For Whom the Dogs Bark

30F, 95%, calm and sunny.  Nice weather, full moon followed by a bright sunrise, haven't seen one of those in a while.  But too cold to run very efficiently, too bundled up and too much energy expended trying to stay warm.  Went ahead with my schedule LLHR run, 10.00 miles in 1:59:33, 11:58/mile.  121 bpm, 127 max.

A couple of interesting things about Saturday's race, pacing my daughter.

• Only two runners from outside of Texas, out of 311 finishers -- this one was deep in the heart, as they say.
• Even though I started and finished almost even with my daughter, my official time is about 1.5 seconds slower.  I think I have finally figured out why the finish line has 2 mats:  The second one is there if the first one doesn't read your chip -- I am guessing that is what happened this time.
• My daughter finished 5th in the 25-29 age group, but her time would have won the 30-34 age group.

68F, 100%, S 6 mph.  The week has been pretty much wasted away.  Monday night I got food poisoning from a bad hamburger.  I never return to a restaurant that poisons me, just a petty little rule I have.  Then the next two nights, Tuesday and Wednesday, I worked until 2:00 a.m. on a deal that went bad at the end, got it straightened out but the running did not happen.  So today I got out for the second run of the week, planned to do 23 but there wasn't time, so did 10.46 miles at 8:55/mile, total time 1:33:18, 8:55/mile.  153 bpm average, 167 max.  With a marathon in 10 days this is pretty bad timing.  Last 4:  8:48 (160), 8:47 (159), 8:45 (162) and 8:35 (164).  I have had enough interruptions from flu, food poisoning and work that I have lost conditioning, I can feel it.

74F, 100% and raining.  This race is called 12K of Christmas, get it?  It is actually pretty well organized, good traffic control, precise course measurements and an on-time start.  My family advised me not to go to this race because of the weather.  My daughter Jennifer was signed up but decide not to go, which I certainly respected.  I promised that if there was lightning or thunder in the area I wouldn't run.  Wade, Linda and a couple of others drove down together for a 7:45 a.m. start.  It was raining steadily in Cypress where I live, but the race was in downtown Houston; it was raining to a certain extent at the start of the race, but out on the course it wasn't.  In any event, no lightning so I ran.

Really wasn't sure what I could do, turned out to be not much, especially in the heat.  I started with Wade but he pulled away after about 3 miles.  He is running every day now and it shows.  He hates hot weather but still got 7:16 per mile.  He basically hit the first one in about 7:30 and was low 7s the rest of the way.  He beat me by two minutes, the first time that has happened in several years, very happy for him.  My splits were 7:29 (139), 7:12 (176), 7:17 (181), 7:15 (183), 7:49 (183), 7:51 (184), 7:51 (185) and 7:27 (186), overall 7:31/mile, average 176 bpm, 189 max, so I almost maxed out.  Ironically, I won my age group by 5 minutes.  51st overall out of 697, 7.3% of the runners ahead of me.  This was a medium-sized holiday run, but not competitive, although at the top end it was all low 5s (for some reason all of the results are quoted in Ks, which I think is carrying the theme too far).

As soon as the race was over the rain started in earnest; we piled in the vehicle and headed out without picking up our awards.  On the way back I told Wade I was seriously considering pulling out of Kingwood, the fitness hill looks too tall to climb right now.  I am out of shape and worse I don't really feel like running right now.  He predicted I would not make good on my threat and he is probably going to be right.