Weekend in Review! Weekdays are needed to give pause/recovery from Weekends!

I've been working diligently for the past few years to eliminate my monetary debts. Going into the weekend, I was finally DEBT FREE! No mortgage loan. No car loans. No credit card debts. No big machinery loans. Feels GOOD! My mantra has been, "I'm gonna take back my weekends!" Done deal.

So how did I score on taking back my weekends? Let's see: Saturday morning, I drove down to the Buffalo Wallow 6k Race down at Waugh and Memorial Drive. It was a great cross-country event. Further evidence that my anonymity (after relocating back here) is gone, I saw folks I knew at the event. Of course there was Coach Bill, Adrienne, and Gaslight. I hung out and chatted with Gaslight after I was done running. Neat lady, hardcore about her Houston running scene! There were runners EVERYWHERE! Not just my race, but everywhere for miles and miles. Houston's running contingent is stout! Photo credit, Bill D:



Earlier in the week, my good friend, Jeff, suggested that we go mountain biking on the Ho Chi Minh Trails that are within Memorial Park. Well, he opted out so I went anyway! It had probably been 12 years since I'd cycled there. I asked a rider if there were any "technical trails" (challenging). He said, "very technical" and pointed me in the right direction. Having done most of my mountain biking in Government Canyon (Helotes), Crown Ridge (San Antonio), and Hill Country Natural Area (in Bandera), I'm telling you that Ho Chi Minh is not VERY technical. Technical, yes. VERY, no! In all, a really cool place to ride! I had a blast, can't wait to go back!!


A typical picture of what the technical areas look like:


Really COOL sort of chute:



From there, it was off to just "go see people". This is RARE for me! I was in no particular hurry! I went and visited my good friends, L & J, who have put their home up for sale. I'm pretty tough on them. They still have stuff all over the place and I tell them they're NOT moving anytime soon. That's what the prospective buyers will think. My Realtor told me the same thing. I'll be damned if I didn't clear the whole house out after she barked at me! So it's my job to pass it on.


It IS important to be wary of under-arm perspiration whilst riding one's Harley on the 610 loop. This guy figured out the solution:


Next up was a visit to my buddies over at Cee San. Apparently, they TOO have taken back their weekends! Place was a ghost town:


I then went to my MOM's for lunch and fixed their treadmill. Great visit. Later in the day as I was prepping some dirt bikes, my buddy Matt came by. Damn, I've known this guy for 38 years! Hadn't seen him in prolly 25 years. I was gonna say he's a bit freakish, but then noticed the pic of my lovely tie-dye shirt. Oh well:


Then came Sunday! Had a great time at the track! It had been watered a bit much for my liking, but had a super time and passed a couple of riders. Yeah BABY:


I was going to go to my first "Hashing Run", but I got scared and the afternoon was overcast and windy. Next time! These hashers (Click on the link) are just nuts! Go to the "Hashing 101" section. That would indeed make me a 'virgin'!

Great weekend, I'm loving it!...

Good times were had by many this past weekend! I was REALLY looking forward to going dirt biking! Didn't happen, BOO! I worked a bunch on Saturday, but I'm not complaining...my client needs her products and it's interesting and challenging stuff!

I traveled to the Bill Crews Remission Run on Saturday. It was the first year for this fantastic event. I didn't see too many spoilers in my age group, other than the ultra fast Jacob Mazone. I figured maybe I could earn some bling, take home a prize. It was a tough course and my fortitude wasn't strong late in the game.


I thought about leaving before the awards presentation, but resisted. The time I came in 1st place in Masters' division, I wasn't there for the award. It's anti-climactic for the organizers to give out awards to people who aren't even there! So I stayed. I scored 3rd Place in the 40-50 division! I won a heart-warming book, written by Dana-Susan Crews that told of Bill's winning battle over cancer! Thanks! I'm so glad I stayed!





