Neighborhood Run Day

GAH...I had to get that whiny crap off the front page of my blog STAT ... YUK...

I really have nothing to complain about... AT ALL. I know that

That being said, hug a teacher today. Especially if they teach K-12. They are among the hardest working people in the world...and by Friday, all teachers deserve a hug. Especially if they have parent/teacher conferences tomorrow...you know who you are. Hugs to all of you.

Today was a beautiful running day...overcast and cool. It's still pretty humid ...which is odd for east San Diego County (think desert-like dryness). Today's weather report at noon was 72º, 66% relative humidity (you come here looking for So. Cal weather reports, don't you????).

I'm often envious of those who can just walk out their front door and have a nice neighborhood to run in. I mean, I live in a nice neighborhood, and I COULD RUN HERE occasionally. But I tend not to run in my neighborhood because we live in a semi-rural area (meaning, no sidewalks) AND we live on a hill (although, other than the beach, ALL of San Diego is like that).

But, there's something that is sort of silly about getting in my car and driving to a park to run by myself...especially with the cost of gas and all...but even if gas were cheap, something about it strikes me as sort of odd. I mean its one thing to drive somewhere to run meet up with friends to run, but it seems a little wasteful to drive to run...am I alone in that? Maybe it's just me.

But I didn't really want to run on the treadmill today. I was craving outdoors. And like I said...almost perfect running weather. So today, I did something I rarely do. I stepped out of my front door and ran the neighborhood.

So...here you have it...the grand tour of my neighborhood run...taaaaa daaaaaa....

Here's the start of my runway...see, no sidewalks...luckily not much traffic either...other than the occasional asshat who thinks this is the freeway. Grrrrr.

Here's the first downhill (yes, I moved the camera a little...
's not that curvy...nor do hills photograph well)

I really should write a letter to the mayor about the streets needing repair

The park at the bottom of the hill has a drinking fountain...dare I risk it?
I wonder if any dogs have used it recently?

I guess not...

An example of one of the smaller hills. This is a pretty tame example, but it photographed well. Most of the hills are short like this, but are steeper inclines (followed by short, but steep declines)...and for those of you taking notes, yes, Friday is trash day.

The elevation report...yeah, see that last up...that ends at my driveway.

My stats for the morning (sloooooowwwww...but there were hills, and I stopped to take photos...).

3.1 miles
40.08 minutes
12.:55 pace

So there you have it... My neighborhood run.

You may have noticed that I'm trying to clean up the look of my blog...I think I had too many things running down the single sidebar. I wish that Blogger had a three column (or two sidebar) template...and that it had a template that with tabs at the top of the page. I had to do some pretty serious (for me) html formatting to get that to happen. I'm not sure I could do it again. I also wish that the Blogger drafting window offered a strikethrough text option... I could go on and on...

In any event, I added a new tab at the top of the page that has my running stats, upcoming races, and other running links so that these appear on a separate page, rather than in the sidebar. I also added the super cool "follow me" feature that is new to Blogger...so go ahead and stalk me all you want. You all know I'm stalking you :-)

I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to add Twitter updates to the sidebar. I don't see a gadget for that.

Yes it's true ...I don't have time for teaching, planning, running, being a good mom, but I apparently have loads of time to attend to this...

GAH...