A South Coaster's advice for the Irene After-Party

It's a little late to write about hurricane preparedness, but as a resident of Houston with memories of Hurricane Ike still pretty fresh, I'll offer the following pointers for those who will be digging out of the aftermath of Irene shortly.

• If you remembered to "run from water, hide from wind" then you're likely alive to read this. It's going to be a costly hassle, but you'll have great stories and some of you are going to enjoy the post-storm days as an extension of summer vacation.
• Houses with landline telephone service and DSL might suddenly become the communications hubs of the neighborhood.
• If you were one of those who were prepared enough to get a generator before the storm hit, congratulations! Be considerate of when you're using them, though, or else risk having your street sound like a motocross competition all night long.
• You may be cleaning up "street salad" for days.
• If you see a downed cable of any type in the street, flag the area to warn others, but don't attempt to play Crocodile Hunter and attempt to touch it or "move it out of the way." They can have nasty bites.
• If you believed the story that taping your windows had any kind of real protective effect you'll be scraping residue off the windows until the next hurricane shows up.
• Your radio airwaves will feature law firm commercials targeting insurance companies until . . . well, I'm still waiting for Ike-related stuff to stop.
• If you think the real estate "bubble" has taken value off the top of your house, you haven't seen anything yet.
• Consider having a general contractor on retainer now, or be prepared to wait in line for one to fix your house later.
• If you've ever had thoughts of changing careers to construction, you're in luck!

Stay safe, East Coasters. When you're done playing with the storm, would you mind sending what's left to drought-afflicted Texas? Thanks!

Spirited Thirteen

It wasn't my first time to pass the spot, but this morning I was on foot in Cullen Park on my long run and finally noticed a small cemetery tucked into the thick vegetation beside the trail less than a mile away from Barker-Cypress Road. A historical marker identifies the spot as being in use since antebellum days. The plots are surrounded by a fifty-foot square of chain-link fence, so I wasn't able to get a close look at the markers themselves, especially to satisfy my curiosity about the headstone where a medal appears to have been left very recently.

All the other times I've taken this path I have simply wheeled by on the saddle of my bicycle, so once again having my feet on the ground reveals details missed when being occupied with riding or driving. Before moving south to present-day Interstate 10, the town of Addicks was actually located in this area until the Corps of Engineers built the dam and created the reservoir for floodwater containment. I find it a little haunting to see the burial sites left behind.

And now I have another reason to refrain from going for any late-night runs on this unlit trail!

The run itself went reasonably well. I learned my lesson from Sunday and brought some extra get-up-and-go in the form of Extreme Sport Beans. (There was nothing wrong with the beans, but I think product names like this are an unfortunate "Generation X" legacy of the 1990s. The word extreme should not be allowed on any packaging unless it's accompanied by a frank medical warning that what's inside actually pushes the boundaries of what is considered edible.) My total distance was thirteen miles at my usual snail-like pace, with the last two mostly walked as the heat index had uncomfortably escalated past 90F.

What's your favorite not-so-extreme use of the word extreme? And have you recently noticed any sights in your neighborhood while running that someone in a car would surely miss?

A Six Weeks Report With The Nook Color

When I was "on the shelf" with a summer cold last month, I decided to distract myself from my otolaryngological misery by splurging on a Barnes and Noble Nook Color, my second e-reader.

What this new gadget brought is a larger rich color screen, a decent CPU, and a Nook Apps store from which I made ezPDF my first purchase. This will be perfect for the illustration-heavy tech reference material with which I'll cuddling up in the coming months. B&N pre-loads the Nook Color with a rudimentary PDF viewer, but ezPDF will likely save you two bucks worth of your time very quickly the first couple of times you flip back and forth through a long document.

I suspect that the big reason why B&N won't officially support the full Android Market on this device is that the thought of millions of Nook Color devices with the Kindle app installed gives them the creeps. B&N-centric features are configured to inspire loyalty to the retailer. Not only does the built-in Wi-Fi give access to purchase and download "Nook Books," but if the Nook detects that it's connected to a hostspot in a brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble store, it can download any Nook Book in full and unlocks it for reading for up to one hour per day. So there's a little prodding to get out of your cozy reading chair at home.



Nook Books are EPUB files, but with a DRM wrapper unique to Barnes and Noble and only readable on their devices. Because I want the option of enjoying novels on either one of my e-readers, I will actually be staying away from buying from BN.com unless one of these factors is true:

• It's a title that greatly benefits from the larger color screen.
• It's a BN.com exclusive.
• BN.com offering the Nook Book version significantly cheaper than the counterparts being sold by Sony, Kobo, or Google Books.
• It's a Nook Book title enabled with LendMe that I predict other Nook oners will enjoy.

So far, it's turned out to be less of a substitute for my Sony Reader Pocket Edition than it has for my netbook PC. I am keeping both e-readers around. The Nook Color has capabilities that runs circles around the Sony RPE, but it also weighs a pound and isn't very pocket friendly, unless we're talking about a cargo shorts pocket. For most of my for-fun reading, I'll choose to pick up the five-ounce e-ink screen that is happy to go weeks between charges and promises not to distract me with any icons in a notification bar.

Incidentally, Barnes and Noble launched a new version of the e-ink Nook this summer, and it looks like a winner to me. I test-drove the "Simple Touch Reader" in a store and the weight and shape had good feel for a reading device. I would have given it serious consideration if I was shopping for another e-ink device.

12 miles, done. In your face, August.

I did walk a lot this morning, and I finished my distance fueled by nothing but gumption and a fantasy of double fisting Klondike Bars while riding dolphins in a sea of chocolate milk. But a dozen miles is a dozen miles.

