I had a nice weekend — half quiet, half busy.
I ran a local race on Saturday morning, the Galloway Gallop in Kemah. It didn’t go as well as planned. I had signed up for the 10K, but an odd combination of starting too fast and being exhausted from not getting enough sleep lately got to me, and I stopped after one lap. (The 10K was simply two laps of the 5K course.) The race started well enough, but as I ran through mile 1 in under 10 minutes, I knew I’d started too fast and might pay for it. By mile 2, I was feeling incredibly sluggish; I felt like I wasn’t even getting my feet off the ground, despite the fact that I still covered the mile in a good time, and hit the mile 2 marker at just over 20 minutes. By about the 2.5-mile point, I’d decided to cut my run from a 10K to a 5K and just go to the finish line instead of turning to begin another lap. I was disappointed, so I did push myself hard over the last bit to finish the 5K in a respectable 31:33. But for the rest of the day, I was mad that I hadn’t done the 10. Grrr.
I did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day, and before I knew it, I was on my way to the Houston Auto Show on Sunday with Melanie, Jason, and Debbie. I’d never been to a car show before, and — slightly surprisingly — it was fun. I’d expected more really fancy expensive cars, and while there were some, it was mostly all the car makers just showing off their latest models. I checked out the 2005 Xterra, which has been redesigned, and actually found that I like my 2004 version better. They’ve changed the interior a lot, and I don’t like it as much. We also checked out all the sports cars, of course. Everything was very, very shiny. I wonder how many coats of wax you have to put on cars to make them that shiny.
After the car show it was time for the Super Bowl, of course, which I watched at Matt and Stephanie’s place. I didn’t really care who won, and so I was glad that it was a close game, which kept it entertaining. There were some good commercials, as usual (loved the Volvo/Virgin Galactic one with the rocket, the one with the “don’t judge too quickly” slogan and the guy with the knife, cat, and tomato sauce, and the one with the Diet Pepsi trucks). And after the “fiasco” of last year’s halftime show, I really enjoyed Paul McCartney. I wasn’t offended last year, in fact I thought everyone made way too big a deal out of it. But I also thought it was really nice to return to a more “normal” halftime performance. I would much rather see Paul McCartney sing multiple songs, songs that everybody knows and are fun to sing along with, than listen to 4 or 5 of the latest one-hit wonders sing a 2-minute montage of their “greatest hits.”
So bravo, Super Bowl Halftime Show.
