I'm In It

This just in - I'm doing the Trail of Torment 10K this Sunday.

I'm planning a triple medal January!

Superfeet, Not So Super

Last week, when the X-ray technician showed me the X-rays of my feet he said, "The right foot has a pretty large bone spur." My reply was, "Nifty, but it's the left foot that hurts."

Since this summer I've had problems with both of my feet. At the end of each race or workout, I'm limpin' and gimpin' on extremely tender tootsies. My plantar facsiae are irritable and those nasty facsaie have my heels aching whenever I run or jump. The X-rays where just to confirm that there aren't any broken or fractured bones. The bones are fine, even with the bone spurs.

When my foot problems first started, I had some Superfeet insoles custom made for my running shoes. Essentially they put your Superfeet insoles into an EasyBake oven to melt them, then the insoles are reformed around your foot. In theory, you should have insoles that precisely support your feet. People rave about Superfeet and I figured with custom fitting, they'd be perfect.

Except not. This weekend at training, I finally figured it out. It's the stupid insole that's the problem. I ripped it out of my shoe and ran with substantially less pain.

Merry Christmas

This is my Mom and I in front of the tree at Rockefeller Center.

Oh, and just for the record. I owned the hot pink coat, but my mom loaned me the hot pink hat. She also had a matching scarf. We are hot pink people.

Brrr!

Landed in Pennsylvania to 22 degree weather. That's 22 Fahrenheit, not Celsius. My flip flop wearing self was in shock. Yes, I did grow up here and I know that winters are cold, but I left Pennsylvania 15 years ago. I've lost my ability to endure weather colder than about 55 degrees. For instance, I'd completely forgotten about "wind chill". That 22 degrees felt like -2. Icy roads, I'd forgotten about those too.

Still I try. I managed to bring gloves all the way from my home in San Diego to my parents house in PA. However, I forgot to take my gloves with me to Manhattan.

Just Once

I'd like to make it to the airport without gobs of rushing and stress. Also, I forgot my phone. Damn.

Character Builder

When I was riding my bike there was on stop sign I called "the character builder". It's midway up a hill on the ride home. You have to decide to fully stop the bike and put your foot down on the ground. Then you need to decide to start pedaling again mid-hill when you're tired. The other option is to do a slow-and-go and hope that neither the coaches nor the cops catch you. Deciding to stop the bike when you're tired - character builder.

I've got a few character builder hills for running also. One is at the tail end of Sunset Cliffs. You go up a very steep hill and then do a little dogleg to go up the steepest hill I've ever run. You can pretend you don't know about that dogleg and skip that last part of the hill, but then that's not a character builder.

To prep for Dallas, I planned a little 10 miler though Sunset Cliffs. I blew away that hill, better than I've EVER done it. In fact, I was able to keep up with Pat who normally beats me easily on hills. A week earlier I bounded on up Laurel Street hill like it was flat.

I've got to credit the cross training from Peak Performance. We haven't been running hills, but I'm a much improved climber.

I'm So There

If you call a race the Trail of Torment 10K, then you're pretty much guaranteed that I want to do it. I hope there's a full race series - perhaps the Poke in the Eye 5K and the Kick to the Head Marathon.

I talked to my friends at the San Diego Running Institute who are sponsoring the race, and here's the low-down:

• No official time limit.
• One tough hill in the early part of the race - compare it to inner Torrey Pines.
• After that it's mostly rolling hills and flat trails.
• Medal to all finishers
  

Oh, trails, hills, short distance and a medal. Try and keep me away from it.

And This Is Where You Start Paying....In Sweat

This has been some week.

Monday night was our hardest core workout to date. Tonight at Rehab United was brutal. Our trainer Justin was in a no mercy mood. He's an absolute sweetie, but he can put together a killer workout - sumo squats with chest press, X-chops, shoulder & squat series, tall box climbs, ab dollies, 3 direction lunge series, medicine ball toss/catch, and water buckets. Then do the whole thing again.

Wow. Our sweat coefficient was very high tonight. Our entire team was as drenched in sweat.

At this rate, I wonder what Todd has in store for our Saturday workout at Velocity.

All That and a Bag of (Tortilla) Chips

The tacos at Fuel City are as good as they're reputed to be. I recommend the barbacoa, the pastor (picante!) and picadillo. Oh, and the tomatillo sauce.

Fuel City tacos, chicken fried rib-eye from Breadwinners and beef ribs from Pappas. Who doesn't love beef ribs from a BBQ pit with a cow on the roof.

Dallas has good food. Souvenir eating at it's finest.

Short Race Report - White Rock Half Marathon

Roxie smoked it. She did awesome and I was incredibly happy and proud. Congratulate her! She earned it.

Starting Line: Fun, but there were no corrals and there were 17,000 runners. Officially, there were 3 groups, but there was no indication of where the 3 groups were supposed to queue. Also, there were a fair number of spectators in the runner's chute. It was just a huge mass of people going all different paces.
Miles 1-4: good.
Miles 5-7: my plantar fasciae started to be tender and then moved to full-on pain. I've struggled with plantar fasciitis for months, but never so badly during a workout.
Mile 8: I tried to lift my spirits by cheering for other people which sort of worked for awhile.
Miles 9 -13.1: I remember nothing but my heels hurting. Last night someone asked if we'd gone along McCommas Boulevard and I didn't know. It was all pain, all the time. I'd run a minute to relieve the pain, then that would hurt. Then I'd walk a minute for some relief, than that would hurt. Then I'd stop and stretch. Lather, Rinse, Repeat for 4 miles.

My slowest half marathon ever, but I had a great weekend in Dallas.

Calling doctor for a referral to physical therapy.

Back in Dallas

Friends, Tex-Mex and Chicken Fried Steak.

Welcome Back to the Big D.

It's Good to Read the Course Map

Just now, I looked at the course map for the White Rock Half Marathon that I'm doing in 3 days.

