Heights Fun Run

Superman, I certainly am not. While our yellow sun fortifies the Man of Steel, it wilts me in the summer. So from March to November, one of the questions I try to answer before signing up for a race is, "How shaded is it?"

The Heights Fun Run is a community gem on the Houston running calendar. The course is a pancake-flat out-and-back on tree-lined Heights Boulevard, which runs north-south. I ran this race two years ago and remembered how nice it was to never find yourself face-to-face with the rising sun.

So this morning I lined up with the other folks behind the mats at the 18th Street intersection. (Oooh, they added chip timing since the last time I was here!) The pre-race announcements before the national anthem included the news that the race director had passed away from a heart attack just this past week. The event ended up being a great success with a strong turnout, so he leaves a nice legacy.

After the horn sounded, I realized that I had probably lined up a little too far back as I was darting around a lot of slower runners. I reached 9th street, the first mile marker, in 8:13. In retrospect, I think I might have made a mistake by skipping the water stop here.

I made the turnaround at 5th Street, then began the "countup" of intersections to the finish line. I reached the second mile split at exactly 17 elapsed minutes. I got to 9th Street again and began to struggle with maintaining pace. Even without the sun beaming down on us, it was still what I call an "80/80" morning, where the temperature is at least 80F and the humidity is at least 80%.

So I turned down the throttle and just cruised through the next nine intersections, returning to 18th Street and meeting the clock in an elapsed net chip time of 27:25. After returning my timing chip, I discovered that the faster runners had claimed the breakfast tacos I was craving. Drat! So I had to settle for bagels, bananas and hot tamales. The tamales were yummy, so I can't really complain.

While waiting for the awards/door-prize presentation to begin, I did take a few pictures:

The kids run is getting ready to start....


And they're off and running....


Hamming it up in a realtor's driveway on the boulevard after the race....



A fist full of hard-earned tamales....


My goal for this race in the future is to be fast enough to catch a taco.