with the group yesterday because of the appointment. When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I put my running shorts on under my street clothes just in case we got out early enough to make it over to the Nature Trail. We got out around 6:45 and had just enough time to get there for the 7:00 start. He did a great job running last night; we ran right under 5 miles. His previous long distance with me had been a little over 3 miles. Grant was his rabbit last night; he definetely ran faster with Grant ahead of us. A couple of times I passed Grant and Waldo would lag behind so I'd let Grant get ahead again. Cloudy skies and a slight drizzle made for decent running weather (can't ever say August in Houston is great running weather).

Burroughs Trail Run

After running 14 miles yesterday I soaked in a bath with cold tap water and all the ice from my ice maker. Not a frigid ice bath but effective nonetheless. I ran between 5 and 6 miles at Burroughs park this morning. My Garmin shut off a couple of times during todays run similiar to what it did yesterday. I think I caught it pretty quick and didn't miss logging much of the distance.
I felt good running so ran ahead of the group. Sara stayed with me on her bike up to a point in the trail where she went back to check on the others. I got directions to run down the path til I got to the fenceline and then take a left and follow the fence. That worked fine until I ran out of fence to follow; a little ways from where the fence stopped I came across a body of water so just hung out there a little while waiting for the others to find me. When that didn't happen, I decided to follow the fence back the way I came. I eventually decided to take another path which just happened to get me right back to where we had parked at the start of the run. Being a little shy of the 6 that I wanted to run, I decided I should just call it a day; turned out to be a nice run.

Back in the Saddle Again

Horses definetely were not running wide open this morning but it was good being out running again. Earlier this week, I anticipated running somewhere between 15 and 19 miles; I ended up getting 14. Not bad given the hot and humid conditions that we faced today. My Garmin decided to start blanking out on me today. First time that has happened where the unit just shut down several times in the middle of the run. I guess it was protesting the weather conditions as well!

More Tweaking of the Houston Marathon Refund Policy

I just got another email update/2009 newsletter from the Houston Marathon. If you are registered for either the full or half marathon and are unable to participate, you will receive a full refund of your registration fee through August 31st. After that date through November 20th, you will receive the partial refund amounts that were stated earlier this year.

Sounds like the marathon folks were actually listening to all the complaining going on with the partial refund announcement and subsequent announcement that early start times would not be allowed in 2009.

Personally August 31st is too far away to know if I'll be ready for Houston or not, so I'm all in for the full.

In Memory of Aunt Ching

One of my aunts passed away Thursday morning. I spent Thursday at work trying to wrap things up so I could head out to southwest Louisiana for her wake and funeral this past weekend. I called Dogs Day Inn to board Waldeaux for the weekend but they were booked on such short notice. Thankfully, Sara offered to dogsit for the weekend. I brought Waldeaux over Friday morning and he met Sara's 3 big dogs one by one. They ended up getting along great and had a fun weekend. I picked Waldeaux up Sunday evening when I got back in town; he crashed when we got home. I had to wake him up Monday morning; he's usually up before me but he played so hard over the weekend that he had to catch up on his sleep.

I had the opportunity to visit with relatives that I had not seen in years. It was great catching up with people even under the unfortunate circumstances. They had a DVD playing at the funeral home with tons of pictures from different times in my aunts life. Seeing that reminded me of the colorful life that she led. I heard Kenny Chesney's new single Everybody Wants to go to Heaven on the drive from here to Louisiana Friday afternoon; I think I'll always think of my aunt whenever I hear that song now.

Chicago Hope

As in I HOPE I can start training again regularly soon. Entering week 10 of my Chicago Marathon training and the last 3 weeks looked ugly. My total program mileage for weeks 1-6 was 174 miles; my actual was 179. I then got shingled at the start of week 7; weeks 7-9 program mileage was 119; my actual was 20. That simply isn't going to cut it and I realize that. The plan as I type is to jump back into the program at week 10 and see how that goes. If things don't progress as planned, Chicago can always become a long training run for Houston next January.

