do (run) while (date < 20070924)

September 17 through 23:

MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOTAL
xt1	6 mi	4 mi		5 mi	11 mi		26 mi

xt1=biked on Terry Hershey trail from the Beltway to Dairy Ashford and back in about an hour

Tour de Art Run

I've strolled art galleries before. I've run before. (duh) It never occurred to me to combine the two activities until this week. Friday, September 21 was designated by the Road Runners Club of America as National Run @ Work Day, and to celebrate, the Houston Striders hosted a "Tour de Art" event. I joined this evening group run as it snaked through and then outside the pile of skyscrapers in downtown Houston.

As we briefly stopped at 15 outdoor sculptures, our leader, Roger Boak, would introduce each piece and give us tidbits about the sculptor and how the piece ended up there. Many of the sculptures I had seen before (but didn't know anything about them) and some I would have never discovered if it wasn't for this tour. For example, "Big Bubble" by Dean Ruck is a concealed air compressor that sends up a burst of air from the bottom of Buffalo Bayou up to the surface when triggered by a switch on a nearby ledge. (We all agreed that this would be great to try out on unsuspecting kayakers/canoeists!)

The last artwork in the run was the Police Officers Memorial. I have driven by it many times, but have never gotten a close look at it. Tonight I realized why. The field it is in is cut off from the rest of Eleanor Tinsley Park by Memorial Drive. To get to it, we took a dirt path under a nearby bridge. It's a shame that this monument to fallen officers isn't more accessible to the public. A pedestrian bridge spanning Memorial Drive would be useful at that spot.

Had I been more foresightful, I would have brought my "real" digital camera. But I didn't, so instead I can only present a handful of low-res cameraphone shots:



The group takes off in the shadow of City Hall.


The Virtuoso by David Adickes


Points of View by James Surls


Monument to the Phantom by Jean Dubuffet



Me, in front of Personage with Birds by Joan Miro



Runners climb to the top of Houston Police Officers' Memorial by Jesus Bautista Morales. Yeah, it was getting pretty dark by the end.



The memorial looks like this in the daytime. On all four sides of the upright pyramid are four inverted pyramids of matching size, carved in sunken relief into the ground.

do (run) while date < (20070917)

September 10 through 16:

MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOTAL
4 mi		8 mi			8 mi	5 mi	25 mi

Returning back to 20+

do (run) while (date < 20070910)

September 3 through 9:

MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOTAL
4 mi							4 mi

The technical term is "post-race blah."

Fired Up 5K

With a 7:00 a.m. start and a cloudy sky, the sun was not a factor on this Labor Day morning. The warmth and humidity were factors, however, and my clothes were quite damp with perspiration after only a half-mile warm-up jog!

The crowd at this year's Fired Up 5K was oddly serious. Usually I can strike up a light-hearted exchange with the people around me during a race, but most everyone seemed so focused (or lost in their headphones) and no one wanted to return my chatter. I also seemed to be the only one in my vicinity who cheered on the leaders on the back half of the out-and-back course. Come on, it's not as if we -- "we" meaning anyone running close to my pace -- are actually in the running to win anything! Don't forget to have fun and support the achievements of fellow runners, folks!

The 5K distance is always an uncomfortable one to race for me, because there's little thought to endurance, only speed. There's nothing better than setting your lungs on a low flame for half an hour, is there!? After hustling through the first mile in 8:45, I settled in and held a pace in the nines the rest of the way, but it wasn't easy! At this time, I'd like to thank the nameless lady in the pink running skirt in front of me for her wordless motivation during that tough third mile. :) And I needed it then, too, because I got one of my dreaded waves of nausea with only a quarter-mile left in the race! So I did walk for a few seconds until the urge to heave left my belly.

This is the view runners see as they make their final turn to the end of the course:


Here I am, checking my Garmin unit at the finish as only the geeky do:


I've got a new 5K personal record time of 28:53. This still put me near the bottom of my age group, but I would have been less than a minute from a third-place age-group award if was in the 20-24 age group. Weird, eh?

Link to more photos by the official photographer, Raceshots.net

This was my third time to run through the fire station. I do like this trend:

2005 Fired Up 5K: 35:22
2006 Fired Up 5K: 31:59
2007 Fired Up 5K: 28:53

Just because I know that certain ladies seem to like 'em, here's a gratuitous shot of the resident firefighters thanking the runners for helping them support the Muscular Dystrophy Association:


What I liked this year was that the race organizers automatically entered all registrants into the door prize drawing, and being present wasn't necessary to win. This was much better than last year, when a representative of the community association was drawing numbers in one area at the same time the race winners were being announced and recognized in another. That was just discourteous in my opinion.

One more oddity: There were age group awards for literally everyone. They even had a "no age" award category for males and females that declined to list their age on their registration!!! Guess what? I would have come home with a first-place award if I had simply left the age field blank. Isn't that crazy?

Event: Fired Up 5K (3 Sep 2007)
Location: Fire Station No. 5, Sugar Land TX
Result: 28:53 (chip), 28:56 (Forerunner 101), 9th-of-14 in 30-34 age group
Benefits: Muscular Dystrophy Association

do (run) while (date < 20070903)

August 27 through September 2:

MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOTAL
			6 mi				6 mi

71 miles logged for month of August. Introduced fresh pair of Saucony Trigon 4 Guide during the only run this past week. I did play around Lake Livingston during the weekend, so at least I wasn't a total couch potato.