The course is different this year and the last 5K are on Katy Trail. Katy Trail, where Tina and I logged about a 500 miles one year. We meandered down the trail and discussed relationship angst, job angst and occasionally busy-bodied into the angst of our friends.

I can't believe how different it is now. Those troubling relationships and jobs are long gone. Luckily, we've got the same group of friends who've also dropped off some of their burdens.

Katy Trail, it will be good to see you again.

The Prince and the Pea

I'm not saying my cat, Toby, is spoiled, but he's no longer content to merely sleep on the couch.

He now sleeps on the couch perched on multiple layers of pillows.

The Things That Please Me

This summer I had some major landscaping done at my house. I pulled out all of my grass, because this is the desert. The outside area is now all patios and plants that are more suitable. All the plants either flower or produce fruit. Even plants need to earn their keep around here - flowers or fruit or get yanked.

I've been anxiously waiting to see if my camellias would bloom. Here is a photo of the first one.

I'm so proud.

Hoppy Birdy Two Ewe

The guy I'm hugging in this photo has a birthday today. That makes him 3 years older than I am!

Happy Birthday Steve!

My Name Is Christine and I'm a Race-a-holic

I was posting over at RunnersWorld.com and realized I've signed up for half marathons for 3 straight weekends.

Sunday, January 18 - Rock 'n' Roll Arizona
Sunday, January 25 - Carlsbad Half-Marathon
Sunday, February 1 - Surf City

I need to get into some sort of 12-step program for half marathon addicts. Of course, if I ran 12 steps I'd want a finishers medal at the end.

Best SAG Stop Ever

We're in Las Vegas for the weekend which wraps up a few weeks of travel for us. Today we met up with some other TNT alumni and decided to go for an 8 mile walk. Instead we went 11 miles, but we did have a great SAG stop with big, tasty Margaritas.

Yum.

Just Blame The Dog

There are about 6 posts that I need to write - about mentoring for TNT's Peak Performance team (which is awesome), about the trip to Tucson, and about a bunch of other stuff.

For now, I'll tell you about my new workout mat. On Monday night the TNT training session is an hour of core work. Remember when old skool aerobic classes would finish with 5 minutes of torture abs? It's like that, only much more intense and it goes for a solid hour.

To soften the workout, I treated myself to a new extra cushy workout mat. My old mat is a thin yoga mat and it doesn't really soften much. Today was my first workout on my super-cushioned mat and at first all was good. Then, depending on the exercise, when I moved around the mat made a sort of flatulent sound. Lift, poot, lift, poot. It's tough enough to do the abdominal workout without laughing at faux-farts.

I'm not sure how I'm going to explain this problem when I return it to the store tomorrow.

On The Road Again

We're driving to Tucson for Steve's bike race. Well, Steve's driving; I don't text and drive. A drive East on Interstate 8 only means one thing to me: Sonic Drive-In. I've missed you my beloved Diet Cherry Limeade made with Real Limes and Diet Cherry Syrup and Extra Cherries.

Dear Southern California Cyclists;

Hey cyclists, did you hear that there's a new metric century ride on December 6?

The ride is the Milestone Challenge and benefits San Diego endurance athlete Skip Gleavey. This summer, Skip was in cycling accident which has left him paralyzed below the waist. Proceeds from the Milestone Challenge will go to help cover his health care costs during his rehabilitation.

Skip has completed marathons, century rides and triathlons. He did those events while recovering from heart surgery and Stage 4 Lymphoma. Now he needs to conquer another challenge - life after a devastating accident.

The ride will be a typically beautiful Southern California course starting in Solana Beach and going up the Pacific coast.

Cyclists and San Diegans. It's time to do a race for one of our own.

Ride
Donate
Volunteer

Canceled

Canceled due to air quality conditions created by the wildfires. Let me share with you this nugget of the wisdom from Bull Durham.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains a wildfire sweeps through and the race gets canceled. Think about that for a while.
- Ebby Calvin LaLoosh

Stay Safe

Steve and I got to Pasadena after a pretty stressful, traffic-filled drive. I spent about a hour on the road wondering where all these people were going on a Saturday afternoon. Then I looked at the sunset and thought - hey that's smoke. Damn. Wildfires.

We made it in the nick of time to pick up my race number. Most of the fitness expo was already closed. When I picked up my number they said to check the website at 4 am. They may need to cancel the race due to poor air quality.

It would be sad to cancel the race, but it might be for the best. No one wants to have a race that's dangerous to the participants or spectators. Between the heat and the air quality, perhaps another day will be safer. When it comes right down to it - a race is relatively unimportant in comparison to the big events in life like the damage the fires can do.

Hopefully, the fires will be quickly extinguished with minimal damage and injury.

URGENT EVENT UPDATE!

We are in consultation with air-quality experts, as well as health and fire officials, to determine if last-minute adjustments to our event must be made as a result of fires burning locally. If the event must be cancelled due to poor air quality, this determination will be made at 4:00 a.m., and all persons who are signed up for our newsletter will receive a notification to this effect. We thank you for your support and patience.

Groundhog Day Race

It never changes. My race is Sunday. What makes me miserable in a race? Heat. Exactly how many races do I need to do in sweltering temperatures?

Let's read this warning from today's final pre-race newsletter email.

Pasadena Marathon

Final Pre-event Newsletter

RACE DAY TEMPERATURE ADVISORY

Unseasonably high temperatures expected for this weekend can present some Race Day dangers which we are taking very seriously, and we implore our participants to do so as well.

The forecast is for 90°F weather. In case you've missed tearing a few pages from the old calendar - it's November. The average high in Pasadena is 74°F; the record high: 90°F (1949). Yep, I'll be doing a half marathon in heat that Pasadena hasn't seen in November in 60 years.

One day I'm just going to get it over with and do a race on the surface of the sun.

Peak Performance Training Log

A brand new training log. This one is for the next 12 weeks which is my first season as a TNT mentor.