Rock n Roll Seattle

June 27, 2009 will be the inaugural Rock n Roll Seattle marathon and 1/2 marathon. I haven't run Washington state yet so that may be my race. I'm still waiting to see next years date for a small 1/2 marathon outside of Seattle. If the date falls on the same weekend as LSU's trip to play Washington on September 5th, I think I'd have to opt for the September weekend. Can't beat college football and running in the same trip!

Duh..... I Didn't Know Appalachian was a State

I came across a Youtube video preview of the Appy State/LSU football season opener scheduled for 4 PM CST August 30th. LSU was actually supposed to open the season with Appy last year; the game was moved back a year for LSU to open the season on the road at Mississippi State on a Thursday night ESPN game. Appy opened with Michigan instead and the rest is history....

Surfing and Running

First attempt at treadmill running in over a year didn't go so great; I got bored rather quickly even with a tv in front of me channel surfing.

I had a bottled water with me while running; not so easy to drink. I guess I normally walk while drinking when I'm out running.

Temperature in the fitness center was 79. something this afternoon; hardly cool weather. Probably warmer than running early mornings outside.

I can't see myself doing any kind of long runs in these conditions; hopefully it will be cooler in the fitness center early weekday mornings.

The rash from the shingles is much better after 2 full weeks now. Pain doesn't feel as deep now either.

Phoenix, Nashville, San Diego, Virginia Beach, Philadelphia, San Jose, San Antonio

WHERE WILL THEY ROCK NEXT?

Elite Racing will be announcing the newest site of the Rock n Roll series Tuesday. The first 20 people to correctly guess the next city will win a free entry.

I've run Phoenix, Nashville, Virginia Beach, and Philadelphia so far and other than start line transportation issues in Phoenix have enjoyed all of the Elite events.

I Surrender to the Heat

I can count on one hand (with room to spare) the number of times I've been on a treadmill in the 3 years that I've been in The Woodlands. However, given the extreme heat and humidity and its resulting stress on my body, I will be doing at least 50% of my training runs on a treadmill once I get back into my training routine. At least thats the plan as of today.

I ran on treadmills pretty regularly back in the 90s. I've fallen off once due to stepping too far to the right and landing off the belt. I've also torn a calf muscle in the middle of a run. No change in pace or misstep, I just heard something pop and that was that.

I ran the Nature Trail Monday evening; I felt great the first half of the run after being off for over a week. Was tired by the end though.

At Least the Math was Easy

Updating my runnng log was easy this week. 0 miles got my average mileage for the year right under 20 miles again; I had finally gotten above 20 the prior two weeks. My left Achilles injury had my weekly mileage well below the last 2 years. I'm sure I'll be above 20 again in time at all.

West Texas Crossroads Marathon

I got a postcard in the mail this week for the West Texas Crossroads Marathon, 1/2, 5k and kids run. Looks like Odessa and Midland now have a full fledged marathon. Checked out the course time limits as this is a hot topic in Houston this week; 7 hours for the full and 4 hours for the 1/2.

On the shingles front, the good news is that the rash hasn't broken out anymore in the past couple of days and what is there doesn't look as bad as what I've seen in other pics. Hopefully the antiviral meds will make it a speedy recovery! Otherwise, I'm getting a little ansy logging 0 miles in a planned 40 mile week.

Marathon Interrupted

Reading my August Runner's World issue on the plane ride from Houston to New Orleans Tuesday morning I came across Dean K.'s FAQs where he offered his if he could offer only one piece of advice, it would be: "Listen to everyone, follow no one." Given my current setback I just need to listen to my body to figure out when I should start running again.

Not running since Saturday has the taper phantom aches showing up in my legs. Or is that part of the effects of shingles? Anyway, got me wanting to get out running. Also not running has me thinking that I've been plagued by some marathon curse or something. 2 completed marathons and 2 DNS attempts and now this setback have me seriously missing my comfortable half distance.

