Just a Running Fool

Anyone still out there??

2009-06-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! I'm back... at least for today! After my big promise months ago to get better about blogging on a more regular basis, I pretty much abandoned my blog :( I initially blamed the new job, but now that I'm more settled in, have my own office, and have the time to update, I still don't have that urge to write. BUT, the time has come to get on here again and at least write SOMETHING :)

Here are some general updates on what's been happening in my life over the past few months...

Work: I LOVE my new(ish) job :) The people I work with are great, and I really enjoy what I do. We're still building our company, and just moved into our own office space a little over a month ago. We've accomplished a lot, but there's still always more work to be done!!

Running: At the time of my last post I had just finished a half marathon in SF. I'm a little sad that I never did my post-run recap, but since it has now been months since the race, it's probably not going to happen. Suffice it to say that my recent experience was not too much different than the previous two times I've done that race. It went well, the weather was gorgeous, the Great Highway sucked, and I was happy to have it over with :D

Despite my good intentions, I ended up taking a long running break after the race. I went out and ran a handful of times, but never more than 3 miles or so. My break is now officially over and training has begun again! The Chicago marathon is just a few months away, and our training calender started on June 6. Claudia, Sandra and I (along with a fellow TNTer Leslie who isn't training for the marathon, but just wanted to come join us) met up at Lake Merritt on Saturday morning for our first (!!) training run. We're following a more advanced training calender which had us starting at 6 miles! Eeeek!

Let me just say that 1) I hate running in circles, 2) I hate running through geese, ducks, and on duck poop, 3) I like the new paved trail around part of the Lake and 4) 6 miles was tough! Claudia and I stuck together for both laps around the Lake, but we did have to take a couple of walk breaks. Despite those breaks, I'm still very proud of us. When you haven't been training, 6 miles is not a short easy run and we did it. I felt really good afterwards... maybe that was due to the strawberry mimosa we had at breakfast :D

Life: The rest of my life has been full of all the normal things... time spent with friends and family. My best childhood friend got married and her wedding in Nevada City was a lot of fun. There have been BBQ's, trips home to YC to see my family, a trip by my parents FROM YC to see me, a black tie event to celebrate LLC's Man/Woman of the Year.

A Time of Change

2009-01-20T08:40:00.000-08:00

This is time of change, not only for the country with the inauguration of a new President (WOO HOO!!), but also a personal time of change... I started a new job!! I enjoyed working at my previous job for almost 8 years, but the right opportunity opened up (thanks to Claudia :D) for me and I had to take it! It's going to entail learning a lot of new information, but I'm excited to take on a new challenge!

I don't have much to update on the running front, which is partly why I've been so bad about updating. I caught a little cold last week and decided that with a new job starting, and a 10 mile run coming up, I'd take the week off of running. Saturday I was very nervous about doing the 10 mile run since I still was still congested and wasn't sure how that would effect my breathing. We started off at Pt. Isabel and it was a gorgeous day for a run. It was a little chilly when we first got there and that started up a bunch of coughing. Once we got started though, it got a little better. We ran north along the trail up to Richmond and then back to Pt. Isabel, which was 7 miles. I took a little break there to catch my breath and check on one of my mentees who was a little behind me.

I was completely pooped, but really wanted to finish 10 miles, which meant heading south along the trail, which parallels the freeway for part of the way, for another mile and a half and then back. On the way out all I could think about was how I just wanted to be done already! I made it to the mile and a half mark and then took a little walk break once I turned around. It was getting harder for me to catch my breath so I walked a quarter mile, and then ran a quarter mile on and off all the way back.

I was so happy to be finished with that run! I didn't even look at my watch when I finished... I didn't even care how long it had taken me, just that I finished it! Even though the last mile and a half was tough, it was a pretty good 10 miler! No aches and pains, and I wasn't too sore afterwards. That might have been due to the restoring Pupusas I had for lunch at a Salvadorian place in Berkeley with Claudia and Jeanette afterwards :D My throat was NOT happy with all the coughing, the run and all the chit chatting afterwards... later that night my voice was pretty much gone. It's mostly recovered now and I only sounded a little bit manly on my first day at the new job :)

Happy 2009!

2009-01-07T16:39:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like I've already broken my New Year's non-resolution to update my blog more! I had a very fun New Year's Eve with Claudia and Rocky-- we had a yummy crab dinner with lots of wine and then stayed up till 2:00am watching all the silly New Years stuff on TV. Then next morning Rocky cooked us up some omelets and then I went home to spend the rest of the day being a lazy bum :D

This last weekend we had a Coached Run at Heather Farms in Walnut Creek. Although it was frigid again, once we got out there we warmed up fairly quickly. I knocked out 8 miles and felt really good the whole time! Since I run at Heather Farms every week, it was nice to run the trail in a different direction and get a change of scenery (although we run there in the dark during the week so it's not like I can see anything anyway!). The most interesting part of the run was that I got pooped on by a bird! I think in some countries that means I'll have good luck! After the run I joined some of my teammates at a diner nearby for breakfast. Our Arizona runners (all three of them) will be doing the half marathon in just two weeks so that was our unofficial send off for them!

On Sunday Claudia, Rocky and I had a day of culture in San Francisco :) We drove over early and went to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. They had a lot of interesting things, but a lot of weird art too. I like art that looks pretty, not something that looks like a 5 year old could have done it :) After the de Young, we went next door to the Japanese Gardens, which I haven't been to since I was a Freshman in college. It's so pretty there, but I had remembered it being bigger than it was. We walked around a little and then headed off to our next cultural destination, the Legion of Honor.

I had only seen the Legion of Honor from the outside and didn't really know what kind of museum it was and I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it a lot better than the de Young. We walked all through the building, but didn't see the Leonardo di Vinci exhibit because they charged extra for that. By that time we were all getting hungry so we headed to a different part of the city to grab a bite to eat. It ended up being a LONG day in the city, but it was fun to kind of play tourist and explore some new places!

Last night instead of our Buddy Run we had a hill workout. We have Cause for Celebration tomorrow night and after the two holidays, that would have meant 3 missed track workouts for the team. They decided to cancel our usual Buddy Runs and have "track" instead. We met up again at Dougherty Valley High School and did the same set of hills we did a few weeks ago. I think it was a little easier this time than last time! I guess the hill workouts are working! I have to say I don't hate them as much as I used to!

Playing blog catch up

2008-12-30T13:10:00.000-08:00

My mom told me to just write a sentence or two about everything that's happened since the last time I posted. That's probably the best idea, but I don't think I'm capable of boiling each thing down to even two sentences so this will probably be a long post :) I promise I'll be better about blogging from now on... I won't make it my New Year's Resolution since that will doom it to certain failure but I'll do my best to update more :D

First things first... I'M OLD(ER)!! WAHH! I started out the birthday celebration with dinner on my actual birthday with Claudia and Jeanette. Although I had a party planned for the next Saturday, I couldn't just sit home and do nothing on my actual birthday so we did a little mellow celebrating. We had a yummy dinner at OI-C Bowl in WC and then headed across the street to 1515 for drinks and dessert. Lindsay was able to meet up with us there for a little bit. THANK YOU girls for making my real birthday a very enjoyable one!!!

The 2nd birthday celebration was on Saturday... I invited some friends over for dinner, drinks and some hanging out. Having a winter birthday means you don't have as many options when it comes to celebrating, especially because I don't really feel like fighting all the holiday crowds to go out to dinner. I cooked up some chili and a potato dish from The Pioneer Woman and Claudia brought me a super yummy cake with berries and pomegranate seeds on top! At the beginning part of the evening, I felt like I was at a high school dance... all the boys were in one room and the girls where in another. Once the food came out there was a little more mingling going on! Of course the evening ended with a couple rounds of my favorite new board game, Rigamarole!! THANK YOU to everyone who came over... I had a fantastic time celebrating with all of you!!

After all the birthday celebrating, it was time for Christmas! I went home to my parent's on Tuesday, picking up my brother at the airport in Sacramento on the way. It was a very relaxing week and weekend with the family... we visited some family and friends, did the whole Xmas thing, went to a couple of movies, ate a lot, and even had a party! Although I missed going to Maui like we have the past few years, it was nice to have a "cold" Xmas, and it definitely made it easier to get back into post-vacation mode when I came back to WC.

Pre-Christmas the running was going very well. We got in some hill training during our "track" workouts and ran a very hilly, but very gorgeous, 7 miles on the 19th. I usually hate hills and don't do very well on them but I've been very proud of myself... I haven't walked any of our hills during track, and only walked a couple of the really big hills during our Coached Run. I think it helped that our Coached Run was somewhere that I've never run before... usually our hilly run is a Lake Chabot, which I'm not a big fan of, but this time we ran at Redwood Regional Park up in the Oakland Hills. Although the first half of the run was almost entirely uphill (switching between mild inclines and steep sections), the gorgeous scenery distracted us, and we got to enjoy a very fast downhill run back!

Running up one of the hills during our hill workout.

The hardy Hill crew

Starting the Redwood Park run... no big hills yet but plenty of frost on the ground!

Post-Christmas the running has been non-existent! I brought my running stuff home with my but never actually went for a run. Tonight will be the first time I've run in over a week and then of course we don't have track this week because it's New Year's Day... but at least it will get me out there doing something, and I can pick back up with our regular schedule on Saturday!

Neglectful Blogger

2008-12-29T15:54:00.000-08:00

My poor blog has been very neglected lately :( I have so much to post about-- a birthday, running and Christmas-- that every time I think about it I get overwhelmed! I swear that this week I will write a big update, or maybe spread it out over a few days. Needless to say, I will stop neglecting my poor blog! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!

Snow!

2008-12-17T15:24:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's right... it has snowed in the East Bay! Our latest frigid weather has brought us one nice thing... snow on the top of Mt. Diablo! And not just a light dusting that quickly melted... it dumped 6 inches and today I can still see it up there!

Last night Coach Gary led us on a Holiday Buddy Run in that frigid weather! We have a bigger crowd than usual thanks to a couple of mentors who moved their run over to Heather Farms for the special occasion. :) We had a bunch of people show up in Santa hats and even garland! We started out along the trail as we usually do, but at Oak Grove, we turned right off the trail and then left onto Peachwillow. There are a bunch of houses in that neighborhood with very colorful lights and Christmas decorations, but there was one house in particular that we were going to. After turning on Peachwillow, we took a right onto Candleberry and saw the most insanely decorated house I've ever seen! Every single inch of this house, lawn and trees are covered with lights, decorations, ornaments, presents, and even a little train. For a few minutes, it was enough to make us forgot how cold we were! I can't imagine how long it took them to put that all up, and what their PG&E bill is for the month of December! We all oohed and ahhhed, took some pictures, and then made our way back to Heather Farms!

Dodging Duck Poop

2008-12-16T10:33:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, Lake Merritt... a beautiful oasis surrounded by duck poop and crazy people near downtown Oakland. This was the location of our Mentor Led Run on Saturday. I don't hate running at Lake Merritt, but I don't particularly LOVE it either. I think my least favorite part is (aside from all the duck poop) that you're just running in a circle. I'd much rather do an out and back course because then you have a clear sense of your halfway point. When you're running in a circle, you (or rather I, since I don't know how everyone else feels) don't ever get that feeling of being halfway done.

The one thing I was very happy about was all the sun we had on Saturday! When I woke up I expected to hear raindrops but it was thankfully silent. Even with the sun I was all bundled up when we first started out on our run and halfway through I had warmed up enough to peel off most of my layers. I had intended to do about 5 miles, but after one loop around the lake I was done. I'm not sure why I didn't have a great run (I won't say it was an awful run, just not great)-- I ate pretty well and slept well the night before, although I didn't eat breakfast. Whoops :( There were quiet a few of the other runners out there who said they also didn't have a great run. It must have just been one of those days!

Dreaded Hills

2008-12-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned how much I HATE running hills? Hate them, loath them, dread them... I'm just no good at running hills. Which probably means I need to do them more!

This week, instead of going to DVC for our usual track workout, our calender said we'd be meeting at another track for a hill workout. What?? We're not doing any hilly courses this season, so WHY do we have to do hills? I know, they make us faster and better runners. Still, I was not looking forward to the workout.

The team met up at Daugherty Valley High School way out in the new developments in San Ramon. We weren't actually going to be doing any running on the track-- the school was just our meeting place. After everyone arrived, we started out on our "warm-up" run to a park about .75 miles away, which is kind of a long warm up. We spent some time stretching there, and then waiting for a few more stragglers, and then we ran another half mile or so to our "hill." The street that we were going to run on was in a residential area, and curved around in a horseshoe, U shape. We started our running up the hill on one side, and then met at the top in the middle of the U to catch our breaths. The hill wasn't that bad but I was definitely huffing and puffing at the top! After a break, we got to go down the other side of the U.

Since Phil wasn't there last night, he put me in charge of taking pictures. I stopped half way down the hill so that I could take pictures of everyone as they came back up the hill. That didn't work so well... it's hard to take pictures of running figures in the dark! I ran up the rest of the hill with them and we took a breather again at the top, before heading back down the first hill to our starting point. At this point it was already 7:45 and I wasn't sure if that was the end of our workout. Nope, that was just half of it! Coach Al K. had everyone do that same set up hills again. One of my mentees wasn't feeling well, so I hung out with her at the bottom of the hill while everyone did the other set. After they all got back, we still had to go all the way back to the high school, which was a mile away. I stuck with a couple of girls who were walking so we didn't get back to our cars until 8:30, and by the time I got him it was 9:00 :(

Even though I only did one set of hills, it was still a good workout and I was happy to see that I wasn't the last one up the hill :) I can feel a little soreness in my calves today, but it's not too bad. We're scheduled to do hills workouts instead of track the next few weeks-- all I have to say is that all these hill workouts better lead to an improvement in my running!

Frozen fingers

2008-12-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that it's cold out now?! Okay, it could be worse... in the Bay Area we don't have to worry about snow, or sleet, or freezing rain. But it's still darn cold out! Last night it was very hard to get off the couch and go to the Buddy Run. I have to be there though, which thankfully keeps me from flaking!

Despite the cold temperatures, we had a good number of people out there. We were even entertained while we waited for people to arrive in the parking lot by some man doing exercises while his car stereo blared next to him. There are people out there doing boot camp, so the fact that he was doing exercises in the parking lot wasn't what was so funny-- it was the fact that he was doing a combination of Karate Kid and Rocky exercises and the music he was playing was decidedly NOT workout music! He kept us entertained though while we waited for everyone to arrive!

The run went pretty well-- we did about 32 minutes (2.68 miles) it's been fun to see how all the first time runners are improving. People who needed to take walk breaks during the first few Buddy Runs, are now able to run the entire time! Next week we'll be increasing our times-- just as they've gotten used to running 30-45 minutes, we bump them up to 45-60 minutes. I'll be happy to start getting in longer runs during the week!

Running update

2008-12-08T14:16:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I haven't posted an update since last week! Sorry! It hasn't been because there's nothing to update on... I've just been super busy!

After the food fest that was Thanksgiving, I came back to the Bay Area ready to get back into running (plus, I needed to burn off all of that pie)! Tuesday night we had our usual Buddy Run and our numbers were back up after low attendance the week before. The run went really well but unfortunately I was battling some winter allergies and was feeling a little sluggish. I ended up running with Amy and one of my mentees and I think we were all pretty evenly paced that night. I felt a little better at the end of the run and managed to sprint the last section of trail! After this week we'll be increasing our run times on Tuesday night which will be nice... running just 30 minutes is enough to build up a sweat, but I'd like to be doing a little more!

Thursday night was had track at DVC again. This time there were no hang up with the gate, or lights and we got in just fine. It was cold out that night, but not too bad up in the parking lot. The track though is down in a little bowl, and the cold air just sits down there. I don't think I really warmed up the entire workout! We did a bunch of intervals last week:

2 laps warm up

Some core exercises (although still difficult, I'm happy to report they were easier than the first track workout!)

Run 1 lap at 80%

Walk 0.5 lap

Run 1.5 laps at 80%

Walk 0.5 lap

Run 2 laps at 80%

Rest and repeat it all again

After the first set of intervals, I was pooped and was chugging water like it was 90 degrees out! I was not looking forward to doing it all again, but it was actually easier the second time around-- probably due to the fact that I was going a lot slower :)

Saturday we had a Coached Run out on Walnut Creek at Arbolado Park. I had never been there, or done a run there so I was looking forward to checking out a new route, especially one so close to me! I drove over around 7:30 and I couldn't believe all the fog! Not only was it very foggy, but it was also very cold! We did a quick warm up and stretch and then started off on the trail. After we started running, I realized that I had run this trail once before, but it had been from the other direction. Even though this route included a big hill (and even a tunnel), it was a pretty easy, flat course. I ran out for two miles and back with a couple of my mentees and when they veered off back to our starting point after 4 miles, I kept going out on the trail for another mile and then back for 6 miles total. I felt really good the whole time, although we started out way too fast at the beginning! After our run, we had our Honoree Potluck-- we have some new honorees this season so this was the first time I heard their stories. As usual, their stories were both motivating, and sad at the same time.

Yes, I am WALKING up the hill :)

On Sunday Claudia and I left for Sacramento at the butt crack of dawn to cheer on some of our friends who were doing the Cal International Marathon. We froze our hinies off up there, but were able to see our friend Lael and a few other runners we knew at mile 5, 10, 17 and the finish. Everyone did a really good job and Lael even PRed!! I had, of course, made Lael a bright neon sign-- not only to cheer him on, but also to help him spot us along the course. Since I knew we'd be standing around at each location waiting for Lael, on the other side of the sign I wrote something for all the runners. I think that my sign was a pretty big hit, judging from all the thumbs ups, thank yous, and "Nice sign" comments I got from runners and spectators. It was kind of creepy though because people kept stopping to take a picture of the sign-- they'd either stop right in front of me (without saying anything to me) or I'd see them from a few feet away aiming their cameras my direction. I felt a little like a minor celebrity, or a freak. Next time I'm charging people to take pictures!

CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who finished the marathon... GREAT JOB!!

How much running does it take to burn off pie?

2008-12-03T12:02:00.000-08:00

The answer to that is probably more running than I'm doing :) Thanksgiving was great, and I did actually manage to fit a run in while I was in Yuba City. I made my brother go out with me on Thanksgiving morning for a short little jog. We ran over a few neighborhoods, around a new park and then tried to cut over to another road to head back to the house. Unfortunately, there was a big field separating us from the road so we decided to just cut across :) I didn't mind so much because it gave me a chance to catch my breathe after trying to keep up with my brother who, even though he was running slow for him, was still faster than me!

Thanksgiving was spent at my Aunt's house with my family, my two cousins, and my cousin's wife and daughter. We ate way too much yummy food and had fun catching up with eachother. Later that evening we headed over to my great aunt's house to meet up with another set of cousins and see some slides (not the old fashioned kind, but now done on the computer :)) from my cousin Ron's Africa trip.

The rest of my time in YC was spent hanging out with my family, doing a little shopping, and of course, more eating :) My parents just returned from a cruise through the Panama Canal and they had a little "suprise" for my brother and I... they made one of their favorite cruise martini's while we watched a little slideshow of their trip!

My brother had to fly out of Sacramento on Saturday so we went to the Roseville mall to walk around before dropping him off... because we slept in that morning, we didn't have time to run before we had to leave. I'm glad that I at least got one run in over the long weekend!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! Now it's time to get ready for Christmas!

Pre-Turkey Trot (A.K.A. Thanksgiving Week Buddy Run)

2008-11-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

Tonight, after many hours sitting in traffic, I finally arrived in Yuba City for the long Thanksgiving weekend. I even got to leave early from work, and it still took me over two hours just to get as far as Davis (which usually takes a little over an hour). Uggg. I guess the cheap gas prices meant more people were able to travel out of town for Thanksgiving.

Even though it's a holiday week, we still had our Buddy Run on Tuesday night. After an unhealthy dinner and drinks at Happy Hour with Lindsay on Monday night, and in anticipation of some heavy eating on Thanksgiving, I was happy to get out there for a run. Since Lindsay's yoga partner had canceled on her, she decided to come out and join us too! We had a much smaller group this week and none of the "steadier" people were there, which meant that I ran with one of my mentees that's a little faster than I am. We ran about 18 minutes out and then back and went about 3.2 miles-- at the end of the run my watch said that we were running at an average pace of a little over 11 minutes miles, including the short walk break we took at the turn around. That's one thing I love about running in the winter... I can push myself a little harder, at least for the shorter distances.

Since I'm in YC until Sunday and won't be working out tomorrow night, or on Saturday with the team, I brought my running clothes so that I can do a little running while I'm at my parent's. We'll see if that actually happens :) In YC we don't have all the nice trails that we have in the Bay Area and it's much harder to motivate myself to go running out on the street!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!! Happy Turkey Day!!!

Dreams of Pie

2008-11-24T14:08:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving is almost here :D I can already taste my mom's yummy pumpkin pie! All the talk over the weekend seemed to be about Thanksgiving... where people are going, who they're celebrating it with, what they're eating, etc. It's all that seems to be on people's minds and I forget that I still have three days of work, and a Buddy Run, before I'm off to see the family :(

On Saturday our team met up for our first real Coached Run. Last weekend was technically a Coached Run but since we just did a few loops around the track it didn't feel like one. It felt like track practice, but in the daylight! Saturday we met up at Berkeley Marina for a fairly short 2-4 mile run. As short as that seems to me, it's not such a short run for most of the newbies on our team. For many, it's the furthest they've ever run. After some announcements, a warm up and a stretch, we were all on our way. The weather over at the marina couldn't have been more gorgeous. It started out cold, but clear and sunny and after a warm up, we were all toasty warm!

The first mile of the run there is basically around Cesar Chavez Park near the marina. I caught up with one of my mentees around the 1 mile mark and asked her how far she was going. She said she only wanted to do 2 miles, but instead of turning around at one mile, she was going to go to the water stop around mile 2, and then walk back. We ran together out to the water stop, which was just short of two miles, did some refueling and then made our way back. Although my mentee had intended to just walk back, she ended up running the entire way back with me!

After the run I had a mentor group social with one of the other Mentors on my team. 5 out of my 7 mentees were able to come and Phil even joined us too! We went down the street to Seabreeze, which is kind of a glorified fruit stand. I had been worried about going there since the only seating is outside, and the weather at the marina can be iffy. It was still really sunny and not too cold by the time we made it down there for brunch. We had a really good time visiting with eachother and hanging out for a little while!

