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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:

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

Sonoma Day 3

Our final day in Sonoma began, once again, with exercise. Our friends went for a bike ride while Katie and I went for a run. I was very pleased that this was my first run in weeks during which my hip flexor did not feel injured – now I could get back to training!

After breakfast we set out in our car to explore the wineries around Healdsburg. First stop: Unti Vineyards. Unti’s wines didn’t jazz me that much but I did like that they produced several Italian varietals, including a sangiovese and barbera.

On the recommendation of one of Katie’s coworkers we stopped at Dry Creek General Store for lunch and it did not disappoint. We strongly recommend the egg salad with smoked salmon sandwich!

Next on the tour was Preston Vineyards, which had been recommended to us by a friend of a friend. While we loved that it was all organic, the wines didn’t appeal to any of us and, for the first time, we poured many of ours out into the spit bucket. The olive oil they made there was delicious, though.

A bit disgruntled by that experience, we were looking for something to turn it around – and did we ever find it! As we were driving out of the Preston estate, we saw a sign for barrel tastings at Zichichi, a winery we didn’t know but a proposition we clearly couldn’t resist. Zichichi’s wines were pleasant (Some of their zinfandel vines are 85+ years old!), their office walls were covered with football pictures, and they had an adorable Doberman Pinscher puppy outside – we had our mojo back!

While biking that morning our friend had seen a sign for grilled oysters so we decided to go get some as a mid-afternoon snack. Unfortunately, when we arrived at Lambert Bridge, it was immediately evident that A. the sign had actually advertised wood-fired pizzas (We blame the misreading on the previous day’s wine consumption.) and B. they were all out of pizza. Doh! Not to worry, though, their wines were great and they had some great dogs: a Great Pyranees puppy and a 200 lb Saint Bernard!

Our final stop of the day was to Christopher Creek Winery, where we tasted all of their award-winning wines. There was a kindly old man telling funny stories and pouring wine, which really enhanced the experience. My favorite there was their port.

Having missed out on our grilled oysters, by this point we were raring for dinner. The restaurant we intended to frequent turned out to be closed Monday so we picked up a late reservation at Cyrus, which was highly acclaimed.

To kill time before Cyrus we stopped into Willi’s oyster bar, which had great seafood and good local wines to pair with it. This place was a real pleasure and we were almost sad to leave it for Cyrus.

Our table wasn’t quite ready yet at Cyrus, so we had a cocktail in the bar. Their cocktail menu was very innovative and the drinks were great.

You can read our full review of Cyrus at Yelp but the short version is that we were horribly disappointed by our experience there. The food was generally good but not great and some dishes were very over salted. The wine pairings selected for us were mediocre, didn’t pair well with our dishes, and were ostentatiously presented by a “wine steward” who knew very little about wine outside of his rehearsed speeches. Perhaps they didn’t have the “A” team going because it was Monday night, but a Michelin two-star restaurant should not have “off” nights – especially at the prices they were charging.

Our closing dinner was a bitter disappointment but it couldn’t take the shine off of what had been an absolutely wonderful weekend. We fell in love with California wine country and we will clearly need to return frequently to continue exploring!

Sonoma Day 2

After sleeping off our wine of the day before, we woke up to a rainy Sonoma morning. Instead of running we did a weights-free workout inspired by the routine that The SHOP put together for me back when I was house-sitting in Switzerland. This included lots of push-ups, plyometrics, and other “grass-roots” exercises. During a break in the rain we went outside and I did walks up the hill while carrying Katie across my back. During one set of these a police officer actually rolled up to make sure that everything was OK!

After workout and recovery nutrition we once again set out to taste some wine! Instead of driving ourselves around for small tastings at several wineries, we took a different tack this day. We hired Magnum Wine Tours to drive us around to just two very small wineries where we spent a lot of time doing in-depth tastings with the owners.

Our first stop was Forth Vineyards, a tiny little Dry Creek Valley estate just outside of Healdsburg. The property is absolutely charming with a great deal of variety even for that tiny lot. Rolling hills ensure that some parcels have much greater sun exposure while others get more wind coming through the valley. Near the house and winery is the most amazing olive tree I’ve ever seen. It was probably 12m high and spread out so far as to create an imposing presence on the deck. I’m used to short, bushy olive trees but this was the godfather of them all.

