Yesterday I ran the Run Houston Minute Maid Park 10K in Houston. This was a race I was planning to do but didn’t sign up for until this week.  I’m being cautious about all of this stuff, but these races are a good excuse to throw myself into mileage.  I will use time as an excuse not to run longer so the races for me to make it until the end.  This race was the second in the race series.  I’ve never run any of these races but I’ll get to that later.

I woke up early to squeeze into my GTS shirt. It doesn’t fit the way it did, but at least I can put it on now. I’ll take it! A couple of other people from the running group ran the race too.  It’s always nice to see familiar faces and have people to support you.  I was happy to see these ladies waiting for me at the end.  It was nice.

The race was a 5K and a 10K. The 5K started at 7:00 am and the 10K started at 7:45 am. There was a modest amount of people running the 10K race. I really did expect more people, but there was a good number of people out there to enjoy the day. The 10K was two loops of the course.

The race went well. It was warm and I didn’t run with a water bottle. That was a big mistake because I needed water long before I got to a water station. This kind of caught up with me on the second loop. I’m still doing my run walk thing and I’m getting much better…when I’m hydrated properly. I had a goal of trying to finish in 1:15 but I didn’t meet that goal.

I finished the 10K in 1:19:27 which when I got my final results, I was thrilled with the time because it was rough on the second loop. I did get lazy on the second loop and I was forced to stop for traffic on both loops. (That didn’t make me happy.) The weather warmed up pretty quickly and there wasn’t shade on part of the route. The sun is my running kryptonite when combined with warm weather. I finished my 10K in February in 1:26:32 so I’m making progress. That’s the only thing I can ask for.

What did I like about the race:

• The medals were super great.
• I signed up late for the race, but the price wasn’t that bad.
• If I were a pizza eating person, the post race party would have been great.
• It was the Minute Maid Park. I’m a huge baseball fan.

What I didn’t like about the race:

• The packet pickup line was super long. I waited in line for 40 minutes getting my stuff. They ended up having to delay the 5K because people couldn’t pick up their stuff.
• I wish the races started at the same time. Starting at 7am would have made the weather for suitable for running. I’m convinced I could have done better.
• I think they ran out of food at the end. The only thing there for me was pizza and I didn’t want to eat that.
• There was a bit of construction on the roads and clumsy people like me may have taken that to heart a bit more than others.

What I learned:
I am making progress. I need to force myself to run a little bit longer so I can get use to it. Time on my feet will make a big difference. Running with these new hips is a little different. I didn’t hate the race but I wasn’t overjoyed with it either. I’ll decide if I’m going to run the next race in the series in a few weeks.