Later that night Rocky and his fellow MotherHumbuckers played out at the Rockit Room in SF. Phil, Claudia and I met up for dinner in Montclair and then headed over to the city. The boys did a great job, as usual, and since they went on pretty early, we all got home at a decent time!

The end of week 2

2008-11-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

Bye bye heat wave... welcome back cold :( I'm still not in cold weather mode yet... I've been so cold lately at home and at work and keep forgetting that I can just turn the heat on!

Well, it's almost the end of our 2nd week of training and everything is going really well! We met up for the Buddy Run at Heather Farms on Tuesday. A few people from the week before were missing, but we had a few new people so we still had a nice sized group. I ran with one of the new girls and we did 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back. She's a tad faster than me, but not at the point where she can run the whole distance yet so we got in some good running, with a few walk breaks thrown in.

Wednesday night I didn't do anything. It's supposed to be a cross training day but since I don't cross train (shhh, don't tell on me!), I just spent the evening relaxing, and actually cooked dinner for myself :)

Last night I went over to DVC for track again. We had gotten the okay to actually work out at the track, but when I arrived the track was dark and there were some TNT people just standing outside one of the gates. Uh oh. I don't know what the problem was, but they ended up tracking down the guy with the key, and had someone else turn on the lights, so we were able to use the track after all! And boy what a difference it makes working out on a real track! After some stretching and a warm up lap, we did a bunch of intervals. We ran a hard lap and a half, and then walked for a half lap to cool down. They we did alternating sections of skipping and walking for a half lap, and then a lap with a half lap cool down. We repeating that but with lunging instead of skipping and boy it was hard to run after doing all those lunges! My legs felt like really tight. The last thing we did was two hard laps and then a cool down lap.

My group, minus one!

After track we all hung around chatting and taking pictures. I really like my group and they've all been very good about responding to my calls and emails, and showing up at the workouts. At track I had 6 out of my 7 mentees there, which is probably the best attendance I've had in all the season's that I've mentored!! The teams seems to really be coming together!

Heat Wave!

2008-11-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Just when I put away my flip flops (not literally put them away-- they're still lying at the bottom of my closet-- but mentally put them away), put on my winter sheets and add on an extra comforter, we have a heat wave. Go figure. BUT, I'm not complaining! It's still been nice a cool at night, but it's been getting warmer during the day. It has been nice that our first team runs have been in this "global warming" winter, and not in the freezing cold!

Last week we had our first track workout on Thursday night. I think everyone was really excited about being able to work out on a nice new track at DVC but unfortunately that didn't happen. We got word at the last minute that the track was "no longer available" to us but in true East Bay Rocks fashion, we made due with what we had available, meaning the parking lot across the street :) While we stared longingly at the beautiful, well-lit track across the street, Coach Al K. had us do an abbreviated circuit drill workout (Various exercises like planks, lunges and supermans, with a lap run in between each "circuit").

It's been a long time since I did any strength training or circuit drills (I think the last time was training for the New York Marathon, over a year ago) and boy did I feel some of those exercises the next day! By Friday night my abs and butt cheeks were killing me! I had a chance to loosen it all up though on Saturday at our Coached Run at Piedmont High School. We also held Marathon University on Saturday, so they kept the run very short... just a timed mile or two around the track. I was helping direct people to the track from the street so I missed the warm up and stretch but I made it down there in time for a few laps around the track. Then we all made the hike back up through the campus to our Marathon University location. At Marathon U. we learned about proper shoes, gear, nutrition and stretching/injury prevention... all the things that new runners need to know :)

Later Saturday night Claudia, Rocky and I drove out to San Rafael to help celebrate Brandy's birthday and check out her new digs :D As usual, the birthday party was a lot of fun-- Brandy made some yummy food and a sinfully delicious cake and we got to enjoy the nice weather outside!

Sunday was an extremely lazy day. I'm almost too embarrassed to say how lazy of a day it was. Let's just say that I didn't do anything. At all. But now I'm all rested for the busy week ahead!

Team Fearless

2008-11-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

How do you like our new team name? I actually like it and hope that it proves to be a good description of us while we're out there running in the cold, dark and sometimes rain!

Saturday morning we had Kick Off in SF for Team In Training. It's been a little while since I've been a mentor and I was both nervous and excited about meeting my mentees. A few of them weren't able to make it but, since I was also looking out for a fellow mentor's mentees, it worked out well. It was a LONG day though! Phil picked me up at 6:10 so that we could carpool into the city together and after Kick Off and lunch afterwards with Claudia, I didn't get home until about 2:30!

Once I got home I took a short nap and then had to head out to the city again for my friend Kelvin's birthday. After dinner the whole group headed back to Kelvin's to hang out and play some games. It ended up being another late game night and I didn't roll into bed until the wee hours of the morning!

Thankfully I got to sleep in on Sunday and then relax at home for awhile. I had invited Claudia and Jeanette over for girl's day. We spent the afternoon talking and catching up with eachother. It was a nice, relaxing way to spent the afternoon!

Monday night I got together with the other TNT mentors, captains, coaches and manager for a social and training in Oakland. Although I have been through the training many times before, it was nice to get to know the rest of the volunteer staff. Since we weren't able to have our social before Kick Off, many of us met eachother for the first time AT Kick Off and even then, didn't have much time to get to know eachother. Everyone seems like a lot of fun and I think it's going to end up being a great season!

Last night we had our first official training... a Buddy Run at Heather Farms. We had a pretty good turnout... about 10 people total! We ended up doing about 3 miles and I found a group that seems to be roughly my pace. The weather was nice and we even had the moon to light the way for us a little! Even though we had a few newbies out there, everyone seemed to have a great first run!

Joking with one of my mentees at the Buddy Run

Back to normal

2008-11-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

After all the excitement of the election at the beginning of the week, life has now gone back to normal! Good thing I have the season of TNT on the horizon to keep things exciting!

Last night Amy and I had our last run together (not forever, just for the next few months) and we made it count! It was our first run after the time change so we both brought our headlamps in anticipation of the blackness. Because we knew we'd be running in the dark, we decided to head out in a different direction where the trail is a little more open, and less creepy at night. The only negative was that we were going to have the nice downhill on the way out, and the uphill on the way back. I know... wah, wah, wah! We started running at a pretty good pace, helped by the down slope. By the time we turned around, it was starting to get dark and quickly after it turned completely dark.

One thing I love about running at night is that you can't see the trail ahead of you... you don't see how big the hill is and you can't see how much further you need to run. You just run. When it seemed like we should be getting close to our cars, I started to go a little faster. It ended up that we weren't as close as I thought to the end but I kept pushing it until the end. At that point I just wanted to get the darn run over with! Amy and were both breathing pretty heavily once we stopped... but it felt good. I'm glad that I've been able to keep up (a little) with my running so hopefully I won't make a complete fool of myself at our first team workout!

Tomorrow is Kick Off for the new season. I'll get to meet my mentees, and also hopefully get to know some of my fellow mentors and cappies as well! For the first time (other than my first season), I don't really know anyone on the team, other than Phil. There will be a bunch of the usual crowd at Kick Off, but they're all doing different sports (boo hoo :() I am looking forward to meeting a bunch of new people though, and excited about mentoring again! GO TEAM!!

An Historic Evening

2008-11-05T14:08:00.000-08:00

By yesterday afternoon, I was ready. I had read through my voter pamphlet, filled out my practice ballot and I was ready to vote! When I drove by the Elk's Lodge yesterday morning (my local polling place) I saw there was a line already starting to snake through the parking lot. I didn't have time to vote before work and I was hoping that line would be gone by the time I went to vote after work.

All day I read about the election day craziness and couldn't wait to cast my vote and hear the results! Thankfully when I stopped it at the Elk's Lodge, there were no lines at all and the voting process only took about 5 minutes. I was meeting up with my friend Ann a little later and since I still had time I went home to watch a little of the early election coverage. By the time I headed back downtown to meet Ann, they were reporting results from just a handful of states.

Ann and I had a nice evening at Havana but we were completely cut off from all the election coverage. When we left the restaurant around 9:00, we headed over to Starbucks to get our free coffee and heard a bunch of commotion coming from Pyramid a block over. On the way back to our cars, we stopped by to see what was going... we figured it had to be something related to the election. Sure enough, they were having a party for a bunch of election volunteers and the whole place was packed. We asked a woman selling Obama buttons outside what the latest news was and she told us that McCain had just conceded to Obama! WHAT???! I didn't expect to hear any results until a little later in the evening so I was surprised that we had our President already! Ann said that this will be one of those moments that we always remember and I think she's right. No matter who you voted for, this was an historic event and I think I'll always remember where I was the moment it happened! We stayed to watch a little of Obama's speech and soak up all the excitement! Once I got home, I turned on the TV to try and catch up on everything that had been going on.

WOO HOO... we have a new President!! I am very happy with the choice that America made! I'm excited to see what kind of changes Obama's Presidency will bring to our nation... and I'm hopeful that they will be the changes we need!

Rain

2008-11-03T14:46:00.001-08:00

When they said rain was coming, they weren't lying!! At least the heavy rain seemed to hold off until all the trick-or-treating was over! Since trick-or-treaters don't come through my condo complex, the only ones I really saw were in Protrero Hill in SF, where I went for dinner with some friends. After a very late (at least for me) dinner at Goat Hill Pizza, we spent the next few hours playing board games. I know... it's not a crazy, rousing Halloween party but the competition and fun kept me up far later than a night of partying would have! By the time we left the city it was around 5:30 and after a yummy, greasy breakfast, I finally crawled in bed at about 7:00am. Wow... I can't remember the last time I stayed up that late!

Despite being up for over 24 hours, I didn't actually get much sleep once I did go to bed. I spent the rest of the day being a lazy bum and watching tv in my jammies. By this time it was pouring rain outside... definitely the kind of weather where you want to lay around all day in your jammies! I finally did "get up" and made it out for a filling BBQ dinner, movie and, because I didn't eat enough earlier apparently, some ice cream. There's nothing better than a big scoop of ice cream on a rainy day!

Sunday was pretty much another lazy day although I did fit in some grocery shopping and laundry. My weird sleep schedule, plus the time change really threw me off. By the time I decided I needed to go to bed, I wasn't able to get to sleep very easily. Hopefully a few days of normal sleep will get me back on track!

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T09:28:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween everyone!! Finally we have Halloween on a Friday, not on some other week night, but now the weather has turned rainy! There will be a lot of wet and cold ghosts and goblins out there trick-or-treating tonight!! I'm not really a big fan of the dressing up part of Halloween (the candy part is another story!)-- even when I was a kid I never got very excited about it. I remember a few years where I was either a Hobo or a punk rocker, two very easy costumes! The last time I dressed up for Halloween was two years ago, and that was only because we had a Halloween themed TNT run and I was invited to a Halloween party. Last year Halloween came just two short days before I was off to New York City for the NY Marathon and my time was taken up getting ready for that. This year I'm not doing anything that requires any dressing up so I'm happy about that :D

Last night I went on a run with Amy. I really didn't want to go... it was cold and rainy out and all I wanted to do was go home and get under the covers! I was half hoping that it would turn from a drizzle into pouring rain so we could cancel, but also telling myself to just do the damn thing :) I knew that as long as I could get myself out to the run, I'd probably have a pretty nice run.

Our run last night was much faster than our leisurely run on Monday... the trail was also MUCH less crowded! Monday night we took it easy and ran at a pretty steady pace. Last night we ran much faster... I think that Amy figured out that we took about 30 seconds per mile off our time. I think it was one of the best runs that I've had in a long time and I think the cooler weather was a big part of that-- I knew we were running faster, but I felt like I could have just keep going and going. I forgot how much I love running when it's colder out! It's harder to motivate myself to get out to the run in the winter, but once I'm running I always feel really good!

I hope everyone has a happy Halloween and a wonderful weekend. I also want to wish Phil GOOD LUCK on his half marathon this Sunday!!! Don't let a little rain bring you down (I'll do a no-rain dance for you anyway)!

The end of our Indian Summer

2008-10-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Although it hasn't turned really cold yet, at least during the day, I think that we've seen the last of the summer-ish weather that we've been having. :( It's starting too cool down and I think there is even some rain forcasted for later in the week. This last weekend though the temperatures were at the almost-record-high of 85 degrees! It was the perfect weather for a day in Sonoma wine tasting with the girls.

Claudia and I got an email from Cline a few weeks ago notifying us that it was time to go pick up our wine. Since this last weekend was our first free weekend, we decided to make a once-every-three-months Sonoma trip on Sunday. It ended up being just a girl's trip with Claudia, Lindsay and I. We headed out to Sonoma around 11:00 after Lindsay ran the Lafayette Reservoir 10k and by the time we got to Cline we were all starving! We did a little wine tasting, picked up our wine, and then ate our picnic lunch out on the lawn. The weather was just perfect... sunny and warm, but not too hot. We stuffed ourselves silly and then headed over to a few other wineries. We went to Buena Vista and Ravenswood near downtown Sonoma. I really like the white wines at Buena Vista, not the reds so much. And even though I'd been to Ravenswood before, and remembered liking the wines, I didn't like them as much this time.

You can see in the pictures that the three of us all have on our Nike necklaces. Well, a few people commented on our necklaces and then mentioned that the lady who "won" the marathon, but didn't really win, had been into those wineries. We were stalking her, just a week or so too late :D

After we left Ravenswood, we decided to head for home. Our bellies were so full from lunch and the wine we tasted, we didn't think we could fit anything more in. But when Claudia mentioned going to Domaine Carneros for a little sparkling wine tasting, I didn't say no :) We finished off our girl's day with light, but still too filling, dinner at a new mexican restaurant in Danville. THANKS girls for a wonderful day!!

More Nike pics

2008-10-27T15:31:00.000-07:00

After hearing that the Nike pics were up, I went online to search for mine. Claudia and I saw tons of photographers, so I was expecting a bunch of photos of us... there ended up being not as many as I thought there would be. And thankfully there were no pictures of the finish line trip :D

I think this one was taking along the Emarcadero... probably around mile 4 or 5.

I think this is about the same spot, just a different photographer

Our finish line sprint!!

Nike Race Report... Finally!!

2008-10-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

Nike race weekend officially started on Saturday. I slept in on Sat. morning and lounged around a little before getting all my gear together. At 2:30 I made my way over to Oakland to meet up with Claudia and Rocky. They had already packed the car up with their stuff, we shoved mine in (btw... the car looked like we were leaving for a week's vacation!) and then we took off to the Oakland airport to pick up Claudia's dad who was coming up to cheer Claudia on. Next stop... TNT Pasta Party!

The Pasta Party didn't start until about 5:30 but Rocky's team was meeting at the Moscone center to take some team pictures. We got over there around 4:30, took pictures, chatting with everyone, and then got in line so we could be first in when they opened the doors. The minute the doors opened, you could hear the manic cheering! I think it was even louder than last year!! TNT staff, coaches, mentors, cappies and other volunteers cheered us on as we walked through the entry, down the stairs and into the pasta party. Getting cheered for at the pasta parties is always both a little exciting, and a little embarrassing. I was just hoping that I didn't fall down the stairs in front of all these people!!

The pasta party was, as in years past, HUGE! The food was pretty good, and the speakers were also good. John "The Penguin" Bingham spoke again and was, as usual, very funny. I missed the honoree speaker because I had to make a trip to the bathroom, and then a side trip to the TNT booth to pick up some TNT gear :D

After the Pasta Party, Claudia, Rocky, Claudia's dad and I headed off to Rocky's parent's house in Daly City. They were nice enough to put us all up for the night so we wouldn't have a long drive to the race start on Sun. morning. We all got our food, clothes, etc. laid out for the next day and then basically went to bed. I slept pretty well but was not ready for the alarm to go off at 4:45 Sunday morning :( We all shuffled out of bed, put on all of our race gear, ate breakfast, and then all 6 of us piled into Rocky's parent's car to head down to the start line at Union Square.

Once down at Union Square, we met up with Coach, Mama Lisa and the rest of the team for shout outs and some last words of encouragement. It still hadn't really hit me that we were doing a half marathon... I was more nervous before my 8 mile run a month ago!! Right before the start we all went our separate ways to line up... Rocky, Claudia and I went to the same corral (even though Rocky's WAY faster than we are) and we were soon joined by Amy. Unlike last year, they didn't have anyone policing the corrals... you could really line up wherever you wanted to, and I was worried that this meant we'd have to slog our way through a bunch of walkers for the first few miles. We heard the announcer start the race and... nothing. We stood there for about 15 minutes before our corral started moving forward. We walked around Union Square and then started running at the start line. We were OFF!!!

While we were lined up at the start line, I thought I had to go to the bathroom. Since I had just been about a half hour earlier, and hadn't been drinking any water, I thought it was just the usual pre-race excitement. But after we started, I realized that I need to pee for real. Claudia did also so we waved to Amy and then headed over to the porta-potties around mile 1. I'm glad we did because 1) I did have to pee, 2) It was the only set of porta potties that had no line and 3) We ran into Raji!!! She was out there to walk/run part of the half course. It was SO nice to see her and it gave me a huge mental boost!

For the most part the race was pretty uneventful, which was good :D The first few miles on the flat part of the course through the Embarcadero went really well. Despite the pretty much open corral system, we didn't get stuck behind too many people (or at least any more than usual). Since Claudia and I have run this course for 4 years (the first year used a different route) we know what to expect, that's why it was such a surprise around mile 5 when we took an unexpected turn! Usually we go through Aquatic Park to the Marina, but due to some construction going in, we had to detour around Aquatic Park. Unfortunately this included the addition of two more hills :( But since they were (relatively) small ones, we decided to run up them. When we got to what is normally the first hill, we ran up that one too. Those were the only hills we ended up running :D

Since that small detour added on a little extra mileage, I wondered where they were going to take off mileage. The detoured us again around mile 6, bringing us up the first major hill a different way than we usually went. For the next 4 miles or so we walked up and ran down the hills through the Presidio and Sea Cliff areas. We got to see Claudia's dad and Rocky's parents a couple of times, our friend Phil and his family, and other friends cheering people along the course. Even though Claudia and I had only done an abbreviated training schedule for Nike, I think we were both feeling pretty good. Our joints weren't used to the hills and all the pounding though so we were both feeling some aches in our hips and knees. Nothing too painful to keep us from continuing though.

As we came down the last big hill near the Cliff House, I was happy that we only had 2-3 miles left :D Once we hit the park, I was drained. We were close to the finish, but not close enough. The road through the park has a slight incline and even though it was nothing compared to the hills we had already climbed, it was making me drag. I told Claudia I needed to walk for a bit and thankfully she didn't keep on running and leave me in her trail! We walked for a couple of minutes and then started running again. Once we veered off from the marathoners to head back through the park towards the finish I felt a little better. We got a slight downhill (when you're already pooped, any little down slope is a blessing!) and I knew the end was close. We ran into Mama Lisa and she ran with us for a little bit. Then we finally got to the end of the park, turned onto the Great Highway and saw the finish line. Every year I get this surge of energy when I get to the end of the park... you can hear all the cheering and you know the finish line is just around the corner. I it always gives me goosebumps and gives me a little extra power to sprint to the finish line. Claudia was right there next to me speeding up too and we crossed the finish line together! WOO HOO! And then I tripped. :( No joke, but thankfully I didn't fall down and hopefully it wasn't caught by the finish line photographers!

All I wanted to do after crossing the finish line was get my Tiffany's necklace and finisher t-shirt. I LOVE this years necklace and only semi-like the finisher shirt. It's a brown color (more gender neutral than last year's pink) and made out of the same material as last year. Technically it's a running shirt, but it feels more like a cotton t-shirt and it isn't anything I'd actually run in. Oh well, I have 3 other Nike Marathon shirts I can run in :)

After picking up our stuff and visiting the TNT tent to grab some food, Claudia and I headed off to find the parents, while Rocky went out to cheer on some of his mentees who were still on the course. We found Rocky's parents and Claudia's dad and spent a little time chatting with them and eating the food we had grabbed. The overcast, cool weather that had been so nice to run in was not so nice to just hang around in! We drove out towards Lake Merced to pick up Rocky and head back to Daly City. We showered, changed and packed up the car and went out to lunch at a Salvadorean place in the Mission. I think it was the best post-race meal ever! I was so beat and full I nodded off on the drive back to Oakland. By the time I got back to Walnut Creek it was about 4:00. I unpacked all my stinky running clothes and spent the rest of the evening stuck on the couch... My knees were so stiff and achy I didn't want to move for anything!

Today I'm feeling almost back to normal... just a little stiffness in my quads but that's getting better every day. My final time was 2:52. Not my best Nike time (2006: 2:45) but not my worst either (2004: 3:09). For not doing much training at all, I felt really good during the race and also pretty good after!

Goofing Off

2008-10-21T15:06:00.000-07:00

I'm working on my Nike race report and am hoping to get some pictures to add in before I post it (I was lazy and didn't bring my camera-- SHOCK!!) To summarize for all those who are dying to know... I finished, I'm still walking, and I'm proudly wearing my new Tiffany's necklace! WOO HOO! I'll post the full report will all the wonderful details soon. In the meantime, check out what I've been wasting my time on:

Is it weird that I find this completely hysterical?!

Ready to run... I hope

2008-10-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well, the time has come. The Nike half marathon is just two days away. Am I ready? I think so... I hope so! I spent yesterday evening in the city, checking out the Expotique, picking up my race packet, and doing a little shopping. The Expotique was, as usual, VERY crowded, and this was only Thursday! I shudder to think how crowded it's going to be tonight and tomorrow once all the out-of-town runners start arriving.

The packet pick up went very smoothly and then Amy, Jeanette and I spent a little time walking around checking everything out. They had the usual manicure area, iPod engraving and gait analysis stations, and also had a new photo booth, and button making area. There were lines for pretty much everything except for the oxygen station so that's really the only thing we did. I felt a little silly sitting there with this tube up my nose inhaling Sex On The Beach "flavored" oxygen, but it was kind of fun :)

After partaking of a free glass of wine, some cheese and crackers, and a mini-sized Jamba Juice, Amy and I headed over to Niketown to see what kind of trouble we could get into! I usually avoid putting spending too much since Nike's clothes only seem to fit very small people, which I am not. But this year we had heard that their clothes were fitting a little roomier, and truer to normal sizes so I was both excited, and nervous-- excited for me and nervous for my bank account! Turns out that I didn't do too badly... I limited myself to a really cute blue t-shirt and a teal long sleeve running shirt that will come in handy running this winter. There were a bunch of other things that I WANTED, but definitely didn't NEED-- I think I'm going to wait awhile and see what they end up putting on sale!

