10 Year and Still Running!

I guess I should write once every two years or so?

Betty made me promise that I would update the blog - only because we (the running heffers) celebrated an anniversary this past weekend - 10 years of running the "End of Summer" run from La Jolla to PB.

I'm not going to recap the last 10 years of running this event because it appears that I did that two years ago in my last post, and anyone who is TRULY interested can absolutely go back and reread that epic post (not really epic).

The main reason to write this today is mostly to post some photos (even though most of them are already on Facebook - we could write tomes about how FB has destroyed blogging).

Same crew - Betty, Elsie, Mik and Walter before race...some things don't change

Another post-race breakfast at The High Dive

Another stack of breakfast beer glasses (no mimosas this time) 

Some things never change... We even went out on a Sunday night (much easier now that Turbo is about off to college in about 2 weeks, and DramaGirl is already going into her junior year at Boston University!)

A night out with the girls!

and Walter at The Casbah (no there's a place we hadn't been to in ... a long time!)

OK... maybe some things change. My hair is a little whiter, and I'm a little slower (my goal was just to finish the race in less than 40 minutes, which I did, but far off my 4 mile PR!), but the herd is still running and having fun!

Consistency... A race report

Another month goes by... so it must be time for a new post/race/ride report

I am, if nothing else, consistent.

Last Saturday, Mik, Betty, and I rode the 66 Mile Route of the San Diego Century. Here's the report on that event.

As usual, we got up at the butt-crack of dawn to drive to Encinitas. We were in the parking lot by 6:30. The ride (the organizers insisted it was NOT a race... OK, it wasn't, but for me, neither is a half-marathon. Whatever) had a rolling start. So we just needed to start some time between 6am and 8am. We figured we'd start around 7ish since we were ONLY doing 66 miles and not the full century.

Betty's beverage matched her bike!

Once we arrived at Mira Costa College (the start of the race), things went well. Easy parking. Getting bikes ready. It wasn't at all crowded due to the rolling start, so we used the porta potties, got our ride numbers & goody bags quickly. We saw the Trek ride group start (full disclosure, Mik saw them. I think I was in the hut).

Sadly, all week I'd had some nagging aches in my general shoulder and upper arm area. I think it's from a combination of grading stress, not enough sleep, and raising a teen-ager anxiety...all together. By race morning I could barely raise my left shoulder. There was a sports-massage therapist at the start, so I decided to see if he could help me out.

One of our friends, Susan, spotted this photo on the race organizer's website. She sent me a link to it. I wonder how she knew it was me???

The massage guy had really warm hands and was able to loosen my shoulder a bit. He was also pitching these machines. I made Betty and Mik try them out since he was fixing me.

The thing sorta jiggled. I think it was supposed to warm up muscles. Here's Mik trying it out.

Betty said it made her nauseas. It reminded me of those belt-jiggle thingies that were supposed to make you thin..

You know...this kind of thing...only without the belt.

So I don't want to say anything bad about the guy who worked on my shoulder for about 10 minutes, because it really did help, but we weren't so sure about the jiggle-machine.

I could tell that Mik and Betty were tired of watching me get a massage, so we thanked the guy and moved to the start.

And we are off!

 But not quite...

Just as we crossed the start line I could hear a click-click-click and felt my bike pull to the right, then left, and feel all wobbly, and then I heard someone behind me saying "uh ohhhhh"

In other words, a flat. Nice.

Of course, we could have fixed the thing ourselves, but since we were LITERALLY right at the start, we walked back to the SAG truck and let them change it for us.

Here's a shout out to the guys from Revolution Bike Shop. They were VERY COOL, change my tire in a snap, even gave me a tube (yes, I was carrying) and told some good stories, and I learned that I have been riding on over-inflated tires! (Remember when I rode on under-inflated tires and kept getting flats? Well, leave it to me to go to extremes...the over-inflation didn't directly cause the flat, but having tired inflated correctly certainly helped with some shock absorption, which over 67 miles I certainly noticed!)

My bike on the rack. Mik went to one of the food trucks and grabbed a coffee to share. Nice

So...once the tire was changed, we got a do-over and were off! Yay!!!