February 1 - February 7
Not my most consistent week, but a good transition week between sessions.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Surf City Half Marathon	Surf City Half Marathon	Good race, boring course
Monday	Rest	-	-
Tuesday	Lift	-	Ankle swollen.
Wednesday	Run	-	Ankle still swollen. Rx Rest.
Thursday	Lift	30 minutes conditioning	-
Friday	Rest	30 minutes conditioning	-
Saturday	Run 5 Miles	-	-
-
January 25 - January 31
I was sick and I had a sprained ankle
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Carlsbad Half Marathon	-	Sprained my ankle
Monday	Power Hour	Rest	-
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour	Sick	-
Thursday	Power Hour	Sick	-
Friday	Power Hour	Sick	-
Saturday	Rest	-	-
-
January 18 - January 24
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	RNR Phoenix	-	-
Monday	Power Hour /TNT Core	-	-
Tuesday	Power Hour /3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour /Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-	-
Thursday	Power Hour /5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Power Hour	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
January 11 - January 17
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Power Hour /TNT Core	-	-
Tuesday	Power Hour /3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour /Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-	-
Thursday	Power Hour /5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Power Hour	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
January 4 - January 10
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Power Hour /TNT Core	-	-
Tuesday	Power Hour /3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Power Hour /Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-	-
Thursday	Power Hour /5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Power Hour	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
-
December 28 - January 3
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Vacation	-	-
Monday	Vacation	-	-
Tuesday	Vacation	-	-
Wednesday	Rest	-	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	5 Miles	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
-
December 21 - December 27
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Rest	-	-
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Rest	-	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	-	-
-
-
-
December 14 - December 20
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	White Rock Half Marathon	-	Plantar Fasciae are mean
Monday	TNT Core	Core	-
Tuesday	3.3 Miles	-	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	SFB Class	-
Thursday	5 Miles	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-
December 7 - December 13
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	TNT Core	Core	-
Tuesday	Rese	-	-.
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	SFB Class	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Rest	-	-
-
-
November 30 - December 6
-
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	TNT Core	Core	Wow, my abs are crying. That inchworm thing is a killer
Tuesday	3 Miles	3.2 Miles	Laurel St. I cranked it.
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	SFB Class	-
Thursday	5 Miles Intervals	5.3 Miles	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-
-
November 23 - November 29
Not bad - especially considering we spent the weekend in Las Vegas.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	TNT Core	TNT Core	Oh, ouch
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Who knows 27 kinds of squats? I do.
Thursday	Rest	Rest	-
Friday	Rest	Rest	-
Saturday	6 Miles	11 Miles	Good. Jay is fast, but I tried to keep his pace.
-
-
November 16 - November 22
Canceled race. Lucky for me, because my feet were in bad shape.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Pasadena Half	-	Canceled. Darn.
Monday	TNT Core	TNT Core	-
Tuesday	Rest	-	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	-
Thursday	Rest	-	-
Friday	Rest	-	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-
-
November 9 - November 15
Resting up for the Pasadena Half Marathon while starting TNT.
Day	Goal	Actual	Notes
Sunday	Rest	-	-
Monday	Pool, TNT Core	Pool, TNT Core	Wow, that was a burner of a workout
Tuesday	Ballet Barre	Ballet Barre	-
Wednesday	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and Balance Class	Strength, Flexibility and PULL UPS
Thursday	Swim	Rest	-
Friday	Rest	Core Class	-
Saturday	Velocity	Velocity	-
-

Updates

After a day of tests the pet emergency room vets were completely confounded by what was wrong with Toby. I took him home and he stumped us all by getting better on his own.

My bout with the croup is almost complete. Other than a lingering cough, I'm good. It's still a bummer since that cough/cold kept me pretty well out of cardio activities and I'm really worried about the half marathon this weekend. Ah, well. I guess I'll suffer on through it.

I did my first TNT Peak Performance Team workout last night. One hour - all core - all the time. That's a full hour of abdominals with only quick breaks for back. Yikes. My abadabas were screaming for mercy.

More Family Fun

I'm mostly better and now my beloved cat Toby is sick. I'm here the pet ER waiting for the blood work and x-rays.

The pet emergency room is one of the saddest, loneliest places.

Sick

I'm sick wth a hacking cough that feels like I'm tearing away one smoldering hunk of lung at a time. This sucks.

As Chris Rock says, more tussin!

Postcard from Pennsylvania

I've been in Pennsylvania for a few days visiting my family. Some notes, in no order:

• Phillies Phinally! After waiting 28 years, the Phillies deliver a World Series. It's pretty much Christmas x your birthday + 4th of July fireworks in all of Eastern Pennsylvania. A three day final game? Just a little more time to wait for the eventual win.
• My nieces and nephew have gotten so much bigger in the last10 months. There's a new baby too. They are adorable, sweet and perfect. Also, they are little germ factories and I'm sick.
• Living in California I've been insulated from the most hateful political ads since California is definitely Obama-land. Pennsylvania is a battleground state and the ads stink of desperation here.

Heading home to California tomorrow.

Man-Torture

Last night as I was at one of the TNT information sessions, I realized that the Peak Performance team starts with a fitness assessment. In less than 2 weeks, someone is going to assess my core strength, flexiblity, etc.

Noooooooooo!

Two years of marathon training has left me with little time to do other gym work, such as core work or weight training. (Excuses, excuses. I could have made time.) My pride decided that a few preparation workouts before my fitness assessment are essential. This morning I grabbed a Pilates DVD from my extensive collection and got down on the mat.

Pilates is tougher than you think. I used to share an office a former Army Ranger. He was a very fit guy and tough as leather. How tough? The man was in a grappling league. When I told him I did Pilates he said, "Pilates! I did that once. They should call that Man-Torture. That Pilates is how they get prisioners to talk."