Tonight I have nothing to do but laundry, carbo load and get ready for the race. I am so excited to have a night with nothing to do and no trip into the city planned (I also had to go to the city on Wed. for our Winter Season Mentor/Cappy Training)! Tomorrow I can sleep in, and then I'll pack everything up for the weekend and head over to Rocky and Claudia's in the afternoon. We're all going to the TNT Pasta Party tomorrow evening in SF, and then staying in Daly City so we'll be a little closer to the starting line on Sunday morning.

GOOD LUCK to everyone who is doing either the Full or Half Marathon on Sunday! Enjoy the wonderful weather, scenery and remember to RUN LIKE A GIRL!!!

Gala

2008-10-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

Last night I got to be Amy's date to the Marine Mammal Center's Annual Gala! Jeanette brought Claudia as her date so it turned into a girl's night out! The gala was at the Ritz in SF, which I had never been to... SO pretty! We got into the city a little early and had a cocktail before cocktail hour :)

Claudia and I

Amy, my date, and I

Jeanette and her "date"

The girls all dressed up :)

The gala itself was very fancy and a lot of fun. First we got to enjoy some champagne and appetizers while we visited with some of the other party goers and then we moved into one of the ballrooms for dinner, a presentation and auction. The three course dinner was amazing... we started with a salad with pistachio crusted goat cheese and raspberry vinaigrette, then the most delicious braised short ribs, horseradish mashed potatoes and green beans, and finally an apple-raisin pastry for dessert. YUMM!!

How cute is this little seal?!

The live auction was a lot of fun too... I'd never been to an auction before and I had to hide my paddle so I wouldn't be tempted to raise it, just for the fun of it! Plus, I couldn't afford any of the auction items-- the bids for each started in the thousand dollar plus range! :(

Pretending to bid

The whole night was incredibly fun... THANK YOU Amy for bringing me as your date!!

Girl's Nights

2008-10-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I met up with Claudia, Jeanette and Lindsay for a Girls dinner night. It's been way too long since we did our last Girl's Night (Havana's and Sex and the City) and it was time to get together again! We just did dinner this time... we went to Pizza Antica in Lafayette... yummmm :) We met up at 6:00 and spent the next three hours eating, talking and catching up!

Tonight is another Girl's Night... I get to be Amy's "date" to a big, fancy gala for the Marine Mammal Center at the Ritz Carlton in SF!! Her, and Jeanette's, company had some extra tickets so Claudia is going as Jeanette's date, and I get to go as Amy's! We get to get all dressed up and spend the evening sipping cocktails and eating fancy food! Amy, Claudia and Jeanette went last year and had a fabulous time so I'm excited to be able to go this year also!!

I just took pictures from this weekend off my camera so now I can share them :D

Claudia and I at the Rockit Room Friday night

Rocky, Claudia and I at Now & Zen

Sugar Ray (Mark McGrath in the white tank top)

Gavin DeGraw

A "Rockin'" Weekend

2008-10-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed to cram a lot of fun into the weekend, but no running! Whoops! Friday night Claudia and I met up in Oakland and had dinner before heading off to the Rockit Room in SF for the MotherHumbuckers CD Release Party. We got out there super early (no traffic!!) and ended up going with Rocky, Ollie and Jose to a Thai place down the street... they got dinner and Claudia and I got dessert :D When we got back to the Rockit Room, the first band was already playing. We listened to the rest of their set, and watched all the MotherHumbuckers fans, friends and family start pouring into the club. By the time the feature band went on, there was a pretty big crowd there! They did a fantastic job, and even played some new songs that I wasn't familiar with! After they were done playing we hung around visiting and listening to the other two bands that came after MotherHumbuckers. We didn't leave until around 1:00, and I wasn't tucked into bed until around 2:00 am. I haven't stayed out that late on a Friday night for a long time! It was well worth it though!

Claudia and I had decided that instead of getting up early to run on Saturday, we'd give our self a few hours to recover and then run together around 5:00. Umm yeah, that didn't happen. I think we were both still tired from the night before and just wanted to relax. I was going to make dinner for Claudia, Rocky and I after we ran but we just skipped the running part and did just dinner instead!

Sunday we were all up early so we could get out to the city for Now & Zen. We had scored some free tickets (and ended up having a few extra) and I was super excited about going! We went to Whole Foods to pick up some sandwiches for lunch, and then drove into the city. When I first walked out of the house around 8:45am on my way to Oakland, it was freezing, and I was so happy that I had bundled up. I even brought along some gloves and a fleece hat in case it was really windy or cold, seeing that the concert was outside in Golden Gate Park. Of course it ended up being sunny and warm and I was burning up in my long sleeved shirt! The concert started at 12:00 and they started letting us in around 11:00. Already I could feel that it was warming up and by the time the second act went on, I was getting uncomfortably warm. I ended up buying a 1999 Now & Zen shirt they had there for $10 just so I could change out of my long sleeved shirt :D

The bands were all really great... the first one to go on was Lenka, then Sarah Bareilles, Sugar Ray, Gavin DeGraw and finally Duffy. They were all amazing live performers and even though I didn't know all the songs from most of the artists (except Gavin DeGraw and Sugar Ray, who mostly played their old hits, with a few news songs sprinkled in), I really enjoyed each one. After over 5 hours of sitting in the sun listening to music, I got home around 6:30, tired and sunburned, but happy. It was a great weekend :D

No time to run...

2008-10-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

... life is just too busy right now! After bailing on Amy on Monday, I'm also bailing on our run tonight, next Monday AND the following Thursday :( With Nike coming up, and a new season of TNT starting, there are too many things interfering with my run schedule :( After Nike I think the running schedule should be back to normal, at least until I start the Winter TNT season in early November! I did manage to fit in a run with Claudia on Tuesday and that went okay. Neither of us where in a running mood but we were good girls and went for our run! It was pretty warm out too, which didn't help us at all, but at least we did the damn thing, as Coach Al likes to say :)

Tonight I'm missing our run to attend an Info Meeting for the upcoming Winter Season of TNT, which I'll be a mentor during. Yep, after many seasons of captaining, I'm going back to being a Mentor. I got a little burnt out of captaining, and I'm looking forward to being able to "mentor" a group of new participants!

This weekend is going to be a very busy one... tomorrow night it'll be a late night out in the city at the CD Release Party for Rocky's band, the MotherHumbuckers! It should be a lot of fun, but not really the best thing to be doing the night before a run. Instead of running Saturday morning, I think that Claudia and I are going to run later that day in the early evening. That way we can sleep in and recover from the party before doing 6 miles :D

Time to taper

2008-10-07T11:45:00.001-07:00

It doesn't seem quite right that we're in taper mode now, when I've only really been training for the past couple of weeks! But, tapering we are! Right now, tapering just means that I'm bailing on a few weekly runs due to other commitments and this weekend I'm only running about 6 miles :)

My weekend started out nicely... my parents were driving through Walnut Creek on Friday afternoon so we met up for an early bird dinner after I got off of work. We went to the yummy new burger place I had gone to last week (it was one of the only places I could think of that might be open at 4:30 :D) and I had a very good, and running friendly, chicken sandwich. After a too-quick dinner, my parents had to head back on the road again and I went home to get everything ready for the 10 miler the next day and just hang out.

Claudia and I had decided to meet up at Heather Farms and run our 10 miler there. We figured that would be good spot since we could run out and back one way for 2.5 miles, refilly our bottles back at the car, and then go out 2.5 miles and back the other way. Mentally we thought it would break the run up nicely into two more manageable sounding distances :D We needed all the mental help we could get!

We started out around 7:30 and both had expected it to be on the cool side. It actually started warming up and there were no signs of the clouds we thought we be out. The first 5 miles went really well... we chatted and ran at a very comfortable (not too slow or fast) pace. Once we got back to the car we refilled bottles, refueled and then headed back out onto the trail. During the second 5 miles the clouds started rolling in, which brought us a welcome break from the sun. I think we slowed down just slightly, but we were still running the entire time (except for some short breaks waiting for the light to change at the cross streets). We finished our 10 miles in almost exactly 2 hours and we both felt really good. I feel much more confident now about the Nike Half Marathon in two weeks-- I know it's not going be my best half marathon, but I feel prepared to be able to do the distance without dying along the way! After our run, we went out to breakfast to reward ourselves with some pancakes and waffles :D Yumm!

After a quick trip to Target, I went home, took a shower and took a LONG nap :) I woke up and was surprised to find that I wasn't hurting at all (other than a little chaffing... ouch). I love how after long runs I feel completely justified doing absolutely nothing for the rest of the day! Sunday I didn't do a whole lot of anything either... it was so nice outside I sat out on the balcony and read, and then got sucked into The Starter Wife on USA. Ahh, another unproductive day :)

Last night I had to bail on my run with Amy (SORRY AMY!!) because my parents were driving back through town again and wanted to hook up for another early bird dinner :D I don't get to see them a whole lot and it was nice to be able to have a quick dinner with them! We went to grab a bite (and some wine) at Va di Vi and I heard about their weekend down in San Jose and Santa Cruz. My mom was taking a class on doing voice overs and then got to have a recording session at a studio in Santa Cruz. (Shameless plug to follow: If anyone needs someone to do a voice over, my mom's available!)

Am I ready?

2008-10-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Our biggest run before Nike is happening tomorrow... the 10 miler! Claudia and I are meeting up to run together... we've figured out a double out and back course so that we can stop back at the car halfway through and fill up our bottles if necessary (since we won't have the benefit of water stops :( I'm not as nervous about this long run after doing 8 a couple of weeks ago... I know it's not going to be easy, but I know we can get it done! Wish us luck!!

Last night I met up with Claudia and Amy in Danville at the Iron Horse Trail. Even though we all have slightly different paces, it's nice to have that accountability when you know you're supposed to be meeting people to run. I think we all figured that we'd start out together and then as people felt speedier or slower, we could all settle into our own pace. Well, that didn't happen... we actually all stuck together! Since we were heading out North on the trail first, we got a nice downslope. The weather was perfect and there was no huffing and puffing, but I wasn't sure if the decrease in exertion also meant we were going slower. Nope, we were actually going faster than Amy and I had during our last run! On the way back our exertion levels were higher, but that was mostly because we were running on a slight upslope. I think our return pace was the same, or even a little faster than our pace for the first half! It was a great run, and it's nice to be feeling a little more in shape... after each run I feel more and more like I did when I was running regularly with Pam and Amy. Hopefully that means I will be more prepared for Nike too!

A friendly PSA

2008-10-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

You've all registered to vote, right? And if you're registered, you're planning on actually voting, right? I hope so :) I for one am very excited about voting. I just got all my stuff in the mail and am planning on reading it all over and filling out my sample ballot like a good little voter so I'll be all ready for the big day! Every year we're inundated with voting PSA's reminding people how important it is to vote-- I always kind of ignored them and was very late in joining the voting bandwagon. Most PSA's are usually pretty lame and cringe-worthy, but that's not true about one that I stumbled across today-- it's pretty motivating, and even funny in parts! Check it out:

On a running note, everything is going very well. I skipped out on my Monday night run with Amy because I had a nasty headache. Claudia wasn't able to run on Tuesday so I asked Amy if she'd be able to run on Tuesday instead of Monday. She was, and so we met up last night to run together. It was really warm out, and for some reason the air was really crappy, but we had a pretty good run. We both felt that we were running much slower than last week's run, but once Amy looked at her watch she saw we were actually running faster! We were still out of breath at the end of the run, but it was nice to know that we weren't dragging as much as we felt we were! I'm really hoping that the weather starts to cool down though, especially for this weekend's 10 miler!

3 Week Countdown

2008-09-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

EEEK!! It's less than 3 weeks to Nike! I'm feeling much more confident about it than I was a couple of weeks ago, but the true test will be the 10 miler this coming weekend! On Saturday Claudia and I met up with the Bay Side team out in Alameda. I had anticipated cool weather (it's either freezing, overcast and windy or HOT out there) but we got the HOT weather! We started at 8:00 and within the first two miles we could feel how warm it was getting. We went another mile out and then turned around to head back. I felt really good, and it was fun to catch up with Claudia and chat. I love running in Alameda, but the last two miles are a bitch... you think the Ferry Terminal is around every corner! Finally we made it back to the start (neither of us had our watches so I don't know how long it took us) and I think we both felt really good. Warm, but good :)

I spent the rest of the day doing some cleaning at the house. Lindsay was out of town so it was a great time to unleash my inner Monica (Friend's reference for those that don't know) and start scrubbing. I got a lot done, and also managed to fit in a nap on the couch. Later that night Lael and I checked out this new burger place in Walnut Creek. It's a "customized" burger joint, which means you get to pick everything you want on your burger, from the meat (beef, chicken, turkey, veggie) to the type of bun, and everything in between. It was really good, and VERY filling :) We followed that up with some yogurt (that I couldn't even finish) and then went to see Eagle Eye at the theatre which was pretty good. Very much like a newer version of Enemy of the State with Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

Sunday I was on a cleaning binge again and did some more scrubbing, sweeping and steam cleaning. I did a few errands while my landlords were over fixing up a few things, and made it home in time to get some of the recent complex gossip :) Then it was on the couch for DH and Brothers and Sisters-- I'm so happy that all the new shows are coming back!!

Crazy week

2008-09-26T14:24:00.000-07:00

Ugg... this has been a crazy and not very fun week. I'll just leave it at that :( The one thing that has been going pretty well is the running! I ran on Monday with Amy and, other than feeling very out of breathe at the end, I felt really good. Thursday we met up to run again. It was much warmer out than it had been in the beginning of the week but it was still a good run. I wasn't quite as out of breathe at the end but I think we ran at about the same pace, which is a good sign. Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Claudia and the Bay Side team that's gathering in Alameda for a Mentor Led Run. We're just going to do 6 miles this weekend, and then next weekend (2 weeks before the race) we'll do our "long" 10 mile run. After that we'll "taper" and then it's race time! We'll have to see how well the race goes after my 4 week training schedule :D

Back to our regularly schedule runs

2008-09-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Now that Tri season is over and she is (knock on wood) injury free, Amy and I were able to get back to our Monday night runs! We met up last night in Alamo at 5:00. Since Amy had just finished her tri about a week ago and a 10 miler on Saturday, and I had just done a high mileage (for me) run, I figured we get in a leisurely paced three miles. Yeah, not so much. We started out running at a pretty good clip, chatting along. By the time we got close to our usual turn around point, I was huffing and puffing! We took a very short walk break to catch our breath and drink some water after turning around, and then started back. I think we were running a little faster on the way back because all talking had ceased :) By the time we finished we were both pretty out of breath! So much for our leisurely run :)

Nike Preview

2008-09-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that my training for the upcoming Nike Half Marathon has been non-existent. During the past couple of weeks I've been trying to get my butt in gear, with limited results :( Two weeks ago I went for a run with Lindsay... we did about 5.5 miles, part of which we walked. Last week I decided to walk the Lafayette Reservoir and then on Thursday I went on a nice 3 mile run with Claudia (which left me very much out of breathe!). That's pretty much been the extent of my training.

On Saturday the area Team In Training teams were doing their "Nike Preview" run where they got to run part of the Nike course. Claudia and I decided that would be a good run for us to join the team on. Initially we had intended to run our longest run (10 miles) since that was what the team was going to do. After realizing though that we still had 1 month left until the race, we decided that we really didn't need to do more than 8 miles or so, and then we could do our long run in another week or two. Boy I was nervous about this run!! I knew it was going to be a challenging run, since it would include some of the biggest hills that are in the Nike course, and we were planning on going 3 miles further than my longest run so far!

I ended up heading to the city super early on Saturday morning alone, since Claudia was sicky. :( I got there about 7:00 and joined all the other TNT peeps at the Sport's Basement in the Presidio. The 10 mile route was going to head out to the right from the parking lot towards Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 and then come back past Sport's Basement, go up a massive, seemingly never ending hill before coming back down on a series of trails. Since I was only planning on doing 8 miles (or 7 if I wasn't doing well), I went out towards Fisherman's Wharf but turned around after about 2 miles. Those first 4 miles went very well... the weather was perfect for running-- cool, overcast and at some spots drizzly-- and there was only 1 small hill that I walked up on the way out and back.

After the first 4 miles, the course really got hilly :) Since I've done this race so much, I knew what was coming and had planned on walking the long hill. On and on it went, and finally I got to the top where there was a water stop. The water stop was actually manned by a girl I went to high school with so we spent a few minutes chatting. After hydrating, I continued running down the road (and finally got to enjoy a nice downhill section) before I realized that something wasn't quite right. Since I had turned around earlier than most everyone else, I was one of the first runners, but I soon realized that not only were there no runners in front of me, there were also no runners behind me. I got the sense that I had gone too far, and should have made a turn somewhere near the water stop. Part of the problem was that there were a few other TNT teams out there, and they were doing a different course... I had stopped seeing our markings, but was still seeing other TNT markings. I stopped along the side of the road to try and figure out what I should do and I saw a trail cutting across the bluff to my right. I thought maybe that trail would hook into the trail that our team was going to be running on, so I headed down the trail to check it out. The trail ended up petering out so I headed back UP the trail, and then back UP the road to the water stop. Well, at least I got a little more hill training in!

Once I got to the water stop, I saw that everyone was turning off onto a trail so I followed them. The trail would along the bluff and we got to enjoy some amazing views. We ran underneath the Golden Gate bridge and then back down to the bay. The team was doing a small extra loop out to Ft. Point and back, but since my Garmin told me I had done almost 8 miles, and I still had .8 miles to go to get back to the start, I decided to skip the extra loop. I ran back to the start and ended up with a total mileage of 8.66! I was so excited to have finished the run in one piece, and to have done more than I thought I could do! Even though I know I won't have a Nike PR this year, I feel less nervous about being able to actually do the race!

Throughout the run I felt really good, and only had to walk the hills, not any of the flat parts! I also felt great... just a little soreness in my knees and hips. I hung around for a little bit at the team potluck and then headed back home so I could shower and take a nap :D That night I celebrated finishing the run with my friend Ann... we went to a cute little restaurant called Pappo in Alameda! We sat outside and enjoyed some wine, food and yummy Creme Brulee. After all the talking and visiting we did after dinner, we were still hungry when we left the restaurant and decided to go get an ice cream! Ahh, the perfect end to the day!

Sunday I didn't get to sleep in too long... I met my friend Katie in the city and we spent the morning and early afternoon at the SF MOMA... we checked out all the art (some of it very weird... I don't get some art) and also went to the Frida exhibit, which was amazing! We were starved by the time we left the museum so we headed for lunch at California Pizza Kitchen. SO good! I was pooped by the time I got home so I took a nice long nap and then spent the evening watching the Emmy's.

Pac Grove Weekend Recap... Finally!!

2008-09-18T14:50:00.000-07:00

Grab a seat, a cold (or hot) beverage and put your feet up... this is going to be a long one :D

Our weekend started on Friday, since Claudia, Rocky, Amy, Lindsay, Phil and I had all taken the day off to drive down to Pac Grove. Claudia and Rocky picked me up at about 9:30 with Starbucks waiting and a packed car, and we headed down the freeway to meet up with Phil, Linds, and Amy. The drive down to Pacific Grove was uneventful and even a little ugly thanks to the gloomy skies. We arrived around noonish and drove straight to the hotel hoping to check in early, which they let us do! The Hyatt in Monterey where we stayed was really nice... it was actually a bunch of buildings lining a golf course and our room was pretty spacious. There were these weird lights though next to the bed and our shower only had half of a glass wall... the other end of the shower was completely open. I found this very weird and obsessed about it all weekend!

After checking in we made our way towards the starting area in Pacific Grove, and along the way made a stop at Carrows for lunch. The starting area was also the "Expo" where Claudia and Amy picked up all their race stuff. We checked out the empty transition area and then met up with some of their teammates who were going for a pre-race dip. Eeek. I don't why they all didn't just call it quits, turn around a go home after taking a look at the water... FILLED with kelp and it looked freezing!!! Amy and Claudia skipped the pre-race dunk so they're wetsuits wouldn't be all wet and icky the next day.

The empty transition area

The swim entry point... all that stuff in the water is the kelp they had to swim through... ikkk!

After we got back to the hotel, Claudia spent some time getting all her race gear organized while the rest of us relaxed :D At 6:00 we walked across the parking lot to the Pasta Party. I've been to many, many pasta parties, some better than others, and I have to say this was one of the best I've been to! The food was really good, the speakers didn't go on and on, and the honoree speaker (in this case the mom of an honoree) was amazing-- by the end of her talk, we were all on our feet singing along to "I Will Survive", led by her amazing daughter! And thankfully the Pasta Party didn't go on too long so after a quick team meeting, and one last gear check, the triathletes could get to bed at a decent time :)

The next morning the alarm went off at o'dark thirty :( Claudia got up and got ready, and I got to lie in bed a little longer since Lindsay and Phil were coming to pick me up after Claudia, Rocky and Amy left. Off our little triathletes went and about a half hour later Phil, Lindsay and I arrived at the start area. We snuck our way into the transition area and quickly found Claudia and Amy. They seemed to be doing well, although you could tell they were nervous :) Since Claudia and Amy's swim wave wasn't until more than an hour after the first wave started, we just hung out chatting with friends who had arrived and watching the men doing their 2 loops in the water.

Pretty soon it was time for Amy and Claudia to start!!! A quick hug, good luck, and down they went to the water! The girls both looked strong as they came out of the water the first time, ran around the rock and then ran back into the water. Since we wanted to be able to see them come out of the transition area on the way out on the bike, we left the beach as soon as they started their second loop and trekked out to the bike part of the course.

We managed to find a really good spot to cheer them on and made it just in time! Not too long after we parked ourselves, Amy and Claudia came riding out of the transition area. I had made this obnoxiously giant, neon sign so they easily spotted us on the side of the road. Since they were doing 4 loops of the bike course, we got to see them a bunch of times!

After they went out on their last loop, we hightailed it over to the transition area. We figured this would be the best place to see them come in on the bike, and then go out on the run. First Amy came in looking very good, and not far behind her came Claudia, also looking really good. And best of all, they were still smiling so we figured they must be feeling pretty good too! Into the transition area they went with their bikes, and a few minutes later, out they came with their running gear on!

