Back At It

I don't give up too easily, although I needed a few days of inactivity to get the soreness out of my quads. Plus the weather in Vancouver this week was more cold and rainy than usual.

After getting back in on Friday, I made it to Bally's last evening to get 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer (2.49 miles, level 16, random) and 24 minutes on the stationery bike (level 7, random). I was going pretty hard on the elliptical trainer and started to get lightheaded after about 20 minutes. Hmmm ... not enough fuel.

I'll run this weekend, but I'm not sure where or how much. I'm thinking about heading to New Braunfels on Sunday for a 12-Miler, but I'm not sure. If so, it will be a different course and a different town.

I'm thinking about doing the 3M Half Marathon last year, but I might be hard-pressed to hit 2:12 there again like I did last year. Then again, who knows if the weather is right. (More than likely, I'll be at Run The Woodlands 5K #170 on Saturday, the 27th.)

I had one e-mail earlier this evening, "Where are you? You okay?"
My response was, "Spring. Yes."
I added, "What? I don't post and people think I fell off the face of the earth?"
And they replied, "Just wondering."

I appreciate being noticed.

Let's see, what's going on?

+ Sunday's column in The Courier will talk a little bit about the Spring Fever 5K that is coming up on Saturday, March 3rd in Grogan's Point in The Woodlands as well as a registration update for the CB&I Triathlon on Saturday, May 7th. (Yes, Coach Bill Dwyer is signed up for not one, but two triathlons in May alone!)

Next Sunday's column will preview the Saturday, February 3rd Rocky Raccoon 50- and 100-Milers.

+ I'm waiting on the first draft of the February edition of Footprints to come back this weekend or Monday. It will be the 6th edition that I've had the opportunity to edit. Debut marathoner Jessica Alexander did a wrapup on the 30K while Edwin Quarles did a piece on RunSport closing with some nice comments from Jon Warren and Brant Kotch.

March is coming right around the corner!

+ We've been told by the Chronicle's Dwight Silverman that the blog, which will be called "RunHouston", is being built and we should be up and running soon.

+ Don't forget to keep checking, periodically, the blog that we set up to report from the Expo -- http://harrahoustonmarathon.blogspot.com/. Any stats that I compile from the Marathon and Half Marathon will be posted there.

The biggest news is that Ino Cantu's half marathon performance at age 73 is in the process of being certified as a single age mark at that distance.

Ino and Ryan Hall!

+ Finally, thanks to Seven Hills Running Club president Ken Johnson, I've been given editions of Inside Texas Running, Runner Triathlete News, Runner's World and Running Times, dating back to 1993.

Ken and his wife, Marilyn, are getting ready to move into a new house and he didn't have plans to carry them with him. So I'm grateful of being able to pick up a new source of research material.

An article that I was reading on the stationery bike tonight from Peter Gagarin, the then-editor of Ultrarunning magazine was titled, "Guide to your first fifty-miler."

I loved this line about walking. He said, "If you are the macho type who thinks walking is for sissies, well, that's all right. We need a few like you to get ahead at the start. Then when you crash and burn at 30 or 40 miles, it will give us a real psychological lift to go cruising by."

+ Stat projects? Lots. I'm updating a lot of the information that I provided to Jan Nierling with the Chevron Houston Marathon for this year's media guide, which contained 21 pages of information that I compiled or researched.

What else? I'm working on Surfside and Seabroook Marathon lists of winners, age group bests and top 20 times, which I've done for the Kingwood Marathon. (I'm also beginning to look for any old results of The Woodlands Marathon.) Those lists can be found on my new site, http://www.runmontgomerycounty.com/.