I used to be good at Pilates - not great, but respectable. Today, I couldn't do one teaser and struggled with jackknifes. Not good news.

The Peak Performance team should be exactly what I need. Twelve weeks of focus on my overall fitness should make me a much stronger marathoner in the long run. (In the long run - I'm punny!)

In Praise of Efficiency

Sometimes, the world runs exactly as it should.

• A quick call to Nike got that whole half marathon/iPod nano problem resolved. Rock on Nike.
• My new passport arrived in under 2 weeks. Get down with your bad self State Department.

I'm on a roll here people.

New Challenge

You all know that I love Team In Training, right? Then it should come as no surprise that I want to contribute some time and effort to make the TNT experience awesome for other participants. I volunteered to become a mentor for our Peak Performance team.

Peak Performance is a special team for dedicated people who want to have their best marathon, triathlon or century ride (or for people who just want to increase their overall strength, explosiveness, flexibility and balance). It's several nights a week of training at different training facilities in San Diego and it's run by excellent coaches, trainers and a nutritionist.

As always, TNT isn't about endurance sports. It's really about raising funds to find a cure for blood cancer and for helping patients and their families. My donation page is on-line, if you're inclined to donate.

Nike+ iPod nano = Suckage

I did my 13.1 miles to complete the Nike+ Women's Half Marathon. For the Nike+ Half Marathon, you need to run with the Ipod nano running kit. Here's the rub. My iPod nano locked up and had to be reset at about mile 10.5. The entire workout is gone from the nano's memory. I can verify that I did the workout, because I have it on my Garmin 205 - a product that does work reliably (unlike the POS iPod nano).

I bought the iPod nano specifically for the Nike+ Women's Half Marathon. Reading through the forums over at Nike+ it seems lots of people struggle getting these things to work. My nano is the new 8g and maybe that's part of the problem; maybe it wasn't fully tested. I'm not sure if it's the nano that sucks or the running kit that sucks. Maybe they just suck synergistically. All I know is there is some heavy duty suckage.

Honestly, when my nano crapped out, it really upset me. I was completely devastated and in tears. I was having a good run putting together some quality laps at Lake Miramar. Then the nano locked and it was all gone.

I tried to email Nike+ to get some help. When I clicked the email link at Nike+, this is the error message on the site.



Can you believe that - I'm not allowed to email unless the customer service agents are there. Gee, has Nike+ not learned that email can flow even if you're not there to read it. It will wait for you in your inbox?

Sad. Crappy, worthless and sad.

Finisher - Long Beach Half Marathon

Nice race. Not my best day, but it was a fun race. That's 2 of the California Dreamin' series complete with 1 more.

Thanks go to these people -

The lady at the expo who used The Stick to work out most of a cramp in my calf yesterday. Thanks to her today was a lot better than I hoped.

The person spraying KOOL ‘N FIT on tired and cramped muscles at mile 10. I was a doubter, but your product is awesome. Sorry I pulled up my running skirt and asked you to spray my hip too. Be grateful I didn't pull off my skirt and ask you to spray my butt.

The drummers at mile 12.5. You are awesome. Especially when you stopped drumming for a sec and pointed at me with your drumsticks. You totally, absolutely lifted me to the finish line.

The people on mile 9 who gave out free beer. I love you. No, I mean I Love You. You are my bestest friends.

Sweet Home Chicago

Elite Racing announced the new location today.

Rock 'n' Roll Chicago Marathon & 1/2 Marathon - August 9

Chicago is August? Won't that be humid and yucky? Who am I kidding? I'm SOOO there.

Where Will They Rock Next?

The Rock N Roll Marathons are on a roll. They are taking over the running world and I love them for it. For 2009, they are already adding Seattle and it looks like they're adding another one too.

http://www.wherewilltheyrocknext.com/

Woo Hoo. Register a guess now and they'll send you an awesome promo for the race. (For Seattle it was half off the cost of registration (which I missed due to a hotmail snafu).

So Long Rose Bowl Half Marathon

It's been swelteringly hot here which can only mean one thing - I've got a race this weekend!

We're off to the Long Beach Half Marathon. This one is a girls trip and I'm looking forward to it. Honestly, other than my weekly long runs I haven't been running much lately. Instead I've spent a lot of workouts in the pool. It's been almost 2 months since my last half marathon and that's too long for me. Having a race on the immediate horizon keeps me focused.

In other race news, I've changed my race calendar again. I'm dropping the Rose Bowl Half Marathon. They are doing something I find annoying which is forcing everyone to pay active.com fees. The race is $105 dollars total, $85 race registration + 10 bucks in mandatory active.com registration fees + 10 bucks for parking. I emailed them a few times about mailing a registration and by-passing the active.com fee and they never bothered to respond. If you want to charge 105 bucks, fine, but don't bury additional charges in parking and active.com. Nothing against active.com; they're a local San Diego company and they provide a good service. However, given the choice between a 10 dollar active.com fee or a 42 cent postage stamp, I'll use the stamp.

So that's it for the Rose Bowl Half Marathon. We did the inaugural Rose Bowl race last year and it was a nice event, but not worth $105 bucks. Dropping the Rose Bowl half makes room for the Pasadena Half Marathon and the White Rock Half Marathon in Dallas. Both of those races look good. No regrets on dumping Rose Bowl.

Celebration of Cheese

Since Steve posted a photo of me in front of the celebration of cheese, I thought I'd offer a few words in my defense.

On the drive up the coast, Steve and I stopped for dinner at the Andersen's which claims to be Santa Barbara's Best Danish Restaurant & Bakery. (How many Danish Restaurant & Bakeries are there in Santa Barbara?)

For dinner I ordered the Celebration of Cheese. I like cheese, and yeah, I'm wiling to celebrate it. I was expecting a nice fruit and cheese plate. I was not expecting so much cheese that the table couldn't hold it all and they'd have to put the cheese on a lift like they do with pizza. There was so much cheese that they needed to have architecture to put it on the table - the downstairs was for croissants and breads. The upstairs was for Danish Havarti cheese, French Brie, Danish saga, blue cheese and some strawberries, oranges and pineapple.