I won't give you a mile by mile breakdown because, really, that's crazy. But the first 1/3 of the ride, through the back-roads of North County, through Olivenhain, The Elffin Forest, were absolutely beautiful parts of the ride. There were almost no cars on the rural roads, so we often rode toward the middle of the street. The hills were challenging, but not impossible. As usual, I wish now that I'd stopped to take some photos, but you already know I didn't do that.

Along the way, a woman rode up beside me and started chatting, noting how beautiful it was and all. Her name was Ann and she was all the way from Alberta, down for the weekend because her husband was at some conference, and decided to rent a bike and ride it (LOL...in a 66 mile relatively hilly ride, you know, just for the fun of it, by herself!) and if that wasn't enough, she had a Coeur de'Alene Ironman cycling jersey on, so in my mind, she is a BAD-ASS.

She said, "we seem to ride about he same pace. Do you mind if I ride with you?"

"No Problem!!!"

Me, Ann, and Betty at the end of the ride (spoiler alert...we all finished!)

The first SAG was about 16 miles in. Pretty basic stuff. Water Refills. Some cookies. Nothing to brag about. We commented that the Senorita Century, with it's croissant sandwiches and herbed waters and teas, sorta spoiled us with respect to the SAG stop fare. At the first SAG, Betty made me give her the car keys, saying that she was thinking that she'd just do the 37 because she wasn't feeling it.

The second leg of the race to the 2nd SAG stop included a nice climb up something called "The Three Witches" which was a nice climb, but nothing worse than anything else we'd done. Later on there was a really fun ride down the Del Dios Highway, where I reached my top speed of 35mph (according to Garmin, but I swear I looked down and saw 39 at one point...but maybe it was 29 and I just can't remember).

In any event, it was super fun to go flying down the hill. We also rode through some of the of the slums of Rancho Santa Fe (For non-locals...the average home price in Rancho Santa Fe is well over $2,000,000--yep, that's a lot of zeros).

At one point before the second SAG stop, I could see I had a text message (I have a carrier for my iPhone that is attached to my handle bars). Of couse, without reading glasses, I cannot actually SEE anything on the phone, just that I have a message, so when we got the second SAG stop, I quickly checked my messages to see if it was from Betty, letting me know that she'd gone straight on Via De La Valle for the 37 mile route. I didn't have a message from her (it was from my BIL, who was also riding that day, telling me that HIS riding partner wasn't feeling it, so they were doing 37 instead...we never did catch each up with each other that day).

The second SAG was much like the first, cookies, some power bars (yukky), Gatorade, water, porta potties (of course), and about 4 minutes after I arrived...there was Betty. She decided to do the 66 with us. You go girl!

At the SAG, I wondered where the big hills were. I mean I thought that The Three Witches was going to rival Torrey Pines in terms of difficulty and length, but it didn't. Mik said that she thought the big climb was coming up.

Mik and I at SAG 2. She always looks so chipper!

Betty doesn't look thrilled to be at SAG 2, but she is. I swear it!

After the second SAG, we headed further east, into what I'll call the less interesting part of the ride. Pretty much we rode through the suburbs of Penasquitos, Rancho Bernardo, Poway and Sabre Springs, in other words, the 'burbs. Also, since we were so far east, the sun was out and it was getting pretty warm. Ann noted it was pretty humid (I guess Alberta is pretty dry), which was funny to me, because I thought it was pretty dry outside. I told her to drink lots and stay hydrated. Of course, she is an Iron woman, so she already knew this, but I said it anyway.

There was one more serious climb, which was made more difficult mostly because it was getting hot, but mostly because there was another cyclist in matching pink EVERYTHING who was doing silly things, like passing me then slowing after she pulled in front of me. This was especially maddening when it occurred on a hill when she slowed to adjust her music. (GRRRRR).

Even worse, she was not very nice. I'm a pretty friendly rider. I'll make jokes about lights not turning green as I approach them (I'll yell GREEN! GREEN! GREEN! just to see if I can will the light to change so that I don't have to clip out), or I'll make comments about how LOVELY the neighborhood is (imagine super-funny-bonding-we-are-all-in-this-together-type-sarcasm). When I did this around her, I felt like she just gave me a snooty look in her matching one-piece pink riding outfit. I don't know. Maybe she didn't hear me with her earphones in. But if someone smiles at you, isn't polite to at least smile back...even half-heartedly?

