The Wrong Age Group Award

I received an age group award from the Houston Marathon yesterday, but it's for 2nd place instead of 3rd. Now I'm going to have to find RichardP and see if he got the 3rd place one.
02/20/2010 Update: I was wrong. First in the 50-54 won prize money for First Place Over Fifty. So RichardP moved up to first in the 50-54 Age Group.

Re-Opening an Old Wound

This isn't running related, but I'm glad I can run for stress relief. Time Magaine is running excerpts from a new book (BLACK HEARTS; One Platoon's Descent Into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death) about my son's platoon in Iraq.
That was a difficult year.

The Downward Spiral of Private Steven Green



I read the book while I was in traveling. If you want to understand what some people endured during a war while America shopped, I highly recommend this book.

The New York Times Review

Work Versus Running

This started out as good week, with a strong first try Tuesday Tempo run. I've noticed I run best during the Sring Series of short races when I get in the practice of hammering a fairly hard tempo run each Tuesday morning. So I put on my nice lightweight Saucony Fastwitch shoes early Tuesday morning and let it rip. I ended up with a 13:11 for the 2+ miles headed out and 12:53 coming back. Not bad for a first effort and only a couple of seconds off the fastest Tuesday Tempo from last Spring. The week was starting out good.
But on Wednesday afternoon, the power plant started shutting down one of the units. I was sent home a couple hours early and put on call to come back sometime during middle of the night. I missed the Wednesday evening track workout and spent most of Wednesday night trying to sleep but waiting for a phone call I never received. I missed Thursday's morning run and ran easy on Friday anticipating racing the Buffalo Wallow 6K Saturday morning. But Saturday morning I wasn't motivated enought to drive to Houston and then before I could run I was called back to spend all Saturday afternoon at the power plant.

My Shoe Has a Blister

During Thursday's run, I thought I had something in my shoe near the ball of my left foot. I tried scrunching up my toes but it never moved. On Friday the "item" was still at the same spot. I took the shoe off and found a large bump on both the inside and the outsole.



These Nike Air Zoom Elites only have 737 miles on them. I think they will be my last pair of Nike shoes for a while. I'm back to the online shoe stores, looking for another pair of Saucony Tangents this time.

37¼ miles for the week (January 25th to 31st)

M - sleep, 47°F at 4AM
Tu - 5¼ miles at 6:59 pace, 50°F at 4AM
W - 5 miles with 4x800/400rec with an overall average 7:12 pace, 800s at 2:54 to 2:52, 63°F at 7PM
Th - 5¾ miles recovery run at 8:26 pace, 64°F at 4AM
F - 6 miles recovery run at 8:20 pace, 49°F at 3PM
Sa - 7 miles at 7:07 pace, 43°F from 2:30PM
Su - 8¼ miles, average 6:58 pace, 40°F from 5PM

I missed two recent local races. I had to work last Saturday and missed a 5K/10K on the beach in Surfside. This week I planned to run the Angleton 10K, but lying in my nice warm bed Saturday morning I had no motivation to leave the covers much less race for 6+ miles. I hate to miss local races and I'm already 0 for 2 in 2010.

I am excited about the 2010 Spring Series. I won't be able to run the Bayou City 10K because I'll be vacationing in the UK for a couple of weeks. But I did find an interesting looking half marathon in Inverness that weekend. The competition looks fierce (there's a really fast local Scotsman over 50), but I'm thinking about making it my primary race this Spring. It should be fun.