This Is The Sound....!

I realize today isn't Tuesday, but you're going to get a tune anyways.  It's

The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel

Note the photo below.  This is not the sound of silence.  It's the sound (and site) of water damage.  Boo!  The blowing hum of these basement-savers produce enough white noise to silence the whole neighborhood  I cannot wait to turn them off!

Women's Olympic Trial Marathon

Holy smokes I'm busy!  Wow.  Like, I'm so busy that I think I'm busier than everyone else.  Like, I'm the only one with a job – which has a busy-pull-yer-hair-out season of RIGHT NOW, and kids, and a birthday party to plan – complete with eight-year-old religious rite, and an anniversary – twelve years young, and a Spouse who's been called to work – for an absurdly undeterminable amount of time – to repair some international espionage-esque hacking,  I AM THE BUSIEST PERSON ON THE PLANET.  I might even be busier than Martha Stewart.  Or at least busier that you.

Right here I'm totally making fun of how we women (yes, even me) have I'm-busier-than-anybody-else contests.  It's that one thing, where we list (and list and list), all of the worth while crap we gotta do.  Which, let's just face it, had we forgone the academy-award-wining display of said list, half of it would be complete. These contests aren't official, or even acknowledged verbally, but they're happening.  And for the record, "worth while crap" is a very relative term, in that what's worth while crap to you ain't worth while crap to me.  Mostly because what I consider worth while is crap, so there you go.

I am soooooo busy that it's a good thing I'm not training for the Olympics or something.  Few...  That was close!  But you know who is training for the Olympics?  Shalane Flanagan, and Desiree Davila, and Kara Goucher!  Care for a recap of how that came to be?  Sorry, not today for I'm just too busy.  Kidding!



Rabid and Yahoos at the finish line, the day before race.

On January 14, 2012, at exactly 8:15am, the Women's Olympic Trial Marathon was kicked into gear by  Frank Shorter.  I think.  Don't quote me on that.  Maybe it was Joan Benoit Samuelson. If you know who did shoot that gun, let me know.

This Olympic Trial Marathon for women is my second live viewing.  I saw the women's race in Boston's 2008 trials.  This was so much fun.  So fun was this race, that it was worth a repeat.  Hence the Houston Trip.

As stated earlier, we had just watched the first lap of the Men's Olympic Trial marathon and were patiently waiting for the women.  (We were strategically situation at miles 1.25ish, 9.25ish, 18.25ish, and 25.25ish.) When lo and 17 minutes and 45 seconds behold... the Women!  Running slower than normal.  We heard later that their first mile was in the 6:30 range.



Here's the lead pack.  Davila in front.  To me it looked like everyone in that pack had chosen Davila as the girl to beat, and therefore decided to stick behind her.  Davila, on the other hand, looked as if she was waiting for someone to pick up the pace and declare the game "on."




Then there's Goucher.  Sigh.  That girl is so hot.  She ran right by me.



More Goucher.  I refrained from posting all of my Goucher photos so that Spouse wouldn't get worried or jealous.




Then the masses passed.




Then we waited.  There's Spouse.  Sigh.  That boy is hot.  I didn't post all of my Spouse photos so that Goucher wouldn't get worried or jealous.




At lap two, the field had split considerably.  Up front were (left to right), Davila, Katie McGregor, Shalane, ???, Janet, Hastings, Deena, and Goucher.




Round three was exciting.  Amy Hastings was in the lead!  And looking awesome.




Followed by a Flanagan, Goucher, Davila scrambling.




Further back, Janet and Deena looked like they were sticking together.




The third to fourth lap was the most fun.  The field had spread and there was lots to watch.  Just when the last female ran by, Shalane Flanagan turned the corner and in the lead!  She was hauling ass.




Davila was close behind Flanagan.  But not close enough to catch, it seemed.  We were pretty sure that Shalane Flanagan had won the race at this time.




Just behind Desiree Davila, was that babe Goucher.




... then that other babe Amy Hastings.  She has my favorite running style of the bunch.  Very tight, efficient and strong looking.




Janet was fifth.  She finished the race with an eight-minute personal best.  Wow.




Deena came in sixth with a 2:30:40.  Deena had a baby ten months ago, by the way.

Men's Olympic Trial Marathon

On January 14, 2012, and for the first time ever, the Men's and Women's Olympic Trial Marathon was held on the same course, at the same.  Houston, Texas was the place.  The men's race started at 8:00 and the ladies started at 8:15.  Today, I plan to give a brief recap of the men's race.