I ran my first marathon in January 2000 prior to running a half marathon; 6.2 miles was the furthest I had run prior to starting training in the fall of 1999. The curse was weak for that first attempt. My 2 co-workers that also signed up for the event were going to train with me; they both ended up being put on a long term audit engagement and were out of town the entire time we were training. We ran one long run together; the only long run that I ran while training. My training was also hampered by a fixer up home acquisition that took away much of my training time as well as a change in jobs. After running the distance, my reaction was of the "I'm NEVER going to do this again" rather than sign me up for the next race attitude.

NEVER lasted a little over 4 years for me. I got into the 2004 NYC marathon lottery and was accepted so was set to begin training that July for my second marathon. I was diagnosed with hep A in May that year so didn't even log a mile training in 2004, my first NYC DNS. I deferred my entry for 2004 so that I had guaranteed entry for the 2005 marathon.

2005 NYC training started out on schedule. Between July and August 26th I followed my training schedule to the mile. August 27th with Hurricane Katrina on a projected path to the New Orleans area, I packed my running gear along with a few other essentials and evacuated to my moms in central Louisiana, fully intending to be back home training within a couple of days. A couple of days turned into not being able to get back home for a week and a half and then only to pack a few things and set up shop in a new city. While I fell off the mileage I was still running throughout this period. Less than a month later, I was evacuating again, this time from the Houston area, from Hurricane Rita. I didn't even pack my running gear for the Rita evacuation. After Rita, I got settled in again in Houston and was getting back into running mode when I came down with a strep infection. I called training quits then and deferred NYC until 2006 for my 2nd DNS.

NYC 2006 was my first year training with Woodlands Fit and was a smooth training experience. I ran my long runs with Scott Brian, Colleen Hayman, and Amber Brock; they were training for the Portland, OR marathon which was a month earlier than NYC. I ran back to back halfs the same weekend as they ran Portland; my second half that weekend was in Portland, ME.....a pretty cool coincidence. Anyway, training and the marathon itself went fine. The curse didn't strike until the week following the marathon. Wednesday following the marathon, I developed a thrombosed external hemerroid that I had excised 2 days later.

NYC was also supposed to be my final marathon but moving into an older age group and getting an additional 10 minutes to BQ got me signed up for Chicago this fall. Once again, six weeks of training went fine. After completing my week 6 Saturday long run of 10 miles, a cutback week for me, I felt body aches the rest of the weekend. I also noticed a small rash near the middle of my lower back Saturday evening. Still not feeling right Monday morning, I went to my GP and was diagnosed with shingles. I'm not sure what brought it on as I have not had any additional stress in my life. Maybe its the additional miles weakening my immune system? Maybe its just the marathon curse as I've run this many miles training for back to back halfs.

I'm just going to cautiously monitor my recovery process; I seem to still be breaking out so not on the downside of this thing yet. I'll figure out where to jump back in the training when it feels right and am confident that I will be able to complete Chicago, most likely not at the pace that I was anticipating back when I started training in early June. In the meantime, the additional rest will do my Achilles good I'm sure.

Shingled Out

After running Saturday morning I felt achy the rest of the day. Saturday evening I noticed a slight rash on my back; not in the usual spot for heat rash but I didn't think much of it. Sunday I still felt achy and the rash was still there. This morning I noticed another spot on my stomach so I called to make an appointment with my GP. Diagnosis is shingles; got a prescription of Valtrex. I of course asked the question I seem to always ask when visiting a doc "Can I still run?" Got the ok to run but thought the better of it this evening. I just didn't feel up to it. I'm headed to New Orleans tomorrow for 2 days of meetings. Hopefully will be much better and back running Thursday. Laying low til then.

Saturday Long Run

I woke up around 1 this morning with my nose stopped up and a headache. Took some Alieve and woke up around 5 with the alarm feeling much better but head still somewhat pounding. I was fine by the time I got to the run; it was another home course Fall Fit run for me. I live less than a mile from the Y on Ashlane so I get a little extra time on these mornings. I got to the Y turned my Garmin on and had a low battery message while searching for satellites. I ran into Trail group Coach Sara and was able to borrow one of her Garmins (she said she keeps getting them as gifts from family). I needed the Garmin as I was running a modified Fit course to try and get to my 10 mile target distance for the day. I ended up a little over at 10.75 miles but had a great run. After the run we had a stretching seminar led by Liz Berry; stretchings always a good thing post run. Tomorrow is one of my rest days then its on to week 7 of Chicago training. 40 miles is the target mileage for next week.

