Catching Up: Houston Marathon Training Week 6

I've had a busy week with the power plant's Unit 2 finishing its refueling outage.


73¼ miles for the week (October 20th through the 26th)

M AM – 5¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:43 mpm, 66°F at 4AM [Dow/BS]
M PM – missed
Tu – 11 miles, average pace 7:02 mpm, a pretty good run to squeeze in before work, 67°F at 4AM [Dow/Ol/Dow/BS]
W AM - 6¼ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:16 mpm, 72°F at 4AM [Dow/BS/Ol]
W PM – 8 miles on the track, average pace 6:57 mpm, 77°F at 7PM [B’Wood track]
Th – 7¼ miles recovery run, average pace 8:25 mpm, puddles from earlier rain 59°F and a strong N wind at 4AM [Dow/2xBS/Ol]
F - 10½ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:32 mpm, 53°F from 4AM felt wonderful, kept this run easy for Sunday's Half Marathon [Dow/Ol/Dow/Ol]
Sa – 7 miles recovery run, average pace 8:39 mpm, very nice 79°F in the bright sunshine at 11AM [SeaC/SSTrail/SeaC]
Su – 17½ miles, with a half marathon at average pace 6:21 mpm, 54°F to 62°F at Hobby Airport starting at 7AM, Koala/Lukes Houston Half Marathon[Allen Parkway]

This was a planned cutback week and the slightly reduced mileage fit well with Sunday's race. The power plant is finishing a refueling outage so I spent the weekend waiting to be called in to work and wondering whether I'd be able to run the half marathon. The schedule ended up slipping quite a bit and running into this week and this weekend. At least the 25K race should be safe.

Houston Half Marathon

The weather for today's Houston Half Marathon was much better than for the 10-Miler a couple of weeks ago. The result was two very different races. My time was decent, but I still have beaucoup work to do before the marathon. I was pleased congestion didn't get too bad on the triple-loop course. After running twelve Allen Parkway underpasses, everyone who ran this race should be ready for the last few miles of the Houston Marathon.

For a while on Friday, I was supposed to work at the power plant Sunday (and miss the race), but the schedule has slipped again and now I'm not sure whether I'll even work tomorrow morning or have to go in Monday night.

Here are the race results.
The splits seem well balanced. I'm not sure why the pace for the "halfs" are both faster than the overall pace for the entire race?

Here are my splits:
1 - 6:16, 146 bpm
2 - 6:18, 12:34, 156 bpm
3 - 6:24, 18:58, 158 bpm
4 - 6:24, 25:22, 157 bpm
5 - 6:23, 31:45, 157 bpm
6 - 6:18, 38:02, 158 bpm
7 - 6:26, 44:29, 159 bpm
8 - 6:16, 50:44, 160 bpm
9 - 6:29, 57:14, 160 bpm
10 - 6:20, 1:03:34, 159 bpm
11 - 6:34, 1:10:07, 160 bpm
12 - 6:21, 1:16:28, 162 bpm
13 - 6:13, 1:22:42, 166 bpm
13.11 - 0:34, 1:23:16.8, 171 bpm

Here's the heart rate chart:


Here are a couple of pictures taken by Mark Coleman. I ended up running much of the race with DianaH (she had one of the best "Go Mommy" cheering squads I've ever heard).


This one's pretty embarrassing. I really need to find band-aids that stay on when wet.


Here are the official pictures. The race started before sunrise, but with three loops back ddirectly east into the sun I knew I needed sunglasses. Wearing my sunglasses in the dark at the race start reminded me of this old 80's video.

Tuesday Night Update
We finally finished our end of outage work. Here's NSSS Engineering leaving the Reactor Containment Building (I'm in the middle).