Sunday, I went running with The Woodlands Running Club and had a great 7.5 mile run and met a couple of folks while running. Good times!

I went home, worked a bunch more, then showered and went to Brenham to deliver a new computer to my mentor, Glenn. Super cool guy that I met in 1986. He's an engineer's engineer, truly a bad-ass when it comes to R&D of internal-combustion engines, among many other things! Over the years, Glenn has kept me pointed in (mostly) the right direction. But he hasn't been too generous with the 'atta-boy's'. I'll show him some neat stuff and he compliments my effort, but will often provide a little additional suggestion. JUST ENOUGH to have me striving for higher career performance and seeking his approval! Good stuff!

Anyway, his computer was probably 20 years old. I got him "tuned up" with a modern Dell from eBay for $150. Since my work was done for the day and I've been on a quest to "take back my weekends", I was actually not too hurried when I visited. That's rare! After several hours I was suddenly in a hurry!

I had MORE socializing to do, Superbowl Party! Quite the sociable guy yesterday. At the party, I hung out for almost 4 hours, not particularly in a hurry. Rare.
Fun party:



My friend Curt built this really cool table:




Party animal! Man about town:

Evan is thoroughly ENERGIZED by running a fast race...Issues challenge to Heidi...

Heidi's a tough chic! She's been running a lot faster than me leading up to last Sunday. She came down with food poisoning that lasted until way too close to the race...so I beat her by less than a minute. Not that it was intended to be a competition, that's just the way it happened. Two things have changed since then.

She's talking ABSOLUTE SMACK about kicking my ass in the half-marathon distance, AND I've gained HUGE confidence and will NOW TRAIN to ensure ABSOLUTE PREVALENCE!!

Let's train together for a couple of 1:35's....We'll hafta run some big hills, repeatedly! ARGH!!

Hey Heidi, I just signed up for the Austin Half-Marathon, February 15th....The race is 96% full. If you wanna kick my ass in this race, you best get signed up! This is a performance challenge! You don't have what it takes!! Whatcha Gonna Do?? You sure talk a good game. :):):)

Gonna THUNDER IN AUSTIN!!

BRING IT!

PACK A LUNCH!

Houston Marathon Report/My Half-Marathon Run...

First, there's Sabrina. She's my running bud who has turned into QUITE the celebrity! I'm surprised she even hangs out with me anymore. It seems she wrote a really great story about how she found running after the death of her mother and how she's since elevated her performance. Yesterday, she ran a GREAT marathon with a finishing time of 3:52. Her celebrity is enormous! In this pic, she's shown in a television interview:


If you've kept up with my ramblings here, you know that blistered toes have been the #1 show-stopper for me in the past couple of half-marathons. Because my training bites, and my mileage base is quite low, my toes don't have the requisite callouses. Per Roger Soler's advice, I was going to tape them up. At the running expo, I saw Mick at the Luke's Locker Exhibit. He showed me these great socks and LaErica sold 'em to me! What a GREAT IDEA/INVENTION...I wish I'd thought of it first! In the first couple of miles they were awkward and irritating. I thought they might be a show-stopper. Then my socks and I really got into the groove!! I love my new socks, ZERO blisters!:


Here, moments before the race, I got a pic with Stephen Smith:


I carried my camera and cell phone. I called my MOM at mile 7 and it just about derailed my run. Turning the fanny pack around and unzipping it to get the phone took more energy than I'd have liked...talked to MOM after crossing over Allen Parkway. I was pretty brief with MOM, sorry.


