HCHD Med 5k 2012 Race Report

This morning I PR'ed in the 10th annual Harris County Hospital District Med 5k with a time of 20:31. After December's underperformance in Arizona, I was eager to get back into 5k shape. As with the December race, I was shooting to beat my previous PR of 20:45 with a 4:13/km base pace.

My race plan looked very similar to December's:

First 500m: 1:53 (a 3:47 pace out of the gate, gradually slowing to base pace)

Four kms at 4:13 each (The course is pretty flat.)

400m: 1:36 (picking it up to 4:00/km pace)

100m: 17s (final sprint at 2:57/km pace)

This would yield a 20:39 PR time.

It was gorgeous running weather this morning: clear and sunny - a little chilly (4C / 38F), but I knew that would be an asset as soon as we started running. There was a lot of wind but, since much of the course is out-and-back, it would help/hinder runners the same. Katie and I arrived with plenty of time this year to go to the bathroom and warm up with no stress. At 8:30 we were off!

I came out strong in the first 500m, finishing in 1:49 with an average heart rate of 158. I was 4 seconds ahead of my race plan. The next km went very smoothly and I finished in 4:08 with an average HR of 172. I was 9 seconds ahead of my race plan. After a major left turn, the next km slowed a bit to 4:16 but still with an average HR of 172. At the halfway point I was 6 seconds ahead of my race plan but I had slowed and it seemed clear that I wasn't going to pull 4:13s moving forward. So much for a PR!

The next km was really bad, 4:22 and an average heart rate of 174. I was now 3 seconds behind my race plan - only 2 seconds ahead of my PR. At this point the race course U-turned ... and so did my performance! The next km breezed by in 4:09 at an average HR of 177 - I was back in business, 1 second ahead of race plan.

What accounted for this change in performance? I have a few hypotheses: 1. I just dug in deep and found extra juice - but I don't think this is what happened. 2. There was a slight elevation increase over the previous two kms and a slight decrease over this km - not enough to account for this difference, though! 3. The previous 2 kms were going one direction and this km was going the opposite direction - so perhaps this was the effect of the wind?

Regardless, I was feeling good and had slowly passed several runners and caught up to several more. I turned it up a notch for the next 400m, completing them in 1:30 at an average HR of 182 and passing all the runners in my cluster. At this point I was 7 seconds ahead of race plan but didn't have nearly enough blood going to my brain to realize that! I kicked it hard to complete the final 100m in 17s at an average HR of 198,  my HR peaking at 207, both of which are all-time highs for me.

My final chip time was 20:30.7, a PR by 14 seconds and 8 seconds ahead of my race plan. This was the #28 finish overall (98th percentile), #26 among men (95th percentile), and #3 within my M 30-34 age group (96th percentile).

My actual base pace averaged out to closer to 4:14; the strong start and finish were the legs that gained me seconds over my race plan. If I can lower that base pace to ~4:06, I'll have a legitimate shot at breaking 20 minutes, which is my goal for this year! My next two races are 10ks, though, so my training focus will turn to that distance over the coming weeks.

I'm pleased with the performance - 24 seconds faster than my time on the same course last year! Katie did really well too, beating her goal time by more than a minute. To celebrate we crushed pancakes and omelets at Buffalo Grill and watched Star Wars Episode I in 3D!

A Swiss Day in Houston

Today was a very Swiss kind of day! OK, OK, let me explain, because Houston, Texas is a pretty far cry from "Swiss!" What I mean is that today really felt a lot like my Swiss/IMD experience even though it was a Saturday in Houston.

To start, the weather was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky and the high temperature was mid 60s F (high teens C). There was a breeze that made it a little chilly when staying still or in the shade. Taking Max for a walk in the sun, though, was paradise on earth. And the breeze was very, very welcome during my run at Memorial Park this morning. Despite the very, very different scenery, I almost felt like I was running along Lac Leman in Lausanne. In the evening we had a long, lingering twilight with a dark blue sky, prominent stars, and crescent moon. There you have it: Houston in January is Lausanne in June!