I was able to fill my Amphipod at least five times with the fountains along the trail, so hydration isn't a problem. I'm just at the point where I ought to plan on packing some gels/beans/cantaloupes with me so I can kick in those energizing carbs when I need them.

Since my last visit to Terry Hershey Park, the county has added some convenient distance markers to the trail, spread out in quarter-mile increments. So if you forget the GPS at home, you've got something with which to measure your outing. I believe the playground and the restrooms at the Beltway 8 end of the trail are also recent improvements. Y'all have no excuse for using Buffalo Bayou for lavatory purposes now.

6 New or Improved Happenings for Houston Runners After This 100-Degree Garbage is Gone (Hopefully)

With the annual back-to-school sales tax holiday weekend upon us, I'm sure you're already looking for ways to spend the enormous pile of cash you'll be saving. Well, maybe it'll be more like another penny or three squeezed through the couch cushions, but if you scrape together enough for a race registration fee, then I can suggest a handful of notable new (or tweaked) events for which you could make space on your fall calendar:

Duck Run (August 27) -- The people that created the Luke's Locker/Baker Street Pub "beer runs" on Wednesday nights are launching this four-miler event in the heart of Katyland. For the ethanol-needy, note that the start/finish venue is a brewery. Also note that the benefit cause is Ducks Unlimited, so wearing bright orange might be a good idea if the suds are flowing a little too freely to the waterfowl enthusiasts.

Tour de Art Run (September 18) -- Originally held as a RUN@WORK Day event, this year's Tour de Art is happening on the weekend, which is likely more convenient for many of us who would not be able to participate due to conflicts with work. If you've ever had a curiosity to learn more about the public art scattered around downtown Houston, this is your opportunity. Think of it as a super-casual art gallery stroll with a tour guide jogging the group to 15 pieces scattered over five miles. The gathering will happen at 7:45 a.m. at the downtown library (500 McKinney Street) and the run starts at 8 a.m. And best of all, aside from transportation/parking downtown, this one is FREE!

Running of the Bulls 5K (October 16) -- The Houston Texans are back with their 5K event. I believe the course posted online is a new one, snaking almost exclusively through Reliant Park. (I can't think of a worse abuse of the word "park" in a Houston area place name, aside from "Deer Park" perhaps.) The finish line is now in an end zone of Reliant Stadium itself. If we could have members of the 2010 Texans defensive secondary personally welcoming finishers and joining them in end zone dances, the NFL fantasy experience would be complete.

Toughest 10K Galveston (October 22) -- In case your appetite for racing over bridges isn't satiated with the original Toughest 10K in September, the concept has been franchised to the Island. Let's hope the recently reconstructed causeway is pedestrian-friendly and the morning ocean breezes are gentle for this inaugural event. Remember, the sharks are more afraid of you than you are of them!

Run In The Park (November 5) -- The old Park to Park five-miler benefiting the Hermann Park Conservancy is being taken off the streets and relaunching as a happening totally within Hermann Park. I'm sure they will save money by not needing a score of law enforcement officers for traffic control at dozens of intersections. When the route map is released, can we hope for a path that shows off the park at its best -- perhaps right through the zoo and even across the Miller Outdoor Theater stage? Maybe the kids' choo-choo train could even be the pace car.

Texas Metric Marathon (November 13) -- The kilometer is unloved, misunderstood, and even shunned as un-American. The Houston Striders made a smart move a few years ago by trotting their tape measures out and tacking on a little distance to their tired 20K to turn it into the Houston Half Marathon. The word marathon is popular and familiar; the average American can participate in one with nothing but a free weekend, a couch, and a cable TV subscription. This fall the Houston Masters have also decided to go some extra distance with their unsexy 25K and bring the 26.2-kilometer "metric marathon" concept to Houston. Listen to how that sounds: putting "marathon" in a race title is like tearing open a packet of Instant Sexy. (Now I'm waiting for Finish Line Sports to market their 30K as the "Sugar Land 25-Percent-Off Marathon Distance Run." Everyone likes a discount!)

All these were events that stood out as I've been putting together the next month's update of my other blog project, Houston Running Calendar. What local run dates have you looking ahead? Do you know of a new or overhauled event that I didn't list that could use a little publicity? Drop a comment and run away!

Red pigtails are streamlining

Today's fresh, hot-n-juicy random running update channels the muses behind some of Wendy's ad campaigns to sell burgers over the years.

You know when it's real.

I did register for Rock'n'Roll San Antonio as mentioned previously, and it feels great to have that waypoint approaching on the calendar. It's going to be fun and I won't be concerned with any specific training for the half marathon distance, as I'll always be keeping completion of Houston 2012 in mind as the ultimate goal. Virtually no speedwork will be on the menu and the emphasis will be on long-run mileage and bringing it earlier.

Always great, even late.

Whereas a typical novice half marathon buildup might gradually introduce double-digit long runs around October, I'm taking them on now -- in the midst of the worst Houston heat wave in my lifetime. Oh, joy! But I feel like I must make up for lost time from last year, so I'm coping by trying to get significant parts of these done before dawn even breaks.

Never cut corners.
This gem of a sign was spotted at a local day.care center during last weekend's 10-miler. Perhaps they're skipping the proof.reading and passing the savings on to parents.

Where's the beef?

You won't find any in these avocado enchiladas. This weekend I dug up this recipe from Deena Kastor that was overdue for another go in my kitchen. Even if you can't keep pace with an elite marathoner, you can at least learn to fuel up like one from her website.

So, would you say "it's better here" where you're at? Or are you just feeling square?