I mean, I celebrate cheese and all of it's dairy brethren. I just didn't expect to receive an entire catering platter. I was in lactose heaven and it was delicious.

But I have one question. Why no Gouda?

Why?

We're on a road trip for Steve's bike race. Since I'm not riding, I dropped him off at the start and set out to find a nice run.

As a woman, when I run alone I stay in very populated areas. Finding a relatively safe run here was a challenge. Most of the runs on mapmyrun.com for this area go through some barren locations. That's the problem with runs over 10 miles, it's hard to find a consistently good route.

I picked a route along the shoreline thinking that the beach is always nice. Fail. I ended up in what must be the most yucky beach town on the planet. Running isn't any fun here - lots of missing sidewalk, potholes and cracks, trash on the street and dog dookie on the sidewalks. I'm sure there's something nice about this place, but I'm at a loss to tell you what it might be. There was so much fog I couldn't even see the ocean.

Since mapmyrun has gone to a paid model, you must now pay to print maps. That's pretty much the end of my use of mapmyrun. Their service is adequate, but no better than some of the free services out there. I didn't print a map, but I did memorize a 12 mile route.

It was ugly, foggy and trashy, but I was strong - running hard through the beachside trailer parks. As I was at the midpoint of my run, I noticed that the same black Monte Carlo car was always behind me. After a mile or so, I realize, this guy's not looking for an address. Now we start a game of cat and mouse. I turn in the opposite direction and he takes the next turn and catches up to me. I run slowly; he drives slowly. I run though yards or against traffic, he catches me at the next intersection. Creepy. I finally lost him, but also had managed to get lost - without a map, off my memorized route and somehow on the other side of the canyon and the highway. Getting back to my truck added a few extra miles to my plan. As I got near my car, there he was again. I looked over and there was now a woman in the car with him and she snapped my picture (with flash). Why? Why do you stalk and snap a photo of a stranger running?

You annoy me creepy, cellulite fetish, Chevy Monte Carlo man and your freaky photographer girlfriend. You annoy me.

Michael Phelps and I - Twins?

Michael Phelps was interviewed on the sideline of today's Michigan game and I promise you he said this when listing his goals.

"Get back in shape"

Forty days after capturing his 8th gold medal in Beijing, Michael worried about his fitness level and needs to "get back in shape".

Clearly "Get back in shape" means something different to Michael than it does to me. Because getting back into shape is one of my goals too.

Spun

Went to spin class. Then went and ate two enormous cookies from the catering tray in the break room.

QOTD

The only real limitation you ever had was your inability to see what you were actually capable of all along.

-Dawn Dais
The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide for Women

Who's Down With ADD? Yeah You Know Me!

I'm so friggin' bored with my workout schedule that I'm not really working out all that often. I'm not feeling challenged or stimulated or well, anything. For an ADD person like me boredom=not going to bother. Also, I'm fat these days which isn't helping

In hopes that something will spark me to leave my office and go to the gym, I''m giving another shot at shaking it up with new workouts. Today, I rocked it old skool in the pool. Having swum competitively since I was 6 years old, the pool is a familiar place for me.

I hopped in and did most of today's Master Swim workout, but had to shave off a round of laps because I ran out of time. That happened because I'm so slow that I couldn't complete the full workout in the time allotted. It wasn't even a hard workout, a mere 2500 meters (1.5 miles) in a short course pool. Poop! Also, my butterfly which was always my strongest stroke has gone completely wonky. Double Poop Poop!

I suspect I'll be spending time with this book on short pool workouts.

Today's Workout:

Warm Up	-	500 Increasing	-
Drills	2 sets	5 x 25 Fly	30 second intervals.
-	-	5 x 25 Back	Each stroke restarts at the top.
-	-	5 x 25 Breast	Last in each series is an easy kick drill.
-	-	5 x 25 Free	Should have been 3 sets.
-	-	100 Easy	-
Cool Down	-	800 Decreasing	-
-

My Super Hero Power

The technical support team in our office calls me the Human Magnet. They're not sure exactly how I do it, but I make hardware die. The average life of my lifespan of my laptops is less than a year. Like milk, my laptop hardware simply goes sour one day.

Admittedly, my laptops get very hard (ab)use. I'm pretty sure these hardware failures have something to do with my never turning the laptop off and with throwing the computer in my purse. See also, dropping.

I've been using one laptop for about 9 months or about as long as we expect one of these buggers to last for me. Yesterday, on midway through boot up I got a new screen - not the blue screen of doom, but a bright green screen of doom. Our tech team was stumped. They hadn't seen a green screen like that before and couldn't locate any documentation that referenced a green death screen.

That's my Super Hero Power - I slay hardware.

Home Maintenance Tip

Don't throw pennies in the garbage disposal.

Sure a penny is almost worthless and maybe you're tempted to toss one in there. However, the two hours I spent diagnosing the problem and then jimmying the penny out of there was pretty valuable to me.

Like Job in the Desert

Today we did the train run/walk that we planned for 16 miles.

We hopped the Amtrak Surfliner train in Solana Beach and rode to Oceanside. Of course, none of us brought a map and instead we relied on our memory of the course to get us from Oceanside through Carlsbad then Leucadia then Encinitas then Cardiff by the Sea and finally back to Solana Beach.

All was okay until the group got separated, then it was just a wander of looking for each other. This included me backtracking for a mile to try to find everyone. I didn't ever find anyone and plowed along until Noel caught up to me. (And here I had been going as fast as I could because I was sure she and the rest of the crew had passed me.) Noel and I finished together, but she was definitely faster than I was.

All in all I ended up with 17 miles. Soreness may be my companion tomorrow. (Update: Not sore at all. My legs held up fine.)

