Olympic Marathon Team Trials & Houston Marathon 2012

Friday
I took an early direct American Eagle flight out of LAX headed for Bush International airport in Houston. I enjoyed the flight because it was a small plane so there's less people to board and the overhead compartments are too small for those that pack their entire bedroom into their one carry-on item. No room for roller bags. The only inconvenience is having to take a shuttle bus out to the small terminal.

We landed in Houston around noon local time. I took the terminal connecting rail to Terminal C. Then I waited for the 102 bus headed for downtown. Having flown to Honolulu and Orlando recently, I had to find ways to keep down the travel costs. The bus ride was $1.25 each way.

102 Bush IAH

I got off the bus at Rusk St. and walked down to my hotel on Fannin St., Club Quarters. The check-in process was really easy. You can use an ATM style kiosk to check yourself in. The room was really nice. Not too big, not too small, but just the right size. I dropped my stuff off and headed to the George R. Brown Convention Center to attend the race expo. It was only a few blocks from where I was staying. There were many people there setting up for the Olympic Marathon Team Trials on Saturday. Before heading to the expo, I stopped by the Trials merchandise tent. I'm glad I did because I bought the last t-shirt that was a medium size. The jacket was on the expensive side, but how often am I going to get the chance to attend an Olympic Trial?

Club Quarters

George R. Brown Convention Center

US Olympic Marathon Team Trials official merchandise tent

T-shirt and Jacket

The packet pickup process and expo were both very well organized and managed. The booths for the bib pickup was staggered diagonally so there was no possibility of lines crossing each other. I checked out all of the booths at the expo, but thankfully I didn't see anything to buy. I took some free photo booth pictures.

Expo Entrance

Just follow the shoe prints

Packet Pickup

My Booth

Exiting the expo

After dropping off my race packet and Olympic Trials merchandise in my room. I headed to a nearby Subway to eat a $5 chipotle chicken foot long sandwich. It was okay, but it made me kind of sick.

Saturday
The next morning, I woke up to go watch the Olympic Marathon Team Trials. It was amazing and somewhat breath-taking to watch the elite runners run up close. Their running looked very graceful and effortless. I bumped into a few of my friends as I was walking around to find different vantage points.

The favorites took 1-2-3 in both the men and the women races. I had thought Ryan Hall would place first, but as usual he took the race out hard at the very beginning. He wore out everybody except for Meb Keflezghi. Dathan Ritzenhein came in a very close 4th behind Abdi Abdirahman. I believe he has recently stated that he is giving up on the marathon and will focus on only track running. Shalane Flanagan's running looked really smooth. She easily took first. Desiree Davila is very tiny in person but her running looked really strong. Kara Goucher ran fast but she looked like she was out of gas and just hanging on at the end of the race. Also it was great to see Deena Kastor coming in 6th place running a 2:30:40 after just recently having a baby. That is nuts!

Olympic Trials starting line

Men early leaders

Women early leaders

Josh Cox

1st place - Meb Keflezighi 2:09:08

2nd place - Ryan Hall 2:09:30

3rd place - Abdi Abdirahman 2:09:47

1st place - Shalane Flanagan 2:25:38

Shalane Flanagan making the final turn for the finish line

2nd place - Desiree Davila 2:25:55

3rd place - Kara Goucher 2:26:06

Kara headed for the finish line

After watching the Trials, I went back to my room to relax and watch some TV. I went back out to pick up some lunch at the Phoenicia Specialty Foods. This place was pretty nice. Lots of good food here. There was a salad bar, olive bar, and lots and lots of prepared food. I got a pastrami on rye bread.

Phoenicia - Pastrami on rye bread

I didn't feel like walking back out to find another place to eat for dinner, so I ate at the Table 7 Bistro in the hotel. I had the Angus burger on wheat bread with steak fries. It was pretty good. It kind of reminded me of The Counter. But just like The Counter, it was over-priced at $12. Burgers should never cost that much!

Table 7 Bistro - Angus burger on wheat bread

Sunday
I got ready around 5am and headed over to the staging area at the George R. Brown Convention Center. I like races where you can stay out of the cold while you wait for the start of the race. Gear check was inside as well as both Catholic and Protestant church services. With all of the races I've been running, I haven't gone to church in a while so I hung out at the Protestant service. As the race got nearer, I checked my bag and walked over to the starting corrals. The marathon started at 7am. If you wanted to start in corral A, you had to be inside by 6:40am.

The race started right on time. My right ankle and calf still doesn't allow me to push very hard. I just wanted to finish this race before their six hour cutoff. The first mile felt comfortable so I push the pace a little bit on mile 2. I ran a little bit with Deo before he took off.