Whatever.

Also, I don't have a problem with other riders passing me. Happens all the time. But don't pass me, pull in front of me, then slow down to adjust your tunes. Finally, I'd had it with her and, I decided to slow and wait through a light so that she could move her pink-ass ahead of me.

After the 3rd SAG station (no pretty pix there...sorry), we headed into probably the most frustrating part of the ride, mostly because of the traffic and having to stop at traffic lights. Finally, I caught up with her and we roared down San Dieguito Road. I was so incredibly happy because I could feel the ocean breeze (more on THAT later) AND I could see the ocean, which meant we were close to the finish, which meant that I was screaming as we headed down another particularly snazzy hill "I CAN SEEEE THE OCEAAAAAANNNNNNNN!

Uh yeah, at the bottom of that hill, was, of course, an uphill...and worse yet, those cool ocean breezes at the top of the hill, became a pretty strong head-wind at the bottom...as we headed around the Polo fields (yes, there are polo fields. We were back in Rancho Santa Fe/Fairbanks Ranch...).

At this point, Francis came to our rescue!

I don't know where he came from, but as we headed around the polo fields, he said "I'll lead" and he basically pulled us for about 4 miles, where we averaged about 17mph in a pretty stiff headwind. Mik and I talked afterwards and agreed that it pretty much took all we had to keep up with him, but the alternative, falling back and not staying with him, only meant that we would have been working that much harder, and going slower, so we stuck with him.

At one point, I shouted up "do you want to rotate?" and he said, "no. I got this." It was amazing. He was also pretty funny, shouting out things like "PHEWY!" as we rode around the horse fields which smelled pretty horsey, and "OUCH" whenever we went over a bump...apparently his hoo-haw was feeling it too!

Francis was our hero...and of course, I don't have a photo, but he was wearing a BMW shirt, so when the race photos are up, I'll definitely find one!

Finally, we got to the ocean and the ride up the coast was both scenic and familiar, but we knew that the race start was inland, which meant that we had at least one small, but undoubtedly steep, hill remaining, and there it was, at about Mile 65 ("IT'S JUST NOT RIGHT" Francis exclaimed...He is so my kind of rider!)

Funny moment, as we headed into the parking lot and the finish, we had to make a left turn at a light. A very nice highway patrol officer reminded us to come to a complete stop.

And we were done!

Mik and I stretching and waiting for Betty and Ann to finish (yes, she was still with us)

And afterwards, we had....

Pancakes & Beer... I mean, wouldn't you?

So...another event, come and gone. I have some reflections on the whole trying to get through the winter belonging to both the track club and a riding club, but I will save that for another elusive post... It'll happen. In the meantime, the herd will need to come up with a new plan or event to work towards, we've got nothing planned for now.

This and That - By the Numbers

• 4 - Number of Blog Posts for March (counting this one - so long as I manage to post it by midnight).
• 10 - Miles I ran this morning - longest run since the Carlsbad Half in January.
• 4 - Miles I ran yesterday
• 1 - Number of condoms I ran past this morning.
• 2 - Number of times I ran past above mentioned condom.
• 1 - Number of bugs that flew into my eye during the run.
• 4092 - Code to get into the ladies room at some coffee house I ran into in Encinitas. "Please!" I shouted, "A bug flew in my eye, can I use your ladies room?" She gave me the code immediately. I may have to remember this next time I have that other type of runners emergency...
• 4 - Times I yelled "BIKE BACK!" this morning, so that runners ahead of me would get out of the way of riders.
• 0 - Number of photos I took during the run this morning, which is a shame because we ran on the coast, and the surf was awesome!

