For Whom the Dogs Bark

63F, 100% humidity, wind SSE 5 mph.  Lots of warm humid air coming in from the Gulf this morning, kind of nice out there.  I warmed up two miles, then ran one at MP, 8:11, followed by a fast mile at 6:34.  I was hoping to do two but one was all I could manage.  In better conditions I might have managed one and a half or even two but five at that speed on Thanksgiving morning is going to be out of the question.  Fun to dial in on some new paces though.  Ran a cooldown mile then back to MP plus a little for three miles, 8:23, 8:13, 8:07, then another fast one, but this time only 6:57 even though I felt like I was working harder than the first one, cooldown 1.25 miles.  Maximum heart rate 189.  Overall I ran 10.25 miles in 1:29:07, average pace 8:42 per mile, flat shoes.  Legs feel OK so far this morning.

Wade and I decided not to do the 50K on December 11 in Huntsville.  We are congratulating ourselves on how mature we are.  Both of our wives are completely supportive of our adventures, and both of them completely don't understand any of it.  With a holiday party at my house the night of December 11 it was looking a little dicey shall we say, so I pulled the plug and Wade is OK with that.

71F, 96% humidity, wind S 4 mph.  Nice and muggy run out there today.  On the other hand, my son saw this weather alert issued by BYU today:

"The National Weather Service is warning of a winter storm today that “will far surpass anything that we've seen, probably for the last several years.” The combination of snow, extreme cold, and possibly damaging winds will make travel extremely hazardous. The storm will begin in the north and move south, hitting Salt Lake City later this afternoon. Please watch the weather reports and be prudent in your travels."

This sounds like a dangerous situation for kids trying to get home for Thanksgiving.  No whining here about November muggy.  I ran 10.55 miles, half by myself at low heart rate and the second half with my daughter at a faster pace in the low 9s.  Total time 1:46:19, average pace 10:05 per mile, regular shoes.  She is in from Temple for the holiday.  Running with her in my neighborhood, I can tell by the look on people's faces that my stock has gone way up.

73F, 93% humidity, wind SE 10 mph.  Warm and moist morning, ran 10.09 in 1:42:27, average pace 10:09 per mile, low heart rate and flat shoes.  OK run under the circumstances.

77F, 86% humidity, wind S 15 mph.  A beautiful morning to be out and about, perhaps it could have been a little bit cooler for the race!  We decided to do our turkey trot in a planned community north of Houston called The Woodlands.  They have lots of trails out there and lots of runners.  Woodlands High School regularly wins or places high in the state cross-country meet.  I looked up my age group times from last year and saw that the winner ran 6:22 per mile, out of my reach even on a good day.  Now I know where all the fast age groupers in Houston live.  Obviously I had won my age group in the Komen 5K too easily last month.

I drove out early, intending to warm up for four or five miles, but ended up running around getting everybody's envelopes and attending to GI details. (Note to self, don't do mexican the night before a race -- it was worth it though.)  I did manage to run one mile very slowly, but with these temperatures I wasn't too worried about not getting warmed up.  The race started about 15 minutes late because of some medical emergency out on the course from an earlier race, not a good omen.

I tried to line up about 150 runners back but got behind a bunch of slow runners anyway.  A lot of elbows flying in the first quarter mile before I finally broke free.  Despite the bob and weave, the first mile was 7:02, anyway, followed by a 6:56 that included a climb over an overpass, but I knew I couldn't sustain it.  Splits after that were in the 7:20s, really felt the heat.  Had to climb the same overpass coming back in, pretty tough, plus the course was longer than 5 miles.  The Garmin measured the first 4 miles short, then the last one was 1.1, so I don't trust the course length, I'm calling it by the Garmin, 5.05 miles.  Splits and heart rate were 7:02 (169), 6:56 (180), 7:25 (182), 7:27 (183), 7:20 (186), 0:21 (6:52 pace) (193).  (I felt like I worked hard, final heart rate was 4 beats per minute higher than I have ever seen it, and that was an average for the final sprint, I still don't know for sure what my max is but this has to be pretty close, I was over 190 for the last half mile or so.)  Overall 36:28, average pace 7:14 per mile.  6/70 in age group, leaving some unfinished business for next year -- don't know my overall place yet.  I ran the 10K 3 weeks ago at 7:11 per mile (Garmin) at 35F, so this was a better time after adjusting for the 42 degree difference in temperature.

