Midnight Madness Bike Ride

Saturday night we rode our bikes in the 37th Annual Midnight Madness Fun Bike Ride.  It's 2,000 cyclists riding a 20 mile route through San Diego. The ride goes through some of the prettiest sections of downtown - along the bay, the Embarcadero, Little Italy, Old Town, Shelter and Harbor Islands.  I run those areas often, but never at night and it was beautiful to see the city lights and the boats lit up in the harbor.

Despite the fact the we had race bibs, it's a fun ride not a race.  There's a Light Your Bike contest.  Many of the cyclists are in costumes.  My personal favorite costumes were the people who showed up as astronauts with one cyclist towing the Apollo 11.  Fantastic!

Race or not, this is exactly the type of bike event that has terrified me in the past - the bedlam of a mass start, riding on the roads. I've really been working on my bike handling and it paid off for me.  The ride was fine and so was I.  Except for one little thing. The course was flat with some gentle rolling hills. Then there was one really steep downhill toward the end of the course.  I wasn't expecting it at all.  I turned a corner and suddenly it's a drop zone. I couldn't do it.  I had to walk my bike down the hill.

Okay, here's the thing.  I'm a perfectionist, not with other people but with myself. The fact that I had to get off my bike upset me.  A lot.  I was nearly in tears because I felt such a huge sense of failure for walking down a hill for a quarter of a mile. 

Let's get some perspective.  Saturday morning I did an exercise class followed by my full triathon workout:.Swim: 500 meters,  Bike: 15 miles, Run 3.5 miles. Saturday night, I started a ride at midnight and got past some of my big fears of group rides.  That's a day anyone should be proud to complete. Tears?  Over a hill?  I've got to get over it!

Setting high goals is a good thing.  Letting my perfectionist tendencies bring me to tears at the end of a fantastic day was just stupid. 

I Can't Explain It...

Steve and we're walking along Dog Beach.  It's a little stretch where everyone lets their dogs play in the waves. Very SoCal.

And sure, that's cool but how do you explain this.

This enormous iguana was riding the waves and body surfing back to the beach.  I cannot explain it, but it was cool.

Dog or iguana - which one do you see on your local beach?

More Days Like This One Please

This weekend was a very rare treat for us - we had nothing scheduled.  Well, that's not exactly true.  We planned to go to a party Friday night and planned to see some friends Sunday evening.  We didn't have long workouts with running or cycling teams, neither of us had a race, we didn't have travel plans.

Saturday we did mostly nothing other than take care of some long overdue errands such as buying bookshelves.  Oh the excitement!  How long have we been looking for bookcases for the bedroom and kitchen?  Too long.  The king and queen of clutter must have bookshelves.

Sunday we went to the beach.  One of my great disappointments is that I live 10 minutes from the beach and don't swim in the ocean often enough.  I dutifully keep my swimsuit, beach towel and blanket in the car, but I rarely have time to swim.  Stevie and I were out of beach-going practice, so hauling stuff to the beach wasn't a fully efficient process.  As we were finding our spot on the sand, Steve looked at someone's beach umbrella and said "We need one of those."  I replied, "Steve, that's what you're carrying."  What can I say, he's like a Sherpa.  He's willing to haul whatever I hand him and he doesn't ask questions.

It was awesome.  The water was chilly and perfect and the waves were strong enough to knock your suit off. Swam, read, napped.  Perfect!

Adventures in Landscaping

A few weeks ago, I was walking out to the garage and one of our landscape plants had sprung the creepiest looking thing ever. It was an enormous growth about a foot and a half long with a big, red curled tongue. Steve said it looked like the pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

I'm from the East Coast, so much of the native desert plants look like weeds to me. This plant had always looked like a ten foot high weed which was bad enough. Now it had some creepy pod with a tongue sprouting out of it. It had to go!

I went back the a week later and things were sprouting out of the giant pod. Things that looked like baby fingers. It's time for google, because I'm getting pretty sure there's something evil in the back yard.

Do I kill it with Holy Water or do I kill it with fire?




After some searching, it's not sprouting evil. It's growing bananas. (Identified to beyummy edible bananas by the helpful folks at bananas.org.) Nice! We like bananas.

Then I started counting and looking at ripe banana bunches - only a few of which you can see in this photo. Right now, I've got about 75 bananas and every leaf of that red thing is going to roll back and reveal more bananas. All of which will be ripe at the same time. If Steve and I both eat a banana a day...that's not enough.  We'll up our consumption to 2 bananas a day. And I'll make banana bread. And smoothies. And give some to the neighbors. And friends. And strangers.

