The Houston event was a great first experience. We drove into the city from Dallas on Saturday afternoon and picked up our bibs and timing chips and our goodie bags at the convention center. This was a HUGE event with 18000 runners in the half/full marathons and 4000+ in the 5K. They had people from 25 countries including olympians and winners from past years and other courses. Everything was well organized and the weather couldn't have been better (probably a little warm for the runners). It was inspiring to see those world-class marathon runners in action and up close. I wish I had trained a little so I could disclose my rank in the 5K here
But I was also surprised that my daughter made it as well. Spotted GoIV and NolaIndian in their IV shirts and holding the TeamIV banner (they probably waited a very long time before we came in). Then we went out into the post-game celebration area, spent some time chatting and taking pictures. There were a couple of Houston IV members that we were looking for, but they might have arrived there earlier or later and we probably missed them. Thank you NolaIndian for being the captain, runner AND cheerleader for TeamIV in Houston and for leading this whole effort.