Interesting to see the different outcomes from people with similar goals.
My Turkey Trot was a 15:41 - weather was okay (high 60s, light showers before the race) and the course was flat but on a lot of brick roads (which were a little slick from the showers) with a decent number of turns. Overall, fair weather and a fair-to-fast course. Mostly ran with a guy right behind me for the first 2.25, then he pulled away after that, so okay competition, but imperfect. Generally, the 15:41 felt like a pretty fair representation of my fitness.
My half 9 days later was 1:11:10. Sort of similar weather to the Turkey Trot, which was more impactful because I was running a half. I got out too fast (5:16.8, 5:22.x) and tried to settle down, which I was able to do, but I let the only other runner near me go in the process, and basically ran alone for 11 miles (he was 15-20 seconds ahead of me most of that time - close enough to see and give me something to focus on, but not quite close enough to really help me in any way).
I trained through both races. Now that leaves me with coming up with a goal for Houston. I have 6 more weeks, which means 4 weeks of real workouts and a 2 week taper. I also have a higher degree of confidence as a result of my last two races. I will also have a ton of people running in my range, so I don't expect to ever really end up alone. The weather could also be better, could be exactly the same or could be worse. All of those things have me itching to give an aggressive goal some consideration, maybe trying for a sub 1:10:00 myself. 5.9 seconds per mile in a month is really aggressive though, so I will make that call closer to race day based on my training.