SEC Mascots Live and Die Like Royalty

I came across this website earlier today while reading about the upcoming college football season. Sitting here at work hoping for a cool front to come through before I head to run a 7 miler this evening. I think it will be an easy pace for me tonight. Had my normal Wednesday evening "torture session" aka deep tissue massage with Ute Schmidt last night. Feeling a little sore from that today. As long as it keeps me running it's well worth it.

Waterway Run

Today's training run was an easy 3 miler. I ran the Woodlands Waterway for the first time in over a month. The only problem with the waterway is that there isn't much shade but since this was only a 3 miler, I decided to go ahead and run it anyway.

I spotted Beth Whitehead as I was approaching Waterway Square. Actually she spotted me because she was headed my direction when I saw her. Her kids were in their swim gear playing in the kid friendly fountain there; the fountain I always consider running through everytime I run by there. Anyways, I chatted with Beth then wrapped up my run. I actually had some dry spots left on my sleeveless drifit shirt when I finished; I was totally soaked after 7 miles on yesterdays run.

Training Between Zones

I need to start focusing on running my easy pace runs at the correct pace. Yesterdays short 3 mile run was slightly faster than it should have been. I think the fact that I hadn't run since Saturday morning plus the drizzle had alot to do with that. I ran 7 at lunch today at a pace even faster than yesterdays pace. The pace for the past 2 days has been much closer to easy pace than marathon pace but I think I still need to make more of an effort to maintain the correct pace on these runs.

My left Achilles tightened up on me after Saturday's 14 mile long run. Driving for 4+ hours probably had something to do with that. It took all the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday to get it loosened up again.

Good Training Week

I wrapped up the week with a 14 mile Fall Fit run this morning. It was a good constant effort between 9:15 and 9:30 average pace. Get a bit of a break in next weeks training with a step down in my long run miles.

40 Half Marathons and Counting

I completed my 40'th half marathon last month in Juneau, AK. This is the first time in quite a few years that I don't have a 1/2 marathon on my training schedule. My first half was completed at Disney World in January 2001, a year after running my first marathon at Disney as well. Of the 40 1/2's that I've run, February has been the busiest month by far: 9 were run in February. April was the next closest month with 5; I've run at least one 1/2 in each of the calendar months.

2003 was the year that I decided to run 1/2's or fulls in the 50 states; I was also focused on runnng the 1/2's under 2 hours and eventually breaking an 8 minute per mile pace. It took over 5 years and 15 attempts to finally break the 8 minute mile pace/sub 1:45 barrier. I ran 1:44:07 at the Texas 1/2 in Dallas in February 2006. In June of 2006 my other goal of running sub 2 hours was busted at Hospital Hill in Kansas City, MO. 2006 (11 yellow) was my most productive year in running states closely followed by 2007 (10 purple).

I will complete my 34th state this October when I run the Chicago Marathon. I hope to run 2 to 3 1/2's a year after that and complete my 50th state when I turn 50.

Hump Day Run

I got out to run a couple hours later than I planned; this work thing keeps getting in the way. I was somewhat concerned that I didn't fuel up enough for the run put it turned out fine.

Before heading out, I looked over my lunch routes over the past couple of months to find something close to 7 miles, today's distance per my training plan. I found something right under 7 that included the Nature Trail and only one major intersection crossing so I decided to run that route. The route also has 3 water fountains which definetely came in handy today. I actually added a 4th water fountain and a little mileage to get me to 7 by going to Creekside Park once I got out of the Nature Trail.

My left Achilles has been somewhat gimpy all week so I was concerned about it. It didn't hurt at all the last couple of miles and was barely noticeable earlier in the run so thats great news. With a mile to go I realized I have completed 1/2 of my mileage planned for the week; 17 out of 34 miles are now in the books!!!!!