Unfortunately my experience today did not include excellent food outdoors with great friends as it surely would have in Switzerland. After my run and Max's long walk, I spent most of the day inside PowerPointing in front of my laptop. Even this felt very Swiss, though, because it's exactly how I spent many a Saturday at IMD!

Ah, Suisse, vous me manquez! It will take more than ideal weather to recreate the Swiss experience truly, though. After all, the best thing about Switzerland is all my wonderful friends there. Hopefully there will be a chance to visit soon but, in the meantime, back to work!

1982 - What a vintage!

In honor of Katie's 30th birthday, we hosted a small dinner last night featuring wines from her vintage, 1982. It was a fun chance to reminisce about what was happening in our lives and in the world 30 years ago. Top movie: Chariots of Fire. Top song: Eye of the Tiger. Top world event: Katie's birth!

While the best aspect of the evening by far was the company, the food and wine were definitely a close second. Following is brief "menu" of what we had, including links to my reviews of the wines:

Salad of mixed greens, with meyer lemon dressing
Dom Perignon Champagne 1995

Mushroom bourguignon, spicy cauliflower casserole, rosemary roasted potatoes
Chateau Beychevelle Saint-Julien 1982
Chateau Gruaud-Larose Saint-Julien 1982

Assortment of cheeses
Chateau Leoville-Barton Saint-Julien 1982
Chateau Leoville Las Cases Saint-Julien 1982

Pumpkin souffle
Chateau Rieussec Sauternes 1988
Cheatu Climens Barsac 1998

Note that, for the the red wines, we did a south-to-north tour of Saint-Julien, finishing with Leoville Las-Cases, which is separated from the vaunted Chateau Latour of Pauillac by only a stream.

It was a wonderful night. Many thanks go out to Katie's sister, Kelly, who ensured that the meal came together, and to her boyfriend, Mike, who ensured that he and I stayed out of the way. :-) Most of all, thanks to Katie for being born. As someone said last night, she should turn 30 more often!!!

2012

2012. The Year of the Dragon. The first year I've ever begun married. Teaching my first course. The Summer Olympics. Rice's Centennial. This is going to be a BIG year!

Smart Office Energy Solutions is starting off on a good note. We closed out last year with awards, patents, and closure of our investment round. This year we must, must, MUST reach full commercial launch, which we're targeting in the third quarter. That will be a profound change from the "orchestrating" mode we're in right now to full-on "operating," to which I really look forward.

The biggest change for me professionally, though, is teaching for the first time. Rice has asked me and another alum to teach entrepreneurship to the undergrads this semester. I'll address this more in a separate post but suffice to say I'm really excited. We have lofty, ambitious goals for the course but, with capable, motivated students, anything is possible!

Also regarding Rice, Katie and I have been tapped to chair Homecoming this year. Normally we would be honored by this consideration, but we are especially tickled since this is Rice's big Centennial year! We'll work hard to ensure that this is the biggest, best Homecoming ever!

It's not all Rice, though, as I'm working hard this year to foster community among IMD's nearly 500 alumni in Houston. Instead of the traditional "big event" model, I'm hoping to generate momentum from the ground up with more frequent, lower overhead events. Additionally, I'm coordinating with the other North American IMD alumni club presidents to organize an all-continent reunion this August in Boston.

On the health front, I didn't hit my goals last year so I'm doubling down in 2012. Already I've made some great progress (separate post to follow), which I intend to keep up. This has required much more focused attention nutritionally, which has been a big change.

My top goal for 2012? Keep my awesome wife happy! Her birthday is coming up and we're celebrating with what should be an amazing wine dinner tonight - a great start to her next year!

2012: full of excitement and possibility . . . Enter the Dragon!

