TOUGH weekend, already! And it's only Saturday morning. I gotta tone it down....

NAH! No way I'll tone it down! Living life!

It's Saturday morning and I went into The Woodlands for the 'David's Dream' 5k race. My friend Karen challenged me to show up, so there! Here I'm doling out advice to Karen and Katy about how they seem to 'go out too fast', running too fast in the first 1/2 to 1 mile (previous races). OK, 'do as I say, not as I do' certainly fits what I did this morning. 7:13 min for the first mile, 14:58 at the second mile, and I think probably 23:30-ish for the final. What was I thinking?? Maybe I figured I was exempt from the humidity? I dunno, just an idiot! Had a great time, saw plenty of people I know (my anonymity is TOAST!). Most seemed pleased to see me, but they asked, "Where's Tessie?" This dog's celebrity is enormous! Photo Credit, Bill Dwyer, thanks! Great pic!

EDIT: It turns out that I came in 3rd in my age group with a 23:23! Sheesh, I'll take it!! WooHoo.....they left my name out of the results! There are many races that I wish would omit my results, but not this one....Sweet!

It was really grim in the last mile. I shoulda carried my cell phone so I could call 911 WHILE racing! I crack myself up sometimes! I can hear it now, "Mr. Guy, where are you"? Me: "Lake Woodlands at Panther Creek....No wait, I turned, I'm on Research Forest approaching Gosling ..." You get the idea, a moving request for medical help! Bwahahaha!

After just about dying in the 5k , I headed straight to the MOTOCROSS TRACK (hey, it's on the way home, gotta consolidate trips, eh?!) and had a GREAT RIDE! Some days don't go well, some are fantastic! Today was top-shelf! I'm getting much better and I get competitive when I encounter someone as slow as me! Yes, there are a few, no make that a couple, who are so slow!

And I've been "consolidating trips" a LOT! It seems I've been going to the motocross track every day! Yesterday was Conroe for machine tooling, roofing supplies, motorcycle shop, lunch...well whaddya know, the MX track is 1/8 mile from my exit at 1488. Wink. Speaking of anonymity gone, the companies I dealt with in Conroe, and the motocross track personnel know me by name and a handful of riders, too...Yeah, it's cool, trade one for the other...total anonymity upon moving, to having a base of friends now that I'm here....shucks, I'll take it!....:):)

So I was totally hammered by about 10:30!! WooHoo, I can rest after I die! Great seeing Coach Bill, Katy, Karen, and many others! Holden was nowhere to be found. I'm ALIVE (waving arms, all animated and jumping around)! Good times, y'all!!

No Packet Pick-Up on Race Day?! Good Grief!!

[BEGIN RANT]
I've just about had it with these races that are adamant about "No Race Day Packet Pick-Up"! Races have been doing this for years, and few are relenting on this annoying and wasteful practice.

Take for example, the AT&T Austin Marathon. I understand WHY they do it. They want you to spend a lot more money in their city. They're banking on you spending the night in their hotel and spending lots on food.

But from my perspective, it's terribly wasteful. While living in San Antonio, I'd have to drive up there the day before to pick up my packet. That's 180 miles, round trip. And then do it again the next day for the race. That's a lot of my time and a huge waste of precious petroleum. WASTEFUL!!

Now I was looking at the 'Tejas Triathlon' in a couple of weeks. No race day packet pick-up. I emailed the guy and wrote that I'm not driving over 100 miles to pick up a packet. He didn't even bother to respond to my email.

I signed up for the Y-Tri in Pearland because they offer race day pickup. In the past at various events, I've been told by race directors that, "logistically, it's impossible to have race day pick-up" (or some other equally LAME excuse). YET, these same races require you to pick up your timing chip ON RACE DAY......DUH!! Ummm yeah, "logistically impossible"....Yeah, right. I've helped Roger Soler on many race days with many events over the years. Race day is no big deal, just gotta staff it and organize it well.