Weekday Runs Flip Flopped

I was supposed to run 3, 7, 3 and 7 weekday runs this week with 14 miles for my long run this weekend. I met the weekday group to run the Nature Trail this evening; this route is normally right under 5 miles. I didn't know of anyway to cut the run short and was feeling good running a 9 something pace so decided to make this one of my 7 mile runs tonight. This was accomplished fairly easily by adding the Millbend loop into the route. To make sure I got to 7 I took a right on Grogans Mill when I got to the GM/South Millbend intersection and ran under GM through Grogans Mill Village Center to get back to South Millbend. Turns out that probably wasn't necessary as my mileage came closer to 7.5 than 7. It will be easy cutting the 4 mile Flintridge run down to 3 tomorrow.

I think I've got the script error from the Runners World website being posted on my blog figured out. Monday runs and runs on the first of the month are not being included in weekly and monthly totals. I'll probably switch to Running Ahead at some point for my online training log but will probably wait to make a year end switch.

Sunday Day Off

I set my alarm last night for 6:30, an hour before I was supposed to run trails at Burroughs Park this morning. Went through my checklist when I woke up this morning:

Body glide and tape
Garmin
Trail shoes
Valet key
Driver license
Towel
Deep woods Off

I didn't bring my cell phone but didn't worry about because I knew where I was headed. Well after driving down Kukendahl awhile and not seeing the Burroughs Park sign, I drove another mile or two and passed a fork in the road which I was almost certain I don't normally see so I decided I had missed the sign and the turn. I turned around and headed back but never saw the sign again. I called Coach Sara when I got home and found out that the turn was Huffsmith? I believe. Anyways, I could've slept in for the amount of running I didn't get in this morning. My achilles was a little tender so taking the day off was probably for the best. I fed the dogs, made a pot of coffee and watched the 2nd stage of the Tour de France instead of getting soaking wet running in this humidity.

Saturday Long Run

When my alarm went off at 5:00 this morning, I put on the weather channel and found the temperature in the lo 70s. It actually felt decent when I went outside. That all changed once I started running. I believe I was soaking wet 2.5 miles into the run. The plan was to run 13 but I missed a turn somewhere on the route; I ended up adding something at the end to get it to 12.25. Close enough for me.

I finished reading the second book that I took with me last week for the flight to Seattle and cruise. I finished Tim Van Wagoner's in the long run late into the cruise last week. Its a running novel; not bad but the race day stats are definetely fiction imho. The second book I read on my running cruise was Marc Bloom's God On The Starting Line. I preferred this one of the two; I got both over a year ago so glad that I've finally read them.

The plan for tomorrow is a little bit of slow lite mileage on the trails at Burroughs Park. Hopefully its somewhat dry out there; I probably should bring my swim gear just in case!

Where Are All the Horseflies?

I need to get my marathon training schedule squared away. I filled out a calendar months ago using Sunday as my long run days but that the long run has moved up to Saturdays now that Woodlands Fit started the fall marathon program. I checked my calendar and noted a 6 mile run for Wednesday which is now Tuesday given the day shift. I met Grant and Brit at Forestgate Park to run Flintridge last night. We normally run 4 miles when doing Flintridge, turning around a little past Falconwing. I continued on last night and ran a loop in the George Mitchell Nature Preserve. It had been a couple of weeks since I had run on the trails. To my delight, I didn't encounter even one horsefly on the trail last night. I don't know where they all headed but certainly did not miss them.
Wearing the Garmin again since the ban on the GAMM cruise last week, I saw that I would be a little short on the 6 miles so I stayed on Flintridge and entered Forestgate Park by the tennis courts. That got me within a tenth of a mile of 6. I finished my run right as Mick and Carmen finished as well from the normal Forestgate finish.