2011 Wrap-Up

Another year has come and gone and this was a particularly momentous one! This year I got married, advanced my startup, and accepted a faculty position at Rice University - wow! Let's take a look at the goals I set at the beginning of the year and see how I did:

Relationships
Due to my wedding in May, this was the most significant area of 2011 accomplishment. Even outside of the wedding, Katie and I had the chance to spend a great deal of time with family this year and we really paid a lot of attention to our local friendships. We traveled less this year, though, so there was less development of our global relationships - something I'll hope to rectify in 2012!

Health
I will remember 2011 as the year I got old and my body broke down! I spent much of the year harassed by injuries to my foot, shoulder, hip flexor, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. Let's face it: I'm not getting any younger. I need to work out smarter-not-harder as much as possible and focus more on recovery. Last year I began an intentional regimen of post-workout recovery nutrition and this year I am adding compression to the mix as well.

I began 2011 at 156 lbs lean and 39 lbs fat. I finished at 156 lbs lean and 40 lbs fat - not catastrophic, but not the direction I was hoping to head! I ended the year with an average daily caloric deficit of 84 calories yet I still put on a small amount of fat. This year I am increasing the focus I put on nutrition and devoting considerable attention to nutrient timing - what I eat when - as opposed to just end-of-day calorie totals.

My average workout intensity in 2011 was a 6/10, which needs to increase in 2012. My flexibility increased significantly this year, largely due to the re-addition of yoga back into my weekly routine. This trend needs to continue in 2012.

I intended to enter more volleyball tournaments this year but only managed to enter one. Perhaps it's part of getting older but I'm becoming less and less enthusiastic about spending my entire day at a tournament - much of which is just sitting around - versus a shorter, but much more focused, outing with just a few friends. Fun and exercise are higher goals now than competition.

My running goals were met and exceeded early on this this year as I PR'ed in the 5k (20:45) and 10k (44:41) with multiple top 5% finishes.

Professional
It was an incredible year for Smart Office Energy Solutions, which closed another round of funding, won some major awards and recognition, and significantly advanced its product and market development.

Once again I devoted a great deal of time this year to engaging my mentors and to mentoring others. My mentees rated my contributions as very valuable and I was invited to join the boards of advisers for a few startups.

In 2011 I successfully pursued ongoing learning through reading articles and books and learning languages (German and Arabic). At this point these learning activities have been so institutionalized into my routine that I don't believe they need to be actual goals of mine next year.

My Klout increased from 50 to 55 last year, a trend I will work to continue. I updated one of my major presentations to IMD and published a new one for the Academy of Management annual meeting. This level of activity should increase significantly with the entrepreneurship course I'm teaching this year!

Service
I helped GIVEWATTS achieve some major milestones this year, including approval as a 501(c)3 tax-deductible non-profit.

Whew, there you have it, lots accomplished last year and - of course - even more to tackle in the year ahead! I am so thankful for all the support of my family, friends, and colleagues in helping me reach these goals. I couldn't do it without my extended team!

2011 Fiesta Bowl 5k Race Report

Sunday I raced in my last 5k of the year, the Fiesta Bowl 5k in Scottsdale, Arizona. I had been nursing a hip flexor injury for ~6 weeks so I hadn't been running much and was a bit out of shape - but of course that wouldn't stop me from going all out in this race! My muscles were also a little sore from mountain trail running and yoga (neither of which I had done in a long, long time) but, again, that was hardly an excuse not to shoot for a PR!

Sunday morning was cold and wet with temperatures around 38F. While it felt cold before the race, I knew I would be dying of stifling heat minutes into the run if I bundled up. Fortunately Katie's father was there cheering us on and was able to hold onto warmup clothes that we took off shortly before start time. Katie and her sister, Kelly, were both running the race too and both of our moms walked it. Kelly's boyfriend, Mike, a much more accomplished endurance athlete than I, ran the race with me even though he could have zoomed ahead - it's always fun to have a buddy!

For this race I experimented with a new race plan. Instead of thinking of the race in terms of five kms, but running the first one faster (due to fast start) and the last one faster (due to fast finish), I divided the race into an initial fast half km, four hopefully consistent base pace kms, and then a fast half km (fast 400m followed by really fast 100m sprint to the finish).