It's a lot of bananas, but homegrown fruit is awesome.  Then I spotted this...another red pod that will be absolutely full of bananas.

I'm going to be the Bubba Gump of bananas.

March Marched On Without Me

March 2010 will always be known as that month I had a cold.

This was the single yuckiest cold I've ever had.  It wandered around my body on some sort of grand tour of malaise.  First, it was a sore throat, then a chest cold, then a sinus infection, then an ear ache, then a chest cold again, then swollen glands, then back to the ears.  That cold was everything but a UTI and athlete's foot.  Plus, I was tired all the time.  Run?  I needed a nap after a quick walk.

So yeah, the cold sucked but it wasn't worth a doctor visit since I was 95% sure it was a virus.  If it's a virus and it's past the first 36 hours, there's nothing the doctor can give you but sympathy.  Antibiotics won't work and I was past the window of efficacy of an antiviral medication.  I'm not someone who begs for antibiotics when they'll do no good. 

Finally, the cold continued it's grand tour and manifested as pink eye.  PINK EYE. That got me to the doctor, because pink eye is some ugly, ouchy and contagious stuff.  The doctor said, "Yup, viral, but take the antibiotic eye drops just in case." 

The antibiotics drops wiped out the pink eye is 2 doses.  I'm not a doctor, but antibiotics work on bacteria.  If the drops work, then this isn't viral.  This is one of those times it's awesome to live so close to the Mexican border.  Whenever I go over to Mexico, I pick up a stockpile of meds - Retin-A, antibiotics.  If you took a peak in the average San Diegian's medicine chest it would look like a farmacia.

I dug into my handy stockpile of Mexican antibiotics and in two days I was healed completely.  Whee!  I'm so happy to be healthy again.  I can't wait to run this weekend.

The Old Gray Mare Ain't What She Used to Be

Growing up, I was the queen of Halloween. Driven by an insatiable love of candy I'd start trolling the neighborhood before dusk. I had a strategy. Go to the row houses for maximum time efficiency per candy drop. Sure sometimes you'd get full size can bars in the rich neighborhood, but some of those people give out pennies, raisins and, damn it all, toothbrushes. I'd take the pillowcases off my parents king size pillows. No matter what I brought home I managed to devour it within a day or two. And that was only because my mother tried to ration it.

Tonight, I realized I've gotten soft. I dressed up in costume to hand our candy. We give out good stuff - brand name chocolates and in the larger fun size not the teensy mini bar. Between visits from trick or treaters, I was reading Deepak Chopra's Perfect Health. The irony wasn't lost on me. I'm not a fan of Deepak, because I think a lot what he says is unsubstanciated crap. I only bought the book because it was 50 cents at the used bookstore and it was autographed by ol' Deepak. I collect autographed books just for the amusement. Deepak signed his, "Dear Vicki, Wishing you the joy of immortality. (Like I said, crap.)

While I was handing out candy, I was enjoying the occasional treat myself. After a few candy samples, I was clutching my stomach in pain. What happened to the iron gut that could gobble down the king sized pillow case of candy? Gone. Frankly, I'm blaming it on reading that Deepak.

If I've gotten weak, so have kids. In my youth, Toostie Rolls which were hard, impossibly chewy and able to pull out a dental filling. The only thing more dangerous was the JuJu Bee. Now Tootie Rolls are sealed like a candy bar instead of just a twisted wax paper. I had a Tootsie Roll and it was soft as butter. Also, the kids don't work for it. One set of kids had their parents driving them around and double parking in front of houses with candy. How lazy can you get? Those kids don't deserve Fun Sized Chocolates. They're just lucky I didn't have a toothbrush to give them.

Love Will Keep Us Together

One of my gifts is that I am an excellent selector of fruit. You want the perfect apple or pear, just ask me. This summer, I selected a watermelon that was absolutely perfect with almost no white rind at all yet completely firm and not mushy. What can I say, selecting produce is my gift.

Last year, the best store for fresh produce in San Diego was the Food4Less. Hardly what you expect at a lower-end warehouse store, but this place had fantastic fruit - eight different types of apples including Winesaps and huge, perfect Honeycrisp apples for 98¢ a pound. Strawberries ripe, unbruised and out of season for $1.98 a quart. Plus, they had everything, bundles of fresh mint and sage, 10 different type of peppers, 6 different types of pears. It was like produce Heaven. Where were they getting such amazing produce? I drew the only logical conclusion. Someone at Food4Less was having an affair with the produce buyer.