Back in the Heat & Humidity

What a difference 2,000 + miles makes on running conditions. I think I sweat more yesterday in less than 5 miles than I sweat all last week in Alaska running over 26 miles. I got to the overflow parking lot at St Simon and Jude a few minutes late yesterday; I saw cars there but no one was around so I hurried up and got my running shoes on and took off trying to catch people. I ended up running faster than I planned but it was good to be back on flat land. I ran over 10 seconds per mile faster than I did on the last 10k run outside of Ketchikan; walking those inclines really slowed me down up there.
I ran 125 miles for the month of June; that's the first time that I've run over 120 miles since September last year. If all goes as planned, I should log around 150 miles this month with my Chicago training plan.

Great Alaska Maritime Marathon Week

I brought my laptop with me on my Alaskan trip thinking that I would blog daily. After opting to not fill out a loan application to pay the $$$ per minute internet charges on board the ship, I opted to put this all in one post. It was an awesome experience.

Sunday, June 22nd: Can You Hear Me Now?

The flight to Seattle went smooth as well as embarkation from Seattle aboard the ms Westerdam Sunday. Check in for the Great Alaskan Maritime Marathon (GAMM) went smooth as well. There are 80 participants in this years event.

We must’ve crossed another time zone before dinner because I missed our first group dinner by an hour last night. What I thought was 8 pm (per my Verizon cell phone) turned out to be 9 pm. Oh well, there will be at least 5 more group dinners. After eating at 9 I headed back to the cabin and was knocked out by 10:30.

Tomorrow morning we will be running a 2 mile run on the Promenade deck of the ship. This is a 3rd level deck; we will run 6 times around the ship to get the 2 miles in. Aside from no wind in the back and a crosswind in the front there should be wicked headwinds down one side and tailwinds down the other. We’ll see how that goes!

The Achilles tendonitis has been bothering me; I need to quit taking the stairs…..I hate waiting for elevators.

Monday, June 23rd: Stage One: 2 Mile Deck Run

This morning was the first stage of our staged marathon. At the briefing before the run, the strategy for the week was revealed. First, we were not allowed to wear watches this morning. We had someone timing and counting our laps onboard for the 2 miles. The 2 miles we ran this morning will give us the pace that we need to maintain for the whole week. The person that comes the closest to their average time today in the 3 remaining stages will win that stage and the person that comes closest overall will win the entire event. Similar to the Tour de France, yellow GAMM hats will be given to the stage winners. Oh and no Garmins allowed the rest of the week to try and get to today’s average mile pace.

Given all that I opted to run a slow pace onboard this morning. My target mile pace is 9:58 per mile. Wednesday mornings ½ in Juneau has rolling hills; rolling hills can be mountains to flatlanders like me. Thursday mornings 5 mile run will be adventure type race in that we will be given maps and directions and will have to find the mile markers for the event. Each mile marker will have a local running club individual marking our bibs. Thursdays 10k trail run should be the most scenic of the events. Like the ½ in Juneau, it also has rolling hills. Sounds like a fun week.

We had a strength and training flexibility seminar this afternoon. There was some overlap with the core workout that we’ve started doing with Woodlands Fall Fit.

Tuesday, June 24th: Cruising Glacier Bay

This morning at 2am the ship had a time change. We are now on my cell phones time that it adjusted to back Sunday. I’m sticking to the wake up call feature on the cabin’s phone for my official time.

Today we entered Glacier Bay National Park late in the morning and cruised around until late afternoon. We saw the Lamplough, John Hopkins, and Marjorie Glaciers while in the park. Weather was cool and overcast; I had on a wool cap and gloves. I stayed out on deck quite awhile taking advantage of the cool weather that I know I wont see again for months.

This morning we had a session with John Bingham entitled “Running For Your Life.” It was John’s story of how we went from overweight couch potato to running. I first heard John speak at the pre race pasta dinner before the Mini marathon in Indianapolis in May 2004. Quite entertaining.

Wednesday, June 25th: Juneau AK ½ Marathon

Just talking to a few of fellow GAMM participants, there appear to be some metronome pace setting runners here. I think I’ll forgo the attempted stage win in order to make it back in time to catch the 10am bus back versus the noon bus. With an 8am race start, I should be able to run the ½ in time to catch the 10 o’clock bus but that will be faster than the 9:58 2 mile deck run pace that I established Monday. Then again the Achilles may slow me down not to mention the rolling hills….. We’ll see. Headed out now for a 6am run briefing.

