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?

Practicing Solo

I'm going bloggin'

After midnight
Can't get no shuteye
What am I supposed to do?
So here I'm bloggin'
After midnight
Posting for you.

Sorry, Patsy.

I started getting drowsy in the nine o'clock hour and thought things were falling into place for a restful night before an early a.m. Saturday run. But a mere few hours later, I find myself very much awake, so I'm pecking away at a running-related blog post I was planning to write sometime this weekend anyway.

I've decided against joining a marathon training group this year. The Katy Fit experiment last year was going okay up until I found myself out for the season sick. (No, I'm not blaming all those nice people for that.) Training for Houston 2012, however, I know I really want flexibility in my schedule. I can easily see a lot of long runs fitting in on Sundays instead of Saturdays. I certainly didn't need the coaching tips, which are abundant online and on my bookshelf.

With autumn creeping up on the calendar horizon, I want to solidify my weekly mileage. June certainly challenged us with the unusual triple-digit heat. (Unlike inland parts of Texas, Houstonians traditionally had an understanding with Mother Nature to have mostly "moderate" summer high temps in the mid 90sF in exchange for pea-soup-thick Gulf humidity.) And I've been dragging for nearly two weeks of July thanks to a head cold.

So here's hoping that things "fall" into place in the coming months. I'm thinking that a return to the 13.1-miler at Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio would be a good waypoint along the way. Surely in three years the city has figured out how to host this event since my first terrible taste of the RNR series, right?

Now it's back to another attempt at gathering some bits of sleep before putting on the shoes for . . . I don't know . . . five miles? I'm in full control of my schedule after all.

How has your summer running been? Has it been dreamy, or has it been like a fight with the snooze button?

Freedom 5K

This morning I ran my fastest 5K in more than 12 months. You'll have to take my word for it, however. In opposition to all the race day things I did right, the one detail I managed to miss was remembering to bring my timing chip.

Since you won't find me among the official results, here's the rundown from my GPS:

Mile 1: 10:06
Mile 2: 10:19
Mile 3: 10:12
Last .1: 1:19
5K elapsed time: 31:56 (per Garmin Forerunner 205)

This was my sixth time to run this Fourth of July event in Sugar Land, and I'm not seeing a reason not to come back for a seventh. The registration is relatively cheap, the tree-shaded course provides refuge from the sun, and there is a building track record of luck in the door-prize department. This year, a restaurant gift certificate rode home in the car with us.

This race report wouldn't be complete unless I document the following exchange from the last mile:

• Spectator: This is the last hill!
• Me: They always say it's the last hill!
• Spectator: Sorry, we're just inclined this way.

It's not very often that someone else is dropping the wretched pun on me. Good show, sir!

Happy Independence Day, y'all.

Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Minecraft

The appeal of Minecraft can be difficult to describe to others. As of the current beta, players are not given an overall goal to achieve. There is a "score" being kept, but no one bothers to compare or brag, or even care what it means. In fact, I wasn't really sure why I keep coming back to my virtual block worlds until an epiphany presented itself during a recent discussion with my girlfriend:

Being in Minecraft feels kind of like my summer vacations when I was a kid.

"Good parents" today seem determined to plan out their children's time out of school. Family road trips get bookended by sports leagues, lessons, and activity camps. As a preteen, I remember having long stretches of unstructured playtime during the summer. And that playtime was outside.

Sure, we'd play some ball, but even then they were always just unsupervised pickup games among ourselves on the neighborhood streets. What really consumed our daylight hours was simply heading out exploring. Living in what was then exurbia, several square miles of surrounding forest and cattle pasture beckoned us to come out and simply pass time.

Where there was a flood control ditch, there was the chance to discover the channelization of water and the living things in it. Tromping under a forest canopy challenged our skills at not getting lost and sometimes our ingenuity at constructing a tree fort worth defending from random scraps of found lumber. And finding a large hole in the ground was an occasion to stop, peer into the darkness and wonder what dangers or even evil creatures lay within, before racing out to beat the late onset of dusk and make it back home in time for dinner.

We weren't out to "win" summer vacation. We were outside to experiment and experience. And it's in this way that Minecraft doesn't demand that you accomplish any one thing. Instead, this literal "sandbox" game invites us to come up with our goal for the day and explore everything. It's a virtual open-ended LEGO set in a time when actual LEGO sets are sold in boxes that tell children what they're supposed to be building.

P.S. If Minecraft creator "Notch" happens to be reading this: Please consider adding the ability to craft Bikes as a locomotion option in the game. And they should do wheelies too. Just sayin'. I'll even take them with coaster brakes and banana seats.

Impact A Hero 5K

Summer's in high gear now. It's the season where decisions on where to run can pivot on the number of shade trees on the course. This morning I passed up the Heights Fun Run to go to Mercer Stadium instead for the Impact A Hero 5K.

While the stretch of Austin Parkway pavement we used could only be described as partially obscured from the sun by trees, there was no obscurity as to the purpose of the event. This is an annual fundraiser for grants to wounded veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, On their website, the group states an expectation to hit a six-year grand total of one million dollars in contributions this weekend.

