Run, Cycle, Work, Repeat

But first, some random notations from the week...

• Logging 41 miles of cycling and running in a weekend = RAGING HUNGER on Monday. This is why I never lost weight when I trained for the marathon. Yeah, sure, I'd burn a bunch of calories, but then I'd eat even more because I was STARVING!
• Finished grading a load of papers Monday night and was able to return them to students on time on Tuesday. 
• Wondered all day on Wednesday if I'd made the biggest professional mistake in my life by leaving a high school where my work was appreciated to teach at the community college where I am pretty much ignored. Not a fun story, just feeling rather unappreciated.
• Ran three miles on the 'mill Wednesday night, which made me feel better.
• Flew to Oakland again on Thursday for a meeting. On the way back to San Diego, the flight was delayed, so I went to the bar to get a glass of wine with a colleague; therefore, I almost missed the flight. They were calling my name. I told the flight attendant it would have been their fault if I missed the flight.
• On Friday, I got some new kicks! I stuck with the Saucony Hurricanes. I wasn't sure I was going to. I tried on a pair of Saucony Paramounts, which felt wonderful on my feet, but last time I changed shoe style, I got PF, so I chickened out. I ran in the new Hurricanes this morning. It was so wonderful running with some cushion and support again. 
• Shopping in the middle of the day on Friday made me remember why I chose to teach at the CC.
• Mailed my Nike sunglasses to the repair shop again because they won't send me a new nose-bridge piece to replace the one that fell off last weekend and was lost, but they will replace it if I send them the glasses ($5.00 to mail and $10.00 to cover their shipping and handling...GAH!).
• Did the shortest/fastest bike ride ever on Friday at Lake Boy Part - 6 miles in 24 minutes. Hardly even worth mentioning.
• As I was moving my bike out of the garage, I lost my footing and fell back into a rack of hand weights. I now have a really pretty blue and purple calf.
• DramaGirl and I are going to see GLEE with Penny in May! Woot Woot Woot!
• And I ran in Coronado this morning....

Only Mik, Kat and I were the only members of the herd to show up for the run this morning. Everyone else missed absolutely perfect running weather. Betty had to work. Elsie was on Grandma duty. BBJ decided to do a St. Paddy's Day 10K that included a beer garden at the end. I'm not sure where everyone else was.

There are many good things about running in Coronado, mostly there are plenty of visual distractions. We get to run under and around this...

Coronado bridge, the bridge Mik and I rode OVER in the pouring rain last weekend...on a side note, the guy in the foreground was sitting in what appeared to be an inflatable lounge chair (camouflage pattern) and was fishing. BTW ocean temperature is currently about 54 degrees.

And beautiful homes like this...

Rows of homes that I'll never live in...but nice to run by

One of the challenges of running in Coronado is that the streets have a pretty steep cant to them. I tried to find and stay on the most level part of the street, but at points it was just impossible. I felt really good through most of the run although at about the 7th mile I could feel a familiar tightening at the bottom of my left foot. I don't think it's the dreaded PF yet, but I certainly used plenty of ice when I got home.

More stretching, lunge matrices, and single leg 3-way squats to follow...

In all honesty, I didn't start the morning thinking I would run almost 10 miles. Actually, I think I told Mik that I'd do one loop around the island (about 7 miles) and be done with it.

Problem with that is that I was finally warmed up at 7 miles. At 7 miles, I felt good enough to continue running, so I ended up running not quite 10 miles. The last 1/2 mile was pretty tough, but it felt good to get out there and run.

Other highlights of the morning included:

Clearly the guys waiting at the aid station had some time on their hands. I told them I really admired their fabulous display.

I told Irene I hadn't put a picture of her on the blog recently...Here she is in her fabulous Newtons

It was another great running morning - cool and comfortable during the run, then the sun came out...which was good because as stylish as these sunglasses may be, they were not stellar running glasses and stayed on my head the entire run.

My goal is to get caught up on your blogs tomorrow...but it's time for bed now.

Today's stats

9.75 miles
1:50:26
11:18 pace