Arigatou gozaimasu (Japan)

Tokyo Station

Houston Half Marathon V

We completed our 5th half marathon and are halfway to legacy status (10+ races). 

We also hit a personal record, beating our previous best time by seven minutes (2:39) and that's with three port-a-potty stops during the run.

The weather was perfect, in the 40-50s.

I didn't have any knee issues or pain during the run, which was a first. 

I actually trained better than I did in previous years, as I had vowed last year. 

We actually did long runs during our training block and got up to running 8 miles. 

The training plan was created by ChatGPT.

Houston Half Marathon IV

We did it again. We completed our fourth Houston Half Marathon and we'll keep going until we can't. 

But geez, I'm surprised I came out relatively unscathed given the amount of training I did this year... which was essentially nothing.

The longest training run I did was only 4 miles. 

The most mileage I ran in one week was only 8 miles.

I didn't run once in 2 weeks before the actual race.

My training gets worse every year.

I will do better next year.

Guaranteed. 

Houston Half Marathon III

We completed our third half marathon in as many years. At this rate, we're going for the legacy status, i.e. at least 10 completed races. Hopefully my body will be able to maintain some semblance of health.

Speaking of which, my right knee (once again) at about the 7-8 mile mark was hurting bad. It was my friend, iliotibial band syndrome. 

But it's not surprise. I trained even less than I did last year. First, I sustained a calf injury during Thanksgiving, which kept me out for two weeks. Then just recently I got COVID, which had me breathing hard with any activity so running was out of the question. Oh well, what can you do?

Houston Half Marathon II

So I lied, again. 

Well, not intentionally lied but instead had a change of heart. 

Let me count the ways...

First, I said we're not having a fourth kid.

Second, I said I'd never buy a minivan.

Third, I said I was done with long distance running.

And I'm sure there are more examples but that's all for now. 😅

Houston Half Marathon

Last weekend we ran the Aramco Houston Half Marathon. It was Lynn's first half marathon, which was why I signed up too. She actually signed up to do it in 2021 (pushing her to pursue it after doing my own marathon in 2020) but COVID canceled everything so this was nearly two years in the making.

To be honest, I barely trained for this race. The most mileage I put in for a week was only 12 miles, with the longest run being 6 miles. A half marathon is 13.1 miles. As a result, my right knee was wrecked afterwards.

Lynn's training tapered off with our week long winter break vacation and then the holidays... but she fared much better than me. In fact, she did really well. Proud of her.

It was fun but I think I'm done with endurance races. ✌

Aramco Houston Half Marathon

My marathon training

I'm nearly 40 years old. Before signing up for a marathon, I never ran. I hated running. For exercise I would do other things (strength train, BJJ) so I wasn't a complete slob. But I essentially went from zero running to running a marathon. And here's how I did it...

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert by any means. I’m barely a runner. But I sought advice from experienced runners (books, blogs, friends, YouTube) and tried to put it all together in a concise manner.

Houston Marathon

On January 19, 2020, I completed the Chevron Houston Marathon. Finishing a marathon has always been on my bucket list. Why? Because it sucks. It's a tough challenge. There's a statistic floating around the internet that said <1% of the US population has ever completed a marathon. I want to be in that rare group.

I was glad to have crossed this off my bucket list. It was brutal. It was the hardest thing I've done. But doing it with friends (and uncle) made it more enjoyable and memorable. We start together. We suffer together. We finish together.

Fitness journey and 2019 recap

Back in college (when I thought I knew everything), I was pretty sure of what exercise and fitness should look like. I would run an arbitrary number of laps around Gregory Gym. I would do bicep curls with one 10 pound dumbbell (because that's all I had). I would frequently do sessions of 8 minute abs because I wanted six pack abs. 😑

Houston Half Marathon ✔

On Sunday, I popped my (racing) cherry when I completed the Houston Half Marathon. This was all to prepare for the upcoming Houston Marathon in January 2020. I've never participated a road race before... 5K, 10K, anything... so it wouldn't have been smart to have the full marathon be my first one.

For me, the Houston Half was to experience the process of a race... to see if there are any issues that might arise... to see what works. Here's what I did and the lessons I learned.

Sunrise running (Amarillo, TX)

Even though we're away for vacation, there's no break from training (Rock Island Rail Trail).

Houston Half Marathon

26.2

Portlandia (Portland, OR)

I’m moving. I don’t know when but I’m moving away from Texas. All of my life I assumed summer meant hot, miserable weather. I thought that was just the facts of life. But only until recently, I discovered that was not the case. There can actually be nice, cool weather during the summer. It was quite mind blowing. And that magical place is the West Coast. So that’s where I’ll be relocating but which city? The only one left to explore was Portland.

Sleepless in... (Seattle, WA)

No, I've never seen the movie but just wanted to use it since it has "Seattle" in the title. This trip was the opposite of sleepless since we went without the kids and had the opportunity for some good sleep. But dammit, I kept waking up at 5 am (PST) since my body was still on the kids' morning school schedule from home.

Tough Mudder: Round 2 (Austin, TX)

This past weekend I did the Tough Mudder again in Austin. It was the second time for five of the twelve in our group. To be honest, I wasn't as excited for this event as I was for the previous one. There was no anxiety. No fear. I've been through it before. But as the day came closer, I was pumped. This event was awesome.

Tough weekend (Austin, TX)

This past weekend we headed up to Austin to run the Tough Mudder. After doing a couple 5k mud runs, this was naturally the next step. Tough Mudder is a 12-mile course that included 22 obstacles, ranging from submersion in ice water to getting electrocuted. This was no joke.

A good weekend

I didn't do anything special or extravagant this past weekend but it was a good one. At this point in my life, if I can get multiple things crossed off of my long list of to-do's, then that's considered a good weekend. But if we have time to clean the house AND go out... that's the ultimate.

More running in the mud

Last weekend we ran the Mudder Dash Mighty Mud Dash. The sudden name change was probably due to a conflict with the bigger, more popular Tough Mudder (which we will eventually do too). Now that I'm more fit and in shape, I would like to do a 10k race, then a half-marathon and God willing, a full marathon. I can't imagine myself doing a marathon but then again, I never thought I could run a 5k without stopping. Now that's child's play.