Rice All Comers Track Meets

All-Comer Track and Field Meets are being held for 3 Fridays during June at Rice. The last one will be Friday June 26th starting at 6PM at Rice University Track on the corner of University and Main. The cost is $7.00 per person for unlimited events. This video was taken on June 19th of some the 800 and 400 meter heats. Featured runners (i.e. people that I know) are Matt Nicol, Neeraj Rohilla, Leno Rios, Tom King, and Sabra Harvey. It is a lot of fun to watch and I've been told it is fun to run in, but I am not so sure about that:) Contact Casey Thom at cdt@rice.edu or Jon Warren at jhwarren@rice.edu for more information.

Yoga for Runners

Recommendation from Linnie Reichle:

...wanted to let you know about a class I took Saturday, it was Yoga, but we concentrated on stretches for runners. It was great, you might want to post this info for some of the other runners in the club. It is on Saturdays @ TRI ON THE RUN @ 10 am. It is only $10.00 a class and Nicole took us through some great stretches. This Saturday the co-owner of Yoga One will be there to work on back stretches and some more running stretches.

Linnie

BCRR Writing Excellence Awards

What many of you didn't see at the recent BCRR Awards Banquet were the lovely personalized certificates that were received by the winners of the "WORD FROM THE BIRD" WRITING EXCELLENCE AWARD. These certificates were designed by Mike Mangan. Congratulations again to our winners Carlye Graydon (1st), Tom Helm (2nd), and Mr. Negative Split (3rd- accepted in his behalf by Alfonso Torres).

Annual BCRR Awards Banquet 2009 (Video & Pictures)!!!

BCRR Annual banquet was a total blast. The highlights of the banquet were the awards and award winners. Eddie Rodriguez put tremendous personal efforts into fabricating of personalized awards for various categories. Here is a small youtube video describing the process of the fabrication of the awards:



And, here is a closeup of the award Mark Fraser won.



Finally, here are some of the pictures I took:


To download/print any pictures please click the text you are reading, click on the picture, and click download button (Slideshow, Share, download & print buttons are located on top-left corner of the page). It is as easy as it sounds :-)

Top Ten Good, Bad and Ugly Observations About Last Night’s LP Run

10. Why can’t they play “Born to Run” when the master males run?
9. Heard in stands by some of the open runners: “What’s an LP?”
8. I now know how a hamster feels when he runs on that wheel.
7. We gave up Valhalla for this?
6. It’s nice to hear people cheer for you . . . for the first THREE laps.
5. When this was an hour long race, did they used to play the ticking clock from ’60 Minutes’ over the loudspeaker?
4. Even if we lost power, we could continue the race using the light from Rob’s Boston shirt.
3. The race doesn’t end any faster if you run slower.
2. No Simon Brabo and Don Brenner opens up the race for Runner of the Season
1. Poor hydration + 90° day + 20 minutes hard running = Dehydration + Cramps= Poor race.

Crescent City Classic Rewards Patience

I have travelled to many places throughout the world and I learned very early in my career that things are not always as efficient as they are in the US.  As a stickler for punctually, I was horrified when my colleagues in places like Indonesia or the Philippines would escort me to a meeting 45-60 minutes late.  After a while, I realized that it wasn't a big deal to customers or anyone else that the meeting started late.  After understanding that, I was much more relaxed when visiting customers outside the US and enjoyed my trips much more.

There is an analogy here to Houston runners participating in the Crescent City Classic in New Orleans. If you demand the precise efficiency we regularly experience in Houston, you will be disappointed.  You can let that bother you or you can go with the flow. I recommend the latter. With that said, the organization is not very good and can be frustrating especially to first time runners.   Consider package pick-up.  There are 20,000 runners, about the same number who run the Houston marathon and half marathon.  Picking up a race package in Houston takes three minutes.  In New Orleans, it is bit more of an adventure.  

If you had a print-out with your race number and name on it, you could proceed to the line.  

If you just wrote-down your number or did not know it, you had to wait in a very long line to be told what your race number is.