Since the run course ALSO was comprised of multiple (3 loops-- talk about needing mental toughness!!), we parked ourselves along the run course right where they'd be coming in, and then turning around to go back out. There were a lot more people crowded along the run course and since I couldn't see too far down the road, I was afraid I was going to miss them. But thanks to the aforementioned obnoxious sign, they had no problems finding me! The sign even got a shout out from the announcer up in the tower near the finish line. I swear that sign was like a beacon! I was starting to get worried on the run course because it was really starting to warm up (well, warm for Monterey... I still had my long sleeved shirt on and pants!) and I didn't know how the girls would feel in the heat. But each time they came running by us, they didn't look at all like they were struggling.

After they went out on their last loop, we walked closer to the finish shoot so we could see them cross the finish line. Amy came in first, and was closely followed by Claudia... WOO HOO!!! They both did such a fantastic job, and it was so fun being out there to cheer them on! CONGRATS AMY AND CLAUDIA!!!

After chatting with all their fans (us :D) we all headed over to a restaurant around the corner for some lunch. After lunch we headed back to the hotel and hopped straight in the shower! Amy and Claudia were pooped, and so were Rocky and I (hey, spectating is hard!!) so we all ended up nodding off a little. After a short rest, it was time to get up and get ready for the Victory Party, which was also in our hotel. The food was pretty good (although not as good as the night before) and they even had a cake!! There was much celebrating, congratulating and talking about how everyone did. We actually hung out at the Victory party until they kicked us out, and then we made a short visit to the sport's bar next door in the hotel. Finally we headed back to our rooms (after a quick visit to the golf course :), watched the video that Rocky had taken and then conked out!

The next day we slept in a little, then got up and got everything packed up. Rocky, Claudia, Amy and I headed to Cannery Row for some lunch and little shopping :D After that we got in the car for the long drive back to the Bay Area!

I didn't want this post to be TOO long, so there are some things I left out... Claudia and Amy wrote a great weekend and race recap, and have some more pictures posted! To read Amy's recap click here and here. For Claudia's recap go here and here!

Tri weekend... take 2

2008-09-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Phil's Triathlon, this weekend it's Amy and Claudia's turn! The race is early on Saturday morning, and most of us are heading down tomorrow to stay in Monterey and cheer them on! It looks like the weather isn't going to be as nice as it was in Santa Cruz, which is actually okay... the triathletes will have perfect racing weather, and the spectators won't have to bake in the sun all morning!

I don't have much of a training update since there hasn't been much training going on :( I was doing so much better and running more consistently when I WASN'T training for anything! Now that Nike is just about a month away and I should be training for it, I haven't done jack crap! Since I'll be away all weekend, I'll have to continue (start) training again next week. Pretty soon it'll be time for our 10 miler, and I haven't done more than 5 miles yet! I'm in big trouble! BUT, the way I look at it is that I never do really well at Nike, and I've done it before without training, so it may not be pretty, but I'll be able to do it!

GOOD LUCK AMY AND CLAUDIA

(and all the other TNT peeps going to Pac Grove)!!!

An earthquake, Dave and Big Kahuna... My Weekend Trifecta

2008-09-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

As long as earthquakes don't do any real damage, I think they're kind of fun but a little scary at the same time... kind of like a roller coaster! Friday night Lindsay and I were sitting on the couch watching tv when the apartment started to shake. Next thing you know, Lindsay has jumped over to the spot next to me, and we're grasping on to eachother's arms. I know Lindsay freaks out a little during earthquakes so I kept repeating "It's going to be okay" over and over. I think I freaked myself out doing that though because tears started running down MY face! I'm such a dork (or as I texted Claudia later, "fork")!

Saturday I ended up not going out for a run with the Diablo Valley run team, but instead ran with Lindsay, who was out with her walk team in Moraga. Well, we didn't RUN the whole time, there was some walking in there on the uphill sections, but I think we did a pretty good job! We ended up going a little over 5 miles, and managed not to pass out in the heat! While we were out there we also ran into Claudia and Amy who were on their last team run with the Tri team!

After the run I went home, showered, got some things prepped for Big Kahuna the next day, and then met up with Amy at 4:30 to go to see Dave Matthews!! This year Dave was playing at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley and it was all open seating, which means the first ones there get the best seats. We got there right when the gates opened, and even though we had to wait in a long line to get in, we still got seats with a really good view of the stage-- the Greek Theatre is small enough that most ALL the seats have a good view of the stage! Boy it was HOT on the stone benches though! The concert was fantastic, as usual, and even though I didn't know every single song they played, I thoroughly enjoyed each song. I even made a celebrity sighting... Peter Coyote!

My celeb sighting, Peter Coyote

By the time I got home from the concert and took a shower (so I wouldn't have to the next day) it was 12:30, and I had only 3 hours until I needed to get up to get ready to go down to Santa Cruz :( 3:30 my alarm went off, I got dressed, and then headed off to Claudia and Rocky's. We got down to Santa Cruz around 5:30 and headed down to the beach to find Phil and the rest of our cheering squad. We saw Phil coming down from the transition area, and then walked down to the swim start at the beach. At 7:05 Phil's wave took off and the race was ON!!!

After Phil got in the ocean, we ran over to the other side of the pier where the swimmers would be coming out of the water. It took him 45 minutes to swim the 1.2 miles and then he was off to the transition area to get ready for his 56 mile bike ride. We were able to walk up this little hill a block up from the beach and see him as he rode from the transition area. At that point he was looking really good! After seeing him, we knew we had about 3.5 hours until he'd be coming back so we went to the car to change in to some cooler clothes (it was only 8:00 and already getting really warm) and grabbed a bite to eat.

3 hours later we were back at the top of the hill waiting for Phil to come back. About 45 minutes later, and a few false alarms, we saw Phil coming down the street and he still looked like he was doing well! We ran across the street so we could cheer him on as he went out on the run portion of the race. Just a few minutes later we saw him running towards us. I was kind of worried about how he'd be feeling... it was HOT out there, with no cloud cover and he'd already done a long swim AND bike ride. If it were me, the LAST thing I'd feel like doing would be running a half marathon. But Phil didn't look like he felt the same way :) He was smiling, and running well as he went by us!

We knew the run would take him at least 3 hours, so to kill the time we walked down to the Boardwalk. We took a photo in the photo booth, had a corn dog and giant beer, rode on the Giant Dipper and then rounded out a day of bad eating with a chocolate dipped soft serve ice cream. Yummm :) By then it was time to head down to the finish line along the beach and wait for Phil to run in. It seemed like the ultimate insult to made these athletes run along the sand, dodging sunbathers and playing kids, for the last half mile! But when Phil came in, he STILL looked great! He had a smile on his face (and very good sign) and was still running :D Final clock time was 7 hours, 20 minutes (official chip time was 7 hours, 15 minutes)! After his grand finish, we all ran down to congratulate Phil and see how he was feeling. After talking with him, I'd never guess that he just finished a 7 hour plus Half Ironman... he looked and sounded better than I do after just a marathon!

Since it had been a pretty long day, after we talked with Phil for awhile, we headed back to the car and got back on the road. I finally got home around 4:30 or so, but after being up for 13 hours, with only 3 hours of sleep before that, I felt like it might as well be 10:00 pm. :( A shower and a nap did wonders although I still felt worn out from being in the sun all day!

CONGRATULATIONS PHIL!!

Nature

2008-09-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

I like nature, but on Wednesday I realized how much of a wussy city girl I am! Since I've been such a lazy bum lately, and haven't started my Nike training, I decided on Wednesday that after work I'd go on a little mini hike after work. Every day on my way to and from work, I drive by a parking lot for one of the trails in Briones Regional Park. I've always been curious as to where the trail went, so I figured I'd check it out. Of course I had to pick one of the hottest days to go exploring!

After work I changed into my workout clothes and headed down the street to the trailhead. There were only two cars in the parking lot, and one belonged to a woman who was picking her kid up at the school next to the parking lot. Everyone else was probably in their nice air conditioned homes :( On the way out on the trail I stopped to grab a map of the park and read some of the notices up on the board. They had warnings about ticks, mountain lions and snakes. Great. On my way I went... up, up and up the trail (which at first was just a gravel road, and then branched off to a dirt trail). After a few minutes on the trail I saw a lady with her three dogs coming down the trail-- the other car in the parking lot belonged to her, which meant I was now all alone up there. I kept going for awhile and then figured that this probably wasn't the best idea... I started worrying that I would get bitten by a snake, trampled by cows (which graze in the park), attacked by a mountain lion, or just trip on a pile of cow poo and tumble down the hill and no one would be able to help me. Basically, I just freaked myself out! After almost a mile on the trail, I decided to turn around and head back to the parking lot :) It was a good workout since it's such a hilly trail, and the views from up there are amazing, but next time I think I'll go up there with a buddy!

As of right now I have plans to head out to Heather Farms to get in a run with the Diablo Valley run team. I think they're already up to 7 miles... but I'll probably do just 4. Not too impressive, but at least it's a start! Saturday night I'm off to the Dave Matthews concert with Amy (SOOO excited!!!!) and then on Sunday Claudia and I will be heading down to Santa Cruz at the butt crack of dawn to cheer on Phil at his first Half Ironman Triathlon!! GOOD LUCK PHIL!!!!!

Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend has passed... summer is over :( You wouldn't know that by the weather though... it's stinkin' hot out there!! Labor Day weekend was a lot of fun... pretty busy but still time to just relax.

Friday I met up with Claudia and Phil for some dinner before Pride and Joy played at the Blackhawk Plaza. We just ate at Alberto's Cantina in the plaza, and enjoyed watching all the crazy Blackhawk folks getting ready to party! After dinner, the three of us went over to grab some seats in the plaza and wait for Chris, Meenu and Rocky. Pride and Joy put on a GREAT show and the plaza was PACKED!!! Although the music was fantastic, I don't know what was more fun... the show, or watching all the Blackhawk people. I swear it's like watching a live episode of the Desperate Housewives of Orange County!!

On Saturday Rocky, Claudia and I headed off to Sonoma for a picnic at Chateau St. Jean. When we went there a few weeks ago, we heard about an "event" they were doing there over Labor Day weekend and decided that would be a nice way to spend a Saturday. Unfortunately, it took us FOREVER to get up there with all the traffic! It didn't end up really being much of an "event" but there were a lot of people out on the grounds picnicking and relaxing all day. We had brought some sandwiches, snacks and wine and just spent the day enjoying the warm weather and lovely scenery (Chateau St. Jean looks like some chateau right out of a foreign movie-- it's really pretty)! We were so full from snacking all afternoon that we didn't make our usual stop at Mary's Pizza Shack in Sonoma for dinner... we did have room though for some ice cream at Ben & Jerry's :D

Sunday I spent the morning just relaxing and hanging out. Lindsay and I went for a walk down the Iron Horse Trail and then cooked up a yummy breakfast of eggs, hash browns and sausage! Later that afternoon we took BART over to the Art & Soul Festival in downtown Oakland. Last week I had been searching around online to see what was going on in the Bay Area over the weekend and saw that the Indigo Girls was going to be playing Sunday at the festival. I've been a big fan of the Indigo Girls since college but have never seen them live... I couldn't pass up a chance to see them live for only $10!! Lindsay and I got there a little early to just walk around the festival... it was a MUCH more diverse crowd than we usually see at the Lafayette and Walnut Creek Art and Wine Festivals so it was fun to walk around and check it all out. A little before the Indigo Girls were set to start at 4:00, Lindsay and I headed towards the main stage to grab a spot. The area was SO packed that we got kicked out of our first spot, and had to cram in near a sidewalk with a bunch of other people. The show was great though, and the Indigo Girls sounded just as good live as they do on their CDs! By the end of the show we were pooped from walking around and standing all afternoon so we headed home, grabbed some dinner at Chipotle and then both passed out on the couch!

Monday morning was another relaxing morning. I did a little cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping and then whipped up some brownies to take to Claudia and Rocky's for a BBQ. Rocky and Claudia cooked up some yummy taco stuff for Chris, Meenu, Lindsay and I! We ate, talked, played with the doggies and played a game of Cranium (Claudia, Meenu and I lost :()! It was a fun night-- we were having so much fun we didn't get home until after 8:00!

Politics

2008-08-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

I've never been very into politics. I found it all too confusing and didn't really think that I should be voting on things that I had no clue about. Plus, there was never really anything that I felt strongly enough about to want to vote on. In fact, before this year, I'd only ever voted once. (Please don't start throwing stones at me yet!) But recently my views on politics and voting changed. The second time in my life that I voted (and only the first time at a poling place) was just a few months ago and was for some local officials and measures. Even then, I was very proud to receive my little "I voted" sticker :D

The presidential primaries were really what changed things for me. The idea of being part of such a historic time in our nation and possibly being able to vote for our first female or black president was so exciting! Unfortunately, I didn't register in time to be able to vote in the primaries :( but I will be able to vote for President. And not only will I be voting, but I've also been watching some of the Democratic National Convention! Shocker!! I wouldn't say that now I'm really INTO politics (I still prefer trashy news shows over the actual news), but I definitely am paying more attention to what's going on in the political arena. Hmm, does this mean I'm a grown up now?

Not much training going on here

2008-08-27T15:14:00.001-07:00

You remember how I blogged not too long ago about how I needed to get back into training again? Yeah, that hasn't happened. Last week I ran/walked with Amy on Monday and didn't do any running OR walking with Claudia. Monday night Amy's sis and bro-in-law were still in town so instead of running I met Ann and Lara for drinks. Last night Claudia had a few things she needed to take care of after work so we ended up just meeting for some dinner and drinks. Tomorrow she can't do any running because she'll be swimming in Shadowcliffs-- not that I'm complaining much since tomorrow's supposed to be the hottest day of the week.

At some point I really WILL get off my lazy butt and start training again! Maybe this weekend. Don't hold your breath though... I'm not holding mine :D

(Not-at-all) Clear Lake

2008-08-26T12:57:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I got to do a little camping in Clear Lake. The weekend has initially been planned as a big getaway for our TNT group of friends. Unfortunately other things came up for the majority of the group and it ended up being just me, Lael, his friend Kelvin and girlfriend Amie who could make it. Although I had been excited about hanging out with the big group, I knew that the 4 of us would still have a good time. Never having been to Clear Lake though, I didn't really know what to expect.

Lael and I decided that to maximize our camping time, we'd head up to Clear Lake (about 3 hours north of Walnut Creek) on Thursday after work. That way we'd have two fulls days there, and half of Sunday. We ended up leaving a little later than intended and after too long on some windy little roads, we finally got up to Clear Lake State Park at about 10:00pm. We checked out our campsite, said hello to the skunk that was hanging out in the bushes at the edge of our site (EEEKKK!!!), gazed up for a bit at the super bright stars and set up our tent. Our campsite was really nice... we were under a bunch of trees, which ended up provided us with plenty of much needed shade during the day, and our campsite was well blocked off from the sites next to us. After getting the tent put up, all of our things put away, and playing a few rounds of cards we finally went to sleep around 1:00am (WAY past my usual bedtime!). Even with the crickets causing a racket, it was really easy to fall asleep!

Friday morning we woke up at a decent time-- the campground wasn't too crowded, so we weren't woken up really early by the usual campground noise. We made a yummy breakfast and decided on what we would do that day before Kelvin and Amie got there. We walked along the boardwalk path out to the swimming area (gross-- all this algae floating in the water) and then around to some of the other areas. And that pretty much exhausted all of our activity plans. We spent the rest of the day playing cards, tossing around the football and frisbee, napping, reading, trying to stay cool (it was in the 90's), and trying not to die from boredom. Around noon all of the weekday campers starting clearing out and the campground felt really deserted. It was kind of creepy actually. Later in the afternoon the weekend campers started showing up and it got much more crowded.

The boardwalk trail and slough behind our campsite

The slough in the morning... it actually looks pretty!

Ugg, not so pretty here... the later in the day it got, the more icky looking it got

The backside of our campsite from the trail

Lael and I checking out the lake

Clear Lake at sunset

Water activities like boating, swimming and fishing are the main attractions at Clear Lake. Since the water really isn't nice enough to swim in (and I don't really swim in large bodies of water anyway-- I hate fishies), we didn't have a boat, and weren't interested in fishing, that didn't leave us with a whole lot of entertainment options. Our late evening activities consisted of a shower (me) and a run (Lael). Finally around 8:30 when Lael got back from his run we decided to start getting dinner ready. We had some yummy chicken, salad, and guacamole. Kelvin and Amie arrived right when we were eating so after we finished, and they had put up their tent, we chowed down on some s'mores and stayed up till 1:00am laughing and talking. As loud as we were, the rangers only came by once around 11:00 to let us know that it was quiet hours.

After we got up on Saturday morning, we had a nice breakfast of French Toast, sausage and OJ. The morning was spent just hanging out and relaxing... throwing the football around and playing board games. On Friday morning after talking to Kelvin and Amie, Lael reserved a boat for us for Saturday afternoon-- the pricing was very reasonable and it would be something fun to do, another than just hanging around in the campground. We packed up some lunch and some drinks and then drove over the Lakeport where the boat rental place was. Before heading out in the boat with a wakeboard, and innertube, we got a little boating lesson. I find it a little surprising that after spending just 10 minutes with you they give you the keys and send you on your way. Yeah, it's not as difficult as driving a car, but you're still handling this very expensive item that goes pretty darn fast.

Kelvin and Amie on the boat

Amie getting ready to wakeboard!

Kelvin, Lael and Amie all tried out the wakeboarding while I took video from the boat. None of them had much experience wakeboarding, and NO experience driving while wakeboarding, so there were quite a few spills. After they each tried it a few times, it was almost time to return the boat so we headed back towards shore and then spent the remaining time dragging the three of them around on the giant tube thing.

Lael getting up on the wakeboard:

Kelvin and Amie's wild tube ride:

After we got back from the boat, everyone was exhausted! I went to take shower and when I got back, everyone was sleeping exactly where I had left them! Later that evening we cooked up a yummy dinner of burgers and hot dogs, followed of course by some s'mores. We were definitely quieter that night and even though I could hardly keep my eyes open, we didn't go to sleep until around midnight! The next morning after we all got up we ate a little food and then started the long process of packing everything up :( We left the campground a little before noon and on our way to the bay area we stopped for a late lunch at the Red Hen Cantina in Napa. Although it was a really fun weekend, I think we were all ready to go home, shower and nap. And that's exactly what I did as soon as I got home!!

Kicking Cancer's Butt

2008-08-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

A few months ago a friend of ours was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer. The mass that was inside of her was too large to remove through surgery but after a few months of chemo, it was sufficiently shrunk down enough to be removed! She was a complete rockstar during Chemo and didn't experience many of the worst side effects. She came out of surgery yesterday and all reports say that she is doing fine and recovering well! WOO HOO!!! Now all my fingers and toes are crossed hoping that she's recovers quickly and that we find that the surgery got rid of all the cancer!

Today after work I'm off to Clear Lake for a weekend of camping. I've never been up there before and I've heard that despite the name, Clear Lake is not actually clear, especially at this time of year! One of the most popular activities at Clear Lake is fishing, which means there are lots of BIG fish in there, which means I will NOT be getting in the water!! I think we'll have a lot of fun just hanging out, relaxing, eating and maybe getting in some hiking. I'm sure I'll be coming back on Sunday one dirty, sweaty, tired girl!

Sad goodbye

2008-08-18T15:13:00.000-07:00

In a bit of sad news, my parents had to sell their condo in Tahoe :( They first bought it back in 1993 when I was still in high school and although it's given us years of fun Tahoe trips, the time came to sell it. Since the new owners are taking over at the end of the month, we decided that instead of a trip up to celebrate my brother's birthday in Portland, he'd come down and we'd do the celebrating in Tahoe instead! We haven't had all four of us there in awhile and it was nice to be able to celebrate my brother's bday, and say goodbye to the condo together!

We spent the weekend doing many of our favorite Tahoe activities, which means we ate a lot and spent a bunch of time sitting on the beach :) The weather was really nice, even on the HOT side, which is rare for Tahoe. I know we'll be back up to Tahoe again since it's one of our favorite places to go, but it will feel a little weird staying somewhere different at first. But then again, going to Tahoe is more about enjoying the lake and the mountains and the gorgeous scenery, and less about where you actually lay your head down to sleep :)

Yummy mango margaritas :)

Being silly :)

On the pier at the Hyatt-- favorite spot for drinks

BBQing-- who let them have control of the fire??

Lunch at the Rainbow Lodge on our way back down the mountain.

Off track

2008-08-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

It's training time again! With the Nike Half not too far away, it's time to get back into some more consistent running. After New York I was doing pretty well... running once or twice during the week. But lately even that small amount of running has been hard to maintain-- Busy schedules and heat keep getting in the way!

This week Claudia and I were good girls and still met up on Tuesday night, even though it was hot out. BUT, did we decide to walk instead of run... OF COURSE!! The rest of my week has been pretty low key, but it hasn't involved any kind of exercise. I think next week I'll need to get a little more serious about my training, and start doing the longer runs on the weekend. We'll see how that plan fits in with the weather, a camping trip, and a 3 day weekend. Maybe I'll wait until September to really get serious! :D

More birthday celebrating

2008-08-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or does it seem like the Olympics have been on forever, even though it's only been a few days? This is going to be a long two weeks!

Friday night I managed to watch just about 45 minutes of the Opening Ceremonies. Very cool, just way too long. Since I was TiVoing it, I figured I'd just watch it later when I could "boop, boop" through the commercial and boring parts! Plus, I needed to get up early so that I could be in Alameda by 6:30 to help out with a water stop :( Water stop duty was actually pretty fun, and I got to see a lot of old team peeps, and of course Mama Lisa and Coach. I got home a little before noon, took a shower, and then took a nap :) Saturday night I had been invited to a going away party for a woman that I know who is moving to Canada... she is the cousin of a former co-worker and 1/4th of the "Vodka Klatch" as her hubby likes to call us :D I figured I'd drop by, say goodbye, visit for awhile and then be back in bed at a semi-reasonable time... didn't really turn out that way! The party was a lot of fun, even though it was sad to say goodbye to Maureen :( We told her when the three of us remaining girls got together again, we'd have to call her and put her on speaker phone so she could still have a cocktail with us :D BYE MAUREEN!!!