Ran into Deo MM#22 early in the race

I stuck to my usual strategy of run 30 minutes and take a 1 minute walk break. Everything seemed to be going fine until I reached mile 8. There became a growing sharp pain in my right ankle. The pain was alternating between the lateral side of the ankle and the arch due to a stretch of cambered downhill road. Mile 9 was the turn around for the half marathon. The pain was bad enough that I wanted to drop out and not even finish the half. But first I thought I would try walking for a few minutes to see if the pain would subside. Fortunately the pain subside and I adopted a new strategy... whenever I reached a mile marker, I would walk for 2 minutes then run for 5 minutes, walk for another 2 minutes, then run the rest to the next mile marker. I figured if I keep the miles around 15 minutes, I would have banked enough time in the early miles to finish under 6 hours. After reaching mile 20, I tried to pick up the pace a little bit. The final turn for the finish line was a sight for sore eyes, a sore ankle, and a sore calf. It was also very cool since I saw the pros do it the day before.
1: 9:29
2: 9:05
3: 9:11
4: 9:51
5: 9:08
6: 9:18
7: 10:23
8: 9:19
9: 11:35
10: 13:01
11: 13:55
12: 14:11
13: 14:09
14: 14:32
15: 14:38
16: 14:23
17: 15:20
18: 15:10
19: 15:25
20: 15:34
21: 12:59
22: 13:53
23: 13:15
24: 14:32
25: 14:06
26: 13:34
26.2: 1:50
Finish: 5:31:47

We were well taken care of after crossing the finish line. I got my medal and headed over to the gear check area to pick up my bag. Then I got my Under Armour finisher shirt and finisher's mug. I then headed over to the food area. They had bananas, scrambled eggs, sausages, yogurt, and soda. I got what I could hold and found an empty table to sit down. I then headed over to the Nissan booth to see if Josh Cox and Ryan Hall was still there. But they had been long gone. I talked to the rep girl a while about the Leaf. I then headed to the finish line area to watch the last of the marathon finishers. Then I headed back to my hotel to get cleaned up. Everything about this race was top-notch. More races would do well to emulate their level of detail in their race organization from expo to finish.

You get a nice finisher shirt, mug, and medal!

I watched the end of the Ravens v. Texans game. Great game. Then I went out to the Flying Saucer, which was just around the corner, to eat dinner and watch the Packers v. Giants. I ordered the German plate and it was really good. I almost got another plate. But instead I got a bunch of beers to tie me over. The schwarzbier was okay, nothing to write home about. The Karbach Rodeo Clown IPA was good. The waitress tells me that the Karbach Brewery is a fairly new brewery in Houston. The Karbach Weisse Versa Wheat Ale was their featured beer, but I didn't like it that much. I asked the waitress for her favorite beer and she recommended the Boulevard Tank 7. Definitely the best out of the four.

Flying Saucer - Köstritzer Schwarzbier

Flying Saucer - German plate

Flying Saucer - Karbach Rodeo Clown IPA

Flying Saucer - Karbach Weisse Versa Wheat Ale

Flying Saucer - Boulevard Tank 7

Monday
I thought about going out to watch one of the two Martin Luther King Jr. parades, but my right leg was a bit sore. So I just relaxed in my room until it was time to check out. I walked over to a Treebeards at The Shops at the Houston Center to eat lunch. I had the meatloaf and for the sides, I had red beans and rice and a small green salad. Good stuff. I kind of wish I had better food places like this at home or near where I work. I came here only because of the name... a Lord of the Rings thing. :)

I then hung out upstairs, sitting on a bench reading a book on my Kindle before I realized that I had forgotten one of my chargers. I walked back to the hotel. They had housekeeping bring it down for me. Since I was there, I thought I'd charge up my Kindle and use their free Wi-Fi.

Treebeards - meat loaf, salad, red bean and rice

I then walked over to the bus stop to catch the bus to the airport. There was a girl at the bus stop that looked really familiar, but I couldn't for the life of me remember her name. I could've been wrong, so I figured I'd just leave her alone and not risk being a creeper. :) Later when I got home... when I finally remembered her name and messaged her on FB, I came to find out that it was her! Such a small world.

At the airport, I had lots of time to kill, which was a good thing. The family in front of me for the TSA screening obviously does not travel much. When I finally got through, I stopped by a Chili's Too to eat dinner. I had an old timer with cheese and a nice big Shocktop. Good thing I got the beer because I had THE WORST person sitting next to me on the plane. She was extremely loud and didn't speak a word of English and keep climbing over me to get off the plane to check on her luggage. Just like my flight into Houston, the plane was small so no big carry-on bags would fit in the overhead compartments. The flight attendant didn't know what to do with her. Also she was probably the only person in the world that did not know how to fasten her seat belt. The flight attendant had to lean over me to help her out. I couldn't wait to get the heck off the plane when we finally landed. Some people should really take the train or drive. :)

Chili's Too - Shocktop 25oz

Chili's Too - Old Timer with cheese