It was misting when we got to Juneau but not for long. Perfect weather in the 50s I would imagine. We bussed from the ship to Douglas Island where we ran the ½ marathon. From Douglas Island we had an excellent view of Mendenhall Glacier at the start/finish line as well along the route. The mayor of Juneau came out today as the race starter. The Juneau Empire was out as well covering the event.

My Achilles was feeling fine and the cool weather was awesome for running so I ran fairly hard today. I’m probably over 25 minutes under my goal pace after just the 2nd stage of the GAMM. I was the first male finisher and finished in 1:43:53. Not a PR but it was a sub 8 pace that I was able to crank out more often than not last year and had not yet done this year.

We got back to the ship around 11; I had a quick shower then headed up to grab more pasta for lunch. I took around a 3 hour nap after eating then headed back ashore to see some of Juneau. Walked through/by gift and T-shirt shops to try and loosen up the legs.

Thursday, June 26th: Stage 3, Sitka 5 mile run

GAMM participants caught the first 2 tenders from the Westerdam to Sitka for our 9am 5 mile run start. It was overcast and cool in Sitka; I was probably dressed with fewer clothes than anyone else but I felt fine in shorts and a short sleeved running shirt with a running cap. We received Sitka maps as well as turn by turn directions at our 7am race briefing while still on board the ship. The map and directions were both really straight forward and the mile marker individuals in orange vests were easy to spot. A local high school had the setup for this race and students were in groups of 3 marking mile numbers on our race bibs.

It took about a half mile or so to get my left Achilles loosened up but it felt good again today and I dug a deeper hole in finishing well under my target time that I set with the 2 mile run Monday. My time for the 5 miles was 36:58….not exactly a 9:58 per mile pace.

We last tender left at Sitka at 4:30 and we are now sailing to Ketchikan. We will run the final stage of the GAMM tomorrow morning; a 10k trail run. I believe we will be bussed a good ways out from where the ship docks. Sounds like a great way to see parts of Ketchikan that most tourists never see.

Friday, June 27th: Stage 4, Ketchikan 10k trail run

We arrived in Ketchikan at 7am this morning. School busses picked us up about 15 minutes later and bussed us to Tongass National Forest where we met members of the Ketchikan Running Club. Like Juneau, the Ketchikan mayor met us for the race today; however, he actually ran with us.

The course started and finished on pavement, was mostly run on crushed rock, and also included some dirt. The rolling hills here made Huntsville State Park look flat; I ran my slowest time today at 52:58. Unlike Juneau, the 2 busses stayed together and we didn’t head back to the ship until everyone finished the race. It was after 11am by the time we got back to the ship; with an all aboard time of 12:30pm I opted to get back on board, cleanup and grab lunch rather than hang out in Ketchikan.

I don’t know if anyone mentioned it, but we actually have run 26.3 miles rather than the 26.2 marathon distance. Could this be an ultra? Several of the GAMM participants including myself will be doing the ON DECK FOR THE CURE 5K WALK at 9 am tomorrow morning. The walk raises money for the Holland America Line Foundation to benefit the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Saturday, June 28th: 5k Walk

There must have been at least 25 GAMM participants that walked the 5k this morning. It was really foggy but not too rough walking 9 laps on the same deck where we ran our 2 mile pace run Monday. Weather was still nice and cool; probably lo 50s. We docked in Victoria, BC around 7 this evening for our last port of call before arriving back in Seattle Sunday morning. It was sunny and noticeably warmer than it had been all week. Still long sleeve shirt weather but not nearly as cool.

Sunday, June 29th: Seattle Marathon

No, I didn't run it but was told that it was run earlier this morning. Actually it was the VM Team Medicine Northwest Marathon and 1/2.

I had time to kill so I went on my only excursion of the week on the Best of Seattle tour. My 5:30 pm flight was delayed and we encountered headwinds back to Houston so we didn't land until around 12:20 am. After baggage claim, it was off to a very crowded Parking Cents to get my car.