Sunday was Ms. Lindsay's actual birthday and it was a day full of celebrations! We were both up around 9:00am watching the rest of the Opening Ceremonies when Lindsay gets a surprise visit from her sister and two nephews! They came bearing gifts, balloons and breakfast! Lindsay's sister made some yummy waffles with fruit and whipped cream, and sausages and she was nice enough to let me join them :D YUMMMM! After lazing around the house a little, Lindsay and I got ready and headed out to the Lafayette Reservoir to grab a picnic area for the day's 2nd celebration :) At 1:00 a bunch of Lindsay's friends and family came to BBQ and hang out. It ended up being pretty hot but we still had a fun day of eating, drinking and hanging out :) I came home later that day stuffed, tired and filthy!

Sneaky

2008-08-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

I'm not all that great at keeping secrets-- unless of course it's something very important-- but I've been keeping a secret all week :) Last week I heard that a surprise party was in the works for Lindsay, my new roomie. Her BF, cousin and our friend Jeanette were working on planning a surprise get together for her 25th birthday. Despite a few close calls, and despite many of our facebook profiles announcing yesterday how excited we were for the evening, the surprise party went off without a hitch! Lindsay had no idea anything was going on and she was completely surprised, and I think very touched, when she walked in the door of the Artisan wine bar to about 20 of her friends and family yelling SURPRISE! Hee hee... being sneaky is fun!

Change Part II

2008-08-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I wrote about how there seems to be a lot of change going on around me, and how there was a change happening in my life too. Most of you already know what that is, but for the rest of you, I HAVE A NEW ROOMIE!!! I know, that's not a mind blowing change, but it is kind of big for me... The Girl Who Hates Change :D

About a month ago, my former roomie told me she was going to be looking for a place to live in Berkeley, which is closer to where she goes to school, and where she really spends most of her time. It was a move that made sense, but I wasn't excited about the prospect of looking for another roommate. It's such a crap shoot... you could start out with someone who seems normal, only to find that they drive you crazy. But also you can end up with someone who becomes your best friend (LOVE YOU Claudia!!)

So, needless to say, I was not excited about my roommate's move, especially since she really didn't know WHEN she would be moving. She had wanted to take her time and find the perfect place for her, which put me in a holding pattern until she found that place. But everything turned out perfectly :D My very good friend Lindsay was also going through some housing drama and it ended up that when I needed a roomie, she also need a place to live AND a roomie! Perfect!

So last Thursday the former roomie moved out, and I spent the next few days cleaning like a mad woman! And don't you hate how you start cleaning, and everything starts to look even dirtier?!! After I got home on Thursday I cleaned, until I finally went to bed. Friday night after going to see Jeanette's band play in Blackhawk, I cleaned until bedtime. Saturday before going to Sonoma with Rocky and Claudia, I cleaned. Sunday before helping Lindsay move in, I was still cleaning! Just when I finally felt better after trapeze, I'm sore again from all the scrubbing!

Now it's been two days since Lindsay moved in and the place is really starting to come together! There are still a few things to be put away, and a bunch of pictures to be hung, but it really looks nice. Last night we had Claudia, Rocky amd Lindsay's BF Russ over for dinner and to help us put Lindsay's computer together (THANKS ROCKY!!!) and hang some pictures (THANKS RUSS!).

Birthday time

2008-08-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUDDY!!!

Flying Trapeze

2008-07-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

Unlike many of my other friends, and myself, Lael usually plans some kind of physical activity for his birthday. For his 30th it was paintballing (no thanks) and this year it was Trapeze. He had gone earlier this month for another birthday and enjoy it so much he decided that's what he wanted to do for his birthday as well. Great :( BUT, since I skipped out on the paintballing, I figured that I'd take part in the trapeze. Mind you, I was terrified about the idea of jumping off a platform 25 feet up and swinging through the air but thought this would be a good challenge for myself. Although I knew I'd probably enjoy myself, and be glad after the fact that I went, I was so nervous all last week :(

Saturday arrived, Claudia came over to get ready at my place after her training, and Lael picked us up about 2:00 to head up to Vallejo, where we were meeting Lael's GF Jen who would be taking us the rest of the way to Sonoma. Once we got into Sonoma, we took this little, windy road up into the hills to SkyFarm Trapeze. Even though I was nervous, I could still appreciate how beautiful it was up there-- the trapeze was outdoors in a grove of oak trees. Once there we were met by some more of Lael's friends and our trapeze instructors for the day: Marek, Hope and Darrel.

The first thing they started out doing was teaching us the "Knee Hang." This is the same thing that we used to do when we were kids on the jungle gym... it's a little harder to do as an adult :D They had a trapeze bar set up closer to the ground and we all practiced grabbing on to the bar, swinging our legs up and onto the bar, and then letting go with our hands and hanging there. This was one of the things I was nervous about doing... I wasn't sure that I could get my not-too-flexible legs up to the bar. It wasn't the prettiest or most graceful thing, but I did it. Lael, Jen and Kelvin, who had all done this before, got to practice a different "trick": The Bird's Nest for the boys, and the Splits for Jen.

After we had all tried the Knee Hang, it was time to get into our harnesses. I had been warned that these things were tight, but I had no idea! He cinched... and cinched... and then cinched it some more until I felt like I couldn't breathe anymore. At that point I think I almost had a panic attack because it was so hard to breathe! Once we were strapped in like sausages, Marek taught us what we were going to be doing once we got up to the platform. Feet at the edge of the platform, grab on to the pole with your left hand to anchor yourself, "pee pee"out (stick your hips forward over the edge), grab the bar with your right hand, then with your left, and then 1, 2, "HEP" and JUMP!!!

We let the experienced three go up first and then after the next two bravest, it was my turn. AHHH!! First we had to climb up this little dinky ladder to the platform 25 feet up. I was already shaking and nervous about falling off before I even got to the platform! Once up there I chalked my hands and Darell clipped me in. I grabbed the pole with my left hand, grabbed the bar with my right but when he told me to let go with my left hand, lean out there and grab the bar with my left hand, all of my survival instincts told me NOOO!!! But I did it and was totally freaked out leaning out over the platform with only Darell's hand through the back of my harness keeping me up there. But then an amazing thing happened... Once they yelled "HEP" and I jumped, all my nervousness disappeared! All you're thinking of is this sensation of flying through the air and concentrating on getting your legs up and then hands off the bar. Even hanging upside down wasn't scary... since you're swinging back and forth, and the net is below you, you can't really see how high up you are. After a couple of swings they told me to put my hands back on the bar and then they talked us through a little flip, and we just dropped down to the net. No biggie! (You can also watch the first video in the post below).

All of us took turn practicing our knee hangs, and then it was time to practice a "Catch" where one of our instructors would be up there swinging upside down on another trapeze bar and he'd try to catch our hands as we were swinging upside down. Unfortunately, by this time I was getting really tired. You use a lot of your core muscles to get your legs up and hooked on the bar, and after a few practice swings, I could tell it was getting harder to get my legs up. After Marek talked us through the catch on the ground, we all got two turns to get it. It didn't get it either time :( On my first try I just couldn't get my legs up... and then the second time I got my legs up, but I wasn't swinging high enough for him to gran my arms-- we only managed to slap hands :) (That's the 2nd video in the post below). Despite not getting a "catch", I still had a fun time and I'm SO glad that I did it. Boy do I have the bruises and sore muscles to show for it though! I have bruises on my feet, shins, and the back of my knees... I've got a mark on my stomach from the harness, and the sorest muscles I've ever had! Today it's 4 days since we went and I'm STILL sore!!

After our Trapeze class we all headed back to the square in Sonoma and had dinner at Mary's Pizza Shack. After that crazy workout, we were all pretty hungry and managed to save some room for ice cream afterwards!

Flying Olivia

2008-07-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here's what I did this weekend:

I know it's hard to see, but yep, that's me (oooh, that rhymes!!)... and I have the bruises, bumps, calluses and sore muscles to prove it! I'll post the whole story with pictures tomorrow!

Welcome back to the hot weather and smoke... Uggg

2008-07-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Yep, they're both back! After some REALLY cool days, the weather started warming up and with a change in the wind, the smoke made a reappearance as well! Just in time for a nice run on Thursday!

Pam and I met up for our usual Thursday night run. I hated the route we took last week... too hilly and long, so requested that we change things up this week :) Pam thankfully agreed and our new route was much easier and gave us a little change in scenery. When you run the same trail or route over and over again it starts to get boring so it's nice to change it up a little! Again, I forgot my Garmin, so I'm not sure how far we went, or what our pacing was. I felt like we were running a tad faster than usual, but Pam felt like the heat was having more of an effect on us... she was probably right, it was pretty warm out.

I'm sad that our running days together are almost over. :( In just a couple of weeks, Pam will be moving all the way to Washington, DC. I initially met Pam through Amy, when Amy let me crash their twice weekly runs after the New York Marathon. When Amy got injured and had to take a break, Pam and I kept running together and got a chance to get to know eachother better-- she's been a great running partner! I think I've got at least one more run left with her before she leaves and after that I'll have to figure out a new running schedule!

Stitch N' Pitch

2008-07-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

Yep it's that time of year again... the annual Stitch N' Pitch Giants game! I think this is the 3rd year that we've gone to this event... the first year we got a cute little tote with a bunch of knitting swag, last year we got another tote with a little less knitting swag and this we got a hat. That's it. A hat. I'm not too excited about that but now I do have a hat to wear on the rare occasion I go to a Giant's game!

There was a pretty big group of us last night and although I hardly watched any of the game (big shock) I did have fun! We chatted, gossiped, snacked and of course didn't do too much knitting! THANKS Amy and Claudia for putting it all together!

Dancing Queen

2008-07-21T15:52:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a pretty mellow one. Friday night I met up with my friend Ann and we went to dinner and then to see Mamma Mia! I had never seen the Broadway musical and didn't know what it was all about until I saw the previews for the movie. The theater was PACKED with women and we got stuck sitting in the second row! It didn't take us long to get used to being so close to the screen and we really enjoyed the movie. It's silly, campy and in some parts cheesy but a lot of fun. A few times during some of the song and dance parts, I caught myself looking up at the screen with the dorky smile on my face. Thank god the theater is dark!!

Saturday I spent the day running errands and dealing with a migraine headeache :( Thankfully it came in the morning and I was feeling better by the time I needed to get ready to head to the city for a TNT friend's fundraiser at a club. Phil and I were planning on meeting up at BART and then grabbing dinner in the city before walking over to the Cellar. Unfortunately the migraine came back on the BART ride in. I stopped at Walgreens on the walk to the Daily Grille and bought some migraine medicine but it really didn't get rid of the headache until the middle of dinner, and by that time I had started feeling really nauseous :( Ugg. I was such a bad dinner companion to Phil... I didn't touch any of my pasta, or even drink any of my soda... but I knew that I couldn't just ditch him to go home. After Phil inhaled his food (at least one of us had an appetite!!) we walked over to the Cellar (and dropped my uneaten pasta on a stoop along the way, hoping some homeless person would be able to enjoy it). By the time we got to the Cellar I was feeling much better. Although the night didn't turn into one of our usually debaucherous Cellar evenings, Claudia, Phil and I had fun. By the time Phil and I were headed back to BART, I was RAVENOUS so we stopped for Thai food along the way. I don't think I stopped to breathe one time during the meal... I just inhaled it all!

Sunday I still wasn't feeling 100% so I just spent the day napping and reading. I managed to finish a book that I had just started on Saturday! And BTW, what's with the weather? When did it turn into winter again? I went out on the balcony to read for a little yesterday and almost froze my hiney off... I had to come inside to get a sweatshirt! I know that sometimes weather and barometric changes can trigger migraines so I guess can blame my migraines on that!

O.M.G.!

2008-07-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Last night while I was waiting for So You Think You Can Dance to start at 9:00, I watched the season premiere of Project Runway that my TiVo had taped on Wed. night. I was watching along when all of a sudden a familiar face pops up onscreen. Just like a teenager, the first thing out of my mouth was "O.M.G."! I went to college with one of the designers, Jerry Tam! I instantly recognized him, even though it's been 10 years since I last saw him. We weren't what I would call "friends" in college, but I definitely knew who he was, saw him at parties, and we had a few mutual friends.

Part of the reason I was so blown away (other than the fact that I KNEW someone on TV!!) was because I never would have guessed in college that he would end up designing clothes. Santa Clara University is not an artsy fartsy college, and Jerry was a frat boy -- not that you CAN'T be a frat boy AND designer, it's just that the two don't usually go hand in hand! I read his bio online and it says that after getting his degree he started a software company and then decided he wanted to pursue his creative side and moved to New York where, after attending a couple design schools and working for another designers, he now has his own clothing line called FORM. Who woulda guessed?! Unfortunately, Jerry did not make it far and was the first person to be "Auf'd" :( So sad :(

Last night before the Project Runway excitement I went on a run with Pam. Ugg, I felt just as sluggish as I did on Monday! This time, because of the Farmer's Market in Danville, we met at the Park and Ride off Sycamore Valley. We ran out on the trail, and then through the neighborhoods back to Sycamore Valley. I think part of why I felt so tired was because a lot of the run (except for the last little bit down Sycamore Valley back to the lot) was mostly an incline :( I definitely felt it and by the time we got back to our cars, I was pooped! Again, I didn't have my Garmin on so I don't know how far we went (I know it was further than usual) and what our pace was. It could be that we were running faster than usual, OR that I was just lagging :( Hopefully this Monday's run will go a little better!

Change

2008-07-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

Change is in the air. No, not the smoke anymore... CHANGE. So many people I know are moving out of town, out of state, out of the country, ending old jobs, getting new jobs, ending relationships, starting relationships, companies starting new ventures. Change scares me but it can sometimes turn out to be a good thing. I just changed desks as work. Very exciting, I know :) Since moving into our current office building in Nov. 2002, I've been at the same desk. My boss always told me whenever someone left that I could change work areas if I wanted to but I was always happy to stay in my little cubby. Recently a new desk space opened up though and I snagged it. This was a good change :) My new work area is filled with more natural light and it's a little more open. I like it :D There's another change brewing right now... we'll see if that one turns out as well!

So last post I mentioned how I was going for a run on Monday with Pam and Amy and wasn't sure how that was going to go after some time off. Uh yeah, didn't go so well! Amy met us out there, but had decided not to go running with us so it was just Pam and I. Pam just did a half marathon on Sunday so she wanted to take it a little slower... thank god for that because I was struggling! I think it was a combination of the lack of running with all the crap I've been eating and drinking lately. Even though the weather was perfect and there was even a little breeze, I was dragging. It took me over 2 miles to feel like I was warmed up, and the last little stretch went okay. Ugg, we'll see how the run tonight goes too!

Exhausting Weekend

2008-07-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Exhausting, but fun I should have said :D Last week I spend pretty much the whole week recovering from 4th of July and saving my energy for this last weekend :D I managed to fit in one night of exercise so it wasn't a complete wash :) Since the weather last week was so insanely hot, and the air was still icky out, Amy and decided to meet up and walk instead of run. Thank god I grabbed a water bottle with water on the way out of the house because even though we were just strolling along, I needed it! On the way out we were just chatting away and by the time we decided it was time to turn around, we'd gone about 2 miles. So round trip we did about 4 miles, compared to our usual 3.2 miles when we run. Not bad... it felt nice to get out and do some kind of exercise (if you could actually count our strolling pace as being "exercise") :D

This was definitely a Team In Training weekend. On Saturday our friend Brandon was hosting the Diablo Valley Spring team End of the Season Party. He invited a few non-DV team peeps, me included, and since we never turn down a reason to eat and drink, we decided to go. We know a few poeple on that team so we still had a lot of fun-- but boy did I eat too much :( My food baby was about to pop! We got home about 8:30 and then I headed out to Danville to meet up with a friend for drinks.

Sunday morning I got to sleep in a little (I LUV that part about not training... sleeping in :D) and then headed out to Lake Temescal where we were having the Bayside Spring team End of the Season party (which I AM a part of :D) The BBQ wasn't supposed to start until 12:30, but I went out around 10:00 to grab a spot. Thankfully I did go out early because there was only one lonely little picnic table left. Of course there was NO grill so I called Claudia and she came to the rescue :D THANK YOU!! I had never been to Lake Temescal and it's actually a really great spot for picnics/BBQs. It's a little confusing to get to, even though it's tucked right between Highway 24 and 13. As the day went on, the place got PACKED with people out there enjoying the warm weather. We spent the afternoon catching up with teammates, eating MORE food and having a good time. I was so pooped though by the time that I got home, I didn't even unpack the car-- my trunk is jam packed with two coolers, a small BBQ and all sorts of other stuff! I'll get to it later!

Tonight Amy, Pam and I are back to our regularly scheduled run... thankfully it's cooled down a little and the air isn't so crappy. After about two weeks off of running, we'll see how well I do tonight!

A weekend of celebrations!

2008-07-08T12:56:00.000-07:00

Woo, that was a fun 3 day weekend! Friday we had a fun 4th of July celebration at the Lafayette Reservoir. I went out there around 9:00 so I could dump some stuff off and save a couple tables. After I went back home, showered and made the sangria I headed back out there to hang out and make sure no one took our spot before our official picnic start time at 1:00. Luckily I have a few friends who are always early :D so I didn't have to hang out by myself for too long! Phil arrived first, then Claudia and Rocky with the dogs and then everyone else started trickling in. We had a perfect picnic spot... 2 tables together in this little wooded picnic area... it totally felt like we were camping :D We had some shade, were close to the kid's play area and had plenty of room to set out chairs and blankets. We had TONS of yummy food and spent the day eating, drinking, chatting and enjoying the beautiful day! Lindsay and I even took a little spin around the reservoir in a paddle boat!

Around 6:30 or so most everyone was headed, or heading, home but a few of us wanted to see the fireworks in San Ramon. Since they didn't start until 9:45 we went over to Lael's house to hang out until it was time to drive down to the Bishop Ranch area. The fireworks weren't as spectacular as I had remembered them from a few years ago, but they were still nice. A lot of them didn't hardly clear the tree line so we didn't get the full effect of them exploding up in the sky. It was a nice end to the day though :D

Saturday was Claudia's birthday... WOO HOO!! I spent the morning just relaxing and then went to get my hair cut at 2:30. I was SO excited about getting it cut... it had literally been MONTHS since I had gone in for a cut! A little before I left for the salon, I get a message from Claudia telling me that in all the party planning and excitement, she had forgotten to get a cake :( Olivia to the rescue! After my haircut I swung by a bakery in Walnut Creek... thankfully they had one last larger cake available!

Claudia had her bday celebration at Artisan in Walnut Creek. It's a cute little wine bar with yummy sangria that I've been to a couple of times before. Our group pretty much took up the entire place and we hung out enjoying some finger food, sangria, wine and then cake. Once everyone started arriving, the warm weather, combined with a little wine, led to a little bit of overheating (and of course sweating). Lovely. It was one of those times when you know it's going to get ugly and will take more than a moment to cool down. Fanning with birthday cards ensued, and then a trip outside with Lindsay where it was actually warmer but at least no one could see me getting "dewier" by the moment :D Finally I cooled down enough to go back inside and I was fine the rest of the evening. Ugg, so gross. I was happy though that I wasn't the only one that happened to, just the first :D

Artisan has a fun little tasting area with this machine that dispenses a taste of various wines. You buy a card worth any amount you want (I did $10), you stick the card in the machine, choose the wine you want, and it dispenses a small amount. It's a nice way to try a number of different wines! After most everyone had left Artisan, the rest of us party people went over to 1515, this new restaurant/bar, for a few drinks. We didn't stay there too long-- just enough time for a couple more drinks and some food. By the time we left, the place was really getting packed and I think we were all tired from the long evening!

Sunday was a relaxing day... I met up with Lindsay and Claudia for brunch in Walnut Creek and then afterwards spent the rest of the day doing some laundry, downloading pictures from the weekend and just hanging out. After a busy Friday and Saturday it was nice to be able to spend the day doing nothing much! I hope everyone else had a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!!

WOO HOO... Three day weekend!

2008-07-03T14:39:00.000-07:00

Have a wonderful 4th of July everyone!!!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY Claudia!! I can't wait to celebrate with you on Saturday!!

Nothin' Much Happening

2008-07-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

I don't really have much to update about since my last post. The smoke has cleared up and we can finally see the blue sky. :D The fires haven't disappeared though, the wind is just blowing the smoke another direction and I heard it's supposed to change direction again soon. Hopefully it'll stay nice through the holiday weekend!

You can't see it very well but the red arrow is pointing to Walnut Creek.

I didn't do much over the weekend... no training and no activities planned so I just hung out. Friday I hung out with my friend Lael... we had gelato (YUMMM) and rented Fool's Gold (stupid). Saturday I just hung around the house and Sunday I walked around the Lafayette Reservoir, cleaned the house, and THEN hung around some more :D It was a little boring, but also nice since the past few weekends have been packed with stuff to do. It was also a nice break before the 4th of July and birthday festivities this weekend!

Last night I met up with Amy and Pam for our usual Monday night run. Although it had been a little cool in Walnut Creek, it was warmer in Danville. I guess I should have worn running shorts instead of capris! At least we had a break from the icky smoke! This will be one of the last runs with Pam... she recently got word that she had been accepted for a job in Washington, DC :( Hopefully Amy and I will continue to run on Monday nights, but I may have to find a new running buddy for Thursdays :(

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes... and Throat, and Lungs, and Nose...

2008-06-26T08:02:00.001-07:00

A few ago when I went to Lake Tahoe for Father's Day, we noticed how smoky it was up there due to the Humboldt fire burning near Paradise. Since then more fires have started and the smoke is drifting all the way down to the bay area :( The smoke is so bad that it's completely covered up Mt. Diablo, which normally looms over the area. I live just minutes away from the base of the mountain and I can't even see it anymore. In addition to our smoky skies, and the creepy red sun, we're also experiencing some pretty bad air quality. It's not as bad a cities north of us are experiencing, but it's bad enough to be noticeable.

This is the air quality report for Concord. The red color on today's forecast is "Unhealthy (U)" which basically means "Not a good day to go for a run" :D... tomorrow it's downgraded to "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (USG)"

On Monday I met up with Pam for our usual run. Because of busy schedules, we hadn't run since Monday the 9th, two weeks before. As we were running I noticed that I was doing a bit more huffing and puffing and had this side cramp that wouldn't go away. The problem was either my lack of running in the past two weeks, or the bad air quality. Pam had done some running since the last time we ran together and since she noticed that she was having a harder time too, I'm guessing the labored breathing was mostly due to the cruddy air.