Once you got to the front of the line, the volunteer hand wrote your name and number on a scrap of paper. Once you had the paper, you could proceed to another line to pick up your number.

Getting your number was only a start:

If you are seeded runner (red bib), you get a chip, but you had to pick up your chip inside the expo. It really wasn't that difficult.

If you are a fast runner but were not seeded (blue bib) (you had to provide documentation to be seeded), you could buy a chip for $5, and that required waiting in another long line.

Theoretically anyone could buy a chip, but when Lana Moody wanted to buy a chip as a non-seeded runner (orange bib), she was told they were out of chips for orange bibs. Who knew there were different chips.

Once you bought a chip, you had to take another piece of paper to the chip table and wait in line again.

This process is usually easier to stomach because there is Abita Amber and Abita Lite beer freely flowing.  However, when we were there, they had run out of beer.  Fortunately, more beer eventually arrived.

It's just best to relax and let the process work.   The race itself went off fairly smoothly.  The corral system was fairly smooth.  The course is flat with minimal turns so the times are fairly fast.  The winning time was 28:18!  It was a warm morning and I felt the heat at the end.  This is probably the warmest race condition I have run this season.   

About 3 1/2 miles into the race, I realized how hard it is to run a 10K.   I also think the fear of being passed by Mark Fraser, Neeraj Rohilla or David Piper is a greater motivator than hitting a targeted time.   By the end of Mile 4, my pace had slowed and hitting my goal seemed to be fading.    But it was  helpful that I was familiar with the course. As we approached City Park, I noticed I was passing some runners and was able pick up my pace slightly.   Somehow I had enough of a surge during the last half mile to exceed my goal by a few seconds.  But, it was really hard!  10Ks are really hard!!

Back to race organization.   What the organizers lack in pre-race planning and execution, they more than make it up to the runners with the post-race party.  There is nothing like it.  Live band, free flowing beer, homemade jambalaya, along with multiple food booths with smoothies, chips, fruits, energy bars, etc.  Our group stayed three hours at the post-race party. I have sunburned shoulders to prove it.    The post-race party is a perfect reward to all of us who maintained our patience through the entry and package pick-up process, the starting line logistics and the race itself.    I plan to be back next year.

Fast Times Near Bellaire High

For a change, I will not write a comment on how the weather affected the results of a popular Houston spring road race. The Bellaire Trolley 5k has had its share of inclement weather in the past, but that was not the case on Saturday April 4, 2009.

The Bellaire Trolley 5K run is historically one of the fastest 5K courses in Houston. The course is flat with minimal turns. The course is completely straight from about 0.9-1.9 miles, and then after running around the perimeter of Bellaire High School, the course finishes along the same straightaway from about 2.4 miles to the finish.

Congratulations to the following BCRR members who placed in their age group and won a very cool model of a trolley car:

Neeraj Rohilla 2nd AG & PR (25-29 men)
Katrina Stilwell 1st AG (35-39 women)
Suzy Seeley 2nd AG on her 50th birthday
Scott Bounds 3rd AG (55-59 men)
Ursula Spilger 1st AG (65-69 women)
Don Brenner 3rd AG (65-69 men)

I am going to give Neeraj a hard time. If he were competing as a 30-34 yo woman, he would not have placed. But we know that most 25-29 yo men are usually partying on Friday night and have difficulty getting up early to run a race. More power to Neeraj for being able to do both.

Enhancing it's fast reputation, the Trolley Run course yielded the following PRs for BCRR members:

Neeraj Rohilla 19:37
Rob Walters 18:18
Lara Allen 27;07
Lana Moody 25:29
Sheila Ramamurthy 25:45
Eddie Rodriguez 23:28

If I missed anyone, let me know and I will post. Kathi Mahon would have broken a PR had she not gotten behind someone who slowed her down at the beginning of the race. I don't know if that is true, but she missed her PR by a couple of seconds!

Neeraj's edit:

I am including a slide show of pictures I took before/after the race.