Myles&Myles

We hope you enjoy the holiday season. Happy holidays from Liz and Steve!

Last Saturday, we ran in the Monster Mash 10K.

Behold, the new Dynamic Duo, Batman and Freddy Krueger(?!)!

Liz as Batman

Steve as Freddy Krueger

It was a good race. Liz finished the 10K in 1:03:30 and I finished in 1:05:32; we’re both happy with those times, as our goal was 1:10:00. As you might have guessed, there was a costume contest. Two people came forward with “scary costumes” (though we had seen more throughout the run), me and a lady dressed as a zombie. Since they had a “Scariest Costume” award for each gender, I won the male award by default (so running for an hour in a sweater was worth it):

Scariest Costume Ribbon

More photos: me (official) | Liz (official) | our photos

We’ve done some other runs lately, more to come in the near future. I think the next few posts will be in reverse chronological order until we’re caught up.

I realized that I never posted these. Here we are finishing the Houston Marathon on January 13, 2008.

Liz finishing:

Steve finishing:

We’ve done some more recent running as well; pictures and write-up to come.

On Saturday 4/11/09, we ran in the Estates of Clear Creek 5K Fun Run/Walk (which was actually 5.23km, according to the map below, provided by the race coordinator). My coworker Linda lives there and she invited us out for the run. Liz and I finished together in 29:28, making it the fastest 5K(ish) run that either of us has done. We came in 6th and 7th, according to the people keeping time, though they weren’t sure which of us was 6th and which of us was 7th. Aww yeah!

After the race, Linda made pancakes (which were excellent; thanks again, Linda!).

Here’s the race route:

Today, I ran on a relay team in the Take a Hike Ike Sprint Triathlon at Deussen Park on Lake Houston. It was a lot of fun, despite being cold and windy.

The team was Linda (a coworker of mine) – 500m swimming, Viroj (our boss) – 10.8 miles cycling, and me – 3 miles running. However, due to today’s weather, they cut the swimming portion (something about whitecaps in the lake), so the race was run 3 miles/bike 10.8 miles/run 3 miles. Linda hadn’t brought her running shoes, so I did both of the running legs of the race. I’m not sure what my times were, but I know that they were decent considering the cold wind blowing in my face and the fact that I couldn’t feel my toes for the first half of the first three mile run. I’d like to someday do a triathlon myself, and so would Liz.

Here’s a video Liz took of me crossing the finish line:

And here’s our team plaque, 2nd place!

And finally, here are the pictures that Liz took before, during, and after the race.

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I’ll add more pictures when I get them from Viroj. I’ll also update with our completion time when I see the official results. [Pictures updated]. We finished in 1:57:55, though I don’t know our splits because (I’m guessing) we didn’t have the chip on our ankles (both Viroj and I carried it in our pockets).

Liz and I have some more races planned; stay tuned.

This morning, we ran in the Klein High School Bearkat Bash for the third year. I finished in 30:21 and Liz finished in 30:27; both of us improved quite a bit over last year’s time of 31:43. And now we have new personal records!

Also, due to the fact that my birthday is on Tuesday, I managed to “win” first place in my age group (I wouldn’t have placed if I were in the 30-34 age group, but I’m still 29 for the next three days). Technically, the overall winner (who finished in 15 minutes and change) is in my age group, too, but they don’t allow duplication of awards. And to be fair, he and I were the only male participants in the 25-29 age group. But it’s still a major award and I won, to paraphrase “The Old Man” from A Christmas Story.

Here I am with my first place finisher award:

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[View with PicLens]

We ran in the 2008 Chevron Houston Marathon on 1/13/2008. Liz finished in 5:31:01 and Steve finished in 5:50:05. It was a lot of fun! There’s more to come regarding how the race went, but for now, here are our results. (The “pictures” links don’t work yet, but they should by this Friday. They work as of Wednesday 1/16/2008.)

Liz’s results: text | graphical | pictures | video
Steve’s results: text | graphical | pictures | video

We went today and picked up our packets (bibs, t-shirts, etc.) at the Marathon Expo. Now it’s time to eat a high carb dinner and go to bed. We have had a pretty relaxing day and a relatively relaxing week, training-wise (which is the goal, according to the training program we’re using), so now we’re ready.

Beginning at 7am, ABC-13 in Houston is going to feature live coverage of the race. They are also going to show a finish line recap on Sunday night at 10:35pm. If you happen to be in Houston or get Houston TV, you could/should watch for us, if you were so inclined. Regardless of where you are, if you would like to watch us cross the finish line, check out the “live finish line cam.”

If you’re interested in the course we’ll be running, here is a map. If anybody would like to track our progress during the marathon, click here and fill out the necessary info. to receive e-mail/text messages as we cross various milestones along the course. Our last name, of course, is “Myles,” hah.

We want to again thank everybody for their support, both those who donated to the ACS on our behalf and those who have given us kind words of encouragement. We’ll be thinking of you as we run tomorrow.

The marathon is next Sunday, and we’re both excited. We did our last long training run today, 9 miles. That’s not that long, considering, but the program we’re doing calls for tapering off on the lengths of the runs in order to ensure that runners have adequate energy and rest before the marathon. This week, we have two three-mile runs and a three-mile walk; that’s probably going to be one of the hardest training days of all, I think, since now we’re used to running much greater distances than that; it will be hard to slow it down to a walk and not go very far.

We have to go pick up our race packets and our bibs on Friday or Saturday this week, then we’ll have fun at the Marathon Expo.

Thanks to everyone who has donated, we’ve brought in more than $1500 for the American Cancer Society. We really appreciate your support of us and of the ACS. (By the way, it’s not too late to donate if you’re so inclined.)

Liz came across this video the other day; it’s pretty inspiring, I think. It’s called “No Excuses,” and it’s about how there are, well, no real excuses for not doing something when you put your mind to it. It focuses on doing something physical, but this really applies in all areas of life. (Incidentally, it’s a Nike commercial. Nike may not be your favorite company, but the message is still good.) Check it out:

One week until the marathon!

We ran 18 miles (for the first time ever) on Sunday! It was a lot of fun and the weather finally cooperated for the long run.

The marathon is 3 weeks from Sunday!