And the lottery officials say:

Let me explain. About two weeks ago on July 27th I entered my name in for a spot to run in the 2011 Houston Chevron Marathon. Apparently the race had sold out of all 22,000 combined marathon, half-marathon, and 5K spots in about 60 hours last year so they decided to go to a lottery system this year. I was kind of frustrated with this because I didn't want to train all summer for a race that I couldn't enter. However, I threw my name in the hat the other day for a spot and received this snippet above as part of an email. I immediately when I got home jumped on Twitter and Facebook to see if any others had the same situation, and lo and behold, they had. I then decided to go to the horses mouth and check out the Houston Marathon's website. I find this little nugget.

Note the second bolded sentence. I knew at that moment that I definitely had a spot in the race. It was an awesome feeling because now I have a new countdown to look forward too.

Saturday Walk, One Day Total,

Saturday Afternoon Walk with Corrie

So on the afternoon after my Saturday run we decided to go for a Saturday walk at Oyster Creek with Cullen and Selah. I 

One Day Total 

I ran a record one day total of 8.85 miles on Saturday. Only a 3rd of a marathon for those who need the math.

Crappy Run, Waiting Game

This weekend I got out to get ready for my Saturday run and was out the door with a great amount of time. Normally I'm rushed to get there and not get left by the group that will ultimately leave me behind anyway(I believe this is situational irony, no?). Anyway, I even had the chance to plant a water bottle at one of my turns in our 6 mile run, but I just had a terrible run today.

Crappy Run

I really don't know what else to call it. I'm still struggling to not get out the gate running fast but as you can see this still happens. I got to talking to our group leaders who run at a pace that is about 4-5 minutes faster per mile than I am right now, so when I broke away from them I was about 1 1/2 in and had not kept any rhythm but just running. As you can see about 1/2 a way into the run I just started to give out. It was a hot, humid day and to top it out I apparently didn't eat enough breakfast (read:not any at all) and it caught up with. I had an upset stomach there for the second half which made me hesitant to put on a full run or jog at all. I'm still looking forward to the first chill that comes in so that I can lower my times just because of the weather, because right now, I've got nothing. I'm consistently around the 13'30" pace which puts me finishing a marathon if I keep that pace, but just barely. I stinking dread the idea of the HPD cops pulling up the barricades when I am on mile no. 22 because they have to turn course back into a road.

Waiting Game

Have I mentioned that I'm not a fan of the Houston Marathon's lottery system. I'm verified that I'm a lottery registrant, but that still frustrates me because I have to wait 10 more days to find out whether or not I can run this marathon here in Houston. I really don't want to run it here in Sugar Land because it's a rather boring course.  

Saturday Run, Signed Up

Once again this Saturday came and I was up and ready to go for another Saturday run. Due to the fact that summer school had got out this week I wasn't able to get in a run either in the morning or evening at all this week, so I expected that my run would be a little sluggish, but it wasn't. I felt great and the wind started to blow in. I'm still not running a great pace, but I attribute it too the 90% humidity.

"Saturday Run"

If you notice this run, I'm doing a whole lot more consistent running rather than stopping and starting. I'm starting to get my running under control. I really had a rather uneventful run last Saturday, but I felt good running it and felt good afterwards. 

"Signed Up"

I officially signed up for the Chevron Houston Marathon on the 27th when registrations opened up. As I mentioned before, this is for a spot in the Lottery system that they are implementing this year. I'll find out on the 17th if I got a spot.