On Tuesday I didn't really feel like going home after work and just lazing around, even though I had some laundry to do. Claudia mentioned that she was going to do a 3 mile walk after work to pass some time before she was meeting Phil and Amy at the pool. I'm such a nice friend I offered to come out and walk with her. :D Funny how during the past training season it felt like such a chore to go out to the Buddy Runs after work on Tuesday's but my first Tuesday after the season's done I don't want to go home and sit around! I met Claudia at her office and we did a semi-leisurely paced 3 mile walk down Camino Tassajara. By the time I got home it was only about 7:00 and I had plenty of time to eat some food and watch some tv.

Last night I twisted Claudia's arm and convinced her that since the air quality was so icky, she should come drink wine with me at the Walnut Creek Wine Walk instead of going to her track workout. I had heard about it a few days ago and thought it would be fun to check it out. Basically you pay $20 for a wine glass, wristband and map, and then from 6-9pm you walk around to various participating downtown businesses who are serving wine, and usually a little food too. I've been to something similar in Danville but it was on a much smaller scale. In Walnut Creek there were 32 businesses participating-- clothing stores, restaurants, a travel agency, a bank (it's probably the only time I'll ever be able to say I drank in the bank!!), a coffee shop, computer store, salons, and even a mattress store. There were TONS of people out there-- they ran out of the special wine glasses so many people just had plastic cups and a few locations even ran out of wine.

Taking out my "wine withdrawal" at the bank :D

I think that Claudia and I both planned on this taking no more than a couple of hours but before we knew it it was already 9:00 and we had hit 23 of the 32 locations. The last place we went to was a Mediterranean food place and we decided while we were there to grab something more substantial than the cheese and crackers we had been nibbling on all evening. Unfortunately they close up at 9:00 so we ended up going to Pyramid instead, where I ate way too much food for that late hour. When I went home my belly was so stuffed with wine, snacks and a chicken sandwich, I thought I was going to burst! We had a good time though and since it seemed to be such a success, I'm sure they'll do it again!

(Not so) Summer in the City

2008-06-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the end of the Team In Training Spring Season (which means no more early morning Saturday runs) what did I decide to do? Get up at the butt crack of dawn on Saturday!! Amy and Claudia were doing the Tri 4 Fun in Pleasanton-- it was Amy's first triathlon every, and Claudia's first one in awhile. Jeanette and I carpooled down together to go cheer them on. When we left my house at 6:00am it was already warm :( and the day only got warmer after that. Thankfully the sign that I made for Amy and Claudia also doubled as a shade structure :D

Amy and Claudia did a fantastic job!! I was hot just sitting there and I'm so proud of how well they did swimming, biking and running in that heat! A few of our Spring Season teammates were also there doing the triathlon so we got to cheer for them too!

After the race we decided to go grab breakfast-- the athletes had earned it, Rocky, Jeanette and I were just hungry :D After breakfast I went home and napped for the rest of the afternoon. When it had cooled down a little, I went to Target to pick up a few things-- I needed to get a head set for my cell phone so I don't get in trouble for talking on the phone in the car after July 1st, plus some things for the concert we were going to the next day in Golden Gate Park.

Alice Radio was putting on a free concert called Alice's Summerthing. They had about 5 bands/artists... not any that were super famous but most all of them had at least one or two songs I knew. It was more of an excuse though to enjoy a nice day with friends in the city. Too bad the "nice" day part of it didn't really happen :( When Lael and I left my house at 10:30, I was dressed in shorts and a tank top, anticipating really nice weather in the city. I grabbed a fleece jacket just in case, thinking that I'd probably end up using it as a pillow. Thank god I brought it because it was FREEZING out there!!

As soon as we went through the tunnel I could see the fog in the city, but I hoped it wasn't anywhere near Golden Gate Park. By the time we got to the park though the sun was gone and the temperature had dropped about 15 degrees :( Lael's friend Kelvin and his GF Amie had gotten there before us and had claimed a good spot in the meadow. Thankfully I had brought a large towel and a fleece blanket to sit on-- with the fleece blanket on top of us, it wasn't too bad. The first band started and more of our friends showed up... Phil, Claudia and Rocky all came after their training was over. My friend Katie and her BF also showed up towards the end of the afternoon. The music was good, we were stuffed with food and we had a good time despite the not-so-summery weather!

Running free week

2008-06-20T13:41:00.001-07:00

Girls Night Out + Busy at Work = No running for me! Monday it was my fault... I happily ditched the run in favor of Mojitos and Sex and the City with the girls. Thursday it was Pam's fault but I can't say that I was sad that she had too much work to do and couldn't run (Well, I was sad for her, but not for me!!). It was super hot yesterday and I was not excited about the idea of running in the 90+ degree weather! So instead I actually cooked myself a well balanced dinner (:-O) and watched some tv in my nice air conditioned apartment! Ahhh, so nice!

Tonight I'll probably do much of the same since I need to be up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow to go cheer on Amy and Claudia at the Tri4Fun! It's Amy's First Triathlon Ever and I know she's going to do a great job!

GOOD LUCK AMY AND CLAUDIA!!!

Girls Night Out x2

2008-06-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

I "heart" my girlfriends :D No matter what we're doing, we always have fun together! On Monday night Claudia, Lindsay, Jeanette and I got together for a Girls Night Out. We went to Havana's for some yummy food and mojitos, and then we to see the ultimate Girls Night Out movie, Sex and the City! The movie was fun, but a little on the long side :( I guess when you have 4 important, central characters, it takes time to tell each of their stories. The best thing about the movie was how much it showcased the amazing, unique friendships that women can have with each other.

Last night I met up with two other girlfriends, my former coworker Ann and her cousin Maureen. Maureen tells her hubby that we're the coffee klatch girls, and he joked that we're really the Vodka klatch. I think he's a little closer to the truth since our get togethers NEVER include coffee :) We (along with another girl Lara) meet up maybe once a month, or once every couple of months, for drinks and dinner. Last night we met up at Artisan, a cute little wine bar in Walnut Creek. We got there around 5:30 and next thing you know it's after 10:00!! For the most part we were the only ones in there so we could be as loud as we wanted :) The owner who was there gave us some really good suggestions on wine to try and I think we each enjoyed what we had. Since I hadn't been able to be there for the last meet up it was nice to spend some time catching each other up on what's going on in our lives!

A Happy Father's Day Weekend

2008-06-16T15:24:00.000-07:00

Even though I just saw my parent's last weekend, I couldn't NOT see my dad for Father's Day so I had originally planned to make a trip to YC for the weekend. When I talked to my mom last week though, she brought up the idea of going to Tahoe for the weekend instead. My parents are in the middle of remodeling our Tahoe condo so they can sell it :( Boo hoo. Since I hadn't been up to Tahoe since last year, and since I might not be able to get up there again before the unit sells, I thought it was a great idea to head to Tahoe for Father's Day weekend!

Since the sun doesn't go down so darn early this time of year, I decided to just drive up to Tahoe on Friday after work. This would give me at least one full day of relaxation! Too bad everyone else decided to head out of town later Friday afternoon too! I was basically stuck in traffic from here to Sacramento. I guess the high gas prices haven't really deterred people from traveling! Once I started climbing into the foothills though the road got much less congested and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way to Incline Village.

Ahhh, I LOVE the lake! I love that first glimpse of it as you come down the hill into King's Beach. It's just so dang purty :D I finally rolled into the condo complex a little before 9:00... a whopping 4.5 hours since I left work :( Once I got there I spent the evening catching up on things with my parents and checking out all the changes in the condo (new wood floors, new carpet, new sofas, even a new fridge!)

The next morning after breakfast we decided to head down to the beach to relax and read. Us Lamons are funny... we're not really bathing suit people and I think we were the only ones laying out on the lounge chairs in our regular clothes :) Oh well, we enjoyed ourselves! We read, ate, applied lots of sunscreen, read some more, and even fell asleep. It was perfect beach weather, even though we all kept moving our chairs back into the shade as the sun rose higher in the sky :) The only thing marring our perfect day was all the smoky haze hanging over the lake. When we first got to the beach you could barely see the mountains on the other side of the lake... just about 15 miles away. As the day went on the sky got hazier and hazier and the mountains completely disappeared :(

Where are the mountains? It almost looks like we were at the ocean!

After our day of lazing on the beach, we went back to the condo, got cleaned up and then went to dinner down at the Hyatt. My parents had gone there just a couple of weeks before and my parents were raving about the steak fillet that my dad had... since it sounded so good, all three of us had the same thing! After our yummy dinner we went back to the condo so my dad could open gifts and we could have our dessert :D

The next morning I packed up, ate breakfast and watched some tv before heading back to Walnut Creek. This time there was much less traffic on the road and I made it home by early afternoon! It was a fun weekend with the family, and I'm glad I got the chance to be up at the lake, even if it's for the last time... wah, wah, wah!! :(

It feels like summer has arrived!

2008-06-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Now that it's hot, I wish it were cool :( I'm just never happy with the weather! Thankfully since my event is over, I don't HAVE to be out there training in the heat! That doesn't mean I WON'T be out there though! I am still planning on doing the Monday/Thursday runs with Pam (joined by Amy on Mondays) although with our busy schedules, it's down to about once a week right now! I'd really like to keep up with at least some running during the summer so that when it's time to train for Nike at the end of the summer, I won't have to start all over again!

Monday night I met with Pam and Amy for our run. It was warm out but not too bad at all. Amy informed us that she would be taking it slow, and that was fine by me! Towards the end Amy took a walk break and Pam and I picked up the speed a little bit. It was nice to get out there and run with the girls... especially Amy, who I hadn't run with in awhile! I'm glad that the weather held out for us too!

The rest of the week has been pretty laid back. Tuesday I went to dinner with Lindsay at Pyramid. The weather was perfect for sitting out on their back patio enjoying some beers. Last night I had Send Off for our Spring season runners who are going to Alaska next week for the Anchorage Marathon. We have just a few runners going so Send Off was nice and small. It gave us more of an opportunity to visit and chat with eachother!

Tonight I'm off to Tahoe for the weekend! I haven't been up I think since last summer and I'm ready to go up and hang out at the lake! Of course I'm going up there when the gas prices have shot through the roof! Last weekend it was a trip to Sac, this weekend Tahoe... what a time for all this driving around!!

Liar, liar :D

2008-06-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago I posted about my mom's 60th birthday... and a couple of weeks before that about my brother's surprise visit for Mother's Day. Since I wasn't going to be around for her 60th bday (it was the same weekend as Rock N'Roll) getting my brother to come down for Mother's Day was also an early birthday present. But a few days before my mom's birthday, her friend Deni called saying that we needed to plan a surprise party for my mom. There's no saying "NO" to Deni so I said "Okay, what do you have in mind?" That's when the plan was hatched :D

Deni's idea was for a 2 part birthday surprise. First she'd get my mom to come to Sacramento for the day and Deni would surprise her with a spa day. After the spa, they'd go to dinner where family and friends would be waiting! Since I was going to be gone for my mom's actual birthday, we decided that we'd have this celebration on the 7th, also hoping that it would throw my mom off the scent! After MANY emails and calls between me, Deni and my dad, the spa and dinner reservations were made, the family/friends were invited to dinner, the decorations were made, the cake was ordered and we were ready!!

Saturday afternoon as my mom was on the way to Roseville to meet Deni, I was also headed to Roseville. We decided it would be a nice surprise to have me meet them down at the spa. We were hoping that she'd think THAT was the big surprise and not guess that anything was coming after. I got to the spa first and filled out my paperwork. The ladies there were VERY nice and had the whole thing planned out. They parked me in the "Relaxation Room" to wait for Deni and my mom to arrive. Once they got there, the ladies took them on a tour of the spa, including the Relaxation Room, where I was waiting! My mom was very surprised to see me, but I didn't get as much of a scream as my brother did :D Since we were there at the end of the day, the ladies closed the doors and basically gave us the run of the place. We busted out some champagne I had brought and had a nice afternoon of relaxation!

All disheveled from their first treatment!

Me enjoying the sauna

During my facial at the end of the afternoon, I started thinking about the next phase of the plan. Deni and I had concocted a story that would let me leave the spa so I could go down to the restaurant and set up some decorations before my mom and Deni arrived. I was a little nervous about us being about to act natural so my mom wouldn't guess that something was up. :D I think we did a pretty good job because my mom didn't guess a thing! I told her that I needed to go pick up Deni's daughter who hadn't been able to make it for the spa, but had come down from the city for dinner. Our story worked and I was able to leave a little early to go meet everyone at Buca di Beppo to set up!

When I got to the restaurant everyone was already there and waiting for the guest of honor. :D We threw up some decorations and about 10 minutes later she showed up! She was very shocked and excited to see all the family and friends who had come to help her celebrate! After a yummy dinner our server brought out a cake my dad had brought from Yuba City and we all sang Happy Birthday! I think that everyone had a good time, and I know my mom was very surprised so I'd say the day was a success!!

I didn't take many pictures but I'll add some when other people send me theirs!

SURPRISE!!!

2008-06-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Hee hee, we got my mom good over the weekend!! Two surprises in one day and she had NO clue!! HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY (again) MOM!!! I'll post an update all about it tomorrow!

San Diego Rock N' Roll Race Report!

2008-06-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

The weekend started at the butt crack of dawn on Saturday morning. :( I had to be at SFO at around 7:00 which means I had to get up really early-- boo hoo for me :( Once I got to the airport I was joined by a bunch of other TNTers from around the Bay Area, including some of my Bay Side teammates.

After an uneventful flight, we got to San Diego at about 10:00. A shuttle was waiting for us there to take us to our hotel. The hotel was really nice and BIG (I got lost trying to find the room). The best thing was that even though we were all there well before the check in time, they were able to get us into our rooms. I put my stuff in the room and then headed to the pool to meet up with some other teammates. We spent some time lounging there in the warm sun (that finally decided to come out) before we hopped on the shuttle to head to the Expo.

Me, Ian, Melissa, Deb, Christina and Fran waiting for our shuttle at the SD airport!

The Expo was pretty much like all the other RNR Expos I've been too... which means it was HUGE! I walked around a little bit, and then when Rocky and Claudia got there we all walked around some more. By this time it was around 2:00 and none of us had had any lunch so we walked across the street to this cute restaurant and had some lunch while sitting outside in the sun. The lunch was yummy, but filled me up way to much, especially considering that by the time we were done it was only an hour or so until the pasta party!

Claudia and I at the Expo

The Pasta Party was located just down the street from our hotel so it was a nice short shuttle ride. The food was standard pasta party food, which means not too excited. Good thing I was still full from lunch! I was happy to see though that they had cookies there :D At the Pasta Party we heard from The Penguin-- I've heard him speak a lot before but he still cracks me up! We also heard from some other race people and also an honoree who's also a participant. Everyone's speeches were nice, they just went on WAY too long! I think it was close to 8:30 by the time we finally left! When I got back to my room I spent some time getting all my race stuff ready for the next day. At 10:00 it was lights out!

Team "Because We Can!" on the way to the Pasta Party

Yummm, pasta party food!

Sunday:
I didn't sleep well at all the night before the race :( I actually woke up a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off at 3:30am because I had a dream that I was late for the race! I got up, got ready and then Claudia, Rocky and I headed to the hotel lobby to meet up with everyone. Coach gave us our pep talk, we did our shout outs and then we headed outside to get on the shuttle to the start. Everyone was a little nervous and tired but still excited!

When we got to the start area it was still dark out. We all pottied and then found a spot on the grass to hang out until the start. We pottied some more, checked our bags, and then at 6:15 made our way to our corral. When 6:30 came the race was on! (Which means we just stood there for a few minutes before we started the walk to the start line) :D While we were sitting around before the start the temperature had been a little cool but very comfortable. Great for sitting around, but not cool enough for running. Even though we had the "June Gloom" clouds above us, I started sweating right after we started running. It wasn't really HOT out, but it was a little humid. After just a couple of miles I had sweat pouring off of me... even dripping off my elbows. Sorry, that's kind of gross but I honestly have never sweat more in my life. And when I looked around I could see that everyone else was having the same problem... people's shirts were already drenched and the sun hadn't even come out yet!

The first few miles were pretty nice... we ran down through Balboa Park and then around the downtown area and Gaslamp district. Because I don't know the city well, and there were quite a few turns, I had no idea where I was the first few miles. The only thing I really knew was that at mile 8 I would be one street over from mile 4. This was where we hung out when my brother ran the full marathon, and it's the same place where Claudia and Rocky were going to be. At 4 miles I was feeling really good but had left my teammates behind. I ran past Claudia and Rocky, gave them a quick wave and then kept going.

Between mile 4 and 8 is when I started getting tired. I had started out the race hungry (I either ate too little, too early or both) but after I had a GU around mile 5 I felt better. By mile 8 though I was hungry again :( I also noticed that when I stopped to walk during the water stops my quads were really tight. I was worried that with the humidity and sweating that I'd start to cramp up so I kept drinking more of my gatorade instead of the water at the water stops. I ran into Claudia and Rocky again... I gave them my race belt, got a refill of Gatorade (I had gone through more than half of my bottle), chatted for a minute and then said goodbye. Since they had to get over the the marathon finish line I wasn't going to see them again. :( THANK YOU for being out there and supporting me! Knowing they were going to be there at mile 8 motivated me to keep moving!

After I left them the race route took us onto the freeway. It was very weird running on an empty freeway, and not all the comfortable. The surface isn't smooth and the road is tilted. You don't notice how much when you're driving in a car but running it you do notice. A few people had told me to either run on the very left, or very right side where the road was a little more even so that's what I tried to do. The sucky thing is that in addition to running on this tilted freeway, we were also running up a 2 mile incline :( I knew that for the next 2 miles we'd be running uphill so I just started walking. I knew I couldn't power up this hill and didn't want to tire myself out trying. I noticed at this point that A LOT of people were walking, and A LOT of people were stretching along the side of the road. Not really a good sign so early in the race. I think that the humidity and the course were causing people some difficulty.

While I was on the freeway the sun started to come out. At first I was not happy about that but I was actually more comfortable at that point. I was able to cool down a little when I was walking, and with the sun came a little breeze which helped even more. It also didn't feel quiet as humid which was nice. At mile 10 we got a nice little downhill... a lot of people were still walking so I managed to pass quite a few of them. Then, another little uphill that I walked before we exited off the freeway around mile 11.

These guys cracked me up... I saw them at two spots, once at the top of the big hill cheering "GO GO UP THE HILL!" One guy was REALLY good at the high kicks... kind of scary from a boy in a short skirt!

From mile 11-12.5 I did some running and walking off and on. The bottom of my feet really hurt from the darn freeway and it was just plain hot out there. :( Somehow my Garmin got off course because it was showing .5 miles more than the mile markers. So when I hit 12 miles on my watch, I was only at 11.5. That was really screwing with me because I kept thinking I was almost at each mile marker, but was really a half mile away! When my watch hit 13 miles, I knew I had just .6 left so I started running a little faster. I was on the lookout for a finish chute, or special area for the half marathoners but I didn't see anything. I crossed the mat at 13.1 miles and saw an area off to the right that was the finish area for the half marathoners but was unsure if I should stop running right there, or continue running down the path into the finish area. I kind of did both, so I think that my "finish" photo is of me actually walking. A little anticlimactic and confusing, but oh well, I was just so happy to be done!! They had a special medal for us that looked exactly like the full marathon medals, but with a different color ribbon and a little 1/2 in there :D The finish area was nice too... I saw some of my teammates so we sat in the grass and had some snacks.

Heather and I at the finish area

The plan was that after we finished, we'd be bussed over to the full marathon finish line so that we could get our bags and then get the shuttle back to the hotel. The shuttle took FOREVER, and by the time I got to the finish area Lael, who was running the full marathon, had already finished! I met up with Lael, Claudia and Rocky and then went off to get my bag while they looked for our other friend Bill. The finish line area was so crowded I was starting to get super irritated with people! I was hot, tired and hungry... GET OUT OF MY WAY!!! When I made it back to the family area Bill had showed up and we went to get our free beer-- We sat in the grass, drank our beer and baked for a little bit :D

We decided it was finally time to get going so we made the long trek off to the car, and then drove Bill and Lael back to their car near the start. We couldn't figure out how to get on the darn freeway so we stopped for some lunch at the sandwich place and then made a second attempt, SUCCESS! Back to the hotel we went! I jumped in the shower, laid down for a short rest and then it was time to get ready for the Victory Party!

The Victory Party was at the Convention Center downtown and there were TONS of people there. It was hard to find everyone so I ended up at the table with some of the managers. We ate, drank some beer and then finally found our group on the other side of the room dancing it up! The party was over at 8:00 and most people had already left by then. Claudia and Rocky were having dinner down the street so I went down to meet up with them and then the three of use hooked up with some of the Diablo Valley team who was at a bar down the street. We hit a couple of San Diego's hot spots before finally heading back to our hotel. It had been a LONG day for all of us!

Monday:
The next morning I got to actually lay in bed for awhile. We didn't have to be on the shuttle until about 11:30 so I had time to be a lazy bum :D I was a little sore and achy but wasn't doing the "marathon waddle" like many other people were! I nodded off on the plane, and then finally got to my house at 4:30 :(

All in all it as a good weekend. San Diego is such a fun town and I wish I could have spent more time there having fun, rather than being shuttled all over the place and running the race! I feel pretty good about my time, considering I walked for over 2 miles of it and was sweating like a pig! I don't think I'd ever do the race again though... I've crossed it off my list and that's where it can stay!

THANK YOU to everyone who supported me this season... both financially and emotionally! I couldn't have done it without you all!!!

I DID IT!!

2008-06-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

I'm back from San Diego and boy am I sore! I feel almost like I ran the FULL marathon, instead of just the half! The weekend was great and I had a great time being down there. The race went pretty well although because of the humidity I sweated more than I ever had before! Final time: 2:49:13. I'll do a full race report with pictures tomorrow!

Happy, happy birthday!

2008-05-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Today is my mom's 60th bday! Woo hoo!!! (Sorry mom for telling everyone your age... but it's a big milestone so be proud!!)

Happy Birthday... I Love You!!!

