It's 5:30pm and the heat index is 104 degrees.  I considering doing 3 miles at Rice University, but forget that - dude, I'm going to the gym. 

Location: Rice Military/Memorial Park
Total Miles: 5
Total Time: [my watch is dead]
Start Time: 8:15pm
Temp: 97F

• I overslept (damn!) and missed the SMART Sunday morning run at Cullen Park, so I ran in the evening with my sis and MN. My sis's new apartment is near Memorial, so we parked at her complex and jogged over.   I initially wanted to do the 10 miles I missed in the morning, but by the time we finished one loop, I was ready to head back.   Too damn hot!   Where else is it 97F, and super humid at 9pm??  Houston, that's where.  I hate summer in Houston.   I actually think it's a little cooler in the early mornings, even though the sun is out.  Not sure why that is. 

On another note - my Polar S210 watch battery is dead.  It died sometime during the Long Beach Dragon Boat competition.  Since I bought the watch on eBay, I figured I couldn't get the battery repaired by a dealer, so I started shopping around for new watches.   On Saturday, Vic showed me his way cool Garmin Forerunner 305, which I totally want……but now it turns out I can get my Polar battery repaired for $21, including shipping costs.  Cheaper than a $200+ Garmin…..but oooh, I would love a GPS watch.  

On June 17th, I did a mile time trial as part of the Houston Heat land assessments.  My mile time:  10:20.
Since then, I've been running loops with fellow Houston Heat-ers (HHers) on a fairly regular basis. 

This morning, my SMART mile time trial:   9:24! 

If I can improve by a minute with just easy, but consistent runs, I wonder how much I'll improve now that I'm doing SMART?  (yay!)
Steve said we'll do time trials again in a few months - I wonder if I can get it under 9min?  That would definitely be a mile PR for me….

woohoo, I've finally gotten around to redoing escapevelocity…..and put an end to my 6+ month blogging hiatus. I've started SMART in preparation for the NY Marathon (eek), so it's time be a running blogger again (or blogging runner?)

That's it for now - I'm feeling rusty from all my non-blogging time.   Also have to start logging my weekly runs, too.