We sat down in the wine cellar, where Jann Forth walked us through their five wines: an ’09 sauvignon blanc, a ’10 rose’, an ’09 ALL BOYS cabernet sauvignon (with grapes from each of their vineyards named after their boys), an ’09 Rebecca cabernet sauvignon (with grapes from the one vineyard named after their girl), and an ’09 syrah. The Rebecca cab was very nice but the real winner was the rose’. As we sat around the cellar’s tasting table, munching on homemade spicy cheese bread between wines, we learned a lot about the winemakers, their philosophy, and the unique characteristics of their offerings.

What really set this winery apart, though, was their canine “staff!” A golden retriever accompanied us everywhere and there were two huge great pyranees (170 lbs and 130 lbs) in the vineyards protecting the sheep that keep the grass low and organically fertilize. After playing with the dogs a bit we hopped back in our car for the next destination.

Garden Creek Winery in Alexander Valley was up next. As we crossed the eponymous creek to enter the estate, I was surprised by how this looked more like a farm than a winery: a big barn at the entrance, chickens off to the left, an old well in the center. And sure enough, that’s how this land began when the current proprietors’ father bought it back in the ’60s.Today, though, the barn is a winery and almost all the land is planted with vines. While most of their grapes are sold to other wineries, they hold enough back to produce a few hundred cases of their own chardonnay and Bordeaux blend.

We were met at the estate by Justin Miller, who owns and runs the operation alongside his wife. We stayed outside to taste their 2009 chardonnay, which was minerally and crisp – really nice and not at all what I’d expect from a California chard. Then we went into the barn for a candlelight vertical tasting of the red (called “Tesserae”). The 2005 of this cab sauv/merlot/cab franc blend was nice, but the 2003 was really coming into its own – great balance between the fruit and oak-derivative properties. Interestingly, they are the only winery I have known in the US to use carbonic maceration.

After plowing through several bottles at Garden Creek, we really needed some food! So our last stop of the tour was at nearby Diavola Pizzeria. I’m not sure if this helped or hurt our sobriety because we had plenty more wine there while feasting on handmade brick oven pizzas!

Opting for a day of wine tour instead of just driving ourselves around was a great idea. Not only did we have a designated driver, we found some wonderful tiny wineries that we never would have heard of otherwise. In both cases, we could have tasted these wines anonymously but the real pleasure was spending a couple of hours with the owners and really getting a feel for what makes them – and their wines – tick.

Day 2: another success!

Sonoma Day 1

After a flurry of post-CleanTech-Open meetings Thursday and Friday, Katie and two friends joined me for three days of wine tasting!

Thursday I met up with many Rice and IMD alumni in the San Francisco Bay area while winding my way 90 miles up to Petaluma, where I stayed the night with a friend of mine from TJ. Yes, I made it from San Jose to Palo Alto to San Francisco to Larkspur by way of public transportation – how refreshing, coming from Houston! I did, however, rely on my friend’s chauffeur skills to take me the final leg to Petaluma.

My friend, Ashley, who is a full-time mom and mom blogger, has a great house complete with chicken coop, which made for an excellent breakfast! Thursday night she made an awesome welcome dinner for me and one of the neighbors – so welcome after days of hotel food! Friday, after spending the day back in the city, I returned to Petaluma to wait for Katie and our two friends.

This was an excellent decision because, not only did this mean another great dinner, but the same neighbor returned with his wife, who turned out to be AWESOME! Her name is Leslie Sbrocco and she is a prominent wine critic in the Bay area – SCORE! Friday night dinner quickly became a vinolicious affair and we were quite happy by the time that Katie and our friends came to pick me up.

Katie had rented us a little two bedroom, two bath house in Healdsburg, which is a charming town. The little house was exactly what we needed: central location, great kitchen, and comfortable beds for sleeping off the wine!

Having never toured/tasted in California before, I deferred to our friend, who had been there several times. He put together a basic program (which still allowed for significant improvisation) and Leslie helped us with a few more suggestions and hookups.

Saturday morning we woke up, all went for a run, and then had a great breakfast to prepare us for the day. Our first tasting was at J, which was pretty commercialized. There were many others tasting there and some of the staff weren’t terribly knowledgeable. But some of the staff were knowledgeable (and personable!) and that made all the difference. Wine tasting – like most things – is really made or broken by the people involved. We tasted some so-so white wines, some better red wines, and some much better bubbly, which is what I really associate with J anyway.

Afterward we made our way to Kosta Browne, the winery behind 2011’s top wine of the year according to Wine Spectator. There we tasted a good chardonnay and lots of pinot. Our favorite by far was the 2009 Amber Ridge Pinot Noir.

