Thanksgiving Week

Off work Wed, Thu, and Fri. And thangod, too, b/c I need a small break from work.

I am thinking about running the 10K Turkey Trot in Houston on Thanksgiving day, but online registration is closed, which means I have to show up in downtown Houston at 6:00 am if I want to register and pick up my timing chip. Not sure I'm motivated enough to wake up at 5:00 am on my week off. But it would be a great way to create a huge calorie deficit before obligatory gorging later that afternoon.

I haven't done anything competitive since early August and I'm feeling like I need to get out and mix it up with some other athletes, even though I'll be destroyed in a 10k race. I'd like to establish a baseline for my "open" 10k speed before doing some Triathlons in 2009. A 10k race is a great way to create a reference point. You'll always be slower in a triathlon since the run is at the end and your legs are trashed by the time you start running. But it does help give you an idea of what time you can reasonably aim for in the run portion of a triathlon. For example, if you can run an "open" 10k (a running race only, not done as part of a triathlon) in 36 minutes, then you can expect to run for 38 to 40 minutes during the 10k run portion of an Olympic distance triathlon. Provided the courses are more or less similar and conditions are not drastically different, etc. In Texas, it is almost always going to be hot and relatively flat so there isn't much discrepancy to worry about.

I hope UT destroys A&M on Thanksgiving day. I hate that town and the school. There, I said it. UT has a shot at #1 or #2 in the BCS but they have to beat the Aggies, first.