Lessons learned:

• Today, I carried trail mix and a nutrition bar which was much, much better than just my standard course nutrition of gels and sport beans. A bit of extra solid food really knocked out the bonking problem that I generally have at mile 12 or 13. From now onward, I'm carrying real food for long miles.

• A course that spans five zip codes probably merits a map.

Marathons Are Nothing

My parents have been visiting for three weeks (which explains the lack of posts). Yesterday, for their last day in San Diego we went to the beach in front of the Hotel Del Coronado. Coronado Island is home one of the world's great beaches and of the Navy SEALs.

The water was a bit too cold to swim, but we walked along the shore and got our feet wet. Then we sprawled out on the beach blanket and watched military aircraft do some practice runs - touch-and-go's, short landings, the whole works. It was a nifty impromptu air show of small planes, a Gulfstream jet, a Hornet, and two different helicopters. Very cool, indeed.

As we were combing the beach for sand dollars we noticed a whole slew of guys in rafts. We ambled over to find 15 rafts of Navy SEAL trainees doing some sort of training exercise. I'm not sure what they were doing, but it looked arduous. Three rafts were selected out of the pack to race to shore. The winning crew would get out and heave their raft over some rocky shoreline. If the did something wrong and they'd get punishment of rolling in mucky water then in sand. Then they'd do push ups, squat thrusts and jumping jacks until the instructor got bored. Then it was back in the raft for another round. One guy had a ripped pants leg from his calf to his thigh. I can pretty much guarantee that it wasn't just he pant leg that ripped but his leg flesh too. He was rolling in sand and sea water without complaint.

The Navy sent a Public Relations Officer along with the training crew. It makes sense since this is a public beach and all. Poor guy had to spend 30 minutes answering my questions. I get my money's worth for my tax dollar.

• How many men make it through the SEALs program? About 70%. Nearly all of the drop outs (90%) are voluntary; the remainder are medical or performance.
• Do SEALs get paid more than Navy personnel of similar rank? Yes, mostly in the form of bonuses.
• What is the usable life of a Navy SEAL? Some stay in the SEALs for 30 years, but they aren't the guy kicking in the door. They are planning missions.
• So do those old SEALs get fat and unfit? No, all SEALs can pass the same physical standards.
• How long is the training? About a year, but it can vary.
• Are they done for today after this exercise? No, they'll run back to the base and train for another few hours at least.
• How do the rafts get back to the base? They'll carry them as they run, balanced over their heads.
• How long have these guys been in training? Less than three weeks. They aren't receiving any bonus pay yet, because they haven't hit the first milestone.

Sheet! These kids were doing this exhausting workout for no additional pay, a 30% chance of success and they'd have to do this another year.

I'll never complain on mile 20 of a marathon again.

All Aboard

At 6 a.m. this morning, I ran into my friend Debbie at the Solana Beach train station. We were both there to train with our marathon teams. Is there another reason to be at the train station before dawn? She's with Team In Training and I'm with the San Diego Stride.

Debbie once called me the Queen of Mileage, because if there is even a few more feet of training distance available I'll insist on doing it. Today I was actually not running the absolute most mileage available. I decided to limit my run to 14 miles instead of 16. I've been really pushing myself to run more consistently, so it seemed like a good week to go with shorter run. Next week, I'm doing the train run again for 16-17 miles.

It was a good run today, but I started to bonk about 1 mile from the finish. Suddenly I was famished and then nauseated and then back to famished. I did a Gu and some sport beans, but that wasn't enough for 3 hours of running. I need to take a nutrition bar next week.

Of course, it's hard to believe I could possibly be hungry after a week in Las Vegas. The casino may beat me at the slot machine, but I make it up in the buffet line. It was nice to burn through some of the food coma sluggishness of the last week. Today when I was sweating, I'm pretty sure I smelled cream gravy.

Exchange Rate

Back from Las Vegas a bit heavier (in pounds) and lighter (in dollars).

14 Miles

Of suckiness. When your morning run is an hour longer than your night's sleep it can't be good.

Same Sh*t, New State

After 3 years, my final Texas speeding ticket has been dismissed. Just in time since last week I got snapped at one of the stop light cameras here in California.

Labor Day Weekend Prototype

We had the prototype for Labor Day weekends.

• Yardwork.
• Went to the park.
• Went to a baseball game (Padres v Rockies) and got sunburned.
• Hung out with family.
• Went to the beach, had a picnic and a bonfire.
• Complained about going back to work.

Yep-that's pretty much the textbook definition of Labor Day Weekend.

Oh Baby!

My newly arrived niece.

A big, healthy baby girl - 7 pounds 6 ounces, 20 1/2 inches.

Welcome to family little one.

So Long Riverside Run

The Riverside Run Half Marathon has been "postponed". That'a a nice way of saying that the City of Riverside flaked out and the sponsor bailed.

That's one more race I won't be running.

A Time to Chill

I've decided to skip the Big Bear Half Marathon.

The reasons are multifactorial. My parents are going to be visiting me. Steve decided that he's focusing on his bike riding and he's not training for walk/run events. It's a lot of driving and hassle and expense for half marathon . I'd have to rush into and out of Big Bear so quickly that it would be stressful Mostly, I'm skipping this one because it's starting to feel like a chore. I don't need to collect every single Southern California half marathon medal this year. I'm giving myself permission to skip it.

It's supposed to be fun.

In other news - anyone want to do the inaugural Disney Princess Half Marathon with me next March? I bet the medal is going to be fantastic.

A Good Day and Two Medals For Me

Ran America's Finest City Half Marathon today; the final race of the Half Marathon Triple Crown. It was a beautiful course starting at the most Southwestern point in the continental United States, the Cabrillo National Monument. I'd been there before, but it always impresses me. The views across the bay to San Diego and to Mexico are postcard perfect.

