For Whom the Dogs Bark

59F, 69%, SSW 7 mph.  Wonderful running weather today.  Unfortunately this noteworthy weather is occurring in Anaheim, CA, here for a wind power conference.  Got up very late because of the 2-hour time difference, but it was just getting light, so perfect timing.  Ran 5 at LHR, average about 9:40 per mile, then did 5 x 1K at tempo, finishing off each mile with a jog:  7:21 (159), 7:14 (160), 6:59 (167), 7:03 (166) and 6:48 (174).  Basically ran the streets, a 5-mile loop around Disneyland.  Mostly flat, but some hills around the I-5 overpass, same kind of hills we have in Houston.  Lots of conventioneers out running, all of them slow just like in Texas, felt right at home.  Overall 10.07 miles in 1:30:57, average pace 9:02 per mile.  I am scheduled to fly out Wednesday morning, but there is a 5K race associated with the wind conference that morning, and I am enough of a junkie I might change my flight to run it, even though it has a $50 entry fee.  Hopefully good sense will prevail, but it never has before.

54F, 70%, SW 2 mph.  Could get used to this.  Ran similar route as yesterday with a few variations.  LHR miles were at a slower pace, trying to get the stiffness out of my legs, then ran 5 GMP miles:  7:47 (151), 7:40 (155), 7:33 (160), 7:15 (165) and 7:30 (167).  Need to memorize this pace, legs don't know it well enough yet, which isn't good.  Overall 10.34 miles in 1:32:17, average pace 8:56 per mile.

I surprised myself by deciding not to run the 5K.  Changing flights turned out to be somewhat of a hassle with everybody trying to get out of Dodge tomorrow morning, would have had to pay extra and decided enough is enough.  I'll get to race soon enough.

No running this morning due to early flight.  Got 4 TM miles at night, hill work.

73F, 94%, calm.  Apparently 90% humidity is some sort of a threshold for me, have done pretty well with higher morning temperatures so far this spring, including at least one day at 79F, but this humidity was an eye-opener.  Maybe it was divine punishment for the cool temperatures in California this week.  I made the run, but heart rates were very high.  LHR miles came in only about 10 flat, and MP miles were 7:35 (156), 7:20) 165), 7:33 (168), 7:20 (174) and 7:32 (176), basically felt almost like a 10K, although the legs feel OK today.  Total 10.12 miles in 1:28:34, average 8:45 per mile.  In any event, it's good to be home for a couple of weeks, slept well last night.

64F, 77% and calm at start, 73F, 83%, E 5 mph to finish, must have been a brief cold front come through last night, it was definitely warming up quickly during the run.  It felt hot out there, but the temperature didn't lie, I ran better than yesterday, even though yesterday was off of a day of rest.  Did 4.75 LHR miles at about 9:44 per mile, transitioned for a quarter into 5 x 1K (rest intervals finishing off each mile, very convenient).  Mile-equivalent pacing for each 1000 was:  7:16 (157), 7:10 (161), 7:03 (165), 7:03 (169) and 7:06 (171).  It was hard but it felt good.

Wade and I are going to run a 5K in the morning that I found out in The Woodlands, a large planned community to the north of Houston up I-45.  I wasn't dying to do another short race right now, but I have done one a couple of weeks ahead of most of my last few marathons and it seems to work pretty well.  The real reason, though, was the entry fee:  US$1.00 and no tax.  I am way too cheap to pass that one up.  Best of all, no t-shirts and no pre-race speeches.  Just line up and run like you know what.

80F, SSE 9 mph, 87%, sunny at 8:00 a.m.  Wade and I with his daughter Heather traveled to The Woodlands this morning for a 5K.  This was a lovely little race, perfectly executed by a local running store.  They run it twice a month year round.  It is kind of like finding a small out-of-the-way restaurant that nobody else knows about.  We weren't sure what to expect, but the online directions to the starting area at Barbara Bush Elementary School were good and we ended up pulling in 45 minutes ahead of time to a nearly empty parking lot.  Gradually people arrived to the point that when everybody was collected we had 100 runners. 

As I mentioned yesterday, the entry fee for this thing is "one dolla please".  I paid for all three of us and told them to keep the change.  We wondered how they could do timing at that price, forget the shirts, and when we got there we could see that there would be no electronic chips or bib numbers.  They did it by handing out popsicle sticks with numbers on them as you crossed the finish line.  A recorder would write down the time for each stick as it was passed out and then "if you want your name on the internet" you gave them the name that goes with your popsicle stick (apparently you can give them any name you want), and presto, official race results. 

I had a feeling this would be a faster than normal crowd for these parts and it was confirmed when I saw one particular ankle tattoo:  RTRTR, hard core guy.  Another noteworthy entrant appeared to be about 70 years old, taller than me and about 135 pounds max.  His shorts were distressingly short.  I told Wade and Heather that if I ever show up to a race dressed like that they had my permission to stage an intervention.  I hoped like heck he was not faster than me.

Texas is hotter than Hades and this one lived up to our reputation.  My splits were 6:33, 6:43, 6:55 and 6:59 for the stub, not what I would call negative splits.  The distance was spot on, ten thumbs up to these guys.  We ran around the parking lot twice then followed a path through the trees.   Alarmingly I got stuck behind some runners to start, but once we got out of the parking lot it was easier to pass people, and the course stayed on a fairly wide paved trail the whole way.  I passed the old guy in the Daisy Dukes at about 0.5 miles, so after that I was playing with house money.  There was a group of runners ahead of me that were running together, they must have run 6 flat on the first mile, but despite me slowing down I still passed all but one of them in the second mile.  A couple of them came back and passed me in the last half mile.  Sure enough, one of them made a wrong turn right before the finish line and I followed him, kind of a tradition for me.  But it got corrected within 4 or 5 seconds, so no major damage.  Highest heart rate was 186, but I felt like I maxed it out.  No nausea though, so maybe I have a reserve that I didn't find this morning.

I asked the race official what the winning time was and she said 17:45.  She also said the same guy runs this course about a minute faster in cooler weather.  So even though I missed my PR by 5 seconds, I'm blaming this race and every other slow run this summer on the weather.  This fall I will find a different excuse.  There were about 100 runners, so my 7th place finish was not quite as good as my 27th place finish a few weeks ago, but these are faster runners and all things considered I ran a better race.  Fun times in The Woodlands, we are definitely going to do this one again.

PM:  We celebrated my son's 18th birthday tonight, came home on a full stomach and ran 4 TM miles, hill work.  That was fun.