We wrapped up the day at Arista, where we had a GREAT pourer behind the counter. She was a grape grower herself so was intensely knowledgeable about the wines, the region, the climate, and everything else. We tasted so many wines that I can’t remember them to post them here and we spent so much time tasting and talking with her that we shut the place down.

After a brief nap we rallied and headed into downtown Healdsburg for dinner. We began at Spoon for really innovative cocktails that compete with those from Anvil. Afterward we had a long, intense, and excellent dinner at Dry Creek Kitchen. Once again we shut the place down and they practically had to roll us out of there. Katie’s full review is on Yelp. I would say that Sonoma Day 1 was a huge success!

CleanTech Open Finals

Last week I traveled to San Jose, CA, for the finals of the CleanTech Open, for which Smart Office Energy Solutions had been selected as a finalist from the South Central region. I and 20 other finalists from the seven regions arrived in San Jose on Monday to begin two exhausting days of competition.

Each finalist was a startup company that has raised less than $1M and that is working on problems that make the world more sustainable. There were five categories of competitors: energy efficiency, smart power, green building, air/waste/water, and renewable energy. Smart OES could have competed in any of the first three categories but ultimately energy efficiency seemed to be most appropriate for us.

Each category had four or five competitors. Over the course of two days, each competitor presented a 15-minute business plan presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A from 20+ judges representing the category, the venture capital community, the science/development community, and the government/policy community. Competitors were scored based on their potential for impact, likelihood of success, sustainability, and presentation quality. After all competitors presented, the winner of each category would then present again and a global winner would be announced.

I came into the finals with several goals:

Win the global competition
Win the energy efficiency category
Tell a convincing story about product differentiation and competitive barriers (the perceived lack of which had always been our greatest criticism).

Of course, those were the goals on which my competitive side focused. Much more meaningful for us, though, was using the competition as a means to connect with influential people, partners, and investors in the cleantech ecosystem – so that was our primary objective.

Tuesday morning featured an investor speed dating event that connected us with five VCs for seven-minute one-on-one discussions. This event by itself was worth the price of admission and I applaud the CleanTech Open for their success in putting it together.

Our scored presentation wasn’t until Wednesday morning, so I spent much of Tuesday manning our booth. Interested potential investors, employees, and journalists stopped by all day to hear about what we were up to and to see our prototype products in action. It was really energizing to see how many people were keen to know what was going on on the frontiers of cleantech. I also left the booth unmanned a few times to go support some of the other entrepreneurs as they were presenting in other categories.

Tuesday afternoon I was called up to the main stage for a 3-minute product demo, which received some “oohs and ahhs” as I unveiled some of the behavior-influencing features of our product. My product demo especially caught the attention of one audience member, Jon, a friend of mine from college! He came up to me afterward and it was such a joy to see him there. As I’ve blogged about before, I’m an extrovert and I love having people “on my team.” Having Jon there supporting me lifted my spirits and really gave me a boost going into Wednesday.

Wednesday morning I was joined by another team member, an investor of ours (also named Jon) who lives in the Bay area. Having two Jons cheering me on from the audience, I knew I couldn’t be beaten. Add to that my SHOP undershirt and cuff links from my wife as additional talismans and I was ready to go – armored up and ready for battle!

I gave my full presentation and it went very well. I nailed the presentation portion and I believe I had good, previously anticipated answers to the Q&A portion. I received many compliments on the presentation, including one piece of feedback that it was as good as a presentation could get. Additionally, I didn’t receive a single question from the judges about product differentiation or competitive barriers. Goal #3: check!

Unfortunately I didn’t not achieve Goal #2, which meant that Goal #1 was out of the question. A company called Indow Windows won the energy efficiency category with a cool drop-in product to turn single pane windows into double pane windows. Clearly I was disappointed in the result and I will hope to get some good feedback from the judges. I’m told it was very close and I am still honored to have been chosen among the top energy efficiency startups in the country.

The Jons and I stayed to watch the final five presentations, attend the award ceremony, and then the gala dinner afterward. Throughout the evening it became abundantly clear that we were achieving our primary goal; I was able to line up meeting after meeting after meeting with potential investors for Thursday and Friday, while I would still be in town! This certainly softened the blow of the competition loss!

