Training Log Archive: bbrooke

Today's training plan assignment was: easy four-mile run.

Since I missed the hill workout with the group last week, I decided to do that today, but at an easy pace.

Short warmup, four laps of the Rec Center hill loop, and then a short cooldown.

10:54, 10:19, 10:13, 9:54.

Clear blue sky and only 61°F.

LoCO FIT breakfast run -- from Paul's Coffee, up the GHX hill to Davidson Mesa, one loop around Harper Lake, and then back the same way.

I felt like I was sucking wind the whole time, even at this slow pace. I'll blame that on being mostly idle at sea level for the past five days...

Back at Paul's, we did some Adventure Run planning for next weekend -- High Lonesome loop.

Travel day... I felt really lucky to get a flight out in the morning. My Lyft driver made it from the north side of The Woodlands to Hobby in 45 minutes, going at a normal speed, which has to be some kind of record. The highways were eerily open and traffic-free (everyone staying home due to flooding?).

Several of my co-workers decided to take a Lyft to DFW; the others who stayed in Houston had a long day of more delays at IAH, and only some of them actually made it all the way home -- at ~1am Saturday morning.

Business travel -- so glamorous!

I found out mid-morning that my afternoon flight home was cancelled -- along with every other flight I tried to re-book. No big deal for me (just an inconvenience) since I don't have any big plans for this weekend -- but one co-worker had to cancel a three-day weekend beach trip, and another will miss seeing her husband & son before they leave town on Friday morning.

After our meetings finally ended, I walked from my hotel to Lupe Tortilla -- where I promptly ate 10x the number of calories I might have burned on the walk. I hadn't had lunch, so I had no self control and demolished a whole basket of chips along with both of the 12"-diameter (delicious, house-made) tortillas that came with my meal. I did limit myself to only one beer, though. :-P

And then I walked back.

Walked from my office to the group run meetup location at (I can barely bring myself to type it...) Lululemon.

It poured rain last night and all day long (Tropical Depression Imelda), but it finally stopped at around 4pm.

Group run from the Lululemon store. This was much faster than my usual pace for the first three miles (8:45), but I had to keep up with the group since I was unfamiliar with the area and their route...

I think being at sea level definitely made a difference in terms of perceived effort (although I did feel really dizzy for a few minutes after finishing -- even though I had done my last mile pretty slowly).

We got rained on a bit, but that didn't make much difference since I was almost immediately sweaty and gross from the 85% humidity.

Ropes course at Texas Tree Ventures as a work-team outing -- really fun.

Despite the heavy rain in the forecast (Tropical Storm Imelda), we had great weather for Houston -- cloudy with a breeze -- but it was still disgustingly humid. It didn't start pouring until we were leaving.

I'm logging this b/c it seemed to tax my arms and core. :-P

The tree place & ropes course on a nicer day:

It's dark and rainy outside, with no sidewalks -- therefore, hotel treadmill.

Travel day to Houston.

I had planned to run with a local group I met the last time I was here...but my flight was delayed by three hours.

Actually, my flight left the gate on time. But then as we were accelerating down the runway to take off (at ~90 knots / ~100 mph, the pilot said later), the plane braked really hard and fishtailed a bit, and we stopped. A serious OMG-WTF moment. I don't "love" flying, and I really thought I was going to vomit / hyperventilate for about the next 10 minutes.

It turned out a warning light had indicated an open cargo door. We taxied over to a weird area of the airport and sat for a while while they found a gate for us. Then we deplaned while they checked the cargo door sensor, put fans on the brakes to cool them, and changed out two tires.

We eventually reloaded and were ready to go...but it was ground crew shift-change time and no one had been sent over to our gate, since it was an unplanned re-departure.

Once we finally got off the ground, the flight was uneventful (thankfully), but we circled for a while in Houston due to weather.

Ay caramba.

C • That...... 7