race » GordyBlog

2010-01-17 (Sunday)

Jan 172010

2009 Chevron Houston Marathon

Had a wonderful time today at my second marathon. Got up at 04:00 and was going to be very quiet getting ready and getting out of the house, but Mikie left a note on the fridge asking me to wake her up. So I made some coffee first and then woke her up. While I got ready she made me a delicious breakfast. There was a lot of food but I scarfed it down. Left the house at about 05:00 and was at the George R. Brown convention center (GRBCC) by 05:30.

There were already a bunch of people there. It was really nice and warm in the GRBCC. While walking there from where I parked I had turned on the Garmin ForeRunner 310XT and was checking the settings. I did something (not sure what) and inadvertently turned on the key lock. The unit would no longer respond to any button pushes and I couldn’t even turn it off. Fortunately I had the iPhone with me so I Googled the issue and found a post that described the solution. I’ll post it here in case this happens to someone else. Basically, you just simultaneously press the Mode and Up buttons.

The race started right on time. I was near the back of the red corral. It went really well for me and I felt strong throughout the whole event. I was amazed and gratified by the wonderful community support. Folks lined pretty much the entire route. The race volunteers did a fantastic job and I am so impressed by how well organized everything was. Total kudos to the City of Houston. They really treated us all very well.

Here are the splits from my Garmin:

2010-01-01 (Friday)

Life No Responses »

Jan 012010

Happy New Year everybody!

Triathlon Training, day 96

The scheduled training for today was to run the Texas Marathon, held in Kingwood, Texas. This was my first marathon and I don’t think I could have picked a nicer one. I think there were a total of about 550 runners. We met at one of the parks in Kingwood and the coarse consisted of 4 laps on a stretch of greenbelt. It was a bit crowded at first. Eventually things cleared up as folks settled into their natural running or walking pace. The greenbelt was in pretty good shape — just a few patches where water and/or mud covered the path.

This was a training run for me. My instructions were to run two miles at endurance followed by three miles at tempo, then repeat until done. I finished 92nd overall with a time of 04:26, and felt perfectly fine at the end. At one point I stepped off the right side of the path and re-twisted my right ankle (which hasn’t been right since the 25K Rocky Raccoon trail run. So that’s just a bit of an issue, but nothing too bad.

Here are my splits from the run. Again, for the first lap, my target heart rate was zone 2 (endurance), for the second lap my target heart rate was zone 3 (tempo), etc.

Split	Time	Distance	Elevation Gain	Elevation Loss	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg HR	Max HR	Calories
1	00:19:24	2	72	85	09:42	05:48	128	138	180
2	00:26:50	3	174	187	08:56	06:34	143	150	284
3	00:22:14	2	210	197	11:07	07:37	132	143	151
4	00:26:07	3	187	190	08:42	06:21	143	148	241
5	00:22:20	2	167	174	11:10	07:44	131	139	105
6	00:28:04	3	256	259	09:21	06:28	143	151	243
7	00:23:51	2	259	184	11:56	07:55	131	143	98
8	00:30:29	3	269	259	10:09	06:33	142	149	245
9	00:24:53	2	236	240	12:27	06:44	129	145	88
10	00:29:45	3	125	197	09:55	06:47	141	153	234
11	00:12:14	1.49	102	125	08:12	04:54	152	164	124
Summary	04:26:16	26.49	2054	2093	10:03	04:54	137	164	1993

You can see all of the details, including the GPS map, here.

2009-11-07 (Saturday)

Life 1 Response »

Nov 072009

Rocky Raccoon 25K Trail Run This was my first trail run. Had a great time. Went with a friend of mine who had done this event before. Arrived at the Huntsville State Park about an hour before the 07:00 start time for the 25K run. Picked up race packets. I carried a hydration belt with one 20 oz bottle and some home-made granola.