I don't wanna make a career over your race. Look, I'm not gonna win it, I promise. But I won't be last, either. I look forward to waking up really early with great anticipation, and excitedly preparing for your race! I'm gonna show up and RUN your race! Oh HECK YEAH!! But I'm not excited that your event occupies 2 days, not just one (as it should). I'll come show up, run your race, drive home; simple. I only wanna spend one day on your race, not two. If I have to drive a long way to reach your running/biking store to pick up my race number and el-cheapo tee shirt and a bunch of wasteful paper garbage that's headed to our landfill on Monday morning, I'm NOT going to buy ANY of your stuff! Not even 1 pack of GU!

I'm ALL FOR supporting our running/cycling stores and not going to cheapy online stuff!! I LOVE local running/cycling/swimming stores and will defend and support them to the end!! But enough with driving over 100 miles to pick up my race number!!

This oil thing is just the tip of the iceberg, just watch! Think how much fuel is consumed by every participant having to drive across town because these folks are too lazy or ain't creative enough to figure out how to pass out tee shirts and race numbers to people who stand in line at a table to pick up their timing chips, ON RACE DAY. Good grief. These promotions are gonna have to shape up if they expect good participant turn-out in the future. [/END RANT]

Ahh, I feel so much better now!...Carry on... :):):)

RTW 5/24/08....I Almost killed Tessie! :(:(

I made a huge mistake taking my beloved Border Collie, Tessie, to the Run The Woodlands race yesterday. As usual, I took her tennis ball and she played fetch with the kids who were at the event. She just loves going to the RTW event every 2 weeks! And everyone really likes the dog and many comment on how gregarious and well behaved she is. Top pic is Tessie waiting for the ball to be thrown....crazy dog!

Well, she played fetch with a young girl for 15-20 minutes before the race. It didn't occur to me to give her water before the race. We started running and she was beside me about halfway through the race. This is unusual because she's typically ahead of me and wanting to run faster. By the end of the race she was lagging behind and in fact slowing me down. I started to worry about heat-stroke near the end. I think she might have been close to having a really bad day! My BAD! Next time, I'll thin out her coat a good bit with doggie clippers and put a water dish in front of her before we run....I'll cut out the tennis ball (she gets LOTS of ball throwing at home). If she has a tough time next time, I'll slow down and get her some water. It's not like I'm gonna win the race anyway. I ran a 24:11 and am pleased. Tessie ran a 24:15 (that's HUMOR folks! At the dog's expense! The ONLY time I'll ever beat this dog!...HUMOR!! The dog lives well today!)...

I also had the pleasure of meeting Karen, who was kind enough to introduce herself. She enjoyed a PR of 25:58 yesterday, despite the tough conditions! Way to go, Lady! As always Bill, Kris, Mick and the others from Luke's did a great job of putting on a memorable event, THANKS!




This weekend is a BIG weekend at the Motocross Track, so it's quite crowded. Gates opened at 9am on Saturday. So right after the RTW race, I watered the dog then bolted home to grab the dirtbike and bolted to the track for some EXCELLENT riding. The idea was to get there before it got too crowded. MX is a young man's sport, I'm scared of getting run over by the extremely fast young guys! The track owners had pushed some dirt around and combined the Main Track with the River Track! Talk about a long lap! The riding was superb! WooHoo!! Some days it feels great, sometimes it doesn't. Yesterday was a fabulous day....I was pretty whooped for the rest of the day, no shortage of stuff going on!

Last pic, added for Jacob...very bad form, arms out-stretched, way back on the bike, poor form, cool picture....:):):)

The pics of MX are all old...the red bike being months ago, the others, much older...looks the same as if I did it yesterday, though...I don't have current pics, I'll grab some soon.....but the old pics DO set the tone for the discussion, eh?!! :):)

Houston is a TRIP!

Even though I grew up here, I'm still in awe when I drive into town. Yesterday I started in Conroe to run a 5k trail run at the Conroe YMCA. I got lost and was late. When I did show up with my trusty running buddy Tessie (my border collie), I was told "No dogs allowed on the course". At this point, I was steamed! I started to leave then thought, "it's not their fault that I'm miffed, it's mine". So I put the dog in the car and ran the race (window down, overcast, not hot). I started 25 minutes late! Nice course, well organized race.