The Houston Marathon is a GREAT VENUE!! And inside the GRB Convention Center, HEB spared no expense or effort. Fantastic spread! Bananas, bagels, cookies, muffins, coffee, hot scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, hot sauce, the works! Here, having some breakfast with some of my running buds:




After stretching and packing it up to go, I went outside and there was a festival-like PARTY going on! Sausage-on-a-stick, free beer, lots of fun stuff everywhere:


I've always thought I'm so clever to take a mountain bike to marathons. Parking stress is nonexistent, stress-free. Park a mile or two away and just roll into and out of the race. Finding a place to pee is easy. Chain the bike near the start/finish line. Great idea, right? Well yesterday, for the 1st time, I goofed! I LOST MY FREAKING BIKE!! I was sure that it hadn't been stolen, as there are people everywhere. I'll be damned if I didn't walk around for OVER an hour, looking for my bike! Geez. The scenery of the race venue changes A LOT from the time you take off until the time you finish! Where there were massive scaffolds covered with huge banners for the 2 starting lines, there were none! And it appears they built up a huge finish line while we were running. Quite the feat. So it confused me. I ended up walking all the way back to the car, a long way away, AFTER walking for over an hour looking for the bike. Recall that the very premise of the bike trick is to REDUCE walking. I drove the approximate route that I rode to the starting line. Well, THERE'S my bike!! I'll try to pay attention next year!

There were some GREAT performances out there yesterday! GREAT RACE!

Sheesh, the whole bunch enjoyed PR's (personal record), except me!Adrienne just ran a STELLAR 3:05 PR! My friends Sabrina and Carolyn both ran fantastic 3:52 PR's! My friend Pam ran a fantastic 3:28! Very stout! Cassie and her husband Manny, ran super impressive 2:05's, despite being uninspired by the race beforehand! She bested her previous record by 5 minutes! Way to go, girl! Lots of great running out there, thanks folks! I had planned on running a 1:40 half-marathon, although I don't deserve such a number at the present time. I ended up with a 1:39! I THUNDERED in Houston! I'll take it!

It was only a week ago....

If you read that topic right down there, 2 topics down, I wrote about wanting to blow off Wednesday Night Track run. I emailed my running buddy with whom I have a "standing appointment" for this Wednesday Night thing. My email, "you going tonight?"....Her reply, "of course!" So I blushed and thought I need to not even ask, just SHOW UP!

So surely I wouldn't send a message like that today, as the answer, "of course" would further make me look like a wimp.

I showed up. I showed up 45 minutes early to make this my "long run" before my Half-Marathon on Sunday. My last-ditch training. Schucks, I've still got .43 weeks left to train (laughing)! Had a GREAT TIME, lotsa great folks showed up! We all ran a pretty relaxed paced and chit-chatted the whole time.

But apparently SOMEBODY elected to NOT SHOW UP!! (Where's my "shaking head" emoticon? And while I'm digging up emoticons, might as well splash in a few "rolling eyes" emoticons, too). Hey, it's all good!

And in other news, I found this to be quite funny! Dealing with bill collectors:

Excellent Running!

I ran with Susie's group in the forest this morning and took my dogs. All went well, great run!

It's easy for the dogs to hack off other runners by getting in front of them, then stopping. It didn't happen this morning, thankfully. I'm working on this. They really should run by my side, without exception. They're as energetic as can be imagined, so I get their side of the story. I'm working on this, it's a tough one...

I ran prolly 5 miles with a few of the trail runners, then we (me and 2 dogs) hooked it over to the RTW 5k race. We got there with only a moment to spare. My younger brother gave me a couple of dog crates for Christmas (2 of their 3 dogs died recently :(:(:(...) Mackie, the big American Bulldog just LOVES the crate! I set it up yesterday and put her blanket in there. She immediately claimed it and hangs out in there a LOT!

So if you recall that I've had running-with-dogs issues since the disappearance of the old Border Collie, I now have the solution. I ran both dogs in the forest, and kept the big dog in the crate, in the back of my truck while Tessie (Border Collie) ran the 5k race with me. It worked well.

Lotsa running this morning, 8 miles.

BTW, bad news! The lady at the Exxon station, where most of the trail running group parks, told me they were gonna start towing our cars! Geez. Like we're hurting anyone. Hey, don't shoot the messenger, I'm just say'in...

Last Ditch Half-Marathon Training...