4 - Number of photos that were taken of us consuming mimosas after the run - Priorities, priorities

• 46 - Miles that Mik and I rode last Saturday with the Trek bike group. By the end of the ride, I KNOW I needed someone barking "RUNNER RIGHT!" at me, so making runners aware of bikes is now my thing.
• 473 - Times I barked "SLOOOOOOWINNNNNNNG" and "ROLLLLLLLLLINNNNNNNG" on that long ride. I am slowly realizing that riding in a group is a LOT about letting everyone else know what's going on.
• 7 - Schools we rode past last week. I have no idea where any of them are though. One of the things I do notice about riding in a group. I'm paying so much attention to what everyone else is dong ("SLOOOOOOWINNNNNNNG, STAAAAAWWWWWWPING, ROLLLLLLLLLINNNNNNNG, POLE!, HOLE! RUNNER UP! BIKE LEFT, WALKER RIGHT! CAR DOOR!) that I barely pay attention to where I even am!
• 200 - Number of riders who stood in line to use 2 restrooms at our 1/2-way point SAG stop.
• 10 - Number of people who would have stood in line if it were runners. Come on, you know that many of you would have found a bush.
• 4 - Times I've seen the play L'il Abner this week (you weren't expecting THAT were you?)

Turbo is playing "General Bullmoose" in the PPJT production of Li'l Abner. No, I wasn't familiar with the play either. Here he is after Thursday night's performance with DramaGirl and Millie

• 9 - More days until I have to teach again...thank GAWD for Spring Break this year.
• 188 -Papers I graded last week.
• 16 - Number of classes I taught.
• 4 - Meetings I attended - Three of them were on Wednesday.
• 3 - Spinning classes I've now gone to, and nobody is more surprised by that than I am, but I like the workout!
• 1 - Number of massages I got this week. I have NO IDEA why I don't get massages more often because It was WONDERFUL. Next time, however, I'll get one AFTER a long run, and not before. I certainly felt the effects of the deep tissue massage...well basically the whole time I ran this morning.

Oh yeah...I forgot to post a race report

Saturday was the SuperRun 10K - The fifth anniversary of the running-heffer crew (Betty, Elsie, Mik, me). Five years ago, we ran together for the first time (well...not together exactly), and we haven't stopped since.

You just never now what a morning run will lead to...

One thing that five years of running led to on Saturday morning? A sub-hour 10K

Let me repeat that for myself - A SUB-EFFING-HOUR 10K.

Let's be honest here...it's really not something that I ever thought I would do

Does this look like someone who would run a sub-1-hour 10K? Yeah...I don't think so either.

Amazingly...opix still has photos on it's website from 2008! Oh, If only there were photos from 2007. On the other hand, maybe I don't wanna know...

Jump forward to Saturday 2012... It was just one of those days when everything worked.

• We got to the race early enough to get good parking on the riverbed, but not so early that we had to wait in the cold for too long.
• The race started at South Shores Park, where there are actual, real, flushing, toilets, and the line for the real-actual toilets was not ridiculously longer than the porta-potty line, so I got to use an ACTUAL, REAL, FLUSHING, GD, TOILET!
• We all were healthy - meaning no injuries for the herd.
• I got to make jokes with Irene's hubby about whether or not my underwear matched my shirt, iPod shuffle and iPhone case (all are lime green).... I'll let you guess about the rest....

The sun was out, but it was a little chilly, so we huddled before the race

With Irene and Laura, waiting for the start.

Before the race, Betty asked me what time I was shooting for. I shrugged... coming in under an hour in a 10K would be tough for me. It would mean running consecutive sub-10 minute miles for more than 6 miles, which isn't something I'd done before. We agreed that if I came in at 1:01, it'd be a pretty good race. I'd set my previous 10K PR last year (in 2011) at 1:01:55, so I figured knocking about a minute off of that would be pretty good. Turns out, I'd knock of almost two minutes.

Miles 1-3 - What was I THINKING?
I thought I'd start off taking it easy and work for negative splits...we'll THAT didn't happen. We took off, and there was a fair amount of weaving in and out, trying to get around slower people. For the most part, in this race, it's not too much of a problem since about 3/4 of the field are SDTC members, but I still weaved a bit (which is why my Garmin says I ran 6.31 miles and not 6.2). Also, I was running behind Walter and his friend Bob, trying to keep pace with them. Garmin buzzed at Mile 1, and I was pretty surprised to see 9:15 (I never notice seconds...).

