Not a Good Absence

I haven't posted anything in a long time. My left hamstring flared up less than two miles into a Sunday long run in the middle of April. I took a full week off and again just before i'd run two miles, the left hamstring started hurting again. Instead of walking home, I ran most of the way. That was enough to aggravate the hamstring even more and it hurt even walking the next day. After another two weeks off, I think I'm finally past the hamstring problem. But the weather has turned to our normal oppressive heat and humidity.

The nuke plant changed it's internet policy. Among the many new restrictions on blogs and social media, I'm not allowed to post any pictures of the plant or coworkers, link to the plant's external website, or even mention the name of the plant or the operating company. There goes the nuke runner blog.

Some Inspiration

With all the problems in Japan, I needed something like this:



Here's the race with the original commentary:

Mud Bugs

Where I grew up, we could catch crayfish in the pond with a chicken bone on a string. Down here, the "mud bugs" literally live in the mud. Here are some crayfish chimneys along the running trail:






Here's a view of the water oaks along the trail:




Other than some nice vacation days running on the trail, it hasn't been a good week for nukes.


There's an "organic crawfish" farm on the road to the nuke plant:

A New Training Log

I filled the last entry in my training log Sunday. Inspired by KG and double-d here are thirteen years of running, dating back to November 23rd, 1998.

I wish I kept a log back in high school and college.

A Successor to Paula Radcliffe?

Paula Radcliffe has dominated woman's long distance running. Of the five fastest marathons, she's run four of them. Nobody is within three minutes of her PR.
But Mary Keitany might be her successor. She set a world record half marathon in the UAE and on the way set records in most of the standard race distances starting at 8K. 8K! Racing an 8K is very different from a half marathon, but she set world records at 8K, 10M, and 20K! Her half marathon time is 1:05:50.
It will be interesting to see what she does in London this year.

Mary Keitany finished third at NYC.

MEB, An American Champion

Too bad Ryan Hall is the only American male getting a big appearance fee to run the Boston Marathon and Meb is shut out.

3:02

The rain wasn't bad but it was a little too warm and humid for me. I started out too aggressively (6:43s) and crashed and burned for a 3:02.

Here's the final story on the weather:
Hobby Airport
0653 64F, dewpoint 60F, Mostly Cloudy, wind East 3 mph
0753 64F, dewpoint 60F, Light Rain, wind SouthEast 5 mph
0853 65F, dewpoint 61F, Light Rain, wind South 6 mph
0953 66F, dewpoint 62F, Light Rain, wind South 9 mph
1053 67F, dewpoint 63F, Overcast, wind South 8 mph
1153 67F, dewpoint 64F, Light Rain, wind South 10 mph with gusts to 18

No thunderstorms during the race, but we did have a big thunderstorm at home in LJ near the Gulf, with over an inch of rain in a few minutes.


The award for the best forecast goes to the raw computer models. The models first identified the incoming low pressure and its effect on moisture levels and were closest to the actual temperatures. The 84-hour ETA/NAM was remarkably close.
The worst forecast? That one has to go to Frank Billingsley. His forecast for low 50s was way off the mark.