Things are slowly getting back to normal.  Houston’s biggest problem is lack of power in areas, but Galveston and the surrounding areas are definitely suffering the most - towns are completely gone.   I think some Houstonians need to keep that in mind - yeah, it sucks to be without power, but at least you still have a house to get repowered.

On a happier note, the Tour de Art is still on for this Friday.  I am semi-excited:  on the one hand, I haven’t run in….forever…..so I’m hoping the CRP/AED folks will be out there to revive me when I collapse.  On the other hand, at least I’ve been carbloading for an entire week. 

So, I finished the Houston Marathon (yay!).  There’s good news, and there’s bad news.

The good news is, according to my Garmin, I finished at 4:51 which would have meant a new PR.  Let me tell you, I was definitely keeping an eye on my Garmin the whole time so there’s no way I misread the time.

But the bad news is the Houston Marathon Athlete Tracking thingy is reporting my chip time as 5:23.  When I review the History on my Garmin, it says I finished at 4:51:49.  BUT, when I downloaded the Garmin data to my computer, it did say my total moving time was 5:24:01 for a distance of 27.68 mi.

The reason for the discrepancy?  The Auto Pause function.  When I drop below 14 min/mile, the Garmin stops recording.  It’s something I intentionally programmed during training, and totally forgot about today.  During the race, I hit the wall at Mile 22 and so between Miles 22 to 25 I had some walking breaks.  So, that must be why.   Wow, what a huge disappointment……my 4:51 has suddenly been bumped down to a 5:23.  Great.  Now this means I have to run another Marathon to break through that 5:00 ceiling.
(Though, a weird thing is that starting at Mile 13, my Garmin started falling .25 miles behind the mile markers.  That can’t be related to the Auto Pause issue because I didn’t drop below 14 until Mile 22.)

Full race report later.  bleh.  Time for a beer.

Event: Striders 10th Annual Christmas Lights Run

Location: Tanglewood

Distance: 3.5 mi

Time: 41:15

Avg Pace: 11:45

Avg HR: 166

Temp: 52

Just before 7pm, I arrived at the Cafe Express in Uptown Park for my first Strider’s Christmas Lights Run. The event was an easy, social jog through Tanglewood to look at the Xmas lights. I invited Suzanne, and about 30(?) Striders showed up. But, I was the only one in holiday garb - I had a tinsel scarf, reindeer antlers that light up and play music, and a blinking Rudolph nose.

Despite xeroxed maps and numerous Garmins among us, we got lost. But the run was pretty leisurely and took us along streets with the most decorated houses. The best was a house at the corner of Rocky Road and Longmont. Almost every inch was covered in lights, huge streamers of lights and snowflakes hanging from trees and the best was the flashing landing strip for Santa’s sleigh.

CPR/AED duty at the 30K

Originally uploaded by escapevelocity

Moblogging from the 30k race…if you ran this, you passed this fountain six times. Good times.

Sent from my Treo

25k

Originally uploaded by escapevelocity

Got back from nyc last nite at 10pm. Did cpr/aed duty at the hot 25k this morning and saw lotsa striders - woo!

Sent from my Treo

(mobile update)
5:05:45. That was my final chip time, which means I finished 40 min faster than Houston - I never imagined this big a PR!! The crowds were incredible, the weather perfect, feet felt great. Had a cramp at 25 but otherwise felt really good the whole way…and never once hit the wall. Full race report to come - spent the evening with fam, and am exhausted.

It’s noon on Saturday, and surreal that in exactly 24hrs, I’ll be running somewhere in Brooklyn or Queens on my way towards Central Park. Hopefully I’ll be doing well, keeping things at a good pace. Actually, since arriving in NYC, I’ve become less nervous and more excited about the marathon tomorrow. Saw lots of people walking around midtown Manhattan carrying their distinct Asics marathon race packets. Went to the Expo yesterday to pick up my race packet and bib. It was in the Javitts Convention Center (never been there before) - the expo was big, well organized, and a gave me a huge boost in excitement. I got my bib, race shirt, visited the booths, and bought some obligatory souvenir gear.

They had some pretty cool things at the expo, but by far, the absolutely best thing was the picture below (click on photos to view full size):

At the ING Marathon Booth, there was a video (filmed with “NYC Runner Cam”) taking you on a high-speed tour of the entire 26.2 miles, complete with mile and km counter, names of the neighborhoods, course info like “4th ave in Brooklyn, longest straightaway on the course” or “routes converge at Clinton Hill”, etc…..all the way to the finish. It was an incredible visualization tool, set to great music, and I have to say I was feeling pretty emotional by the time it got to the finish. They had the video playing on a loop. The booth was always packed with runners, standing/sitting around the video monitor, silently focused on the screen. It was mesmerizing.

We’re about to head off for lunch, then I’m going to check in at the hotel.