"Uh, yeah," I thought to myself, "I won't be running negative splits I guess. Just better try to keep somewhere near this pace"

One of the best things about the SuperRun is that it is, if nothing else, scenic. Running around the bay, over a few overpasses which offers some really nice vistas of Mission Bay and Crown Point. The sun was out, but it wasn't hot. Beautiful.

The worst part of the run is through the Seaworld parking lot. I mean, let's face it. It's a parking lot. But in the beginning of the race (miles 1 and 2) it doesn't matter so much because you're running easy and entertained by my music, and the crowds, and the 2nd mile just flys by.

So, how was I doing on the way out?

Mile 1 - 9:15:87
Mile 2 - 9:15:28
Mile 3 - 9:01:57

Uh, yeah...I'm surprised too! Especially about that third mile where we run over a couple of overpasses - they're not big hills, I suspect I made up some time on the downhill side, as well as a pretty sweet downhill stretch into the Crown Point parking lot where we turned around and headed back.

Around the 2nd mile, I'd caught up with Walter (Bob had run on without him), and we ran a few feet away from each other for most of the rest of the race.

Mile 2 ish...I am nowhere near interested in smiling at the camera guy - I had a overpass to get over 

At the turnaround, I high-fived and smiled when I saw Irene and her hubs Michael (who yelled out "GO HEFFERS!" which he always does, and every, single, time. It makes me smile when I wonder what people think of that, especially when I fist-pump and cheer back "GO MICHAEL!!!!"

Miles 4-6 - GAH - The Seaworld Parking Lot
After the turnaround, I decided that it was way too warm to be wearing the long sleeve neon-lime-green shirt, so I took it off and tied it around my waist.

Much better.

Of course, after Mile 3, I also started to feel the effects of running about as fast as I could for three miles. Also, remember that hill I just ran down? Time to go back up it. All of those things added up to some heavy feeling legs and, of course, that desire to just walk a bit. But I was determined, so I powered up the hill and tried my best to either stay ahead of Walter or just behind him (yes, I am THAT competitive that I'll use my husband that way. He knows).

The good news was that after the 4th mile, the overpasses were behind me.

The bad news was that the last two miles were back through the Seaworld parking lot and up Seaworld Drive. Being no longer fresh and energetic and distracted by people and my music, the mile through the parking lot is just boring, and painful, and since I run with only one earbud in (so that I can hear the world around me), full of complaining people.

But things still worked!

• A track club runner runner told me I was looking good (thank you!), which gave me that extra boost!
• I could see Mik in the distance ahead of me. So that you know, at five miles I NEVER have Mik in my sights - although this is also a double edged sword because I find myself thinking, "oh, I wish I were up there with Mik because I WOULD BE THAT MUCH CLOSER TO BE DONE!"

So of course, these were my slowest miles, but still...I managed to keep it under 10 minutes.

I'm still not quite sure how I did this.

Mile 4 - 9:35:47
Mile 5 - 9:39:37
Mile 6 - 9:34:33
Mile (in this case) 6:31 - 2:44 (8:54 pace....thank you very much)

In other words, the exact opposite of negative splits. I'm beginning to think that negative splits are highly over-rated.

What I do know is that when I came around the last corner and could finally see the clock time, it was just turning from 58 minutes to 59. I knew I was about 30 seconds behind the clock time, and I was determined to not see it get to 1:00:xx before I crossed the finish, so I sprinted.

Final - 59:00 - 9:20 pace (official)

((YES))

I have to say; there have been several races in the past couple of years where I've set PRs, but still haven't been satisfied, thinking that I could have/should have run a smarter race, a better race, a different race.

Not this time. I am completely happy with how I ran the whole race.

Don't I look happy? I stole this from the SDTC FB site (thanks Doreen!), and Yes, that's Walter in the background...glowing in the green.

Time to celebrate! So off to The High Dive we went!

LOL...all of us trying to take photos of the bevvies 

More photos by Irene 

Sadness that there was no more coffee

Happy campers (this was right after I yelled at Walter to drink some juice or something because as we were driving to The High Dive, his calf muscle cramped up. He's not a big believer in a recovery beverage ((rolls eyes)). 