I caught a few "zoomies" so I should be extra fast for the 25K race ;-)

First 20+ Long Run: Week 5

78½ miles for the week (October 13th through the 19th)

M AM – 7 miles recovery run, average pace 8:26 mpm, 81°F at 8:30AM, went to work after 10AM [SeaC/SSTrail/SeaC]
M PM – missed (at work)
Tu – 8¾ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:27 mpm, warm and humid with sweat-soaked shoes again, 78°F at 4AM [Dow/Dow-]
W AM - 8¾ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:07 mpm, 79°F at 4AM sweat-soaked shoes again [Dow/Dow-]
W PM – 8 miles on the track, average pace 7:14 mpm, 80°F at 7PM sweat-soaked shoes again [B’Wood track]
Th – 6¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:36 mpm, occasional rain 79°F at 4AM [Dow/2xBS]
F - 9¼ miles general aerobic, average pace 6:55 mpm, 66°F from 4AM felt so much better [Dow/Dow-/Ol]
Sa – 9 miles recovery run, average pace 8:33 mpm, 79°F at 4PM [SeaC/SSTrail-2M/SeaC]
Su – 21 miles, average pace 7:26 mpm, 70°F to 75°F starting at 9AM, [SeaC/SSTrail-7x2M/SeaC]

The 21-miler was tougher than I thought it would be. I started out a little late, so the sun was warm, but the air was nice and dry. The air was so dry I even had salt deposits all over me after the run! But my body isn't used to the demands of a run that long. I was wiped out the rest of the day.

The weather looks pretty good for the Houston Half Marathon Sunday morning. The power plant is finishing a refueling outage so I could be called in to work anytime this weekend. I think the schedule should let me run Sunday morning. With the nice weather, I don't want to repeat last year.

Disappointing First Race.....Week 4

75¾ miles for the week

M AM – 4 miles recovery run, average pace 8:48 mpm, 78°F at 4AM [Dow-]
M PM – 7 miles recovery run, average pace 8:26 mpm, 84°F at 6PM [SeaC/SSTrail/SeaC]
Tu – 9½ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:23 mpm, started out fairly hard but the shoes were sweat-soaked by mile 6 and I crashed, 81°F at 4AM [2xDow]
W AM - 7¾ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:08 mpm, 61°F at 4AM and so much nicer than yesterday [SB/Dow/2xBS]
W PM – 7 miles on the track, average pace 6:51 mpm, 76°F at 7PM sun to stars [B’Wood track]
Th – 6¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:49 mpm, a nice cool 61°F at 4AM [Dow/2xBS]
F - 9½ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:06 mpm, 69°F from 4AM [2xDow]
Sa – 7 miles recovery run, average pace 8:33 mpm, 79°F at 9AM [SeaC/SSTrail/SeaC]
Su – 17¼ total, with a 10-mile race at 6:37 mpm, 69°F at Pearland with the dewpooint in the upper 60s starting at 7AM, [UH-Clear Lake]

Sunday's USA Space City 10-Mile race was pretty disappointing. It was warm and humid but conditions could have been much worse. I ran like it was the middle of August. My shoes went sweat-soaked at six miles and the right insole of my new shoe folded up around mile 7 or 8. The new Saucony Tangent-3s have a very slick surface under the insole. I'd forgotten that the first pair of Tangent-3s I had earlier this year had done the same thing. I used that pair for the marathon and the Spring series, all in pretty decent weather. The only time I had a problem with the insole was during a humid 5K in Freeport. I'm hoping I won't have to deal with many more sweat-soaked shoe days....hah!

Here are the mile splits:
6:15, 6:29, 6:33, 6:39, 6:45
6:41, 13:40, 6:49, 6:23
At least I hit the first mile split.

Here's the heart rate chart:


The tail at the end is a short sprint to the finish. I'm not usually one to fight to the finish in a competitive dead sprint, especially at the end of a disappointing race like this one. But I was working on trying to catch the guy (JoseT) in front of me when someone yelled "Alright, Pass those two guys" and I saw MichelleF coming around us. I've never been concerned about being "chicked", but something about the way that person yelled that raised my competitive spirit. I pulled up with Michelle and she kept on speeding up. I felt a little silly sprinting in with a woman half my age, but I started pulling slightly ahead of her. I rounded the last corner wide, letting her take the shorter path to the finish. She gave another kick, but I was able to stay slightly ahead. We finished 0.2 seconds apart. I rarely sprint in, especially after so many slow miles, but in retrospect, it really was pretty fun.
Thankfully the offical race photographs only have me trying to catch JoseT. I'm #599.