Tomorrow I'm off to San Diego for my race... I had a massage last night, and went for one last short run with Pam and I think I'm ready! Now I just need to actually pack! When I checked the weather it said that it's suppossed to be cool down there... which means I have no idea what to pack in terms of clothes! I can't pack summer clothes, and I can't pack winter clothes... I think that layers are the key.

THANK YOU ALL for the support (financial and otherwise) and well wishes! And THANK YOU Claudia and Rocky for coming down to cheer me on! Watch for a full race report next week!

Last Buddy Run

2008-05-28T14:50:00.000-07:00

Last night was the last Buddy Run of the season, at least for those of us doing RNR San Diego. Since I hadn't made it out to a Buddy Run for so long, and since I didn't do my normal Monday night run, I decided to drive out there and do the run around the lake with my teammates!

It turned out that the same day I was all excited to go run with them, they wanted to skip the run and head to dinner instead! Just my luck! Thankfully a couple other people still wanted to run so I was able to get one loop around the lake in before I headed home! Tonight I have some laundry to do and I'll probably start packing a little-- Thursday I have a massage, run and the LOST finale to watch so I won't be getting much packing done then!!

Eat, Drink, Sleep, Repeat often

2008-05-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning was our team's last real LONG run. This time it was the Bay Side's turn to host both the ST team and the East Bay Diablo Valley team. In Mill Valley the SF team was nice enough to schedule some gorgeous warm weather for us. We weren't so nice. We scheduled cold temperatures, lots of wind and even threw in some rain for good measure. That's how we roll in the East Bay. Huh.

Our crazy managers Tessa and Lindsay :)

I just realized it kinda looks like I have really saggy boobs in this pic... it's really just my arms folded under my sweatshirt. I swear :D

Ghetto talk aside, it was yucky out there :( Not the nicest way to start off a three day weekend, but for the most part it's ALWAYS been cold and overcast out in Berkeley on our long runs :( Great weather for running, not so much for standing around cheering. I was all bundled up, and even though I knew I was going to warm up, I couldn't bring myself to take off my sweatshirt, ear band and gloves. About a mile into my 6 mile run I WAS hot though and started peeling everything off. The run went well-- nice and short but just long enough to get the blood pumping. When I got back to the start I bundled up again and spent the rest of the morning eating all the potluck food and cheering in the other runners.

Finally warming up... the gloves and sweatshirt are off!

After the run I went home to shower and grab a quick nap before it was off to Brandy's for a BBQ. She had considered canceling the BBQ when she saw rain was in the forecast but I'm glad she didn't. It had warmed up just enough so that we could all sit outside, even though we all had long pants, sweaters and jackets on! If we got too chilly we could always just jump in the bouncy house for a mini, sweat inducing workout!

Sunday morning Rocky, Claudia and the dogs came to pick me up at 9:00am. They had invited me to go out to Granite Bay near Sac. to hang out at Rocky's brother's house with the Reyes clan. When we got there it was still a little chilly but around noon it started to warm up. It wasn't warm enough to go swimming in the pool, but it also wasn't warm enough to make us sweat out there in the sun, which was good. It was actually perfect sitting-outside-and-relaxing weather. We ate and drank ALL day, and I really mean ALL day-- from noon to midnight! We knew it was going to be a long day so we planned on spending the night in Granite Bay at their house. We woke up the next morning, had some breakfast, laid around reading the paper and magazines, and then headed back to the bay area (with a quick stop at L&L Hawaiian outside of Sac) :D I got home, took a nap and didn't do anything for the rest of the day!

Me and Patch chillin' in Granite Bay... look, he turns red just like me :D

All in all it was a really fun but busy weekend! Just the way a three day weekend should be!!

How rude!

2008-05-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

Last night the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society staff organized a TNT alumni get together at Joe's in Lafayette. After running some errands (one of which included getting some new glasses... can you say expensive?!) I stopped by to hang out with some former TNTer's. There weren't a ton of people there, but we all managed to have a really good time. Joe's is a cute place, and they have a lot of live music during the week. (They also have a happy hour with some great food and drink prices... they even have LUMPIA!!!) Wednesday night is "Doo Wop" night and there was a band with three male vocalists. Man, they were good! They were incredible singers, and really worked the (small) crowd! Since there weren't a ton of people there, they spent a lot of time with us in the back-- they even let us sing into the mics a little. During one song that we were all singing along too, one of the singers who was standing next to me said, "Wow, you have a really low voice." Great, that's exactly what a girl wants to hear! :(

Class of 1998... GO BRONCOS!!!

2008-05-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

14 years after first leaving Yuba City for college, and 10 years after graduating from Santa Clara University, I went back for my college reunion. I have a lot of really fond memories of college, especially my junior and senior years living in a house across the street from campus with 10 other girls. I don't know how we survived AND actually graduated!

I was a little nervous about going back for the reunion. While some of my old roommates have remained really good friends, I really hadn't seen many of them for a few years. I was nervous about how it'd be being back together, and also worried that some of the other people I'd see would actually remember me! Well, it ended up that I had nothing to worry about and I'm REALLY glad that I went. It was so nice to see the campus again, reconnect with some old friends, and relive a little bit of our college experience. :D

After the run on Saturday I came home, got ready and headed down to the South Bay. My old roomie Viv lives at Santana Row and her place was the party hub for the weekend. Everyone was meeting up at her place for a little pre-partying before we headed to the reunion dinner. I got to Santa Clara a little early, and decided to take a drive around campus, since I didn't think I'd have a chance to see much of it later. A lot of the campus looks the same... all the old hang outs I remember are still there... but there are a lot of new things too, including a GORGEOUS new library!

After a quick drive around (it's a small campus) I headed over to Santana Row to meet up with everyone else. The pre-partying had already started and I came just in time to jump in on a game of King's (an old card game we used to play in college). We spent some time hanging out and catching up more and then all got prettied for the reunion.

The reunion was held in the new Leavey athletic building. They had us one one side of the big gym area, and the 5 year reunion peeps on the other. They had tables set up, a bar, a dj and dance floor. The minute we walked up to the building we saw some old classmates that we recognized. Pretty much the rest of the night was spent hanging out by the bar catching up with people. There were some people there that I hadn't seen since my freshman year, and some that I'd seen a little more recently. Despite how long it had been since the last time I saw them, it seemed like just yesterday that we were all in school together! We joked, we laughed, and we basically fell into our old friendships. I was really surprised at how easy it was to do that!

Towards the end of the night we started hearing about a party that some of our guy classmates were having at a house nearby. Because Santa Clara is a pretty small town (even though it's right next door to San Jose) the party scene consists of mainly house parties. Most all Juniors and Seniors live off campus is houses around the school. Every weekend (well, almost every night actually) someone was throwing a party at their house. It was also a Santa Clara tradition to name the houses... some names change every year with the new residents but some house names have been around for years. The house I lived in was generally called Old Theta Chi because for years before we moved in it had been the Theta Chi fraternity house.

Whoops, I got sidetracked a little... So some of the guys had "rented" (basically paid the current residents to get lost for the night) their old house, Clubhouse, and were hosting a party there. Ahhh, just like old times. We all walked across campus in search of Clubhouse (none of us could remember where exactly it was). Along the way we walked by our old house on Market Street and had to stop and take a picture on the porch. We spent a lot of time on that porch, and took a lot of pictures there to commemorate dances, parent weekends, graduation. Of course we had to take a pic to commemorate the reunion. I don't think we made the current residences very happy... one girl came out to tell us that people were sleeping (ummm, it was only midnight... what college student is sleeping then!) and then slammed the door! Oh well, we got a cute picture. :D

Once we got to Clubhouse we only spent a little bit of time there. I think were are all getting a little tired, and hungry, so after awhile we called a cab and headed back to Viv's place. She fed us and offered to let me stay the night on her couch (a VERY good idea :D). I conked out in my dress, and then woke up about 6:00am the next morning, got up and drove home so I could get some more sleep in my bed :D

All in all it was a fantastic reunion and I'm really glad that I went. Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before I see everyone again!! I'll add some more pictures once people send them to me :D

Big Baby

2008-05-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

After my 10 year college reunion this last weekend, I came to the realization that while I might be able to party like I did in college, I can't recover like I did back then :( I'll update more on the reunion festivities later!

Saturday before I left for Santa Clara I went out to the Mentor Led Run in Alameda. We didn't start the run until 8:00, which was probably not the best idea considering how ~~warm~~ HOT it's been! BUT, Alameda is always a little cooler, especially out there along the water, so I figured we'd be fine. Especially me since I was only doing 6 miles. :D Once I started running though I knew it wasn't going to be a pretty run. It was hot from the get go, and the slight breeze didn't really much. I decided about a mile into the run that I was only going to do 4 miles instead of 6. I ran out to the bridge, and then started back. I took a couple of walk break (how sad is that) and stopped to talk for awhile to Mentor Tori who was "sweeping" the course on her bike. Have I mentioned what a baby I am running in the heat? I hung around the finish line for a little while and cheered people in, but I left before everyone was in so I could run a couple of errands, grab some food and then get ready for the reunion!

Sunday morning I drove back to WC and went straight to bed (after popping a couple of Aleve and 2 Pepto Bismol). A few hours later I dragged my poor hungover self out of bed, grabbed some food (ugg, not such a good idea) and then headed out to Pt. Isabel for Ms. Daisy's 1st bday party :D I was running a little late and missed the cake eating, but made it in time to join all the doggies and their parents for a long walk. When I left WC it was hot... not so at Pt. Isabel-- the wind was whipping around! The doggies and humans had a good time (except for a little doggie scuffle at the end of the walk) and Daisy looked very pretty in her party dress!

Fat boy Patch got a little lazy towards the end of the walk :D

"Hot, Sticky, Nasty Uncomfortable"

2008-05-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

That's not just what I feel like, that's actually a quote from a weather forecaster about what the weather's like right now! Seriously, what is up with the extreme heat! Even for warm California, we're having some unseasonable super high temperatures. I read on SFGate today that "It was a full 11 degrees hotter in Oakland than it has ever been on any May 15 in the recorded history of planet Earth, the weather service said." That's just plain crazy!

Because of this crazy heat, I haven't really been doing much the past few days-- just trying to stay cool. Monday night before it started warming up I met with Pam and Amy in Danville for our regular Monday night run. When we started out Amy said that if we slowed down enough to match her pace for the beginning of the run, then once we got to Sycamore Valley we had her permission to take off :D Amy kept us running at a not-all-that-slow pace until Sycamore Valley and then she let Pam and I take off. Because she'd been going a little faster than normal for her, we actually kept pace with her until we reached the trail. At that point she took a walk break and told us to go ahead. That only lasted until the stop light when she caught up with us again :D It was a good run, and I was just happy that the heat hadn't hit yet!

Tuesday I spend the evening catching up on all the TV I had missed over the weekend and past few days. I LUV TiVo :D I watched Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, Gossip Girl, Keeping up with the Kardashians (yes, I admit I like that show!) and The Hills!

Wednesday Claudia and I got together for a former roomie date :D Since she had been on vacation, we hadn't see each other in what seemed like FOREVER so we met up for some drinks and dinner. We went to this new wine bar in Walnut Creek called Artisan. They had really yummy sangria, and I also tried a "flight" of some white wines. Since we had only eaten a little bread and cheese, we decided to go to Pyramid for dinner. We sat outside on their back patio (And was it still super hot then? YEP!) and each had a salad and a beer while we listened to some live music. It was a fun evening :D

Last night Lindsay and I had planned to do a repeat of last Thursday and go for a 6 mile run together since Pam couldn't do our usual Thurs. run. I had told Linds at the beginning of the week that if it was too hot I didn't want to run, but I'd be okay walking. She called me a wimp, I agreed, but once she felt how hot it was yesterday, even in SF where she works, she had no qualms about calling off our workout :D Instead I make us a pasta salad and some chicken, we drank wine and watched 27 Dresses in my comfy air conditioned apartment! I MUCH better way of spending the evening in my opinion!!

Mother's Day Surprise!

2008-05-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

The plan was hatched about a month ago... I was trying to figure out something special I could do for my mom for Mother's Day and her birthday, which is at the end of the month when I'll be in San Diego for my race. I thought about planning a party-- nope, too broke, too busy and too hard to do from the bay area. Then I thought about what would really make my mom happy-- and that was to have the whole family together for Mother's Day! My mom and dad were planning on coming down to visit me for Mother's Day weekend so I asked my brother if he might be able to fly down for the weekend. He thought that was a great idea and said sure he could do it! Perfect... I knew my mom would be SO surprised to see him here!

Because of the cost of tickets and our schedules, Grady ended up taking the train down from Portland to Oakland. He left on Friday afternoon, would spend the night on the train, and then would arrive at Jack London Square at around 8:30. Since I had to be at the Coached Run in Mill Valley super early that morning, and wouldn't be done until around noon, he was planning on just hanging around until I made my way back to the east bay and could swing by to pick him up.

The run in Mill Valley went really well. I went out with the first group since I had heard it was going to get warm (when I got there at 6:30 it was already warming up). The course was a double out and back... the first 5 miles out and back were along Tennessee Valley Rd. all the way out to the ocean, and the 2nd half was out and back from the start area to Tiburon. I was worried that the first half of the course was going to be boring because it was pretty much a straight shot out to the ocean along a tree lined road. It ended up being a gorgeous run but hillier than I was prepared for. After a flat 1.5 miles, the next mile are so was a long incline to the top of the hill... then we got a short downhill before we veered off on a trail which had a lot of rolling hills. I didn't do too bad on the hills, considering how much of a wimp I usually am with them! Two hours after I started, I rolled back into Mill Valley feeling very good!

Me, Deb, Ray, Belinda and Leslie at the beach... the turnaround point for the first half of the course.

I waited around for a few more hours cheering people in. Once our water stop peeps got back, I loaded my car back up and drove out to Oakland to pick up Grady. We got back to Walnut Creek, took some quick showers and then figured out how we could best surprise my mom! My idea was that when my mom and dad arrived, I'd sit my mom on the couch, tell her I had a present for her, bring out my brother, who would have been hiding, and then SURPRISE!!! My brother had a better, and slightly more evil plan. He thought he should hide in my closet and I then I'd tell my mom I had something for her, but she had to get it out of my closet, and when she'd open the door... SURPRISE!!!

I thought she might find it a little strange that I had something in my closet for her but we went with that plan since we thought it have the most shock effect. And boy did it ever!! My mom opened the closet door as planned, but since my brother is so tall, and she was expecting something to be on the floor, all she saw was his feet at first. It took her a few seconds (which seemed like minutes) before she looked up at his face and realized what she was looking at! She SCREAMED!!! And not an "Oh-my-gosh-I'm-so-excited" scream... it sounded more like "There's-an-axe-murderer-in-the-closet" scream! I think she was surprised :D

A reenactment of the "reveal"

After the shock wore off, we headed off to my new favorite BBQ place Cuz’nz BBQ for lunch. We were there for a LONG time enjoying some BBQ, coconut cake and just visiting. After lunch we looked around the bookstore, went down to 1515 for some drinks, and then went to see Iron Man at the movies. By the time we got out of the movies it was 9:30 and we realized we never did have dinner. I think we were all still so full from lunch that we weren't really hungry!

The next day my mom, dad, Grady and I went down the street to the Sunrise Bistro (owned by the same people who own the BBQ place) for a yummy breakfast. We got there kind of early, hoping to miss the major crowds and we were successful. We even got to sit outside on their patio! After brunch we went out to Borges Ranch in Walnut Creek to walk around a bit and take some pictures. I had never been out there and thought it would be a good way to walk off all the food we'd eaten :) My mom was having a bad allergy attack but we were still able to walk around and take in the gorgeous views. We even saw goats, chickens and piggies (big fat ones... not the cute little ones) :D We were all hungry for a treat after all the walking around so we went back downtown and had some ice cream at the San Francisco Creamery. BY then it was getting into the late afternoon and my parents needed to get home so my brother got packed up (he was going home with them for the night) and then they were off! It was a really nice Mother's Day weekend, and fun to have all four of us together for the weekend!

Congratulations Brian!!

2008-05-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night Brian won the LLS (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) Man of the Year! To achieve that distinction, he raised almost $50,000 for the society!! What an amazing achievement... and here I stress about trying to raise $2,000!!! I had to miss the big gala on Saturday where they announced the winner because my family was in town visiting for Mother's Day but I saw the pictures and everyone looked gorgeous in their black tie attire!

This weekend was super busy... I ran my longest run (10 miles) on Saturday in Mill Valley and then spent the rest of the weekend with my parents and brother (who made a "surprise" visit). I'll post more on the weekend later once I've gotten the pictures off my camera!

Call your mother...

2008-05-09T14:09:00.002-07:00

This week has been pretty busy... which is why I haven't blogged since Tuesday :( I've been getting things ready for our Coached Run this weekend in Mill Valley, and also my parent's visit this weekend.

Wednesday Christina and I went for pedicures and dinner. We went to this SUPER yummy place Cuz'nz BBQ in Walnut Creek. I had driven past there a bunch but never went in before and I'm so glad that we ended up going there... I think it's one of my new favorite places! The food was REALLY good, and prices were very reasonable and the food is all natural with no artificial colors or flavors (not that I care too much about that but some people do)!

Last night I went running with Lindsay. Pam couldn't make it so we decided to run together at Heather Farms. She wanted to 4, I said let's do 6... and 6 we did (5.62... close enough) :D The first 3 felt really good, but the 2nd three weren't as fun... we were overrun with icky bugs and I think we pooped ourselves out the first three miles. We finished in exactly an hour so our pace was pretty good. After doing shorter distances during my usual weekday runs, it felt weird to be doing 6 miles-- I felt like we were out there forever!

Tonight I have a few errands to run to get supplies for tomorrow, and then it's home to do a little more cleaning to make my place pretty for Mom and Dad. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you mommas out there!!!

Back to the January run schedule

2008-05-06T14:31:00.000-07:00

Last night I met up with Pam and Amy for our Monday night run. Pam had been out of town for the last few runs so it was nice to catch up with her. We kept the pace easy (although Amy says we were still going to fast for her :( ). About halfway through our run, we see Amy stumble very slightly... something had popped in her knee :( She said it didn't hurt, but rather than risk anything, she decided to hang a right and head back on the trail to her car. Pam and I continued on, picking up the pace a little more. All of us forgot our watches so I have no idea what our final time was!

Pam is going to be out of town again for work this Thursday and next Thursday so for at least the next two weeks we'll only be running together once a week. After a few months of being good and running twice a week, we're back to our January schedule where one of us always had something going on and we were only able to run once a week together, if that! Oh well, I'm sure we'll be back to our twice weekly schedule again soon!

Back in the WC

2008-05-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

After a week of house/doggie sitting for Claudia and Rocky while they were on vacation, I'm back at home. (WELCOME BACK CLAUDIA AND ROCKY!!!) It's nice to be in my own bed again, but house sitting was almost like a mini vacation. Claudia and Rocky have a nicer TV than I do, nicer appliances and kitchen stuff, sodas in the fridge and free laundry. :D Oh, and two little furry babies that I miss :( It's so funny how pets have personalities just like we do... and Patch and Daisy are not lacking in the personality department. Every day they did something that would just crack me up :D

I didn't really do much over the weekend... Saturday I had a coached run in Fremont. That was the other benefit of being in Oakland-- my commute to the run was MUCH shorter than it would have been from WC! We had a pretty small group since a lot of the team was heading up to Humboldt County for the Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon! The marathoners were doing their 14-16 miler, and us half folks only had to do 4-6 miles. As happy as I was only doing 6 miles, I kind of felt sad that I wasn't doing the 14-16. There is nothing like that sense of accomplishment, and camaraderie with your fellow runners, after doing a long run like that. It made my 6 miles seem wimpy :(

After the run I went back to Oakland, took the dogs for a long walk, showered, ate and napped for 2 hours. Sunday I spent the morning getting the place ready for Claudia and Rocky... packing up, doing a little cleaning and laundry, and taking the doggies out for one last walk :( Then it was back to WC where I did some UNpacking and then took another nap. I have no idea why I napped so much over the weekend... it's not like I did anything tiring, although Sat. I was up at 5:30am and Sunday got up at 3:00am when Ms. Daisy was throwing up :(

13 days left...

2008-05-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

... until my fundraising deadline!! I can't believe that the date for the Rock N' Roll Half Marathon is just around the corner! And that means my fundraising deadline is fast approaching too! I'm ALMOST at my goal amount, $2,000, but I'm not quite there! If you've been meaning to donate but haven't yet, there is still time! 13 days to be exact!! PLEASE help me reach my goal! I will be your best friend forever (well, maybe not forever but at least a day :D).

Training had been going pretty well. I kind of took an unplanned, extended break from training after the Relay but I'm back at it now! Amy and I went for a run last night and although it was a little warm, it felt nice to be back out there again. Since Pam couldn't join us we met a little earlier in Alamo, instead of Danville. When Claudia, Amy and I were training for the NY Marathon we ran here every week... but it was MUCH hotter then! We really took it easy... Amy's knee was still bothering her after her half marathon last week and we had a lot of catching up to do since we hadn't seen eachother for awhile. We ran a little, talked, and walked some when we felt like it :D

This weekend I have a 6 mile run in Fremont. After that it's a 10 miler the weekend after and then I pretty much taper until race day! It seems like it's still a long way off but it's really not. Before you know it it'll be time to pack up and head off to San Diego.

Remember... click HERE if you'd like to donate by credit card. Email me if you'd like me to send you a form so you can pay by check!

Is it Friday yet?

2008-05-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't been up to much exciting the past few days. :( Monday I went to the Send Off party for our runners who are participating in Avenue of the Giants half marathon this weekend. It's so fun to see how nervous and excited they all are-- it reminds me of when I was in the same place 5 years ago. And even now, after all the races I've done, I still get excited and nervous when I'm about to do another one!

Tonight I'm going for a run with Amy. Pam is not available since she has to jet off to DC for work. I wasn't too sad about not running but then Amy said she'll run with me so darn it, no night off! Eh, it's good that I'm NOT taking the night off... I haven't run since The Relay so it's time to get back into the swing of things!

On the cold front, I'm feeling much better. It was kind of a false alarm since the "beginnings" of that cold never actually turned into a full fledged cold. I still have one swollen but thankfully not painful lymph gland sticking out of the side of my neck but since it doesn't hurt anymore, I'm sure it'll be gone soon too!

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy :D

2008-04-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to Claudia and Rocky!! One year ago today they got married on the sly in Maui... today they're also on a beach, hopefully relaxing, soaking up some rays and celebrating! The happy couple...