Yeah baby! I've been doing OK with running. Wednesday, I took the dogs running about 2.5 miles in the woods at lunchtime, then went to Wednesday night track workout. I've been doing the track nights for maybe a month now. Wednesday we ran 1-mile repeats, 6 of 'em (others did up to 8). Not to0 bad, I was running in the 7:00 to 7:15 min/mile range. Good group on Wednesdays! Looks like I've been 'roped in' and am now expected to show up. I sent an email in the afternoon to my running bud, "are you going tonight"? The reply, "of course"....so that sets up the guilt trip for even thinking of blowing it off! Sigh...

And of course I still have 1.1 weeks to train for the Houston Half!! Smirking. I'll run today and Saturday (RTW), then a long run on Sunday. Wrap it up with a couple of runs next week and I'll be good to go! Good times!

Gotta LOVE Weekends!

After being off of the dirt bike for a month and a half or more, my friends suggested that we have a Motocross outing last weekend. While I had plenty of stuff to do, I just couldn't fight it! They came to my house and helped load up 6 bikes and we headed to the track.




Having mixed in frequent recreational motocross with my running/triathlon stuff throughout the past year, I guess I really didn't realize the dirt biking's contribution in physical conditioning. We rode Saturday after I ran 5 miles with the dogs. Sunday I ran 10 miles with the running group. But I was TORN UP from the motocross!! Only on Tuesday did the soreness and fatigue dwindle. My riding was GOOD!




Even though it doesn't seem very physically demanding while you're riding, do NOT under-estimate the workout you get from riding MX! I was wiped out from riding!! WooHoo!!



Here's our parting shot, great folks:



Running Update: As mentioned above I have been running. I run on weekends and try to get the dogs out once or twice a week. The weather and holidays have wreaked havoc on my good intentions. I've got the Houston 1/2 Marathon coming up in a week and a half, so I guess I need to hit it hard this week and weekend. I've been running Wednesday night track workouts, too. So I've still got 1.5 weeks to train for the event, eh?! :):)

Hey man, ENOUGH with the freaking fireworks, EH??!!

Geez, it happens twice a year. While I'm not trying to be a 'stick-in-the-mud' and agree that it's a person's prerogative to shoot off fireworks as allowed by our society and laws. But DAMNIT!! Shoot 'em off on the day you're celebrating, NOT for 1 week prior and another week after the day of celebration. ENOUGH ALREADY!

There's a guy nearby who loves firing his shotguns, and 4th of July and New Year's sound like a war zone in my neighborhood. Scares the HELL out of my dogs. But now my dogs have been hiding deep in my storage building or following me around for about 2 weeks. They get to sleep inside the house, which they often do on cold nights. Heaven forbid should I actually want to spend the night out or go on vacation during these periods. Nope, I've gotta be RIGHT HERE to shelter my pets. Freaking IDIOTS (fireworks folks, not dogs)! Here's what happens every night, including last night:



On New Year's Eve 2002/2003, my beloved Border Collie, Brembo, escaped my yard and ran about a mile away in a crazed escape from the fireworks. My running buddy, Sonya, likely remembers the somber run we shared for the New Year's Day Cobweb Chaser Run at McAllister Park. Before the run, I walked her over to my truck and pointed out the dead, stiff corpse of my dog. Because of the rocky terrain, it took me 5-6 hours of crying/digging/busting rocks to dig a suitable hole in which to bury her. RIP Brembo:



I went over to a friend's house the other day and they were SUPER BUMMED! Their dog was freaked out by fireworks, escaped, got run-over and killed.....geez...

Ummm, I went to run 12 miles but no one showed up...

The Woodlands Running Club site says, Sterling Ridge, 12 miles, Sat, Dec 21st. It's now Sat, Dec 20th....So I'll assume that Saturday, December 21st is actually going to happen tomorrow....that was a waste of time and fuel...maybe I'll try again tomorrow...