Having nothing to do with baseball, this morning's event could have been called the "Home Away From Home Run," but no one bothered to consult with me when they picked the name of this second annual fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House Houston.Arriving late, I heard the horn sound when I was still a block away from Sam Houston Park. The start line was dismantled by the time I reached it, so there won't be any chip time data on me. But this is no big deal since I wasn't really running for time anyway. The Home Run is "only" a 10K, but since this would be the longest distance I've done since getting Rocked in San Antonio, I fully geared up and went out with a long-run mindset.
A refreshing breeze made the humid skies pleasant to run under, and after a loop in and out of Midtown, it was time to grind out the back half of the course on the rolling pavement of Allen Parkway. On the Allen Parkway out-and-back, I took opportunities to cheer on the race leaders on the home stretch. (Whenever I do this in a race, some of the other participants around me seem genuinely surprised; I guess they'd rather tune out of their surroundings and keep their mind on their iPods.) After the last U-turn I picked up a couple of impromptu running buddies and chatted a little about running and our volunteer connections with RMH. That helped the last couple of miles go by much quicker.
Upon my return to the shadows of the downtown skyline, I was delighted to find some great treats from sponsors at the postrace, including food from Holmes Smokehouse and Creative Crepes (Nutella crepes, yes!). The House's mascot is a Labradoodle named "Mogie," and all finishers went home with a dogbone-shaped medal. I'm sure I can find space on the Christmas tree for this one.
I've always appreciated the 10K distance and was sorry to miss out on the first Home Run last year. Not only is the benefit cause a good one, but the race event itself was really well done. This one is certainly a worthy addition to the Houston runner's calendar.
The splits:
Mile 1: 10:26
Mile 2: 11:02
Mile 3: 11:53
Mile 4: 12:28
Mile 5: 11:48
Mile 6: 12:03
Last .2 mi: 2:40
10K Elapsed Time: 1:12:18 per Garmin Forerunner 205
Trifigura Home Run website:
http://www.rmhhomerun.com
2 comments:
I miss running. And the RW forums. Are you still on there?
Great job!
I'm really not visiting at all there now. Too many site changes and outages, on top of too many personal drama spats to make it worth my time. Maybe I should peek in again sometime to take a look.
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