Then it all fell apart. Food4Less had mealy apples, mushy peaches, bendy carrots and iceberg lettuce. Something went wrong. His fault? Her fault? Maybe a little of both? I don't know, but those were dark days of depressing fruit and veggies. I stopped making the extra trip to the Food4Less; it was too heartbreaking.

Yesterday I was in the neighborhood and I stopped in to grab a mango for salsa. Surprise. The beautiful produce is back. I was like a kid in a candy shoppe. Should I get the red, Bosc or D'Anjou pears? What could I do with this aromatic bundle of sage? I don't even know what this fruit is, but I want two.

All I can say is I hope those two crazy kids make a go of it this time.

Updated to include this photo of the watermelon I selected yesterday. In October. Yum.

The Workout Alternative

I cleaned the garage this weekend. It was the hardest workout I've ever done. Actually, it was far more than a garage cleaning. It was a complete restack of all of the storage in my house - boxes under beds, closets, dressers, kitchen cabinets. Everything had to be pulled out, sorted and reorganized.

Our house is small, not by Southern California standards, but by 2 people and a cat live here standards. This is a 1920's bungalow with 2 tiny coat closets. (Oh, how I miss the 3 walk in closets I left behind in Texas.) Clutter stresses me, so I'd much rather toss something in a box and move it to the garage than let it sit on a counter. It's a bad habit, but the house always looks very tidy - as long as no one sees the garage.

Another part of the problem is I've acquired different stuff since I moved to California because my life is different here. However, I've still got relics of my Texas stuff hogging space. In California, I acquired a bike, 2 lawn mowers (left by the previous owner), clothing is escalating sizes, more cookbooks, Steve. These things all take space. Over time, that's meant an endless parade of half full boxes going out to the garage.

A big part of the weekend was evaluating what gets the oh-so-scarce closet space. For instance, I have roughly 500 pairs of shoes in this house. That made sense when I wore heels all the time. I now spend 95% of my time in flip flops or running shoes; it's time to reclaim the closet that's a been a shrine 4 inch heels. Oh and those six 6 cigarette pants? I'm not ever going to be that thin again.

It was hours of sorting, laundry, tossing, dropping items off the nicest items at the battered womens shelter. There still a fair amount of work to be done, but it's already a lot better. I've got until the end of the week when Father Joe's is scheduled to pick up the rest of it.

All in all, it would have been far easier to do the 8 mile run I'd planned.

Who Needs A Hug and a Diet?

I'm just back from dropping my parents off at the airport. It was wonderful having them with me for a few weeks, but eventually they had to go back to their own lives. We did a ton of stuff while they were here, but mostly I just enjoyed having them with me.

There are two things that I dread about my parents leaving. One is that we all gain weight during their visit. Plus my folks have been traveling for awhile before coming to see me - Las Vegas, New Orleans. Those are some eatin' towns. My parents have a talking scale at their house. Imagine hopping on the scale and having it say "Good Morning." Then having it announce your weight to the tri-state area because it's so loud. We were all taking playful guesses at what the scale would say if we hopped on it. I think if I hopped on it would say "One at a time." In the words of Doctor Beck, "Oh, well."

The other thing I dread is the ride home after I take my folks to the airport. It's sad and I know that they won't be out to see me for a long while. Which makes me a teary mess, but what can you do? As I was driving home, I passed the HugNation RV which is usually parked down the street from my house. It always makes me smile.

Back to gym after work. Back to running. Back to a saner eating plan. Back home for my parents.

Lame

You see a lot of cool things when you're running. And sometimes you see things that are really, really lame.

I was running in Point Loma and I snapped this shot of the lamest attempt ever at TPing someone's house. Who TPs a huge house with only 1 roll of toilet paper? That's just lazy. Make an effort pranksters.

These people certainly don't have the work ethic to fork the yard.

Advice From A Master Gardener

Last summer, we planted a tangerine tree in the backyard. Truthfully, to call it a backyard is to compliment it. It's really just a little pathway to the garage. Anyway, that tree is just getting eaten down to the ground by grasshoppers. I love tangerines and I've waiting for the tree to mature so I could pick them right off my own tree. The grasshoppers don't touch the navel orange tree or the fig tree, but they are all over the tangerine tree.