Michael wanted to make sure he knew his pace

Yep. Completely Satisfied (thanks Elsie for sending me this) 

Happy Anniversary to my Herd. Thanks for making the last five years so much fun. Here's to many, many, many more. I love you all!

Betty Gets a New Ride

I swear...the local Trek store owes me a HUGE commission! Since getting my bike more than two years ago, Mik, Elsie, and now Betty have gotten new bikes...and now they all have better bikes than I do.

Not that I have bike envy or anything like that...

But I do...

So...since I'd watched both Elsie and Betty get new bikes in the last month or so, I couldn't help but get a LITTLE something new for myself, and I bought new pedals and new bike shoes.

An aside...I do have some concerns about the new road pedals. I'd been using some Shimano mountain bike clip-ins since I started riding with clip in mountain bike pedals and shoes a couple of years ago, and even though I've been on a road bike for a couple of years, I kept using the clover-leaf shaped clip ins.  Let's face it. They are easier to clip into and the shoes are WAY easier to walk in than road bike pedals/shoes.

However, when Betty bought her bike, the sales guy was having NONE of that, told her that she needed some REAL road bike shoes, and sold her some real road-bike pedals, and because I have an ego the size of Montana, I decided I had to also have some REAL ROAD-BIKE CLIP-INS AND SHOES, so now I have some Shimano Road bike pedals. They're quite different. I'm expecting a fall at some point.

On the other hand, I having ridden in them one day... I get it.

For my running friends, I know you have no effing idea what I'm talking about right now. Lets just say that I decided to move from a stability shoe to a neutral shoe. It's gonna be different.

Anyway...Betty got a new bike over the weekend, and picked it up today, and despite the absolutely beautiful weather this weekend, Mother Nature decided to get all cloudy and overcast and rainy today, but we decided to go for a ride anyway.

Let's just say, it's a Trek Madone 4.3...all carbon...I hate her and have some really serious Bike Envy now.

So, we decided to go to a familiar spot to take a ride, and Lake BP was a familiar and car-less path.

We didn't ride fast or far, but we all broke in our new rides with no falls or serious adventures to speak of (e.g. no flats)

We survived!!!!

Yes...she got a new bike, now about those socks... (Shakes head and rolls eyes)

Cookin'

In addition to just everyday stuff (like teaching and being a wife and mom), this last month and a half I...

• Ran 60 miles, including an almost 8 mile run this morning (7:82 miles - 10:37 pace), my longest run since San Francisco. 
• Cycled 68 miles

My artistic rendition of last weekend when Betty and I were driving over the Coronado Bridge to meet up with Mik for our bike ride.

Actual evidence that we were in Coronado last weekend...and in biking gear.

• Celebrated Walter's Birthday (early in the month!)
• Went to three SDSU basketball games

Turbo, Walter and I on the trolley going from a basketball game to a football game

• Went to three SDSU football games (one of the football games was on the same day as a basketball game. Yes, we went to both)

We are the masters of the 15 minute tailgate!*

• Revised a report written (by someone else) about a grant project I'd worked on a year ago so that it was readable and thus, publishable.
• Decided to keep teaching and not apply for a professional development position at the college where I teach. (That was the big decision I alluded to in an early November post).
• Cooked Thanksgiving Dinner for the family
• Presented at a research conference, which was held at The Disneyland Hotel.

Cali, Belle (the bookish version) and me...dinner at the Goofy Cafe. Cali thought it would be fun...

Walter joined me at the conference after it was over and we stayed an extra night...here he is eating a beignet for breakfast and trying to not get the powdered sugar all over himself...

• Saw Millie in a play...and had dinner beforehand with the Herd!

Candycanetini

• Fell woefully behind in grading papers
• Graded what felt like about a 1000 papers eventually 

Here's the stack of papers I meant to grade over Thanksgiving, but didn't...which made the week AFTER Thanksgiving...so much fun!

• Made Gumbo for DramaGirl's field hockey banquet potluck dinner.

Yum!

