The Life and Times of Sam Luna

  This was Sarah's 10th Houston Aramco Half Marathon . The Houston marathon has a Legacy Runner program to highlight runners who have completed 10+ events.  Going into the race Sarah had a great base over the fall and winter. She smartly ran with the 3:40 pace group who held a 8:15 avg pace. Once the group split around 7.5 miles for the Marathon and Half Marathon Course, Sarah continued on and ran negative splits for the second half. (she ran faster). Congrats to all who ran, and thank you to all those volunteers and those cheering the runners on.

Photo by Aaron Palaian As usual Ben Proko puts on a really great race event at Magnolia Hill Ranch. This is my 3rd year to do a race here, and my second year to do the triathlon. This years course had a few changes from later year. A bit longer swim at around 500m, a 9 mile "gravel" bike course and then around a 3 mile run. I didn't have the chance to check out the course prior to race morning so I was sure to get there earlier and pre ride a few of the new sections. Transition was setup "open rack". You get to pick your spot, so I grabbed and end spot to make it easy in and out. First I headed out on the bike and noticed the sandy course, I got just comfortable enough to feel mentally prepped. Then I pre-rode the new 1st mile of the run course and was immediately bogged down with sticky sand that was DEEP. I turned around and headed over to the lake to give the bike a bath and clear off the caked on sand. Back in transition I double checked my set up, grabbed m

So last year I did this race as my first road duathlon back to racing.  I really enjoyed the location in Laporte near the water and it brings out a good local crowd. I did have a couple of goals in mind, be faster or even to last year, and hold onto the run at the end. I spent the last few months (10 months) working on my bike. I tried to maintain my run over the period, but it wasn't my focus.  My newbie "Masters" mistake was racing hard 2 weeks ago with a hard Brick right after. So it took a good 10-12 days to start to feel a bit recovered. It definitely took a bite out of my top end speed. The race was slightly modified this year with a 1 mile run to open; the same 12.5 mile bike follow by a 3.2 mile run to finish. The first run felt ok to get started; I just focused on not going to hard.  Once on the bike I felt in my groove, and then WHAM! I hit an expansion joint, heard a crack and felt my handle bars turn. My steering was off the rest of the race, so I had to just

  This is a HARRA staple race over the years. 4 runners, each run approx. 2 miles. I ran this back in 1998 in Sugar Land around Fluor Daniels, at Rice, Barker Cypress, the Bayou, Stude Park and now TC Jester Park. I run with the Al Lawrence Running club over the years (when I get the call for an extra runner).  This year I ran in the open category for the Mens team from ALRC. We finished 4th Overall. The course was just over 2 miles, about 2.2; and a simple loop. I was pretty consistent; running 5:53, 6:10.

Great Off Road race down here in Texas, a short drive to Navasota from Houston. 400yd Lake Swim, 8 Mile MTB on Jeep Trails and 2 mile run around the lake. Same location for Xterra Magnolia Hill. This is a great  race  put on by Race Director Ben Proko. 2 days of racing including an adventure race, Sprint Tri, Du and Relays all included. For me this was my welcome back to racing in 2020, so I was excited about getting to come back in 2021. in 2020 I did the Du and this year I opted for the Tri. Swim morning the water temp was reported 73 degrees, so I opted to wear my wetsuit that I had thrown in. I figured it would take me about 10-20 secs extra to take it off, but I would save that per 100yards. So about a minute gained for a poor swimmer was a bonus. The bike   course   was the same as last year, so I was happy to be about 3 mins faster this year. They had laid down some fresh sand through out the course. This caused a few people including myself to slide around a bit on a few of the

The  Bayou City Triathlon   team did a great job getting this race done! The day was very windy, and they had to adjust the swim course the morning of for the triathlon. For those of us non-swimmers it was just a windy day on the bike. For my first race on the road in years I really spent the day enjoying being back out among some old friends and also re-learning what it felt like to push the pace and get comfortable in a race. I made some rookie mistakes in transition, forgot my socks altogether and definitely have some work to do on the bike! Results

  So not the prettiest, but hey, I got the job done. Last week I finished The 35 min bike and 15 min run with a 21.3 km bike and a 3.86 km run. This week I was looking to improve on both. I needed a bit more consistency in my power output on the bike and I wanted to go out a bit harder on the run. This week I finished with a 22.8 km bike and a 4.1 km run . So better on both legs. Results are still being worked out..