Sunday, September 20, 2009

Long Beach Decision

First...I *heart* all of you who responded in the third person to my last post. I swear I'm gonna download it and save it forever. With every comment I laughed out loud.

Second...GlavEn is lucky that I only misspelled his name by one letter...pffft...did he not see that I posted that blog at 11pm on a Friday night, and by 11pm on a Friday night, if I'm sitting at my computer, I've clearly had at least two (if not three) glasses of wine. GlavEn is quite lucky that I remembered his name at all and didn't call him G-man or Glarin or Goblin or something else like that...

Third...one clarification about this post...I've never actually, personally, used a GoGirl. I'm with Missy and would probably prefer to use a clean bush over a porta-potty (but at the beginning of a big race, that's sometimes not an option). However, I am COMPLETELY ENTERTAINED by the name of it ("woo hoo...you go girl" will always have a secondary meaning to me now).

Fourth...I love the bathroom shots too, and will no doubt include them in the future, that is until Teh Marcy tells me not to.

Finally...this weekend's run

Harbor Island
Muggy
7 miles*
1:20*
11:34 pace

* Once again, I somehow stopped my Garmin when I started running. Now that I'm looking at the graphic in the Garmin Training Center, I think I had gone somewhere a little bit shy of a mile when I looked down and said "Oh shiz...the timer isn't running." At the water station, my timer was about 10 minutes behind Dr. Elise's, and at the end of the run, her iPhone said she'd run 7.1 miles, so I'm going with that.

As for the running part, the first five miles were quite easy. I was thinking about how the last time I ran this route along the harbor was back in June which I barely mentioned in this post. It was one of the last times I ran before the surfing incident which really fouled up my foot, but it was the run at Harbor Island which triggered it. I remember running with Irene, and then I couldn't run any more because my foot hurt so bad. Yesterday, I was reminded of why it hurt. It's a route which includes a freekin' lot of running on concrete sidewalks.

So as much as I could, I tried to run on the street, and since it was butt-crack-o'dawn early, it wasn't too dangerous to run on the street in most of the areas. But even so, by fascia tendon (or whatever it's called) duly noted that I had been running on concrete...a little bit of soreness immediately following the run. I guess I'm not all the way better yet... Ice, stretch, rest, and ibuprofen and today it feels much better, but I can still feel it.

It makes the decision to run the Long Beach 1/2 much more difficult. It's only three weeks away. My life in the last month has allowed me to run only two days a week. I keep thinking I can get a third run in, but I just haven't done it yet. I do get two pretty good workouts in when I go to PT. I was thinking that how I felt after this Saturday's run would decide it for me. I was sorta thinking that if I felt really good, I'd definitely figure out a way to go for it. If I didn't, I wouldn't

Unfortunately, I'm somewhere between the two extremes. While yesterday's 7 miles wasn't easy, it wasn't impossible. At the end of the run, I was done, but I wasn't falling down, I can't move any more done. I'm relatively confident that in the next two weekends, I could ramp up my long runs to 9 and 10 miles.

I mean, if I can run 7, I can run 10, right?

And if I can run 10, I can run 13...

But this thing with the PF has me nervous. On one hand, I certainly don't want to overdo it and really injure myself again. On the other hand, I'd really like to do the LB 1/2. It's sorta a replacement run for the Nike Women's that we didn't get into this year. It would also be an opportunity to run into Penny and Glenn.

I don't know what to do...WHAT TO DO!!!! (GAH!)

((sigh))

Of course, after the run, there was this to help me decide...

Proseco makes a lovely Mimosa. It' didn't help me decide of course, but it was yummy

Yummy pancakes and fruit at Dr. Elsie's casa

And because there are enough shots in this blog of Mik, Betty, Dr. Elsie and I with our mimosas, we decided to take pictures of...

It seems wrong to call 'em ponytails...how about heffertails?

and this

hooves...but with pretty toenails!

From running, I went to DramaGirl's soccer game

DramaGirl off the field. She had a GREAT game!

I'll take action shots later but I left my camera in my car because I was REALLY late for the game, and by the time I got there I was convinced I'd missed at least the whole first 1/2 if not the first 3/4 of the game.

I was really late because:
  1. When I got home from running, I took a nap.
  2. Then I got lost in La Mesa because even though I've lived here for 10 years, I get completely turned around whenever I am north of Fletcher Parkway (that's for the local peeps who will know what I mean).
  3. First I went to the practice field at Parkway Middle School, then Walter told me to take Dallas street and I did, but I went the wrong way and ended up at Northmont Elementary, then got lost on the back streets of that part of La Mesa, then used GoogleMaps on my iPhone to get to Murray Manor, which is where I was supposed to be. (If only Walter had told me that the game was at the school near Pinky's, I'd have found it in a heartbeat...maybe...even then I'd have probably got lost because I wouldn't have known if Jackson was east or west of Parkway Middle...GAH! I need a GPS device for my life.
Lest you think I'm a complete idiot...this is the part of La Mesa I was trying to navigate...