The marathon course was a 2-mile loop followed by three 8-mile loops.  Therefore, if one picked their spot right, one could see the runners zip by four times.  HOLY FREAK!  I WAS THAT ONE! I PICKED OUR SPOT JUST RIGHT. I SAW THEM ALL FOUR TIMES!

Here's the course map. We were stationed at the 15k mark, which was also 1.25ish, 9.25ish, 18/25 ish, and 25.25ish:

I suppose it all began when I picked the hotel.  I picked a hotel downtown because that was where the action is.  In my traveling days, I've learned that if you're going to travel thousands of miles, for cryin' out loud, stay in a strategic location; a location close to whatever action you plan to partake.

As luck would have it, I picked a hotel right along the marathon course.  It was a blind selection that turned into a total treat.  So here we are in our spot, bright 'n early.  Waiting...

... and eating...



...and reading...



At long last, we looked, and behold! The truck with the clock!


(Notice the time for 1.25ish miles.)

Then who should appear in the lead? Ryan Hall!



Then Abdi Abdirahman, Dathan Ritzenhein, Meb, and Mo Trafeh.



The masses followed.



We waited patiently for the women to come around.  After the women came by the first time (women's race will be documented at a later time, hopefully tomorrow), we waited in ernest for the men to make their second loop.  Finally (felt like forever, but not really) the boys made their way around to the 15k mark. The lonely lead was a pack of five.


(Ritz, Abdi, Meb, Hall, and Mo)

After the men made their second loop, I spotted Ryan Hall's little brother. I have no proof that this was Ryan Hall's little brother. However, the gent next to him was sporting an official Olympic Trial something-er-other, and the kid was dressed head-to-toe Asics.  Also, notice the smile.  It's totally his little brother.



With what seemed like a mere blink, round three at approximately 18.25ish miles, was before us.  With the lady race happening in between, there was plenty to watch.  Trafeh had fallen back, but the four up front were running strong.


(Meb, Hall, Ritz, Abdi)

Shortly thereafter, Utah's very own Paul Petersen made his way through the pack.  He looked great.  I hollered his name and he looked at me with a confused Who the...?  I'm Rabid, 'member me?



By the time the boys had made their fourth lap, approaching us at 25.25 miles, they had caught up to the girls.  MEB WAS IN THE LEAD!  Oh my stars!  Somehow, Meb had zipped past us without me seeing him (imagine that) and I couldn't get a photo of him before he passed.  Here's his backside.  Meb is sponsored by Sketchers now.  I tried on some of those Sketchers while in Houston.  Figured they'd help me run 5-minute miles for a couple of hours straight.



Hall was next. He was far enough back that we were sure that Meb would win.



Next was Abdi...

... then Ritz not too far behind. Ritz was working so hard! I hollered at Ritz to Go! Go! Go! so very loud, that I scratched my larynx. Or some other body part nestled in there.

Guess who fought his way into fifth place?  None other than Brett Gotcher! I wanted Gotcher on the team. Heck, I wanted them all on the team. Can't they all be on the team?  They are all so very awesome!

Houston Table of Contents

Today is Wednesday, the 18th of January, and our vacation is officially over.  Frownie face.  In an effort to solidify last week's events into a lasting impressions memory bank, I shall recount each and every last detail.

Not today though.  Today, I build the Table of Contents, which is totally backwards, but oh well.  And it won't be a true table, in that it will be in paragraph form instead of a list, but oh well again.  I need to take inventory of what happened real quick-like so that the memory bank has each and every last one of those lasting impressions.

On Thursday, January 12...
... at approximately 9:00am, we loaded ourselves onto an airplane.  I read some of Great Expectations, and the Top 100 Guitar-Gurus-Like-Evah issue of Rolling Stone.  I handed another issue of Rolling Stone to Yahoo #2.  (I received a subscription for Christmas and they sent me three at once to catch up or something.) Yahoo #2 subsequently opened the mag to a page housing a class-act photo of Courtney Love flashing her tatas.  That would be super-cynical-great-parenting-moment number one million.  The photo was blurred, but it did show skin.  And it did show Courtney Love.  And it did present some horror to the poor boy.  Which makes me super sad that his first non-related exposure to tatas were Courtney Love's.

Spouse read a four-hundred-eighty-seven-charactered Robert Jordan* book.  I think.  Yahoo #1 is into the Animorphs series lately.  He finishes one about every other day.

*I've since learned that it's a George R.R. Martin book, not Robert Jordan, but being incorrect about his book selection is part of history now and I must leave it as is.

