Cinco Ranch Rotary Camo 5K

Kicking off my Memorial Day weekend, this morning I ran the Cinco Ranch Rotary Camo 5K out in Katy. This race was staged out of the Villagio Town Center shopping area with a straightforward out-and-back on Peek Road.

The splits:
Mile 1 - 9:38
Mile 2 - 9:48
Mile 3 - 10:02
Last .13 - 1:05
Elapsed 5K time - 30:33 per Garmin Forerunner 110

It bugged me a little to see that many of the participants around me were absorbed in whatever was in playing in their earbuds. Being a back-of-packer for years, on out-and-back courses I typically watch for and cheer for race leaders on their return leg. It just seems like the right thing to do. After a few minutes I realized I was the only one doing so. So in exasperation, I yelled out, "The running community in Katy is way too quiet!" I don't think my message made its mark on anyone around me, but I felt better.

In the middle of the third mile, I got passed by some pre-teen girls wearing tutus and "CAMO FOR A CAUSE" T-shirts. They made me feel like a slacker, so I picked up my pace the best I could, muttering "Just try to hang with the ponytails....just hang with the ponytails...."

The ponytails dropped me like a brick anyway, but I felt good returning to the Villagio. Around the final turn, I saw the Chik-Fil-A cow executing some animated mascot moves, which inspired me to pause for a microsecond before the finish line and give a bow towards the bovine in appreciation.

This was definitely my first true race of the summer. My shirt was beginning to soak through with perspiration  even before the starting horn. 'Twas a good thing I opted not to wear the stylish, but cotton, camo pattern race shirt. The "camo" theme was new for the Rotary Club race, as a salute to America's troops and especially as a nod to one of the race beneficiaries, Team RWB Texas. The other beneficiary was Katy ISD's Special Buddies program, The combo of the two made an compelling choice as I -- as Houston Running Calendar -- helped sponsor a race for the first time . . . and hopefully not the last time.

One e-Reader to Rule Them All (Or . . . Nook's Last Stand?)

For about two years I've been wielding a dual-solution to my e-reading needs. For text-only books, I've been using the Sony Pocket (blogged back here) with it's super-sharp e-ink screen. And for large-format/color PDFs and magazines, I was rocking with one of the original Nook Colors.

But in one week, Barnes and Noble announced that they were adding Google Play -- Android's biggest app store -- to the Nook HD and HD+ and cut the price of the HD+ by $90 for the week before Mothers Day. So I decided to jump on it.

With B&N's Nook business on shaky ground these days, this may be the beginning of the end of Nook as we know it, as rumors have swirled about Microsoft possibly buying up the business.

But no matter what happens next, I think I'm pretty darn happy. The Nook HD+ has a color screen that's not only larger than my previous two eReaders, but plenty sharp for text. Not only that, but by opening up app horizons with Google Play, I can see this device capturing a lot of use cases that used to be given to my Intel Atom-based Windows 7 netbook.

More impressions to come....

Run for Wellness 5K (April 2013 make-up)

So for what feels like a long time I've been aware of the free monthly Run For Wellness 5K series at George Bush Park, but strangely I hadn't been able to remember to register for and show up for any of them until last month's, scheduled for the day after the Green 6.2. So of course, they canceled that one because they got scared by strong storms the previous night.

But on this Cinco de Mayo, they had a make-up race. And it looks like a confluence of perfect weather, rested legs and a no-worries attitude made me fast this morning.

The splits:
Mile 1 - 9:17
Mile 2 - 9:35
Mile 3 - 9:49
Last .09 - :47
Elapsed 5K time - 29:28 per Garmin Forerunner 110

Honestly, I wasn't thinking about any kind of time goal when I got to the park, but my breathing was just so easy that I just decided to push it in the first mile and then hang on as long as I could. The pace caught up with me in the third mile and I opted to walk for a few seconds but it wasn't long enough to thwart a sub-thirty, which I hadn't seen since the November 2011 Run With The Saints.

After the race I took a lime green shirt to a tent at the postrace gathering. The April event was designated as a Boston tribute after the marathon bombings. A company called called Handmade Collective Silkscreening invited us to BYOT for Run To Remember iron-ons at no charge. They turned out looking pretty good.