With a previous PR of 20:45, I put together a race plan that would have me coming in at 20:40, using 4:13/km as my base pace.

First 500m: 1:53 (a 3:47 pace out of the gate, gradually slowing to base pace)
Four kms at 4:13 each (The course was pretty flat.)
400m: 1:36 (picking it up to 4:00/km pace)
100m: 20s (kicking it at 3:22/km pace)

In my PR 5k I had been shooting for a base pace of 4:17 but I actually spent most of the race at or below 4:13 until I faded a bit toward the end. Therefore my selection of 4:13 as my base pace was in hopes that I could keep that pace up now. The first and last 500m targets were based on my consistently hitting those numbers in previous races.

Mike and I secured a spot near the front of the pack and - all of a sudden - we were off! We had a nice wide street on which to spread out so I was able run comfortably without hurdling laggards. I hit 500m in 1:54 with an average heart rate of 159 BPM. One second off of pace was fine and my heart rate was in a good place.

We completed the next km in 4:12, right back in line with where I wanted to be. My heart rate averaged 174, which was also just about right. In the second km it was clear that I wasn't going to be able to sustain that pace as we finished in 4:18. My average heart rate had only increased to 175, though.

In the third km we hit some obstacles: a sharp turn, some uphill trail, and lots of muddy puddles to be carefully avoided in my Vibrams. By themselves they didn't seem like much but together they definitely slowed me down. I finished the third km in 4:29 (Yikes!) with an average heart rate of 176. I was 22 seconds off of pace and I could seriously feel the soreness in my quads. Mike looked over and asked, "How are we doing on pace?" My response: "Bad." You know I'm struggling when I use poor grammar!

The fourth km was more of the same: finished in 4:32 with an average heart rate of 176. At least now it was time to pick it up a bit - and pick it up we did! We finished the next 400m in 1:40 (a 4:10/km pace) and average heart rate of 179. As we rounded the last turn, it was a straight away to the finish line. Mike said, "Let's go" and we kicked it hard. There were two runners ahead of us and I just wasn't sure if we were going to be able to catch up to them. Having Mike there was extra motivational, though - we passed one runner and then, just before the finish line, the other one. The final 100m took 16s (2:40/km pace!) with average heart rate of 189 and a max heart rate of 196 (~my max possible heart rate)!

The final race time was 21:21, 41 seconds slower than my target. I was the 45th runner to finish (96th percentile), the 34th male (87th percentile), and 5th male age 30-34 (80th percentile). It was my worst race all year in terms of both time and finish placement. Race conditions were pretty good including cool weather and a running buddy for extra motivation - so what happened?

Well, my heart rate was generally lower than in previous races despite my running more slowly. A few possibilities:

1. This may just have been due to the cold (The warmer it is, the higher my heart rate at the same pace.)
2. My muscle soreness was preventing me from turning over my legs quickly enough to warrant a higher heart rate
3. After several weeks of not running much, my body simply wasn't attuned to increasing heart rate that much
4. I didn't have enough glycogen stored in my muscles

I'm not really sure about any of those but they're my best guesses so far. I'll look forward to my next 5k in February, where I will hope to make a stronger showing.

Enough about me, though; the best part of the race was that we had a whole team of family there! Katie's dad was steward of the clothes and official photographer. Mike and I and Katie and Kelly all ran while our moms walked. Several years ago my mom suffered a major injury that severely impaired her walking. This was probably the first time she has walked 5 continuous kms since then so I was very excited to see her near the finish. I jogged back a little ways to find her and was surprised to find that she wasn't walking - she was really moving along, cane and all! I walked in with her a bit and then, as she rounded the final turn, I could see that she had the eye of the tiger! She really picked it up and hustled through the finish line, passing one of her competitors! Way to go, Mom! I've always been proud of her professional accomplishments, but when she finished that race I may have been beaming even more brightly than I ever have before!

It was a good race, well organized and well run. After some post-race nutrition we packed it up and hopped on our flight back to Houston. Full and exhausted - what an appropriate finish to an already excellent weekend!