Looking back on the CleanTech Open experience, I’m really glad we participated. It took a very non-trivial amount of time and money, but it really helped us connect throughout the cleantech ecosystem – which is not very present in Houston. We received some great exposure, met some great people, and – of course – had a great time! I would recommend it for other early-stage cleantech startups and I’ll hope to give back a little next year as a mentor.

Is There an Afterlife?

I just had a great discussion with a Rice freshman about whether or not there is an afterlife. As somewhat of an empirical pragmatist, I reasoned through it as follows:

People I know who have died continue to have an effect on me. I think about them, I make decisions based on ways they have influenced me, and sometimes they even show up in my dreams. So, from my perspective (and from the perspective of the many other people whose lives they touched), they all have afterlives.

The only afterlife of which I am not certain is my own. From a practical perspective, though, that point is essentially moot. After my death I will either A. have a conscious afterlife and know it or B. not have a conscious afterlife and not even be able to contemplate the question.

As such, I conclude that there is effectively an afterlife. What do you think?

Houston Great Pumpkin Run 5k Race Report

Saturday I set a new PR at the Houston Great Pumpkin Run 5k. In the week leading up to the run I had a sore throat and even lost my voice (while yelling all night at a Huey Lewis and the News concert, so it’s my own fault), so I made a morning-of decision whether or not to run. The good news about this was that I had been planning to taper my running later in the week anyway, so I rested up, got plenty of nutrition, and hoped to be in good form Saturday morning.

Race day came and, while I still had no voice and still had a stuffy nose, I felt pretty good so I decided to go ahead with the run. It would start downtown and proceed along Allen Parkway for an out-and-back course. The course was pretty flat and the weather was great (sunny and ~50 degrees F) so, other than the lingering cold, it was a great situation for a PR.

My race plan – as always – was to start off with a fast launch, finishing the first km in 3:59. I would then settle into a 4:12/km pace for the next 3.65 km, at which point I would kick up to a 4:00 pace for 250 m and an all out sprint for the final 100. This would bring me in at 20:39, 6 seconds under my previous PR of 20:45.

The starting line was close to my office so I camped out and stretched in my building until ~15 minutes before start time. Then I jogged to the starting line, warmed up a bit, and positioned myself near the front. 0.6 seconds after the gun went off, I was across the starting line and tearing off down Walker Street.

The first km went basically as planned. It included a bit of a downward dip, so I found myself speeding along (always trying to flow with the downhill grade rather than resist it) a bit more than anticipated early on. I finished the first km in 3:51 with an average heart rate of 171 – higher than anticipated, especially given the low temperature. By comparison, my first km in my previous three PR 5ks were: June (3:58, 166 BPM), April (3:53, 167 BPM), and February (4:01, 165 BPM). This didn’t worry me much, though; I was feeling good.

The second km breezed along too, finishing in 4:06 at 175 BPM. I was then 14 seconds ahead of my target. I was still feeling pretty good but it was starting to feel clear that I wasn’t going to keep this speed up forever. I was hoping, though, to stick to my 4:12 target for the remaining kms.

The third km is where things got funky. It turns out that the race organizers had not marked the turnaround point! The runners in front of me turned around at the near side of Montrose (which is where the course map had specified), but there was nothing to indicate whether this was right or wrong. If I had been paying close attention to my GPS, I would have noticed it telling me that I was still 70 m short of 2.5 km, but I wasn’t. And, even if I had been, I wouldn’t have trusted it since lord knows it has made errors before. It turns out that the correct turnaround point was just beyond Montrose. Some people turned early – as I did – and some kept going all the way to Waugh, which was way too far. Epic fail, race organizers.

I finished the third km in 4:15 with an average heart rate of 177 and the fourth km in 4:23, still at 177 BPM. At this point I was still 2 seconds ahead of target but clearly I was losing steam. I’m not sure if this reflects my fitness level simply not supporting such a fast burn up front or if this is a result of the sickness I had been battling (and possibly still was) – maybe a combination of both.

The next 650 m went by in 2:48, a 4:18 pace. As I began the final ascent I kicked it up a bit but, owing to the shortened turnaround, all of a sudden I could see the finish line rushing toward me. I sprinted the final 100 m, passing a couple of tapped out runners along the way. My official time was 20:02, which would have been a PR by a long shot if it had been for a full 5k. My GPS showed that I had run 4.86 km by the time I crossed the finish line. I estimate that, at this rate, I would have finished around 20:40, which would still have been a PR, but I guess we’ll never know.

