I came in 35th place!  About an hour slower than first place at this race.  I had not expected to do well considering since the last race I have been overwhelmed with moving houses and renting out space to some friends.  I probably got only 40% of the runs in that I should have.  Guess that says a lot for being well rested.

I targeted a plan to run 3:59 based off of heart rate effort and I came in 1 minute faster.  I'd say that was a bull's eye.  Doesn't mean I'm going to slack off for next race, just gives me less to be anxious about if I miss some runs.

Partly to blame for the lack of running in the training was starting off too hard after my last marathon in December.  I had come back from that Trail Marathon feeling super charged (I came in faster than I expected and placed 17th out of 51 finishers).  With that over confidence, I over did it on some interval training trying to do 800 Yassos with a 3:30 split.  I should have been at 3:50....which is what I will do this time around.  From the extra effort I managed to really tweak out my ankle which took two weeks off to let fully heal (which it did).

A major highlight of this run was visiting with my long time neighbor Shirley Shoifet and her daughter's familiy the Yaffes in Houston Texas.  Wayne Yaffe ran a half marathon with me (the course was two loops for full) even though he was still nursing a calf injury.

The weather was warmer than I was interested in, but there was cloud cover for some of the day.  Glad to have Texas off my list, though I would definitely go back for the Houston City marathon and to visit with the Yaffe's again.

Here's a link to the results (top 20%):
http://www.runhoustontiming.net/race_result/1454384523_5387774_Marathon%20Overall.htm