The non-parallel, non perpendicular, streets of La Mesa...who planned this city?

THEN we went shopping and bought a new sofa at Macy's and some bookshelves at Ikea!

Turbo with the chef at Macy's

It's not a leather sofa, but it is a darker color, which will hopefully hide some of the dirt which is inevitable.

We also bought a cleaning guarantee for it, which promises to clean or repair any damage to the sofa for the next 7 years, or replace it. I'm probably a fool for buying this, but I figure between the kids, Walter's family, my friends, and our general lifestyle, damage and spillage is a virtual guaranteed occurrence.

So...there you go...a full day to say the least. (I'm not going to mention the party that Walter and I finally got to (late) last night because that would take this really long post into the land of ridiculously long, and nobody wants to read that.

That and I have papers to grade, a little league/fall ball game that I'm late to, and soccer pictures to get DramaGirl to as well. I'm woefully behind on my blog reading. I know that my RSS reader has 100's of unread blogs in it. I'm going to try to get to it this afternoon

In the meantime, I did want to give one HUGE congrats to Al who did her first triathlon yesterday. I'm so freekin' excited for her that I almost want to jump in the pool and start swimming!

Hope everyone is having a superb weekend!

12 comments:

  1. Thank you for the shout out and the support!

    Nice couch!

    I would so get lost in La Mesa as streets to me run E-W and N-S. I don't notice curves.

    I think you should do the 1/2 if you think it won't hurt you. If you don't PR oh well. You finished a half (again)!

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  2. Michael ended up getting sick. He ran the long route because he thought I did... but I didn't. He was the last one in, having to stop at several restrooms along the way.

    I lived near the north end of La Mesa (in San Carlos/Del Cerro) for 10 years and I still got lost! It's not just you!

    I was impressed with the effort you put in yesterday, especially with the aches and pains!

    Have a great week!

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  3. GlavEn is quite lucky that I remembered his name at all and didn't call him G-man or Glarin or Goblin or something else like that...

    I accept your apology.

    People always apologize when you threaten to go all Teh Marcy on their @$$. (Technically their face, since Teh Marcy is all about Teh PUNCH IN TEH FACE, but you get my point.)

    So, again, I accept your apology, Elice.

    Good luck with the half.

    You'll run it.

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  4. totally wish I had been witty enough to answer in 3rd person...

    you'll run it and it will be awesome

    one more thing...couch looks great! hopefully we'll be furniture shopping soon enough and I'll make sure to post pics as well

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  5. Alice - I thought you looked good runnin yesterday - remember... it was a really warm day from the start.
    I'm officially out of Long Beach - it's D1's Birthday on the 12th and I will have just finished 2 days of D2's field hockey tournament. I feel ready to find a race though!

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  6. good luck with your choice, but I'm with GlavEn or whatever he's called, you'll run it :) I so wish you were in Nike..

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  7. Well...if you decide to run Long Beach, maybe I'll have to get my lazy ass out there and run Long Beach with you!! Always easier to run with someone!!! Let me know......

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  8. How about doing the Galloway for Long Beach?

    We bought one of those stainmaster guarantees for our couch, then the store we got it from went out of business. Now my couch looks NASTY thanks to these darn kids!

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  9. Our city is set up like that too. Nothing runs north to south or east to west without the highway in the middle and then streets not mathing up on either side. In other words, not a grid like NYC or even Detroit for that matter! Hopefully the foot clears up. I just ran a half on a paved trail, and I know what you mean about sore feet!

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  10. To be honest - if I were you I'd put the kabosh on Long each. As badly as I want to meet the herd - you've got to remember - a lot of the HM is on concrete. Probably not good. It seems like you are just getting back into the swing of things. I would feel guilty if you re-injure yourself.

    Tell you what - promise that you'll get healthy (probably means that you'll need to skip on Long Beach) and I promise I'll make it down to San Diego for whatever the herd decides to run this upcoming year!

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  11. Glenn's right about the course including miles of concrete - and the only alternative is running is the sand along that stretch. Can you maybe go and cheer or walk the course? I know there are a lot of walkers, though they usually start an hour earlier. Just a thought.

    And your kids are so cute...truly.

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  12. Screw it all and start swimming, that is the answer;) Man, you heffers DO know how to finish a workout. My peeps just want a smoothie and an egg white...

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