Merry Christmas from Arizona

Last weekend Katie and I traveled to Phoenix, Arizona for an early Christmas with her family (after an even earlier Christmas with my extended family over Thanksgiving). As in years past, it was a total blast! The twist was that this year we had a very active holiday.

We arrived Thursday afternoon and were treated to dinner at La Grande Orange Grocery & Pizzeria in Scottsdale, walking distance from Katie's sister's (Kelly) apartment. Awesome! Any place that will add an egg to your pizza at no charge is A-OK in my book! I had the avocado pizza with pesto instead of cheese and I added all the free extras - so good!

Katie found us a nearby house to rent for the weekend which served as an excellent base of operations. It was big enough for us and our extended family to sleep comfortably and close enough to the action as to be convenient.

Friday began with a run up and over one of the mountains. This was just the opportunity to try out my new Vibram FiveFingers KSO Treks. When we were there last year, hiking up and down Camelback Mountain had proved pretty painful in my KSOs but I'm pleased to report that the Treks did their job very well. After an hour or so of jogging up and down rocky paths in the cool, dry air, I was pooped but very happy with the experience.

Friday afternoon we went to Queen Creek Olive Mill, a local organic olive oil producer. Not only did they have a nice tour about the olive growing/pressing/bottling process, they had an attached restaurant with delicious and funky foods. I had the vanilla bean olive oil waffles while others tasted their many oils - including chocolate olive oil and [crowd favorite] meyer lemon olive oil. What a cool excursion!

Dinner was at 5th and Wine, which featured good wine and great food. I had a delicious bison burger and mac & cheese - hey, just because I was carb loading for Sunday's 5k didn't mean I couldn't enjoy some protein and fat too! It was a delectable finish to a great day!

Saturday began with a real treat. Kelly is receiving her certification as an instructor of Ashtanga Yoga, which I used to practice regularly when I was in Switzerland. Kelly took Katie and me through the entire primary series - 90 minutes of stretching, breathing, flowing, and meditating. I've really, really missed this and I clearly need to add it back into my routine. Kelly was the perfect yogi for us as I was just the right amount of sore after our session.

What do we do after a workout? Recovery nutrition! This began at the Scottsdale Farmer's Market, where we also shopped for Christmas Dinner ingredients, and concluded at Orange Table. The Farmer's Market was fantastic - big but not too huge and with plenty of variety. I had a vegetarian pumpkin tamale (Delicious!), which I promptly doused in guava lava hot sauce from the vendor next door. There were many dogs along with their owners, which made the experience even more pleasurable.

Orange Table was something else for breakfast. Not only did they offer delicious omelets (The Greek omelet was the consensus #1.), they also had something else on the menu that I would have been remiss not to try: jalapeno-pecan pancakes! I love spicy-sweet flavor combinations and this one hit it on the head. I'm actually getting hungry as I type just thinking about it again!

With our bellies full, we spent the afternoon and evening prepping for Christmas Dinner. More accurately, everyone else was prepping for Christmas Dinner. While they were slaving away, Mike (Kelly's boyfriend) and I were staying out of the way by occupying ourselves with some early Christmas presents: remote control cars! Once the novelty of racing them around the floor in a makeshift demolition derby wore off, we constructed our own track, using the couches, chairs, coffee table, cardboard boxes, and magazines to create ramps between sections of different heights. The end result wasn't beautiful but it served its purpose. Whether its purpose was to provide a path for the cars or rather to occupy the two of us such that we weren't crowding the kitchen and offering to "quality test" each of the dishes in process is still up for debate.

Dinner turned out to be delicious, as expected. Wild caught Alaskan salmon from the farmer's market along with many, many vegetarian-friendly accouterments ensured that we would all be well nourished for the race the next day. Instead of going to bed early to rest up, though, we opened presents, played games, and laughed a lot late into the night. I'll save the race report for a subsequent post but, suffice to say, the weekend was a huge success! Fun, food, and family - what more does one need in life?