Energy Capital Run

This will be my last race for the time being. I completed a run/walk of this 5K in just under 42 minutes.

I had pre-registered earlier in the month and I'm glad I showed up. The weather was beautiful one for outdoor activities, with a dawn temp in the high forties. Instead of a cotton T, the packets came with a New Balance tech fabric shirt with the race logo. Gulf States Toyota's facility is right on the course, and after the race I picked up a freebie Houston Rockets polo shirt from the carmaker's table. I will make good use of both.

In all, this was a pretty well-run event. The only anomaly I encountered was that the police had not completely closed the Enclave Parkway intersection with Briar Forest, and participants had to stop there twice on the out-and-back course until the officer waved them on.

I hope I can figure out what is keeping me from running as I think I should. What worries me, of course, is that there's a real possibility that I may have to sit out the marathon if I don't.

Forward.

Rookie mistake

Two small shortbread cookies, a packet of GU gel, a handful of cotton candy, half a cup of chicken noodle soup, and a piece of bread -- this is basically what powered me through virtually all day yesterday including a long run. Not surprisingly, this didn't work out well.

I think I simply let myself get distracted by excitement of a busy day. On Friday, I got invited to come out to a festival on Saturday, and I decided that I would just fit this event in between this weekend's long run and another festival I had already planned to attend.

When I got up Saturday, I was in such a rush that the only pre-run food I had was the cookies. I was carrying a GU gel and ate that halfway through thirteen miles. Still in a rush, I got home, showered and immediately left for what was supposed to be festival number one.

I ended up wiping myself out. My energy stores were zapped, and yet at the same time the run had suppressed my appetite to the point where eating seemed abhorrent. I felt trapped in this pattern for hours, forcing myself to nibble as much as I could tolerate to keep going. I felt so bad that I ended up skipping festival number two.

Lessons re-learned:
1) Before morning runs shorter than an hour, breakfast isn't necessary for me. For long runs, it's highly recommended.
2) After finishing a long run, I need to start the re-fueling process as soon as possible -- within the first hour -- even if the body doesn't seem to be demanding it right away.

Sadly, you'd think that this sort of goof wouldn't be committed by someone pursuing the Houston Marathon for the third time (if I count the eventual switch to the half course in 2007), but it happened and I fully own the mistake.

My appetite didn't re-appear until late last night. At 11:59 p.m., I devoured a leftover Quizno's sandwich, a banana and a glass of soy milk; this made the most substantive meal I had all of Saturday.

As of today, we have 90 days to go until the Houston Marathon. I'd like them to be full of brighter thinking.

Run to Cure HD

Actually, today's primary goal was to get in some long-run mileage. So after checking in at Oyster Creek Park an hour before race time, I did an extended warmup of four miles before reporting to the start line. I'm still unable to run a full 5K at 5K effort and my mile splits look a lot like last week's:

Mile 1: 9:34
Mile 2: 11:53
Mile 3: 13:42
elapsed 5K time: 37:00 (per Garmin Forerunner 205)

Just like last week, race nausea hit me in mile 2 and dogged me into frequent walking breaks for the rest of the course. Oh well. I don't know if I was seeing the final official results, but the sheets that were posted during the awards ceremony showed me as the second to last male in my age group. At last year's event I was at the bottom, so I'll have to be happy to move up, right?

After crossing the finish mat, I was off to log another three miles before I left the park, for a total of ten. I took a rest at the awards ceremony long enough to consume a slice of pepperoni pizza and claim an XL T-shirt from the University of Phoenix ("I am a Phoenix") as a door prize. (Boy was I really coveting that free registration for the Sugar Land Turkey Trot instead!)

The weather was absolutely wonderful for a race. After yesterday's front came through, we were left with a 56F morning with overcast skies, versus the 97F heat index we had to deal with on Thursday afternoon.

Next weekend should be free of racing, and then I'll be reporting from the Energy Capital Run on the 24th.

