Sunday, September 30, 2007

Welcome Autumn!

In Houston, summers can be brutal. Any 3-5 mile run usually results in complete saturation and exhaustion. Start early when it's cooler and the humidity is at its highest. Run later in the day and get full exposure to the sun and heat. It all seems worthwhile when you finally get to run on a day like Saturday morning, Sept. 29th.



I run with the Kenyan Way (http://www.kenyanway.com/) which is one of the great organized marathon training workouts we have in Houston. Part of our workout was to run eight miles at marathon pace. When you consider that over the last six weeks, we were all struggling to run at 30-60 seconds per mile SLOWER than marathon pace, this workout had all the makings of a classic death march!.



However, we got an assist from Mother Nature. The dew point temperature was 64°F and the run was great! Everyone I talked to has an energizing run. Most people had a hard time running at marathon pace, because it was TOO SLOW. The last three miles of the run were fast and comfortable and some of the most enjoyable miles I have run since last spring.



Welcome to Houston, Autumn!

Friday, September 28, 2007

Understanding HARRA Standings

To all fellow BCRR Members:

We encourage you to participate in the HARRA Series. We talk about competition with other clubs and I know many of our member runners do not consider themselves a competitive runner and believe their participation would not make a big difference. Well, if you believe that, you would be WRONG.

Let me explain. There are two categories of competition: the TEAM and the CLUB. I will concentration on the club category and show you how your participation can help the club win the overall competition.

Here is how this works. There is a HARRA racing series each fall and spring. The current races are http://www.harra.org/955dir/Competitions/series.html

In each race, all club members times are tabulated. For master and veteran runners the times are age graded. The list of all club runner's times are sorted by gender, time and division (open, masters, and veterans). For each male category, the times are lumped into groups of four-- that is, the four fastest in a division, then the next four, and so on. The four times are totaled and compared to other group for four from other clubs. Each group of four is then ranked from fastest to slowest. For all women's divisions, teams are composed of groups of three instead of four.

In each division, the first seven teams will be awarded 13, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, or 3 points sequentially. But here is the good part: all remaining teams in the division- no matter how slow or how many- will receive 2 points. So think about it. If we get six extra veteran women runners to participate in all six fall series races, BCRR scores an additional 24 points in the veteran women's division. There have been years when we have lostin a category by a lot less than 24 points.


THE MAIN POINT HERE IS THE KEY IS PARTICIPATION!

I hope to see a big group of BCRR Runners at the United Space Alliance 10 Mile Run on October 14, 2007
http://www.ontheruntx.com/10M.htm

Cross Country Relay Race Results

HARRA CROSS COUNTRY RELAY RESULTS Saturday, September 22, 2007 5:00 P.M. 4 X 2 Mile RelayBuffalo Bayou Park

We had terrific club participation for the first HARRA race of the season!! BCRR fielded 20 teams (out of 115 total). As usual, the course was challenging (but thankfully only 2 miles) and the Tornados put on a great post race party. Thanks to everyone who came out to run and thanks to the Team Captains for organizing the teams! BCRR Cross-Country Relay Teams

2007
MIXED OPEN:
“BCRR Runners“ 9th 1:07:04 Sheila Ramamurthy, Brenda Gonzalez, Tom Wille, Neeraj Rohilla
OPEN FEMALE:
“Bayou City Bombshells” 5th 1:01:20Carolyn Muirhead, Jennifer Sabin, Sarah Bingham, Isabel Hernandez
“Equal Opportunity Runners” 10th 1:14:47Lara Allen, Lori Lyerly, Laurie Ropel, Elizabeth Burgers
“We ROSE to the Occasion” 14th 1:22:28Daniela Carbone, Katie Senesac, Sarah Midkiff, Karen Alejandra
MASTER FEMALE (all 40 and over):
“Bayou City Carboholics” 5th 1:00:28Anna Sumrall Helm, Pam Rea, Marla Burum, Diana Unrah
“BCRR Rocks” 6th 1:09:20Lana Moody, April Murphy, Sue Leone, Nancy Greig
“BCRR Mixed Madames” 8th 1:17:36Marie Kaetner, Michelle Wolpert, Rosie Schmandt, Donna Whitney
“The Lazy 4” 9th 1:18:09Marilyn Blythe, Lori Laxen-Brown, Jill Zively, Mary Ntefidou
SENIOR WOMEN (all 50 and over):
"The Estrogen Dominatrices" 3rd 1:12:13Ivy Martino, Lorna Mangus, Ellen Pannell, Kathi Mahon
“Bayou City Tri-Babes” 5th 1:17:07Linnie Reichle, Gail Stewart, June Harris, Jill DeVay
"Warped Speed Sisters" 8th 1:32:15Katherine Vidal, Hope Sellers, Janet Sutton, MJ Savino
OPEN MALE:
“Bayou Storm” 9th 0:50:21Simon Brabo, Tom Stilwell, Raymond Verm, Matt Nicol
MASTER MALE (all 40 and over):
“Masters of Disaster” 5th 0:52:26Bob Brown, Stuart Muirhead, Scott Wonderly, Eric Stotzer
“4-Players” 11th 1:04:44Eddie Rodriguez, Tim McGuirk, Patrick Flaherty, Tom Helm
“Shake-it-don’t-break-it” 12th 1:06:02John Holmes, Bill Hayes, Jay Byers, Robert Mayer
“ValHooligans” 13th 1:06:09Jeff Tabourne, Chris Harris, Jesus Flores, Danny Sohn
SENIOR MALE (all 50 and over):
Bayou City Hard Chargers 3rd 0:55:47Richard Verm, Tom Radosevich, Bruce Mansur, Mark Fraser “We’re Bringing Sexy Back” 8th 1:06:14Mike Grimes, Wim Burgers, John Phillips, Bill Vogt
VETERAN MALE (all 60 and over):
“We’re Doing the Best We Can” 4th 1:09:09Mike Mangan, Fred Steves, Chris Buchanon, Doug Carlyle
“We’ve Done It All Before” 5th 1:16:31JP Fredrickson, Doug Aitken, Tom Bjorklund, Tom McCay

FULL RESULTS :
BCRR TEAM CAPTAINS:
Lara Allen Open females laraallen@sbcglobal.net
Susan Cita Masters Females liveanddieinla@sbcglobal.net
Kathi Mahon Senior Females (50 +) kmahon@bcm.tmc.edu
Simon Brabo Open Males simonbrabo@netscape.net
Eric Faria Masters Males eric.w.faria@williams.com
Scott Bounds Senior Males (50 +) ScottBounds@earthlink.net
Mike Mangan Veteran Males (60 +) mikemangan41@yahoo.com
Kathi Mahon Team Coordinator kmahon@bcm.tmc.edu

BCRR Welcome


This is the first entry of the BCRR Club Blog.