The race didn't start until 7 a.m. and there was no marine layer to keep things cool. It was hot out there. The race started at 7, but we had to be a Balboa Park to catch the bus to Cabrillo a 5 a.m. Cabrillo is part of that National Parks Service and there simply isn't room for 8,000 people and their cars. Every single runner must take a bus from Balboa Park. That said, I really wish that they'd start this race at 6 am and have us get to the buses at 4. I hate the early morning, but I hate running in the heat more.

The first two miles are a gentle uphill that's followed by 2 perfect miles of downhill running through the Point Loma neighborhoods. Oh, I lurve me some downhill. This was the only part of the course that I had never run before and it was lovely. Tons of families and kids were out to cheer on the runners. I love that. It makes running so much fun.

Then it was on to the familiar territory of Harbor Island, the Embarcadero, downtown San Diego and the (dreaded) 6th Ave. hill. Amusingly, 6th Ave was nothing. All those Monday nights running up and down that hill and it was just nothing on race day (even at mile 12 of the run).

At the end of the race I got my America's Finest City Half Marathon Finisher's Medal. It is a lovely medal. A nice medal is normally is very pleasing to me. However, I what really wanted my Triple Crown finisher medal. This was race three; I did them all. Give Me My Medal. I had to walk another mile to get it and I was ridiculously stressed out about it. Joanne and I finally found the tent for Triple Crown Finishers. The volunteer gave me the medal and asked me if it was worth it. I knew the answer - after months of work starting in January at the Carlsbad Half Marathon, to the steamy, pukefest that was the La Jolla Half, through the training doldrums of the summer getting ready for today - yes.


Yes, it was totally, completely and absolutely worth it.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

The Olympics have been awesome so far. With all the huge spectacle, I'm absolutely charmed by this photo of children in the outskirts of Beijing from Boston.com. I love the kid on the end who's stretching to make the rings connect.

Children of migrant workers from outlying provinces look at themselves in the mirror as they use their hands to form the Olympic Rings after watching the TV live broadcast of the Olympic Games opening ceremony at their quarters August 8, 2008 on the outskirts of Beijing. (Andrew Wong/Getty Images)

I can remember watching the Olympics as a kid and feeling this incredible feeling of hope and happiness. I hope that these kids feel that. Heaven knows being a migrant worker in China (or anywhere) can't be easy.

Look What I Made

It's a gigantic, yummy fig.

Well, I didn't make it so much as I picked it off the tree in my backyard. In fact, it's not even as though I planted the tree. The tree came with the house. My sole contribution to making this fig was waiting for it to ripen before I picked it.

Figs aren't fruits; they're flowers. Unlike fruits, figs will not ripen off the tree so you have to wait until they are perfectly ripe to pick them. I've been checking these figs for weeks. That's a lot of waiting considering I don't think I'd ever had a fresh fig before. Of course, I do love the fig newton so I was pretty sure the fresh fig would be good.

Patience pays off. Just look at how perfectly ripe it is. Delicious. Fresh figs from my yard. How awesome is that?


Apparently, the tree will yield two crops each year. One small early crop (this one) and a later, heavier sweeter crop in the fall. I'm not much of a gardener but I can tell you this. Figs take forever to ripen. Here are the figs of the future.

Rock & Roll Fantasy

For the last year, I've been mulling over doing the full Rock Star series of marathons in 2009. Elite Racing does a great job putting together the Rock N Roll Marathon series and the medals are fantastic.

I'd love to do it, but the it'll be a lot of solo travel. Steve isn't doing these events, because he'll be doing century rides next year. That's a bummer because each Roll N Roll event ends with a rock concert. It's a strange and cool array of artists - the B-52s, Seal, Gin Blossoms, Kool and the Gang. It'll be a lot less fun to do the events alone.

So I've been mulling it over...want to do them, but it's a big commitment in time and travel. When I picked up my race number last week in San Francisco, there was a promo table for all of the Rock N Roll events - with a coupon for 10 dollars off on the entry fee for Phoenix. Well sure, if there's a coupon I guess I'll do it.

Race Series for 2009

P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon & 1/2 Marathon
Phoenix, AZ - January 18

Surf City USA Marathon
Huntington Beach, CA - February 1 (Completes the California Dreamin' Triple Crown)

Country Music Marathon & 1/2 Marathon
Nashville, TN - April 25

Avenue of the Giants
Humboldt, CA - May 3

San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon
San Diego, CA - May 31

Rock N Roll Seattle
Seattle, WA - June 27

Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon Virginia Beach
Virginia Beach, VA - September 6

ING Philadelphia Distance Run
Philadelphia, PA - September 20

Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon San Jose
San Jose, CA - October 4

Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon & 1/2 Marathon
San Antonio, TX - November 15

Already a full schedule and I haven't even mentioned the New York Marathon and Nike Women's Marathon both of which I'll do if I get a lottery spot for the event. If I get a spot in New York, then I'll do Chicago too and knock out 2 of the World Marathon majors. Once you start training for a full marathon, you may as well crank through a few. I'd also love to do Big Sur, Napa-to-Sonoma and Palm Springs - just for the stunning scenery. Then there are the local events: Carlsbad, La Jolla, America's Finest City and IronGirl.

And well, there's the Lavaman Triathlon only 2 days before my birthday.

Race Notes: San Francisco Marathon

A good day, even if my overall pace wasn't as fast as I'd hoped.

• I executed well against my plan until the final half mile or so. My plan was 7 minutes running followed by 1 minute recovery walking. On the most brutal hills, I planned to walk up the hill when needed and run on the decline. I was mostly okay with 7:1
• The Hills Were Alive With The Sound of Complaining. On the last hill I had some cramping in my hip rotators. However, all the miles of hill work really paid out in this race.
  