• Started drafting a second report (different topic this time)
• Made Rissotto for the English department pot luck (yesterday...sorry no photos), then came home and made two breakfast casseroles for Betty's Post-Run Birthday Breakfast this morning (yes, I was cooking at midnight last night!)
• Blogged...FOUR WHOLE TIMES....counting this one

Geez...no wonder the laundry doesn't get done! Also amazing is how creative I can be with coming up with ideas for dinner since I've gone to the grocery store only twice this month (not counting the times when I sent DG or Walter to the store to get something for me.)

At one point, a colleague, who knew that I'd been really busy, asked me if there was light at the end of the tunnel. I told him that I was confident that a tunnel existed SOMEWHERE, and I also believed that once I found the tunnel, there'd be light at the end of it.

In any event, I am here to report that I've found the tunnel, and yes there is light at the end of it, and yes, I can see the light. Thank goodness.

So, I'm still here...and blogging will again become something that I do semi-regularly. Until then, I leave you with this.

Christmas in SoCal babeee... I so want to drive by this at night and see what is UP with that screen in the back!

Wish Happy Birthday to Betty! She gets to move up an age-group this year and is so very, very, very happy about it!

____________________
* I was posting updates about the sports-event Saturday on FB and Keith asked me to explain tailgating... so for Keith in Canada... In the US we meet in the parking lot before sporting events like football games to eat and drink before the game. This may be, in part, because food and beverages inside the stadiums are mediocre (in most places) at best and really ridiculously expensive at worst. Probably the word "tailgating" comes from some old-school notion about pulling up in a pickup truck before a game, pulling down the tailgate, and using it as a buffet line. 

Rearrangements

OK...so let's write about something new...running...

The Nike Women's half marathon is in about 10 weeks, so after a couple of weeks of kinda-sorta running on the mill and making a half-hearted effort to do some strength training (which I've decided is KEY to running hills...I'm sure I'm the first to make this discovery, no?), I decided this week to get back at it...kinda, sorta...

First, Walter and I rearranged some furniture in what we have, in the past, called the "office." Pretty much the "office" was a mishmash of a room with no particular purpose. It housed the computer, most of our books, and the treadmill....and at one point, a piano, which we have since gotten rid of since nobody played it, and any other random crap that needs a place to be.

The bad part of that is that the "office" is also the room adjacent to the pool, so it gets a fair amount of traffic.

But we did some rearranging of furniture, got rid of some of the random crap, and...TA DA.

Now it houses the computer and book shelves one one side of it, and a "workout room" complete with weight bench, hand weights, treadmill, and TRX on the other side.

Stylish. No?

How does IKEA photograph rooms and get everything to fit in? The rooms must be the size of postage stamps. This one is, decidedly, not. 

This all started with Walter. One of the things that he has wanted to do for about a year is move the weights out of the garage (we have a free-standing garage that is not attached to the house. It's pretty small for an alleged two car garage, and we have mostly used it as a storage shed), and into the house where, he would argue, we would be more likely to use them.

One of the "discussions" we have had is where to put said weight bench IN THE HOUSE. Walter wanted to put it in the front room (the first room guests walk into when they enter the house). I pointed out to him that we did not live in a bachelor-pad-frat-house, and weights in the living room is not very chic or Feng Shui. Walter, being rather pragmatic, claimed that we'd be more likely to actually USE the weights if there were in front of us every day.

Really? Right in FRONT? I think. No.

So, moving them into the "office" was a compromise. Walter moved the weights inside when I was "on the road" in Napa. When I returned, we started to rearrange the furniture. My goal has been to get the office/workout room to look stylish. Can this be done?

Truth is, since the weights have been moved into the house, I've used them three times. Care to guess how many times I lifted weights in the garage in the last year? I'd say, I've doubled the usage....maybe tripled.

Once I had the weights in the house, I realized I needed a weight lifting plan, so I started using an iPad Ap called "Fitness HD" (I think the HD is for High Def...which makes it an iPad Ap. I'm pretty sure the same Ap exists for an iPhone as well). The Exercise Base (database) has just about every strength training exercise you could think of...well, probably not every one, but it has lots.

I have not, as of yet, asked my "Personal Trainer" any questions...He doesn't seem to have a name, so I think I'll call him  Jethro.

