Buff Santa

If you were to consider running to be a kind of outdoor theatre, Memorial Park would be the height of Houston's drama scene. You've got everything that you need there for a great performance. The star parts held by people who you always see at the park. The Cirque du Sole role (I refuse to look up the proper spelling, sorry) filled by all the running groups who parade around in search of speed work, tempo runs, or just simple mileage. And most importantly, you have your seasonal, tried and true stories, and the characters that accompany them.

Obviously, I decided to give running a shot tonight. My goal was simple, I wanted to return to a good old fashion Memorial loop run. No concern for tempo running, no warm up mile; just go out there, run each mile faster than the last, go home have a beer, and ice down my foot. And so I did, in a muggy 80 degrees at 8PM, with my new inserts in my fairly new shoes. The foot still hurts, but I was hopeful of a good run none-the-less. I had decided my knee pain had left me because of the new shoes, thus I decided not to run with the knee band.

But before I started, there he was, my favorite seasonal runner at Memorial, Santa! Santa is a somewhat short, older fellow, with a big jolly belly, and the required bushy snow white beard. What stood out about Santa was that perched on top of his belly was a heart rate monitor strap! I've never seen Santa run with such, so I suppose the global population boom has him trying to make sure every running mile is quality; lot's of toys to deliver this Christmas, gotta be in shape. Some of the other usual suspects were out there, but it was good to see Santa; he's of jolly running demeanor, and usually foretells cooler weather, because I really only remember seeing him in the cooler running months. Houston's good running weather may finally be upon us.

As for my run, in a nutshell, things went well. Total time was 28:30; nothing to brag about, but the miles did get faster and I had enough gas in the tank to drop 15 seconds over the last 0.2 miles. The cold I've been battling for five or so days seemed to make my breathing labored, but I think the running helped; I started hacking up stuff shortly afterwards, so hopefully I'll fell better tomorrow. The shoes are tight with the new inserts, I think toenails will be lost, but I really like the way it feels now. I think I can feel less pronation; a good thing. Finally, I may have been wrong about the knee strap. My knee kind of hurts right now. I'll see how it feels tomorrow, and adjust accordingly.

After all these years, I wonder if people at Memorial recognize me?