Running In Place

That was last night’s hilly 10K Development Run. As I recently lamented, I hadn’t run it since ’05 and my hills so far this season have been notably absent – but it was a perfect night to run: sunny, 70F, not humid, and a nice cool wind to boot. The excellent conditons brought out a crapload of runners – and they all beat me. The runners, the run/walkers, the walk/walkers (ok, I suspect some of them cut the course but that don’t concern me none). So, slow or no slow, I ran every step and ran strong up every hill, I looked down at the view of the city below at every opportunity, and said ‘what up’ to all the bunnies and birds who crossed my path, and paced well enough anyway to give a good kick at the end (and get the *smooch* sound from someone in a passing car. Hey, I’ll take it!). And seeing as I was kind of looking at this as a run to boost up or dash apart my confidence, and though most people may not consider it a conventionally successful performance, I loved every step! There’s an old gentleman with an Italian accent who stands at the mouth of the steep hill with a megaphone, chanting encouragment, and – bless him – he waits till every last person trundles down. I had forgotten how glad it makes me to see him there and as lone little me came along, smiling big, he picked up his megaphone and said in rapid fire >insert accent here< 'you better bring a camera, somebody better take your picture right now cause you're doing great and 20 years from now you're gonna look at that picture and see the wonderful thing you did!‘ And, you know, that’s really cool.

And I’m totally not pissy about the dude who would have been last getting his picture (in color) on the front page of the sports section of today’s paper as he ‘finished the 10K.’ I’m not saying he cut the course but:
1) I passed him
2) He didn’t pass me after that

So. There you go.

You’d think that running in a skirt would get me in the paper but I guess a tie-dye shirt is the key. Though, in fairness, the real key may be to cross the line before the photographer has to go home and feed her kids supper. Or put them to bed.

In any case, it was a most lovely run, and I’ve already been in the newspaper anyway. It was the police blotter but whatever.

I have 2 very anxiety-prone dogs. It doesn’t take much to get them pacing and panting and generally inconsolably underfoot. When something happens that I know is going to set them off, like a thunderstorm, I say it is very nervous-making for dogs.

What is nervous-making for me is that I am woefully underprepared for the upcoming Boilermaker. I have not enough miles and not enough hills in, and I am tempted to list all the reasons, barriers, rationales, excuses, etc – which I feel are all valid and worthwhile, but ultimately unproductive – so why bother. In any case, I am determined not to miss it again this year. Tomorrow I’ll do the old, beloved 10K development run for the first time in nearly 2 years. It’s a great pre-Boilermaker trainer and I hope it kicks me into the gear I need to be in. Or it could dash me apart into tiny little pieces.

Sunday was for soccer and sunburn.

You don’t want to see my face and legs.

Well, it’s probably good to get some color on this fishwhite skin anyway.

Jeanne may owe me an hour of my life because she caused me to find a so silly place (no her blog isn’t the so silly place, it’s the face recognition generator thingee she links to).

Ok! No arguments from me here.

Nelly Furtado??!! Word!! Queen Latifah?? I truly think she is beautiful and I totally like her but, um….

Here’s the old man. I’m diggin’ that Sam Neill reference! I left out Chloe Sevigny cause I just wasn’t seeing it (though maybe if Brian had hair…).

But this….this is the sort of thing that big sisters LIVE FOR:

Dear Ginger, just because you resemble a French comedic actor, a Latin salsa singer, or even the father of the devil himself, you’ll always be my sissee. That’s not going to stop me from mailing this pic to all our friends and relatives though.
Love, sissee

Look what came in the mail the other day!

What could it be? The name would seem to imply that it’s very fast.

Some assembly required.

So today was bike building day – my first time. Should be easy….if only I could read French which is the language of the (de)structions.

It wasn’t quite as daunting as I had anticipated. Here’s attempt #1. Notice anything odd about the front forks?

(In case it’s hard to tell from the pic – they’re, um, backwards.) I thought it was awfully difficult to get the front tire on. The old man came up out of the basement (which is where I keep him until I need him for something) and, in the supportive manner of husbands, laughed. He had offered 100 times in the last few days to put it together for me – mostly because he was sick of having it in the middle of the living room – but I resisted. So, comedy of errors that it was – I pretty much did it myself (though I’ll admit that once he was in proximity, I did begin enlisting his help for tire pumping and such).

So it’s pretty much ready and rideable at this point. It wasn’t the most complicated task in the world – the back tire/brake/derailleur was all put together and mounted – but it was more than I had ever done with a bike so I was kinda pleased with myself.

You know, last year when I injured myself early on, I took to the notions of swimming & biking – and maybe when I could run again, triathloning. Swimming – I took lessons – turned out to be kinda fun but I never much made the effort to get to the pool. Biking – well….maybe the first thing you need to know about me (if you don’t already) is that I’m a bit impulsive. Also, if you catch me in the right mood, you can sell me anything. So in my frustrated non-running condition, I made an unplanned and ill advised stop at my local bike shop. Salespeople can wait a lifetime for a rube like me.

So I walk in to Local Bike Shop and tell them I want a bike. A road bike. Yeah, for racing – maybe even triathlons. What do I need??? A couple hours later I walked out with Giant TCR2, and every conceivable accoutrement. Because when you’ve never done this before it’s good to start at a point way out of your league because then you’ll just get awesome faster. Right?? Short story: I hate that bike. It’s painful, it’s difficult, I hate the clothing and shoes and snapping into the pedals and trying to figure out the gears and always popping the chain off because I can’t figure out the gears. And you can call me a wuss or say that if I’d put some effort into it blah blah blah. But I don’t love riding a bike like I love running. This year I’ll train for my first marathon – and I’ll run when I don’t want to, and I’ll run when it hurts. I do have a sense of how it feels to challenge yourself and push yourself and come out on the other side of something you didn’t think you could do – but I have decided that when I ride a bike it’s going to have some nice wide tires and a big cushiony seat and only 12 gears instead of 246. And it’s entirely possible that I will plan all my rides so that I never have to pedal up a hill.
I love my silly Smurf colored bike.

And I’m selling the Giant – cheap! Take my bike, please.