After lunch, I headed down to Allen Parkway for the Houston Art Car Parade. Talk about crazy people! There were freaks as far as the eye could see. There were some really trippy entries! I was on my way to a Crawfish Boil over at Cee San Machine and Fabrication, but figured I'd go check out the parade first. I saw my friends Larry and Julie and hopped in their cool RV (they were in the parade in their RV)....so I guess I was in the parade, eh?!

On the way to the parade, I got lost in River Oaks. Where do these people get all that MONEY? Unbelievable show of wealth around here. In addition to seeing many multi-million dollar homes, I saw 2 Bentleys, 2 Astin Martin DB-9's (very cool cars!), tons of other high-end stuff. While driving through River Oaks, a lady in a very expensive Mercedes almost hit me head on, in a slow neighborhood. She was talking on the phone and was OBLIVIOUS to the presence of me and the car I was driving. I swerved big time to avert collision. Even swerving and laying on the horn probably wasn't noticed, either...

Then I went to Cee San for crawfish boil, lots of fun people, keg beer, laughs....followed by going home and cutting the grass....I need a work week to recover from the weekend....Houston's a trip!

We went down to the Offshore Technology Conference...

Monday, I joined my friends Mark and Curt for a great trip to the OTC, down at the Reliant Center. Those who know me would say that a trip like this would be a vacation for Ev. They would be correct in saying such! Too cool! As can be seen, I was also goofing off a tad! And upon leaving we found a sign that indicated that we were in violation of copyright laws, having taken some pics...:):)

We then joined up with
Jody and Colleen (and her little boy, John) for some delicious Mexican food.

Well, I did my first Triathlon in Houston....

While I've done a bunch of tri's in years past, last Saturday I did my first one in the Houston area, the CB&I triathlon in The Woodlands. Triathlons are great! Such FUN! I think it's fun because of the variety and the "Chinese Fire Drill" that IS the transition! The transition is where you have your own little plot of land that's about 2 feet wide and 5 feet long. It's your own little "pit stop". You finish the swim and pull into the transition area to gather the requisite stuff for your cycling adventure. After the bike race, you again come scrambling in here to equip for the running race.

Admittedly, I was REALLY not prepared for this event! (My good running buddies just roll their eyes and say, "what's new") Since moving here in late November 2007, the only running I've done is the "Run The Woodlands" 5k race that's put on twice a month. So my running has been 6.2 miles per month. I did cycle 20 miles to my brother's house, 2 weeks ago. Swimming training consisted of a 10 minute swim last Tuesday. That was just to confirm that I wasn't ready!

All told, I had a GREAT TIME! There were 1000 competitors and it was a well organized event! In the swim, I caught myself "single stroking", breathing to the left every revolution of my arm. The swim was kinda 'limping along' in the lake. The bike was tough! The strong head-wind never seemed to go away, not even after turning corners...hmmm. My hamstrings were burning when I got off of the bike, so the run was tough. I held together and am pleased with my performance, considering I forgot to train for this. Old photo, but you'll get the idea:

Evan Guy #384

Magnolia, TX

Age: 44 Gender: M

Clock Time	1:28:30
Chip Time	1:28:30
Overall Place	378 / 836
Gender Place	288 / 505
Division Place	31 / 50
500Swim Rank	301
500Swim Time	11:14
500Swim Pace	2:15/M
T1 Time	03:11
15M Bike Rank	410
15M Bike Time	47:45
15M Bike Pace	18.8MPH
T2 Time	01:20
5K Run Rank	299
5K Run Time	24:58
5K Run Pace	8:00/M

I've really enjoyed my anonymity since moving here! I can go to Home Depot looking pretty scruffy with no chance of knowing anyone! But it's now apparent that my anonymity is dissolving! I probably saw more than 10 people that I've made friends with, and had good conversation. Oh well, so much for anonymity!

Great time!! Even though this was a really short tri, I was HAMMERED the rest of the day!

Evan ;)

Brand new to the world of Blogging!

Having recently moved to The Woodlands area (yes, folks are emphatic that "the" is capitalized [where's my 'rolling eyes' emoticon?] ), folks are frequently asking what's up with me and my relocation. So here's my blog. It's selfish, it's all about me! If you don't like it, don't click on it!

Welcome to my little blog-slice of the web. Enjoy!

Best,
Evan ;)