This weekend, my mom and I stopped by Botanical Building in Balboa Park and spoke to the master gardener. It's so awesome that the master gardeners are there to answer questions and help make local gardeners successful.

I asked the master gardener what to do and she looked at me very, very seriously. She gave me this advice. "Grasshoppers are a difficult problem for any gardener to resolve. When I see grasshoppers, I think it's best to take my garden shears and chop them in half. I find that to be the best way since they are very hard the catch and stomp on with your foot." I don't know why, but I found this advice to be hysterically funny. Then she followed up with this. "You should know that after they're halved, they'll hop around for a bit. You need to be prepared for that." That's funny stuff.

Unfortunately, it's also advice I don't have the heart to follow. No tangerines for me.

Test Run

I took my new running shoes out for a very light test run/walk yesterday. I've been putting off breaking in some new kicks for almost 2 months. New shoes aren't something you change right before a race. First, it was too close to the San Diego race, then too close to the Seattle race. I would have put it off until after the Chicago race, but my current sneakers are completely destoyed. There's no cushion left; it's sort of like running with bricks laced to my feet.

Friday, I stopped by the San Diego Running Institute and picked up a new pair of Mizunos. Since my next real run will be the Chicago half marathon, I had to make sure the new shoes aren't going to give me blisters or arch pain or make me take a hostage by mile 9.

As a test drive, I ran a bit, but mostly walked from Mission Beach to Pacific Beach and into La Jolla. The course took me right along the coastline and it was lovely and breezy, just perfect really.

I snapped this photo from the trail because I thought the shadows of the palm trees were kind of cool. I wonder why people live anywhere but here.

Life in San Diego Gets Even Better

Sonic Drive-In has opened in San Diego. Did you hear me? Sonic is here. My friend Denise lives near the Sonic and she reports the line goes around the store and down the street. I don't care. I'm am soooo there.

My dear Sonic, I've been waiting for you. Chili cheese dogs, onion rings and my favorite - the Diet Cherry Limeade made with real limes and extra cherries. Oh yes.

If we ever get a Whataburger my life will be complete.

Happy Valentine's Day To You Too, You Cranky Old Bat

For Valentine's Day, we had tickets to see the San Diego Opera's production of Don Quixote. We had a little adventure getting there because dinner ran long and then we had a mix-up with the seats. (We meaning me. Steve was sharp-eyed enough to realize we weren't in our normal spot.) We sprinted upstairs and got correctly seated with a minute to spare. Normally, Steve is the one who's itching to arrive early. This time, I was the one insisting that we sprint down B Street to the theater.

It was a beautiful production - funny, touching, romantic in it's quixotic way. Ferruccio Furlanetto was amazing as Don Quixote. He's a great singer, a great actor and a perfect fit for that part. There were a lot of things done very well in the production - the supporting performers were solid, the orchestration was joyful, the sets and lighting were fresh and stunning.

As the crowd milled out, we were discussing the high points of the show. Not that it was flawless, but there were plenty of things that were definitely praiseworthy. Apparently, not enough for the old bat walking behind us. She was harping on how "awful" Denyce Graves was as Dulcinea. The old bat prattled on about how she was "horrible" two years ago and worse now.

For the record, Denyce Graves wasn't horrible at all. Admittedly, the first act wasn't kind to her; her costume was oddly barrel-like and the staging was off. (Dulcinea shows up and the party stops? Huh? Whatever Dulcinea's flaws, she wasn't a buzzkill.) However after a soft start, Denyce Graves gave a solid performance. Was she up to the level of Furlanetto? No, but it's sort of like saying Scottie Pippen wasn't as good as Micheal Jordan. Really, who was?

That harpy old bat really poisoned it for me. For the life of me, I will never understand why some people feel superior by being a harsh critic. It doesn't make you superior. It just makes you an unappreciative ass.

Photo credit: I swiped the photo from Aria Serious - the San Diego Opera blog.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Perfect

Just a lovely, lovely evening.

First, dinner at The Better Half - Apple, Mushroom and Pear Stuffed Quail, Bison Ribs and the Leaning Tower of Beets. Followed by good coffee and bread pudding with candied figs.

Then we took a nice evening walk to Cinema Under the Stars. It was great, wrapped up in our blankets and relaxing in the zero gravity recliners. Steve relaxed too much and fell asleep for a bit during Sorry Wrong Number, but I loved it.