I've watched this event grow way up from its early editions as a small neighborhood run at Lost Creek Park. Today at its current venue, the crowds arrived to claim overflow parking at the mall across the street. The national anthem was punctuated by a military flyover. Finishers were treated to piles of breakfast tacos from the St. Laurence KCs and barbecue from Pitts and Spitts. The Houston Texans once again sent head coach Gary Kubiak and cheerleaders to lend some celebrity star power. But the highlight of the morning is still the arrival of the veterans -- many of whom were there to wheel the course -- to rousing applause.

I'd rate my own run as mostly good. I was cruising for two solid miles, but had to take a walk break at the start of mile three because I was feeling cooked. But I really felt inadequate trying to keep up with the guy in the full firefighter gear, which included the insulating long underwear. At least that was his claim, and I didn't find it necessary to ask him to prove it to us.

In remembrance of those we have lost and in grateful tribute to those serving now -- THANK YOU.

Mile 1 --10:24

Mile 2 -- 10:25

Mile 3 -- 11:30

Last .1 --1:08

Elapsed 5K time -- 33:27 (per Garmin Forerunner 205)

Gun Time -- 34:32

Chip Time -- 33:23

Katy Sunrise Rotary 5K

After waking to a pre-sunrise alarm, my girlfriend and I were off to check out the Katy Sunrise Rotary 5K this morning. Choosing today's race was made easier with a RunHouston discount offer last month and knowing that the Houston Astros have moved their Race for the Pennant event from Saturday to Memorial Day itself.

With Luke's Locker running the show, it was no surprise to see this event executed flawlessly -- except for the starter's airhorn that had the sonic power of a dog's squeak toy.

Out on the boulevards of Cinco Ranch, I came back to the La Centerra shopping center with a pretty good 5K for me finish at this point. Here are the stats from the Forerunner 205:

Mile 1 -- 10:58

Mile 2 -- 11:05

Mile 3 -- 10:40

Last .1 -- 2:07

Now I did not punch "stop" on my Garmin promptly, so my chip time should look better than this. After crossing the finish line into the chute, I got distracted from my stopwatch by the little boy that ran into my back at full speed. Lots of kids were racing today. A couple of young girls were leapfrogging with me in the last half of the race -- they'd sprint past me . . . then I'd plod past them while they were looking at a crack in the road . . . then they would blow past me like I was standing still and I wouldn't be able catch them until a butterfly got their attention.

I wish I had that energy again.

So, how is your Memorial Day weekend?

Registered for a race I'll never run

Inspired by Mark Remy's RW Daily post about the 2011 Boomtown Run in Joplin, Missouri, I've registered for the 5K that will not be happening.

The Boomtown Run races were cancelled in wake of the devastation that ripped the town last weekend. Instead, the community will gather at the start line on June 11 and begin a day of cleanup.

After covering their sunk costs, proceeds from race registrations will go to the United Way of Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas based in Joplin. And so while I won't be there, my $25 becomes a little opportunity for one running community to reach out to another.

Marathon drought busting

Going dry for two months in the spring simply just doesn't happen on the Texas coast. Thus, when a storm finally showed up, my Twitter timeline was as full of weather-related updates on Thursday as if it had snowed. So on the heels of a freezing February, there's little hope left for the wildflower season. After the Indian Paintbrush bloomed in March, there's basically been no color in the neighborhood parklands -- a paucity of primrose, an absence of bluebonnets, a scarcity of cactus blooms.

This week I've also been thinking about drought-busting -- a distance-running one. I've used my deferral eligibility to register for the Chevron Houston Marathon for the fourth time. Knowing it's the fourth time is humbling, as I've only actually made it through the 26.2-miler once. Circumstances have thwarted me in previous training seasons to the point where I will truly appreciate that second full marathon finisher medal if it comes my way in 2012. As Los Lonely Boys -- who rocked a great show right after the squall rocked our town -- might say: Tu sabes muy bien que te quiero!

So my head swims with questions about what changes I want to stir into the running recipe of my past experiences. Stuff like....

• Could simply more time spent standing at my office day job make me more fit?
• Do I really want to dabble in the "minimalist shoe" fad?
• Could I hydrate more efficiently with a Fuelbelt-type appliance versus the Amphipod handheld I've relied upon so long?
• I think I'm ready for something other than GU gel for long-run pick-me-up. So what will I try next?
• Should I be packing more country music into my long-run playlists? (The girlfriend might be tickled to know that this morning's footfalls were Chesney-fueled.)

Have you found yourself running in a groove with a new idea after years of training in a rut? Comment away....

I'll finish this post by mentioning that the Bayou City Road Runners debuted a new event last night at Bear Creek Park. Dubbed Alex's 5K, they're fundraising on behalf of the organization Autism Speaks. I arrived too late for the run, but I did make it in time to buy a plate of postrace brisket and sausage. Turnout surpassed the organizers' expectations as they had rented out the park's big pavilion, but the crowd and their cars spilled out on the grass. Good luck with future editions, BCRR!