I ran with my mother in law, father in law, two daughters, one son and a daughter in law.  We had a great time.  My daughter finished 10th out of about 140 in her age group, so she got a higher relative placement than me.  My mother-in-law finished third in a small age group, hardware territory, she will get a plaque in the mail.  The race is very well organized and friendly, and they served lots of food afterwards, including a pancake breakfast that was excellent.  This is definitely the race to do if you are ever in Houston over Thanksgiving.

Here are the happy runners, managed to get a picture in before everybody headed indoors for badly needed showers.  We let my granddaughter Kate in the picture because (i) she insisted and (ii) she ran a whole lap at the track earlier this week.  She was playing with dolls on the grass with her friend while their mothers worked out.  Then without any encouragement she laid her doll down and decided to get in on the action.  She ran a full quarter hard without slowing down, just put her head down and went for it.  Unfortunately it wasn't timed but we are pretty sure it was an age group record.  We are ecstatic to pass the torch to the next generation, the rest of us are getting tired.  :

Left to right:  Kate, Jennifer, Walt, Helen, me, Clint and Becky.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

44F, 76% humidity, wind N 9 gusting to 18, rain and temperature dropping.  Conditions could hardly be more changed from 24 hours ago.  I woke up at 2:30 this morning hardly able to contain my excitement.  Tossed and turned for two and a half more hours and finally got up at 5:00 and headed out for my first Black Friday adventure.  It was dangerous out there, everybody driving with blank, exhausted stares but highly competitive trying to be first in line at their favorite store.  Bad combination.  But I won.  First in line (open category, not age group, didn't even get chicked, nuthin' but net), in the door at 6:00, got all my stuff and was home by 6:30.  Let's just say I am not a deliberate shopper.  I should have filed this as a race report.

Oh yeah, long run is today instead of tomorrow, wasn't nearly as excited about that.  In fact you could say I had a bad attitude.  I bundled up and put on a rain jacket which felt great for half a mile then turned into my own private sauna.  Back to the house after a mile to shed the jacket, cold and wet was going to be the way to go.  Ran another lap and met my father in law but he had no interest in my plans for the morning, so I was on my own.  I hoped to run 20, half at 9:00 pace and half at 8:00 pace.  Not even close.  If you believe that you improve most on a bad day, then I must have had a great run today.  Finished up about five miles in the neighborhood then headed down to the Y and back.  Bathroom was locked at the Y.  That is the second time in a week that has happened, you would think they don't like runners.  I held the 9:00 pace for a while but it started to slip and I never got it back.  My legs were sore from yesterday and stayed that way.  It was just a gut-it-out run.  Finally finished 21.31 miles in 3:23:10, average pace 9:32 per mile wearing regular, soaked shoes.  Hit a lot of puddles today.  The rain finally quit the last half hour and my fingers thawed out in the last mile or two.  My legs are still sore though.  That is all.

55F, minimal wind, clear and dry.  We had the assignment to clean the church at 8:00, so waited until afterward to take advantage of the cool weather for a late morning run.  11.43 miles in 1:37:57, average pace 9:18 per mile, regular shoes, no heart rate monitor.  I ran this one with my daughter, one last run before she returned to Temple with the grandkids, she has been here all week.  She only wanted to go 10 but hung with me for the rest of the run and did fine -- started out very slow to humor me then stayed with me the whole way.  Since I normally do long runs on Saturdays and take Sundays off, I don't get to test out the training theory of running a medium run the day after a long run so as to force using different muscles.  I guess that's the theory anyway.  I was surprised at how well this run went, much better than yesterday.  Was nice to run in the broad daylight and not worry about the heat.