So back in early April I saw ads for a fun run called Foam Glow. They were waiving the usual signup fee, only requiring payment for the event insurance and venue fee. I think I opted in for a $1 donation to their charity as well, bringing my total just south of $17. I figured I’d do this once, and then base my decision to return on my experience this year.

So finally the day of the event rolls around. I find out packet pickup is the day before the event unless you want to pay an additional $5 for the privilege of picking up on race day. It probably cost me an additional $5 of gas just to make the additional drive to Conroe and back. To top it off my work assignment was in Lake Jackson later that day (and I still made it back down there in time to get most everything done, surprisingly).

Fast forward to race day, the evening of the 15th. I’m slightly anxious as I don’t really know what I’m getting into at this point. I manage to settle in and enjoy the ambiance for a while before race time arrives. I finish the bottle of water I have (some 32 fluid ounces) long before the race is officially on. So I walk back to the car to drop it off (no sense in carrying

It turns out that, indeed, most do this as a 5K non-competitive walk. In fact, there is no timing apparatus at either the start or finish line. If you want to keep track of your time you are more or less on your own. And I’m okay with that; I still have the occasional flashback to one of my few attempts at competitive running when I was in elementary school (5th grade), a mile run where I got pushed/knocked down at the start. (I went on to finish with a time of 14 minutes, 12 seconds, at the time a personal best.)

The distance as measured via GPS was closer to 4 kilometers than 5, so the organizers took a bit of liberty with the “5K” labeling. My total time according to this particular GPS track reading software was 54 minutes, 26 seconds (excuse the weird start/finish times, those are apparently in UTC not local time). That comes out to around 21 minutes per mile, not bad for a leisurely walking pace.

A lot of the pictures show black lights during the after-sunset portion of the event, so it is easy for the casual observer to conclude the course was lit like this for the entire length. It was not, as these were taken at specific points near the foam machines; toward the end the flashlight feature of my phone (and the phones of other participants for that matter) became quite useful.

I had a good time, despite higher than expected expenses. Parking was $20 I didn’t have in the original budget; besides being a bit of a price gouge (didn’t we already pay a venue fee?), it was mostly unavoidable given the locale (the outskirts of Conroe). It would have been nice to know this upon signup; not all of us are familiar with these types of venues (this is mainly a motocross track and would likely be unfamiliar to even the most seasoned of fun run/walk participants).

I have a backlog to work through as I haven’t felt up to posting for a while. So yes, these are a bit old by now, and I’m posting just for these three days at first as there is one event that deserves its own post.

My travels during this portion of July took me by Del Mar Lanes, Little Dipper, Poison Girl, and Darkhorse Tavern.

First up, July 11 at Del Mar Lanes for a few rounds of Godzilla. Not too shabby, 151.0M+ and new loop champion and heat ray champion (not all in the same game).

Next, July 12 at Little Dipper and Poison Girl. The games I got in at Little Dipper were just to pass a little time before heading to another event. A lot of these, outside of the Creature and (Old Olberholt rethemed) Mata Hari were pretty mediocre for me, to be honest.

Finally, July 13 at Darkhorse Tavern. Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man is gone, replaced by a much newer Ripley’s with a color DMD. Unfortunately it’s far from issue free, with a broken lock gate and (at the time I played) a wire harness hanging down that caused some stuck balls. I’ve done a lot better than 19.1M+ on this particular title, but I don’t think this is too shabby given what I had to deal with.

Running way behind on things, but I wanted to get this up even though this event is tomorrow.

It’s another Rummikub event, I realize it’s being billed as a game “night” even though it’s the afternoon. 1414 Wirt Road near Westview Drive (Trini Mendenhall Community Center) in Houston, same as last time.