As for me, I'm fighting a cold and not happy about it :( Right now it's just a sore throat and sore lymph glands and I'm hoping it doesn't develop into anything else. So, today I'm chillin' with the doggies and taking it easy.

Chillin' with the doggies

2008-04-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

This was a pretty low key weekend. Friday I met up with Claudia, Jeanette and Lindsay for dinner at Chow in Lafayette. As usual the food was yummy but we didn't have very good service :( I guess we came right during a shift change so with multiple people covering our table, we kind of fell through the cracks. I hate speaking up in those situations but thank god for Claudia :D She mentioned something to the manager and we ended up with a completely FREE dinner! Wow. We were just expecting that maybe they'd cover our desert, or drinks, not the WHOLE check!

Saturday I had intended on going to the Mentor Led Run at the Lafayette/Moraga trail since it's so close to my house. BUT, that didn't happen :( Instead I slept in a little bit, got up, packed stuff for my stay at Claudia and Rocky's and then after a trip to Sport's Basement I headed out to Oakland, my new home for the week! The doggies and I hung out, I unpacked a little and wrapped Phil's bday gift. Later that evening I met up with Lindsay on the BART train-- we were headed into the city for Phil's 30th bday party at Bucca di Beppo. We had SUCH a fun time and I ate WAY too much food! Phil and some of his posse went out after dinner but Linds was pooped, and so was I, so we headed back over to the East Bay.

Sunday I slept in just a little and then just spent the rest of the day hanging out. I did a little grocery shopping, rented a couple of movies and then chilled with the doggies. We were all lazy bums :D Claudia called last night and said that after 20 hours, 2 plane rides, and one bus trip, they had finally arrived in the Dominican. Now they have a week of resting and relaxing ahead of them!!

Undercover sting

2008-04-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

So yesterday Claudia asked me if I wanted to into the city with her for a little TNT alumni gathering. She wanted to sign up for the Summer triathlon season and if you signed up at the alumni thing, you got a discount on the registration fee. It was at MoMo's across from the ballpark and since I'm always up for drinks and free food, I said I'd go with her. Phil met us there and we had a good time eating, hanging out and visiting a little with some of the other TNT people there.

About 8:30 or so Phil, Claudia and I decided to leave. We walk out of the restaurant and wait at the corner for the light to change. As soon as the light changes, this car goes around the cars in the right turn lane and hangs a right-- we just stared at this car in disbelief because not only did he run a red light, he also cut in front of a bunch of cars to do it. We started to cross the street again, me in front, and I see this other car coming from the left but it doesn't enter my mind that this car might do the same thing. I keep walking through the intersection, but Claudia has figured out what the car's doing and pulls me back towards the sidewalk. Another car with flashing lights comes right behind that car and we see that all three cars have pulled over at the corner behind this SUV. A bunch of normal looking guys get out and walk up to the SUV.

At this point we realize that the "normal looking guys" are really plainclothes cops, and they were after whomever was in the SUV, which is why they had run the red light. Okay, so they were cops, but STILL... they were in undercover cars and they should have given us a little advanced warning before almost running us over! What if I refused to get out of the intersection, since we did have the right of way, would they have just run me over? Probably :( So they pull this big guy out of the SUV and handcuff him. Next thing you know this whole crowd of people is standing on the sidewalk with us (of course we hung around to see what was happened :D) saying they were related to this guy. I guess he was heading to MoMo's for a birthday celebration, and his family just happened to be sitting outside on the patio and saw this all go down. We stood around for a few more minutes and then decided we should probably leave before any of the family noticed that we were just hanging around and eavesdropping!

Tomorrow Claudia and Rocky are off on their vacation. Woo hoo for them but I will miss them :( TAKE ME WITH YOU!!! HAVE FUN! :D Starting tomorrow I will be staying at their place watching the ~~babies~~ doggies while they're gone!

Frustrated

2008-04-24T12:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just hate Kaiser and all the hoops you have to jump through for something simple! At the beginning of the month, I realized that I need some more contacts. My contacts are only supposed to be used for 2 weeks, then thrown out and new pair put in. Since my 2 week contacts had been in for about a month (whoops) and I didn't have any more, I called in to Kaiser to order some more. Because it had been over 2 years since I'd been in last, they wouldn't order me any more contacts until I went it to see the eye doctor to have my vision checked. Next appointment? Three weeks away. Great.

So yesterday I went into the the eye doctor. I checked me eyes and gave me a new prescription. While I was there I told him that I didn't like the 2 week contacts since I could NEVER remember when it was time to throw them away. I tried all kinds of tricks and I just can't do it. He made me feel stupid, and then told me I'd have to get refitted for daily contacts which, of course, requires a NEW appointment with someone different! Next appointment? 3 weeks. Great.

And that appointment is just to be fit for new contacts (and new glasses since mine are pretty old)... that's not when I'll actually GET the new contacts. So by the time I actually throw them out, these poor 2 week contacts will be over 3 months old. Not good. Why can't it be like when I was younger-- I'd go into my eye doctor (who I LOVED), he'd check my eyes, order me some contacts, and give me a temporary pair until they arrived. Poopy on Kaiser! If I go blind(er) from wearing old dirty contacts, I'm blaming it on them!

The Relay Recap

2008-04-23T12:59:00.000-07:00

Hold on to your hats kids... it's a long one :D I thought I'd break it into a timeline so I could remember everything:

SATURDAY:

4:15am Wake up :(

4:50am Lael and I pick up Lindsay and head out to Oakland to meet up with Leslie, Allan and Allen.

6:00am Finally loaded up and on the road to Calistoga to meet up with Van #1

7:00am Arrive in Calistoga, get everyone settled in their vans, do a little van decorating, take some pics

Some people got very clever with their van names :D

Me, Lael and Linds

Phil and his Go Girl drink

The Fat Kids!!

7:30am Send off Kat, Fat Kid #1! Woo hoo, the race is on!!

Kat at the start line

7:30am-noon While Van #1 is out there doing the first two legs, us Fatties in Van #2 have a few hours to kill :D We stop for breakfast in St. Helena at Gillwoods (which I was just at two weeks ago with Amy). After breakfast we headed to the first Van Exchange at a church in Napa to hang out and rest up. It was starting to warm up and a few of us managed to get in a little nap out in the warm sun.

Lael trying to nap in the van

Noon: We heard from Van #1 that their last runner was on their way so Rudy, Fat Kid #7, got ready and we all headed over to wait at the exchange point. We had a few minutes to chat with the Van #1 peeps once they showed up. I wish we had more time to hang out with them but once Sean came in and Rudy headed out, we had to get in the van and get out there to support our runner!

Phil, Linds and Kat from Van #1

Van #2 Fat Kids: Me, Lael, Leslie, Rudy, Allan, Allen and Fat Kid Volunteer Matt

Ultra-Marathon Man Dean Karnazes

12:15pm Rudy is off and Van #2 is on for the next 6 legs while Van #1 gets some lunch and much deserved rest :D

Sean (on the right) sending Rudy off!

12:30pm This is when it almost all ended badly... As the "active" van, our job is to support our runner while they're out on the course. There are no aid stations or water stop, or cheering crowds for that matter, and the van is there to provide all of that :D While Rudy was out running, we were leap frogging with him... we'd drive by him, honk and wave, and then pull over about a mile down the road to wait for him. After cheering him on, we'd do the same thing all over again. The problem is that on these little two lane roads, there aren't too many places to easily pull over, especially with other Relay vans vying for a spot on the road too. Let's just say this led to a Hollywood style, almost accident :( No one was hurt, neither were the vehicles, but I think we all got a BIG surge of adrenaline!

12:30-2:00pm Rudy finished his leg and Allan rocks his (despite getting lost in a vineyard). During Allan's leg I start getting ready for my turn... eating a little, hydrating, getting all my gear ready.

Allan running through the vineyard

Leslie and Rudy

2:00pm Now it's my turn... we pull into the exchange point in Sonoma. My stomach is in knots so I make a quick potty stop (of course there's a line!) and then rush over to the exchange area to wait for Allan. Here he comes and I'm off!! I had a pretty strong head wind for almost the whole run, which made it feel like I was running uphill the whole time. I got passed a bunch, but managed to pass up one lady by sprinting at the end :D My Garmin kept losing the signal so it was hard to keep track of how far I'd actually gone, and what my pace was. I felt like I was running slowly, but I didn't really know!

My turn!

These yellow Relay signs pointed out any turns we had to take

Me coming in, and Lael in perfect Relay form :D

3:00-6:00pm Lael, Leslie and Allen all complete their legs... and they looked fantastic doing it! We had some really strong runners in our van and they all just rocked their legs! We all took turns driving the van or co piloting (except for Allan-- we were encouraged by some of last year's group NOT to let him drive :D) and supporting eachother along each leg. It definitely made the time pass quickly and it was fun seeing a part of the bay area that I had never really been to before! (Oh, and Lael said I had to mention that he actually passed up Dean Karnazes on his leg :D)

Lael trying to protect himself from the wind

This is how windy it was out there

Lael finishing, and Leslie heading out

Leslie's done and now it's Allen's turn!

6:00pm We pull into the next van exchange point at the Marin French Cheese Company in Petaluma. There were TONS of vans there, including our van #1 who had been hanging out there in the wind all afternoon. Once Allen came in, Kat from Van #1 took off and we had a few hours to eat and hang out.

6:00-midnight We decided to head over to Novato where there would probably be a few places to eat. We found a Chevy's, which seemed to be the best option, so we pulled in there for a bite to eat. My stomach was not feeling to hot so I tried to order something kind of bland. Once the food came though, I took one look and knew that I wasn't going to be able to eat much. I think I had a couple bites of rice, 2 bites of my chicken taco and that corn tomalito stuff. I was just too nauseous to get much of it down though :(. After a stop at Target so I could get some Pepto, we drove to the next Van Exchange on the SF side of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Once we pulled into the parking lot, we all tried to get a little shut eye, which is kind of hard with 6 people in a van, even a pretty roomy van like ours! I know Allan slept pretty well (I heard a lot of snoring coming from his area) but I think the rest of us only managed a quick nap. At 12:00 Brian showed up (he was running one of our legs since it went right through his neighborhood) and hung out with us in our stinky van :D

Midnight Van #1 showed up, Sean came in from his run across the Golden Gate bridge with a full moon, Brian headed out and Van #2 was off again!

Brian and Lindsay

SUNDAY:

12:30-2:30am Brian and Rudy both did their legs in the dark, with a few sprinkles. At least the wind had pretty much disappeared! It was really weird to be driving around the city in the middle of the night, and it wasn't because I went out in the city!

2:30am Now it's my turn again. :( I'm tired, my tummy hurts and I have to run in the dark by myself :( My leg started in Milbrae at some shopping center. Rudy came in, and I took off into the dark. It really wasn't THAT bad... I had a headlight, there was a full moon and street lights, and every once in awhile I'd be passed by another runner, or my van. I had beautiful views of the hills to my right, and down to the Bay on my left. During one stretch with no traffic, they drove behind me so I could see a little better with their headlights. A portion of my leg was on a bike trail, and since I couldn't be trailed by my van, and there were no streetlights to help us see better, they let the runners do that portion with an "escort", another runner from their team. Once I got to the bike path, Rudy was there waiting for me and he ran that portion with me! THANK YOU! I definitely would have gotten creeped out on my own! Again, my Garmin kept losing the satellite signal so I had to guess how far I'd gone by what I thought my pace was. It was kind of annoying :( I finished that leg actually feeling pretty good... although I hadn't gotten much sleep, I felt wide awake...

3:30-6:30am .... that is until I got back into the van. I layed my head down and pretty much slept off and on during Lael and Leslie's legs. Since Brian had taken one of our legs, Allan and Allen decided to run the last leg together to the next Van Exchange in Redwood City.

6:30-10:00am After the Van #1 took back over, we headed up to Canada College where there were showers and a gym to sleep in. It felt SO nice to finally take a shower and put on clean clothes! While Lael and Rudy slept in the van, Allan, Allen, Leslie and I laid out our sleeping bags on some mats on the gym floor and tried to sleep for a couple of hours. At 9:00 we had to get up, get everything back in the van and head off to the next Van Exchange in Saratoga.

10:00am We arrive at the Van Exchange and meet up with Van #1 who is waiting for Sean to come in. My stomach feels a little better and I'm starving so I wolf down a couple of bars of something. Felt good going down, not so hot afterwards :( Thankfully I still had plenty of Pepto!

Lael, Leslie, Allan and Allen waiting at the last Van Exchange

Me and Linds, tired and looking it :D

10:30am-12:30pm Rudy and Allan get a couple of nice downhill legs which I'm sure felt nice after the harder legs they had the day before!

12:30pm WOO HOO... my last leg! I was so tired at this point... 6.3 miles sounded like SUCH a long way to go! I was looked forward to having some downhills, but unfortunately for every little downhill, I also had a little uphill. Nothing very hard, just tiring, and I'm a big wimp with hills! There were a couple of times when I knew my van had passed me already, and I was in the hot sun, that I walked for a couple minutes up one of the inclines :D This time my Garmin never found the signal at all, so again, I had no idea when I was running how far I'd gone or how fast I was going. :( At the exchange area I smelled some serious BBQ and I was starved! I had a hot dog, and Rudy and Allan also had something... A hot dog had never tasted so good!!

Off I go on my last leg!

1:30-3:30pm Lael and Leslie had two really tough legs with some BIG climbs but they totally kicked butt! Allen got the last leg through Santa Cruz and after we saw him off, we went straight to the Boardwalk to find the rest of our team. We found them hanging around the finish line drinking beers!

4:00pm Here comes Allen towards the finish line on the beach... about 100 yards out we jump in with him to sprint across the finish line in the sand! WOO HOO... We're DONE!!! We hung around the finish area for just a bit but I think we were all anxious to get home, take a shower, eat some real food and get some sleep! I finally got home around 6:30 and promptly did just that!

The Fat Kids finished!!!

The Relay was one of the hardest things I've done... not necessarily because of the miles I ran, which really wasn't bad, but because of the mental challenges. It was really hard to run with no sleep... at dinner on Saturday night it dawned on me that we were only 1/3 of the way done :( Already I was tired and not feeling that great and I had the rest of the night, and next day to go until it was all over. Right now I don't know if I'd do it again... I had such a blast and am SO glad I did it, but it might be one of those things you cross off your list and then don't have to do again!! Well see... after all, that's how I felt after marathon #2!

Update is in progress...

2008-04-22T14:50:00.001-07:00

I'm still writing out my Relay update... it's going to be a long one! Here's a couple of photos to tide you over...

The Fat Kids... L-R: Phil, Rudy, Lael, Kristi, Lindsay, Me, Sean, Tina, Leslie, Kat, Allen (Allan is taking the picture)

Van #1

The Fat Kids ROCKED the Relay!!

2008-04-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

WOO HOO!! We did it! According to the unofficial results Fat Kids finished in 32:39:08, placing 178 out of 202 finishing teams... MUCH better than last year's 2nd to last place finish :D I had a great time, I'm exhausted and sore as hell but happy that I did it! I'll update more later with pictures!

T minus 17 hours to Fat Kid lift off!!

2008-04-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

IT'S TIME! The Relay is almost here!! I am mostly packed, and mostly prepared :D Due to some last minute drop outs :( we had to do a little re-organizing of the schedule to compensate (Tina called it the Fat Kid Shuffle) :) Instead of being Fat Kid (runner) #1 in Van 1, I am now Fat Kid (runner) #9 in Van 2. It doesn't make too much difference to me... although now it means that I will have to run in the middle of the night. I am running leg #9 in beautiful Sonoma which, according to Tina's awesome spreadsheet, should be starting at 3:13pm Saturday. My next leg, #21, through the Peninsula, will be 12 hours later (probably none of which will be spent sleeping) at around 3:29am Sunday. My final leg, #33, through the mountains of Santa Cruz, should happen around 1:36pm on Sun. Wish me luck!! I'll blog all about it next week!

A reason to celebrate

2008-04-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

With all the crappy stuff that's been happening lately to many of our friends, it was nice to have something to celebrate last evening... Amy's birthday!! Our usual Stitch N'Bitch get together coincided nicely with Amy's birthday so of course we had to make this a special Stitch N'Bitch night :D There was a nice crowd of ladies that showed up (the promise of cake and champagne was a big draw :D) and it was really nice to catch up with everyone! Of course, not a lot of "stitching" was done... instead we did more eating, drinking and chatting!

Nervous

2008-04-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

The Relay is coming up in a few short days and I'm starting to get nervous! I was talking to Lindsay last night, and she's super nervous about the running. Surprisingly, I'm not too nervous about that (okay, maybe a little)-- I know that no matter what, I can get it done. It might not be fast, it might not be pretty and I might not be happy but I know that barring a fall into a ditch, I can finish my three legs. No, what I'm nervous about has nothing to do with running...

I'm worried about having to get up at 3:30am on Saturday morning; I'm worried about being the one person who packs too much crap; I'm worried about how cranky I'll be with no sleep; I'm worried about not bringing the right clothes and being too cold or too hot; I'm worried about being sweaty and icky for pretty much 36 hours straight; I'm worried about pulling my weight and my van mates liking me; I'm worried that I'll fall asleep with my contacts in, them hardening and suctioning to my eyeballs and then being forced to run "blind"; I'm worried about vomiting from motion sickness in the back seat of a van driving on Highway 17 (then my van mates would REALLY not like me!). In short, I'm worried about the fact that I have no idea what to expect, and can only plan ahead so much. All my obsessive planning tendencies are at complete odds with the unpredictability of this race! AHHH!!! But as much as half of my brain is worried and nervous and anxious and wants to curl into a ball and cry at the thought of doing this, the other half of my brain (I think the one that got me into this) know that it's going to be one of the best experiences of my life!

After three days straight of running (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) I decided to skip the Buddy Run last night (again) and take the evening off. I wanted to give my legs a little time to rest before putting them through the wringer this weekend. I have a sports massage scheduled for tomorrow, and then one last short run and I'll be set for this weekend! I hope.

Before I go, SHOUT OUT to my latest fundraising supporter John Nichols, my godfather and a longtime family friend!! THANK YOU for your donation!!

Brenda Donato Rainbow 5K Fun Run Pics

2008-04-15T12:28:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures from the race on Sunday...

The ones responsible for it all: Leslie, Brian and Lindsay... good job guys!!!

Claudia and I

Carol, Lindsay, Jeanette and Claudia... all ready for volunteer duty!

Brenda's boys

Matt and I on our way out... it's not too hot yet

The winner of the race (not just his division, the entire race!!)-- 12 year old speedy demon who ran a hair over a 6 minute mile pace (he even beat Coach!)

Coming into the finish line...

... okay, I'm HOT now!!

Coach with some of my Because We Can Spring Season teammates!

One Year

2008-04-14T13:08:00.001-07:00

It was one year ago today that team honoree, and friend, Brenda passed away :( This weekend was full of memories of her. Saturday the team was out in San Leandro, which is exactly where we had been a year ago on the day that she passed away. Last year on this day it was cold, ugly and rainy. The team was out at the marina huddled up together under the trees trying to stay out of the rain as one of our mentors and her family cooked us a wonderful warm breakfast. Later that day we found out Brenda had finally given up her fight :( This weekend the weather couldn't have been more different-- in San Leandro it was sunny, warm and not a cloud in the sky! Even though the weather was completely different, it was really wierd being out there again on the same weekend-- I couldn't help but think about that day last year and how Brenda would have just loved being out there with us on Saturday!!

Saturday after the run I went into the city with Claudia and Rocky. We had lunch at the Ferry Building and it was warm enough to sit outside in the shade. The weather was so perfect and it seemed like everyone and their mother was outside enjoying it! At least the weather was perfect until we decided to walk out along the Embarcadero-- once we got out there in the sun we were roasting!! We walked along for awhile, stopped at Pier 23 for a potty stop and drink break, and then walked back to the car. Rocky had to go pick up some music gear for the next day so he dropped Claudia and I off in Union Square. We went in some of the shi shi expensive shops and laughed at all the stupid things that people spend a load of money on. I swear, I saw some of the ugliest clothes in the Chanel store... and don't get me started on the crazy stuff in Betsy Johnson! I think that even if I had a ton of money, I wouldn't shop at those fancy places!

Sunday morning was Brenda's Rainbow 5k Fun Run and Walk that our friend Brian put on (with lots help from Lindsay and fellow LLS staff member Leslie) to raise money for LLS-- it was a HUGE hit!! A bunch of us got there at the butt crack of dawn to help get everything set up. By 7:30 people started showing up to register and just hang out before the race started. In a way it was like a giant TNT reunion! I saw a bunch of TNTers from past season as well as Brenda's hubby and two boys! The race (and entire event) went off without a hitch and I think that everyone had a really good time! The weather was gorgeous again (although a little too hot for running) and after the race everyone hung out visiting and listening to the MotherHumbuckers :D It was the perfect way to help celebrate Brenda and remember how much she enjoyed life! I was so pooped afterwards that I went home, did some quick vacuuming, took a nap and was a lazy bum for the rest of the evening!

There are a ton of pictures from the race yesterday... I'll post some soon!

A week too late

2008-04-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

I'm excited that the weather is warming up... but why couldn't this have happened LAST week! How nice would it have been to have some warmer weather while we were up in Napa! Oh well... I'm not really complaining (too much) because at least we'll be able to enjoy the nice weather this weekend. And a busy weekend it's going to be! Tomorrow we have a Coached Run in San Leandro and then Claudia and I are going into the city to just hang out. Sunday is Brenda's Rainbow run that Brian and Lindsay have been working their fannies off for! It should be an amazing day... all our TNT friends, great music, gorgeous weather and of course Brenda's spirit floating around us all!

Last night I met up with Pam for our run. I was supposed to have a massage through my chiropractors office but the guy was sick :( Instead I went over to Noah's to pick up two giant bags of bagels for the run on Sunday. Right now my car is infused with the smell of onion bagels! Our run went well although I felt kind of sluggish when we first started. Maybe that was because right before I left the house I had a blueberry bagel from the bagel stash in my car (Shhh, don't tell!). That's what I get for stealing a donated bagel!! Right after the run I went over to Lindsay's place to help her and another friend stuff all the goodie bags for the race. The goodie bags actually have some really good stuff in them and between the three of us we were able to throw them together in just an hour and a half!