The plane-ride was without incident, and the capturing of luggage, rental car, and directions went equally without incident.  We checked into a hotel downtown – The Hyatt on Louisiana between Polk and Clay, if you must know – and began the mad scramble for food.  Everyone had become hangry.  We had a chicken 'n basil 'n tomato 'n garlic 'n olive oil pizza – which Yahoo #2 hated and cried because of our blatant injustice (directly to him), then we fought a un-Texan-like head-wind on our way to the Houston Aquarium.  It was cold!  Later, we learned that the Aquarium had great food.  You could go around to the many tanks, pick your fish, and they'd stick it 'n fry it before your eyes.  Just kidding.  They don't do that, but we heard the food is great.

We walked back to the hotel through the theatre district and crashed while watching TV.


On Friday, January 13...
... Spouse and I refinanced the house in the lobby of the Hotel.  Weird.  It was truly paranormal.  Spouse had started the house-refi-ball rolling a while back ('cause like we wanted to cash in on the low-interest rate thing that's sweeping the nation.)  Due to that term "lock in," we had to sign the paperwork and whatnot before the end of the week.  They sent a Houston notary to watch us sign.  Still weird.

After the signing, we explored the Houston Tunnels without getting lost.  Kind of.  We definitely did some back-tracking.  Not all was lost over this back-tracking, however, because Yahoo #2 mastered escalator entry and exit (a true feat... Remember when the escalator was as scary as the high dive?)

We arrived at the convention center, coincidentally the start and finish of the Olympic Trials and Houston Marathon, picked up my bib – labeled "Rabidrunner," which I didn't remember signing up for – wandered the expo and took the tunnels back to our hotel.

We spent the afternoon with Spouse's brother and kids in a community called The Woodlands. We played a rousingly frustrating game of frisbee golf, then I ran six miles while Spouse's brother made us dinner.  The miles were heavenly and sea-level, and the food was spectacular.  Turns out that Spouse's brother loves to cook.  He also loves the Food Network.  So much did he love this Food Network, that his former TV had the Food Network logo burned into the bottom right.

On Saturday, January 14...
... I woke up early.  Really early.  I wanted to make sure we had a spot front and very center, so as to spectate and photagraph the Olympic Trial marathon rightly.  I mean, that Olympic Trial marathon was 60% of the reason for scheduling this trip.  That 60% figure is exact, by the way.  Turns out, I didn't need to get up early, because on a course of roughly 8-10 miles (they did one two mile loop, then three 8ish mile loops,) there's plenty of spectator room.  This part of the trip will get two of its very own posts soon.  One for the women's race, another for the men.  Stayed tuned.

After the race, we went back to our room.  The course ran right past alternate sides of our hotel, so we didn't have far to go.  I napped for about an hour, 'cause, like, I had to run the next day.  Then we watched the Olympic Trial rebroadcast on the tube.  We are weird like that.  I'd watch it again if I had access.  There are definite differences between tube-watching a marathon, and actually seeing the competition unfold.  More to come on that.

That evening, we decided to drive by the LDS temple in Spring and have dinner there.  Because of construction, we were stuck in traffic for hours, arrived late, and, once again, were very hangry.  To avoid a possible "lack of food situation" for young children, and pre-marathoners, we just grabbed some Chinese.  It was spicy Chinese and prolly not a great choice.  But they had brown rice.  My body does well on brown rice.

On Sunday, January 15...
... I ran the Houston marathon in 3:17:09.  A serious accomplishment for the circumstances, AND, I had the time of my life.   The end left me extremely pleased and very sick to my stomach.  After pickles and juice – the recovery food of gut-sick-champions – we went to the Children's Museum of Houston.  We played there for about four hours, had some Tex-Mex, left my purse in the restaurant (duh!) went back for it in a panic, and it was still there.  Praise Karma.

We (really, I) have become hooked on Sprinkles cupcakes.  This is all thanks to Jessica, who brought us some from LA the last time she was in town. Turns out, there was one in the greater Houston metropolis, and we spent an hour finding it.  Was it worth it?  Not sure, 'cause the Yahoos ate half of both my peanut butter cupcakes.  Of all the nerve.   I just ran 26.2 miles (26.5 according to my watch) I can have TWO cupcakes, all to myself.  Right?  Please show some support for me right now on this delicate issue.