• I woke up with a knot in my left calf, started the race with a knot in my left calf, ran with a knot in my left calf, and then finished with a knot in my left calf. It never loosened up and it annoyed me all day.
• Pre-race prep was suboptimal. On Saturday, I spent the day walking about 6-7 miles around Berkeley, then had Indian food for dinner. When will I learn to take it easy that day before a race?
• I loved the race start - wave starts with all runners on the marathon course on the road by 6am. I shot out at 5:30 and it was heavenly to run in the cool air and see the sun rise.
  
• I had a lllloooonnnnngggg bathroom stop at mile 7.5. Generally, I do not stop on a half marathon because I've got a camel-like bladder. I spent about 20 minutes waiting for a port-o-let. This is really the fault of course organizers. Six port-o-lets for 17,000 runners is not sufficient. This bathroom stop was jammed because it was the turnaround to go back across the Golden Gate Bridge. No runner had been able to stop for un besoin naturel for the last 2 miles going across the bridge and no one could stop for the next two miles returning across the bridge. That meant most runners needed to stop here, me included. Nothing to change in my race prep, but it did kill my pace by adding a minute and a half per mile.
  

This Just In... San Francisco Is Hilly

I don't know why, but every time I looked at the elevation map for the San Francisco Marathon, I thought it didn't look too hilly. It looked more like low, rolling hills. Uh, no. There were some challenging climbs and the headwind was stiff at times, but overall a good effort.

Race report to follow.

Olympic Moment

My morning flight to San Francisco is full of soon-to-be Olympians on the way to Beijing. They're all traveling in their team USA gear and it is quite patriotic on this flight.

Update: It was the U.S.A. Women's Field Hockey team.

We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About

Watching the Today show this morning I was surprised to see a guy I knew from undergrad at Penn State being interviewed by Meredeth Viera. He wasn't interviewed as part of the freak show /Jerry Springer aspect of the morning news shows. Nope, he was interviewed as an authority from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It took a minute for my sleep-addled brain to put it together. Hey, that's Sigma Nu Ross on the Today show!?!

It's always great to see someone from that time in my life who's managed to grow up into the a successful adult.

Rest Is As Important As Work - Duh!

Saturday I had my worst running performance since I began running. That's not an exaggeration; my legs could not run. After about 2 miles of slow shuffling, I had to walk/run back to my car. I cut off about 3 miles from my planned distance. There were a lot of reasons for my poor showing: dehydration, travel (round trip to San Francisco for a meeting on Friday), crappy nutrition on Thursday and Friday, lack of sleep. However, mostly I was simply over-training for the last week since I was trying to get ready for the San Francisco Half Marathon.

Yep, there were lots of reasons for Saturday's crappy run and I knew it. It was still a real confidence killer just a week before a race. I decided to rest Saturday and Sunday, eat more and gets lots of sleep. Hey, over-training isn't getting the job done. Maybe lying around the house like a slug will help.

Tonight I did my regular run up the 6th Avenue Hill of Panting. It was quite possibly, the best run I've ever done there. It was still tough, but I was able to go further, faster than I have in the past. I also bumped into the TNT walk crew after I finished my run. I joined them for 3 miles their walk, including the camelback hills. I jammed the camelback without even breathing heavy.

Turns out that the coaches are right - backdown is as important training. Rest achieves what over-training cannot.

Skirt Chaser

The cover story of this month's Runner's World magazine is about the fashion tidal wave that is the running skirt.

I started wearing running skirts before there were running skirts. I'd buy longer, non-white, tennis skirts and train in those. If you catch me wearing one of my older running skirts, I can show the hidden pockets that you're supposed to use to tuck a tennis ball for second serve. Whenever I'd wear a skirt to a race, a few women always asked where to get one. Other people were like, "WTF is she wearing".

Honestly, I don't know if I'd have kept training if I couldn't have found the skirts. I hate my thighs and the skirts make me feel a little bit better about myself. The skirt allowed me to feel girly enough that I wasn't horribly self-conscious.

Whatever gets you out to train is all right with me. All hail the skirt!

Stoking the Metobolic Fire

The running has really cranked up my metabolism. Consistent, intense cardio work makes your body burn through calories at an amazing rate. Come warm your hands around my metabolic fire.

You know when your metabolism heats up, because you are constantly hungry for healthy things - apples, yogurt, veggies and proteins. Unfortunately, if nothing healthy is available you're hungry enough to tear through whatever crap food is available. That's how people gain weight during marathon training - they're starved.

For the last week or so, I could feel my metobolism kicking it up a notch. This weekend, after the long run, it's really on fire. I'm hungry all the time. My metabolic furnace is so hot that I'm surprised I don't poot smoke.

10 Miles

Who would have thought that there be a beautiful run in San Diego that I'd missed? Today's course was one of the most lovely I've ever run. We started from the city skateboarding park in Ocean Beach (the Hippie Hollow of San Diego) and on through "Dog Beach". Then we went along the coast, out to the end of the pier and on to Sunset Cliffs. I know that I see the coast every week, but this is especially nice coastline - rocky and rugged with great crashing waves and dolphins playing with the surfers.

The course was hilly, but mostly rollers with a few peaks for fun. It was challenging, but not torture. One of the coaches was kind enough to offer to run with me since most of the team is on a taper this week, but I'm going in the opposite direction and needed to increase mileage. I did pretty well hanging with the coach, but she's definitely faster than I am. Also, I faded a lot on mile 8, 9 and 10 while she was able to be more consistent to her pace.

An irritating problem for the final miles was an ouchy friction spot on my inner thigh. I'm out of my favorite running product EVER - Two Toms Sports Shield Liquid. I used to love Body Glide for the prevention of chaffing, but Sport Shield beats it by a mile. With Sports Shield there are no blisters, no chaffing from your sports bra and no upper thigh Chub Rub. Since I didn't have Sports Shield I used something else that was good, but not fantastic. After mile 6, my inner thighs were angry about the friction. Hey, my thighs make me angry when I see them in shorts. I guess we're even.

Overall, more than 10 miles in perfect running weather.