More hardware for the family

Kathleen and I drove down to League City for the Summer Kick-Off Fun Run yesterday and the 90 mile round-trip journey was not in vain.  Kathleen came home with a brand new PR for the 5K plus a first place AG award.  Fortunately one of the regular speedsters who always runs this race - Jamal Jamalyaria - did not show up this year, so I managed to sneak into third place in my age group, despite having to stop to re-tie my shoe.  I have been making far too many rookie mistakes lately.  A few weeks ago it was running without the disposable chip, yesterday a loose shoelace.  Cost me at least 20 seconds, and then of course I had to burn a lot of extra energy to try to catch up.  Nonetheless we had fun and it was good chatting with race co-directors Mariglyn and Stephen Glenn.  It must have been a bitter-sweet experience for them to present the last in the series of 19 annual runs in memory of their son James Glenn.

Later in the day, we headed to the campus of Rice University for the running of the 2010 Bayou Bash Relay, with each team of 4 persons covering 8 miles in and around Rice football stadium and the adjacent parking lots.  Not the world's most scenic run, but it looked like everybody had a great time.  The Houston Association of Road Running clubs presented their annual family picnic after the run.  If you didn't mind standing in line for a while, there was a pretty good variety of food and drinks (including cold St. Arnold's beer!) to be had.  Kathleen and I shared a veggie burger - by the time we got to the front of the line, there was only one left...  I did take quite a few photographs of the runners speeding around the football stadium concourse, and will be posting some of the pics on my Facebook account and on the Houston Striders' Shutterfly page.

This morning Kath and I did an easy 10 miles along the Terry Hershey Trail, bumped into a few other Striders going the opposite way (Marnie and Miriam, amongst others).  Great morning for a run, unseasonably cool.  We couldn't take Daisy even if we wanted to; she has been limping for several days now for some unknown reason.  There does not appear to be anything in her paw, we suspect a strained shoulder muscle.   My total mileage for the week was 32.  Little bit on the low side, need to keep it around 40 or so if I am going to make a dent in the extra 10 lbs I'm dragging around.  Month on month the progress has been good though.  Around 50 miles total in February, just over 100 in March and 150 in April.  165 would be a good goal for May but it is probably over-ambitious considering the slow start.