I feel good about the race, especially given the circumstances. Katie and I have already signed up for a December race so there will be another chance to shoot for a new PR before the year is through. In the meantime I’ll work on bringing down the pace of those later kms!

Magical Weekend in Florida

Last weekend we went to Florida to celebrate our nephew’s sixth birthday! It’s been years since I’ve been and a great deal has changed since the last time I was there. Katie and I flew in Thursday and were immediately treated to a wonderful dinner of fish tacos at my brother’s new house. Both he and his girlfriend are conservation-minded marine biologists so we had high confidence that the fresh fish we were eating were sustainably caught. To add to the enjoyment, we drank some very good Bordeaux and were serenaded by our nephew’s burgeoning piano skills!

Friday morning, while our hosts were at work / in school, Katie and I borrowed a car and headed to Orlando for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter! I didn’t have high expectations for it as I generally find theme parks to be cheesy, poorly detailed, over-commercialized places filled with too-long lines of screaming kids (basically the same way I feel about Vegas). Still, it was clearly something I had to check off my bucket list, especially when so close. Katie was a little more optimistic, caring less about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter’s execution and more just about riding roller coasters for the first time in years.

We got a late start, arriving at Universal’s Islands of Adventure more than an hour after opening time. At least we had bought our tickets online in advance so we could bypass the entrance lines. We made a bee line for the Harry Potter section and started with the piece de resistance, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. This ride takes place in a mock-up of Hogwarts Castle. They did a good job of recreating the castle, but the exterior facade was so small that it kind of ruined the effect.

While waiting in line for the ride we passed through several Hogwarts rooms, which were pretty faithful to the movies. They did a good job with the talking paintings and several other effects. Our wait was probably only half an hour but, on days when it’s multiple hours, these extra effects would surely help alleviate the burden of the line.

The ride itself was really cool, a combination of cool chair/arm technology and cooler multisensory A/V effects. Unfortunately it was over after just five minutes, which would have been hard to swallow if we had waited much longer!

By the time we exited the ride, the line for The Flight of the Hippogriff was already 60 minutes long. Given that it looked like a kiddie coaster, we opted to skip it. Thank goodness for the digital displays at each ride that estimated the wait time – bravo, Universal, for that!

We moved on directly to the Dragon Challenge, which appeared to be a more serious roller coaster. The wait for this one was only 10 minutes and it did not disappoint! Jam packed with loops, rolls, and drops, it was a 2.5-minute adrenaline rush – lots of fun! If we did one roller coaster over and over (as my brother and I used to do at Kings Dominion), this would have been the one!

Having exhausted the Harry Potter rides, we made our way to the re-creation of Hogsmeade Village. Most of this comprised touristy shops that didn’t interest us but the effect of snow-covered roofs was well done – even in the Florida heat! We stopped by The Three Broomsticks pub for an early lunch. The food was predictably “meh” but the butterbeer was a very worthwhile bucket list item.

So, as expected, the Harry Potter section of the park was pretty cheesy, but I’m glad we visited it at least once. For my money (and time), though, I’d just as soon play Harry Potter video games if I want to wander around Hogwarts Castle. Or, better yet, re-read the books!

As we didn’t need to be back for another few hours, we dallied a bit and checked out some other rides on Marvel Super Hero Island. This began with the Spider-Man ride, which was similar to the Forbidden Journey ride we did earlier, and ended with The Incredible Hulk, which was fun but not so much as the Dragon Challenge. Having then satisfied our roller coaster fix, we headed back home.

Friday night we had another great dinner with more great wine – Italian on both accounts! As the girls got sleepy and headed off to bed, my brother and I devoted ourselves to a much worthier cause – EPIC PING PONG! The last time we played ping pong together was probably sometime in high school so this was a fun trip down memory lane.

Saturday began with a morning jog followed by breakfast at the farmers market – what a way to start! The rest of the day was taken up by my nephew’s birthday party. It was super hero themed, which meant that the house was decorated with super hero paraphernalia, the kids customized their own super hero capes, and many super hero games were played, including red-light/green-light/kryptonite and tug of war against evil villains (us adults)! The entire ordeal was great fun . . . but exhausting!

Due to an early Sunday obligation we had to hop on a Saturday night flight back to Houston. It was just a quick trip to Florida, but what a blast. It was so great to see my brother and his family settling in and thriving. Add excellent food, wine, company and magic rides to the mix and it was a heck of a weekend!