Geek Note
The timing tags at the 10-miler were interesting. I'd never used those "D" tags before this race. They're UHF (ultra high frequency about 900MHz) RFID tags. I think they have to have the "D" shape because UHF doesn't pass through water (humans) very well. The "D" ensures the antenna is away from your foot. If you look through your tag at a strong light you can see the coils of the printed antenna near the race number. The good old reliable ChampionChip is an LF (low frequency about 134KHz) RFID system. The LF signal isn't attenuated by your body as bad as a UHF signal. The new "D" tags seem to have worked OK. It looks like the HMSA 25K is also using "D" tags.

992 Miles

After 992 miles on my shoes, I finally broke down and bought new shoes. I was able to find a pair of Saucony Tangent-3s at Running Warehouse.
They're the same model as the pair I had before my current shoes. I was able to buy them for few less dollars because they're not the same color as the current Tangent-3s. I ordered the new shoes Wednesday after work and they were at my door Friday, just in time for the 10-miler.

Here are the new shoes and the old Asics DS Trainers

From Nuke Runner

From Nuke Runner

From Nuke Runner

It's been a long time since those DS Trainers looked too white.

Week 3 of 18 Houston Marathon Training

70 miles for the week

M – 6 miles recovery run, average pace 8:33 mpm, 69°F at 4AM [Dow/BS/Ol]
Tu – 5¾ miles general aerobic fairly hard, average pace 7:03 mpm, this was a scheduled 4 mile LT run but I woke up too late, 71°F at 4AM [SB/Dow/BS]
W AM - 5¼ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:09 mpm, 69°F at 4AM [Dow/Ol]
W PM – 9 miles with 2x2 miles at LT, average pace 6:50 mpm, LT 2-milers were 12:34 and 12:31, 77°F at 7PM sun to stars [B’Wood track]
Th – 6 miles recovery run, average pace 8:22 mpm, a nice cool 64°F at 4AM [Dow/BS/Ol]
F - 13 miles general aerobic, average pace 7:24 mpm, 81°F from 9AM, sunny with a south wind but still relatively dry air [SeaC/SSTrail-3x2M/SeaC]
Sa – 8 miles recovery run, average pace 8:22 mpm, 83°F at 11AM [SeaC/SSTrail-1M/SeaC]
Su – 17 miles Long Run, 7:53 mpm, 82°F to 80°F starting at 4:30PM, worked all night long Saturday night so I delayed this run to the late afternoon [SeaC/SSTrail-5x2M/SeaC]


I wasn't too happy with my times for the LT run. Hopefully we'll have a cooler day for the 10-mile race on Sunday. This week wasn't too bad compared to Week 3 last year. The weather was even a little better this year.

If you've ever run the Surfside Marathon, you might recognize the course from these aerial pictures after Ike. I guess I won't be doing any bridge-and-beach runs for a while.

Back on Track: Week 2 of Houston Marathon Training

67¼ miles for the week

M – 5¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:43 mpm, 73°F at 4AM [Dow/BS]
Tu – 6¾ miles general aerobic fairly hard, average pace 7:05 mpm, 76°F at 4AM [SB/Dow/BS]
W AM - 6¼ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:34 mpm, 79°F at 4AM [Dow/BS/Ol]
W PM – 7 miles with 4 miles at MP, average pace 6:42 mpm, 80°F at 7PM sun to stars [B’Wood track]
Th – 4¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:26 mpm, 73°F at 4AM [Dow]
F - 11 miles general aerobic, average pace 7:32 mpm, 69°F from 6:50AM, beautiful sunrise to a blue sky [SeaC/SSTrail-2x2M/SeaC]
Sa – 7¾ miles with 2 miles in the HARRA Cross Country Relay Race, 87°F to 84°F at Hobby from 5 to 6PM, sun to sunset [Houston MemDrive Trail]
Su – 18 miles Long Run, 7:39 mpm, bright sun and a clear blue sky with nice dry air, 82°F to 84°F starting at 10:50AM with the dewpoint near 60°F [Oak-OCD-S.Oaks-RR-Oak//SeaC/SSTrail-2M/SeaC]

I actually had salt stains on me after Sunday’s long run. It’s amazing how nice the 80s can feel when the air isn’t so humid. This week ended up being very similar to Week 2 last year. The weather was even a little better this year.