I really have no idea how the food and body tracker works. I tried to figure it out (meaning: I looked at it for 60 seconds one day), but whatev's. I use Loseit to track calorie intake and outtake (is that a word) anyway.

Geez I use a lot of tracking devices.* I could use this to track workouts and meals, but mostly I just want someone/thing to give me a workout plan. I need that.

These are some of the workouts I've looked at. Mostly I've been using the "Fitness: Keep it Up" (watch it out there... I know what you are thinking) exercises because they include running and light weights.

So...what workouts have I done this past week?

Friday (last week) 10 minute uphill walk warmup - 40 minutes strength training, 3 mile run (mill)
Saturday - 15 minute uphill walk warmup, 30 minutes weights, 3.5 mile run (mill)
Tuesday - 10 mile uphill walk warmup - Then Betty texted me and so we went to run at Balboa Park where I ran 4.4 miles.

I'd say that moving the weights indoors was a good move...but I'll probably still be moving furniture around for about another week or so.

I'll be checking in on your blogs again soon. What the heck is going on out there?
____________________________
Overkill?
* Lose it (Calories in and out)
* Daily Mile (workouts and mileage)
* Garmin Connect (same purpose as Daily Mile, but I have to use this to sync workouts with Daily Mile)
* Hefferblog (duh)
* Nike+ (only occassionally...like on Tuesday when I forgot my Garmin. I do NOT like using this. 

The Rest of the Story...Three Days at Tahoe

When I last wrote (what? a two week hiatus? WTF is up with THAT Alice?), we had finished the Napa to Sonoma half-marathon and done our last wine tasting at the post-race festivities.

That day Betty and I said goodbye to Mik and Elsie, who had to head back to SoCal to go to work (nasty four letter word), and we packed up the car, our girls, all our wine, and headed to North Lake Tahoe and Momma's cabin.

It was THERE, that we got to rest. Wel...sorta.

Mountain stream that runs near Momma's cabin....LOTS of water this summer. LOTS!

Momma and Betty on one of our walks...that's a patch of snow behind them...in JULY!

Let's just say that Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful areas. We took walks through the mountains. We went to the beach at King's Beach. The water was friggin cold, but I was willing to swim in it because it's fresh water and you don't feel all salty and crusty when you get out.

Nice panoramic shot of the beach at North Tahoe. It's unbelievable to me that those mountains STILL have a fair amount of snow on them.

It wasn't all sitting around and walking. One morning Betty and I went to play Pickleball, which is sorta like playing Ping Pong (or Table Tennis for those of you are aficionados), but you're on a court.

Blurry action shots courtesy of DramaGirl

Why is it that Betty looks like an athlete and I look like I'm out for a cup of tea?

I had never even heard of Pickleball, but one of Momma's friends was an AVID player and he asked Betty (the athletic one) if she wanted to play a pickup game....and Betty took me along. I want to make it clear that I did NOT embarrass myself or Betty. Pickleball, it turns out, will be taking the country by storm. I thought it would be more of a drinking sport (like Over the Line....or Golf), but it turns out that you can actually work up a sweat playing Pickleball. In fact, the next day, we both had some achy muscles, having used muscles that are not normally used during running.

But mostly, we hung out and relaxed. We watched way too much Bravo one afternoon (and Betty and I drank some of the wine we had with us). It was wonderful.

Our last day...lunch with Millie and Betty at Tahoe City

DramaGirl and me at the Tahoe City Dam, where the lake becomes the Truckee River

The next morning, DramaGirl and I left for our next destination...Kansas City. We left from Reno on a 6:20am, at the butt-crack of dawn, flight. Betty drove like a bat-outta-hell to get us to the airport in time because I completely lost track of time and we didn't leave Momma's cabin until about 5:10...and it's about a 45 minute drive to Reno from her place...you do the map.

All I can say is thank goodness that Reno has a small airport.

Thanks so much to Betty for driving and for all the adventurs...and especially to Momma for letting us stay with her. It was WONDERFUL.

Next up: Kansas City - HOT, HOT, HOT and HUMID. (also...I won't wait two weeks to write about it...I promise...I really need to get caught up with this before school starts).