On Monday, January 16...
... we visited the San Jacinto battleground – which was instrumental in liberating Texas from the tyranny of General Santa Anna of Mexico – and we played battleship for a couple hours on the U.S.S. Texas.  After we could no longer take the oil-fish smell on that boat, we asked the Yahoos, "Would you rather go to the Space Station or play with the cousins?"  They picked "Cousins."  Of course.  Cousins rule.  So we went back to The Woodlands to play in the park and chat and eat Pho and Sushi.  Spouse's brother and family were terrific hosts.

On Tuesday, January 17...
... it was our last day.  I wanted to photograph a fountain and take Spouse to this ritzy area of town that the marathon went through.  This was the Galleria area of town, where the high-end housing and shopping resides.  We partook in a Kolache brunch, wandered through Neiman Marcus and others 'til we couldn't stand it any longer (seriously... who pays $500 for a dang blouse?  Who?  Think of the down coat you can buy for 500 bones.  Or skis?  Or bike parts?  Or... ?)  This mall-jaunt led us to believe that Houston is bringing in GOBS of cash.  Gobs.

After leaving the mall, Spouse drove by the Lululemon joint, we went in, and I bought nothing.  What the...? Am I okay?  I'm okay.  I'm more than okay.  I just had five blissful days of play with my family.  Nothing can top that.  Not even Lululemon.

Storage Olympic Hopefuls

I have lots to say about today's Olympic Trial Marathon, for it was the most fun I've had in years.   I don't have the time to tell ya'll about this race just now, for I'm resting and relaxing with the family.

Tomorrow, I run.  Meb says you should always have a strategy.  Ryan Hall said that his trials' strategy was to have no strategy.  Therefore, I'm going to have a strategy and no strategy – a runner's metaphorical cake 'n eat it too.  I will run 7:40s for three miles.  If I "feel it," then I shall "pump up the kicks" and let the Rabid roar.  If I don't feel it, I shall chill and meet some friends.

With that, I leave you with my favorite photos of the day (kind of... I got some great ones of the leaders – to show you later – oh, and Amy Hastings is my new favorite!)

The Storage Hopefuls: Either I'm way good at photoshop, or there's two.  Photos taken at mile 25ish.  They dress the same, they step the same, they swing the same.  Perhaps their mama made them wear different colored laces to tell them apart?  Perhaps.

Olympic Hopeful: Amy Hastings

This is Amy Hastings.  She's fast.  She landed a marathon debut of 2:27:03 at the Los Angeles marathon. She trains with Deena Kastor in Mammoth Lakes, California.  Amy is from Kansas and ran for ASU.

Olympic Hopeful: Brett Gotcher

There's this California punk* named Brett Gotcher.  He says his name like Go-tcher (not Gaw) because he Gos.  Not really.  I'll bet he pronounces his name Go-tcher because that's how his ancestry came upon the pronunciation.  But I didn't come here to talk about the vowel modulation of a California punk's last name, I came here to talk about a California punk and how he runs.

*Punk is an endearing term in my vocabulary, by the way.

Brett Gotcher, a graduate of Stanford University, is 27 and trains in the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona.  While spending time with a few hip 'n edgy NAU graduates in Arizona last summer, we learned that locals do not call it Flagstaff.  They refer to it as just Flag.  As in We're going to Flag for the weekend, or, NAU is in Flag.

Flag is at 7000 feet, so I see why Brett would choose Flag as his high altitude training station.  He is part of Greg McMillan's elite post collegiate program, and holds the fourth fastest marathon qualifying time – a smoking 2:10:36.  This Brett Gotcher is most definitely a contender.

Incidentally, Greg McMillan holds a Spring and Fall running/training camp for old people (aka adults.)  I want to go.  Anyone wanna go to Flag and run with me?  I'm being serious. (For reals.  Now, had I said "seriously" instead of "I'm being serious," then you could rest assured that I'm not all that invested, as "seriously" has joined the ranks of "what's up with that?" and "it's all good" and other such euphemisms made popular in this, the 21st century, which, while they mean something, they've become diluted by illustrious use.)

This professional distance running thing is so much work.  Did you know that?  As I've read various bios, and what each has been up to, I've noticed that all of them fight the daily battle of health.  Brett Gotcher has had hip issues.  Dathan Ritzenhein, an achilles issue requiring multiple surgeries.  And Meb Keflezighi missed many weeks of training because of a foot infection.  Keeping each athlete's machine in top working order is no small feat.  And gearing them up for a specific day is a divine work of art.  To compete, their bodies must be spot on.  To do well, their willpower brain-stuff must be dialed in as well.

My hat is off to all of them.