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?

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