Celiac Run

Five miles at Bear Creek Park went into the log on this pleasant morning, including the Celiac Run event:

Mile 1 -- 9:13
Mile 2 -- 13:22
Mile 3 -- 11:55

3.18-mile elapsed time per Garmin Forerunner 205 -- 36:05

The double-loop race course had to be altered to avoid a flooded area of the park, and everyone wearing GPS agreed the revised course was a bit long. But I wasn't worried about setting any new records today. It was all about just getting back into the swing of showing up and completing a running event after a three-month dry spell. And it was tough to pass up a 5K being held just a short drive away from home.

I feared that this race was going to turn out just like this past Heights Fun Run. I started fairly strong, then was hit with a bout of nausea in mile 2. Luckily, I was able to recompose myself in time to mostly jog the rest of the course in and claim that 36:05 time -- exactly ten minutes over my all-time 5K PR.

Speaking of thirty-somethings, I would have been an award recipient had I listed myself as "competitive" on my registration. This was a really, really small event (scheduled against the juggernaut downtown known as the Komen Race for the Cure) and only one male in my age group showed up. In a normally fiercely contested age/gender group with awards three-deep, only one guy was competing. To be honest, claiming hardware by default like this would have cast a hollow feeling on me during the short ride home.

The whole purpose of this event was to raise awareness of issues affecting and resources helping people with gluten allergies. Therefore the spread on the refreshment tables was a bit different from usual. The gluten-free brownies got my full endorsement, but I couldn't palate the bagels with a texture between angel-food cake and cornbread, but tasted like neither. The Redbridge beer I remember from a previous edition of the Celiac Run was nowehere to be found, but I give the organizers sweet props for putting out cartons of strawberries. Yum!

The last running-related footnote I'll add is that I've switched shoes -- finally. In recent weeks I've had periodic flareups of my dreaded achilles tendinitis, and I realized that the last time I bought new running shoes was six months ago. So this week I've been breaking in a pair of New Balance 1224s, and have been pretty happy with the results. This morning was wholly pain-free, and I'll take it!

Fall opens with a bloom of bullet points

• There's no doubt now; autumn is firmly in gear. The air is cooling. The calendar has flipped to October. Pumpkins and (artificial) Christmas trees are prominently on display at the local plant nursery.
  
• I've updated my running calendar blog with a lot of events coming up in October and November, many of which seem to be new -- at least to me. H-Town runners, have fun scheduling your weekends.
• I've already signed up for the Celiac Run and the Energy Capital Run; it's always nice to be able to support races that are in easy reach of home. I'm still far, far off my peak speed from the spring. Anything below a 40-minute 5K will be acceptable right now.
• Spearmint has earned my respect. A plant which I thought had been neglected to death during the brutal summer heat on my patio has sprouted fresh leaves as fall has started. I'm rewarding it with a larger container that won't be so prone to drying out.
• My crop of Swiss chard was totally overrun by some sort of leaf miner bugs that ripped holes in the foliage, then stripped them clean. It only took a week. The devastation was so complete that the barren stems that remained reminded me of those pictures of the timberlands surrounding Mount Saint Helens after the mountain blew up. After raising the white flag, I've planted nasturtium and cilantro seeds in those containers instead. Maybe they'll be less appetizing to pests.
• Speaking of seeding, fall is supposed to be the proper time to sow wildflowers for next spring's bloom. Within the view from my patio, there is a patch of earth just outside the apartment complex that is just growing some very ordinary weeds at the moment. I am having thoughts of doing something to help it become more interesting in the future....
• I'm glad to see a new season of The Amazing Race. I'm still hoping that the producers will shed the manufactured drama that infects just about all "reality TV" and revert back to a focus on team logistics and problem solving that brought me in as a viewer in the first place. It's a faint hope, to be sure.
• The CR-V clocked its 175,000th mile this week. I'm looking forward to posting a long-long-term test drive report in a few months once she hits her 10th birthday. It's been a pretty good ride so far.