The run was really neat. Much more interesting than running on the street. The most important thing I learned was KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE GROUND IN FRONT OF YOU!!! Every time I spaced out or looked off at a bird or the water, etc., I tripped. This happened probably 6 times (I’m a slow learner). Plus I twisted my right ankle about a third of the way through the race. (Ouch). Our time was about 02:50.

Here is a flickr slideshow with some pics from the event:

This is why you pay attention where you place your feet while on a trail run:

2009-10-25 (Sunday)

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Oct 252009

2009 Houston Half Marathon

This was my first race, ever, and it went great. I was worried about problems with my left knee but that held together pretty well. I had the alarm clock set to go off at 03:30 this morning but I actually woke up on my own 30 minutes before that. So I had plenty of time to feed the dogs, cats, parrots and myself (fed the fish when I got back), and get down to Allen Parkway about an hour before the race started.

The Kingwood Fit group had a tent very close to the starting area and were kind enough to have someone posted there so we could leave our drop-bags and not worry about them.

It took about 3 minutes from the time the starting gun sounded to when I got across the starting line. I had foolishly started my Garmin timer as soon as the gun went off instead of waiting until we got to the starting line. Oops! Also, I think in using the little foot pod I may have some setting mixed up because even after uploading my data I do not see the route. Not that it would be a very interesting one … just three laps along Allen Pkwy.

Anyway, I hope that when the chip times are posted I will find that I finished in a bit under 2 hours. That would please me immensely!

Here is Dewayne, Stephen, and myself all sprawled out after finishing the run:

And, for what it is worth, here are the splits from my Garmin. I’m not sure if the paces and speeds are accurate as the Garmin may have been taking them from the foot pod and not the GPS. I say this because I vaguely remember it asking me something about the pod, shortly after starting the timer. It was pretty dark and I couldn’t really read what it said. But I may have told it to use the data from the foot pod (which is not calibrated) instead of the GPS… live and learn!

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg HR	Max HR	Avg Run Cadence	Max Run Cadence	Calories
1	00:10:00	1.00	10:00	07:38	128	142	88	98	143
2	00:08:47	1.00	08:47	06:26	141	153	91	97	144
3	00:08:34	1.00	08:34	07:38	146	155	89	95	144
4	00:08:36	1.00	08:36	07:46	148	154	88	94	143
5	00:09:07	1.00	09:07	07:59	146	151	87	93	143
6	00:08:25	1.00	08:25	07:22	148	151	89	95	145
7	00:09:07	1.00	09:07	05:43	149	156	87	95	143
8	00:09:07	1.00	09:07	07:54	149	161	86	92	142
9	00:09:08	1.00	09:08	08:05	151	161	86	90	144
10	00:08:56	1.00	08:56	06:38	152	164	88	96	143
11	00:08:44	1.00	08:44	07:31	154	161	88	93	145
12	00:08:36	1.00	08:36	07:26	156	166	89	95	144
13	00:08:40	1.00	08:40	06:51	159	164	89	99	145
14	00:05:02	0.62	08:10	06:52	161	168	88	92	90
Summary	02:00:57	13.62	08:52	05:43	149	168	88	99	1,958

Update – I have the official times from the race web site:

Overall Place	Age Division Place	Gun Time	Chip Time	First Half Time	First Half Pace	Second Half Time	Second Half Pace
894 / 2474	78 / 156	02:02:31	01:59:52	01:00:01	09:10	00:59:52	09:08

Triathlon Training – day 28

Cycling – Pedaling skills Description Ride in the HR 1-2 zones on a mostly flat course (or indoor trainer). Include pedaling drills such as: a) try to drive pedal straight forward from 9 to 3 o'clock, b) pedal with foot against the top inside of your shoe trying to avoid touching the insole, c) try to touch toes to end of your shoes at top of downstroke. Stay as relaxed as you can while doing these drills. No tension in feet, legs, hands, etc. Details Duration: 01:34 Distance: 22.74 Average Speed: 14.6 mi/hr Energy: 1378 kcal