Just for the Record

I've been doing some races this year, and I haven't posted about them. Right now, I'm at work, so I can't write much; but I want to get my times down so I won't forget them, and so I'll see my progress. Because I really am getting better. :)

Warrior Dash, Mountain City, GA
May 23, 2010
Just under 5K with a really fun obstacle course
40:29

Amaizing Race, Jonesborough, TN
September 6, 2010
5K - Half around a cornfield, half on pavement
39:46

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Nashville, TN
October 9, 2010
5K
37:32

Green Day Weekend

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted here.

Well, I have a fantastic weekend to post about. My baby girl turned 14 on Saturday. For her birthday present, she and I flew up to New Jersey to see her favorite band, Green Day, in concert. At the last minute, I decided to go ahead and get tickets to see American Idiot on Broadway as well. It seemed a shame to be so close to NYC and not go up for the show.

So, on Friday we went to the airport and had an uneventful flight to New Jersey. I hate to fly, but I love to travel, so I have to fly. Anyway, any flight that lands safely is a good flight in my eyes, so we had a good flight.

We arrived in Newark and I picked up a rental car at the airport to drive to our hotel in Iselin. Note to self: next time, take New Jersey transit. Driving in NJ is a pain in the ass. More on that later.

The hotel was magnificent. I got a great deal on the room through my employer, and it was really phenomenal. Clean, spacious, comfy. If you ever need to stay in Iselin, NJ, I highly recommend the Renaissance Woodbridge Marriott.

We got information about the train to NYC, got ready for the show, and took the hotel shuttle to the tran station. I was a little panicked about whether we were going to make it in time; I had no idea how long the will-call line might be, how long it would take us to get to Broadway from Penn Station, whether the train would arrive on time...but to keep the post from rambling, let's just say that we arrived in our seats in plenty of time.

So, we had terrific seats. Center stage, about ten rows from the front. We were very excited to see the show. Julia noticed some girls in the front row looking back and kind of freaking out; so, she looks behind her, gets a glazed look in her eyes, and turns to look at me. I looked up and said, "What?"

She says, "Can you not see who that is?"

I looked more carefully. It was Billie Joe Armstrong. Holy shit.

He and his wife sat in their seats, two rows up and about five seats over from us. It was awesome. Julia wanted to go talk to him, but was nervous, and the show was close to starting. Finally, she got up and started to walk toward him, but the usher lady told her to take her seat, because the show was starting. Crap!

But it was very cool to sit that close to him at the show. The show was amazing, of course. It is a fantastic musical. So much energy, and the music is top-notch.

We stopped to have pizza on our way back to the train, and the guy behind the counter said, "You two look alike. Are you sisters?"

I don't know whether he was bullshitting me or not, but it felt good. :) Also, New York pizza...mmmmmmmmmmmm.

The next morning we went back into the city. We went to Times Square and had our makeup done at Inglot. The guy who did my face said a lot of nice things about me; that I had good skin, pretty eyes, good eyelashes...he was very obviously gay, so either he really meant it, or thought that it would make me buy more stuff. :)

Again, we were pushing it for time on the way back. We shared a cab from the station with a couple with a cute little girl who were going to the same hotel. On the way, we discovered that they were going to the Green Day concert too. Small world.

So, we get to the hotel room, get ready, get in the car and drive to Holmdel. It took me fifteen minutes to get on the road going in the right direction, because apparently, you can't make a left turn in New Jersey. Anywhere. Ever. And GPS systems do not know this. It was infuriating.

We made it to the show; we bought Zippos; we watched the concert. It was awesome. They started with the newer stuff, but then played lots of their old songs. They played lots of stuff that only the hard-core fans would even know. Billie Joe got kids and old people (my age - heh) from the audience to sing, dance, crowd surf. A lady got on stage and signed the last verse of Longview in American Sign Language. Billie Joe thought that was awesome and gave her a guitar. They played for four hours. We loved it.

My one regret is that I didn't buy tickets early enough to get us in the very front. Someday, soon I hope, I will get my baby in the front row of a Green Day concert. I want her to get a chance to be up on stage with them. I want her to be able to tell Mike Dirnt that she plays bass because of his awesomeness. I will do this for my baby girl. But for now, I hope she has a very fond memory of our Green Day birthday weekend.

Happy birthday, AwesomeChild. Your mom loves you more than you can imagine.

Autumn Running!

This morning between 7:00 and 8:00 was perfect for running. It was nice and cool; it had rained hard the night before and the air was fresh and clean; there was a gentle, constant breeze. My Garmin Forerunner GPS watch that I ordered came in while I was sick (some kind of non-flu virus, but it was yuk), and I'm finally healthy enough to get out and use it. So guess what I did?

I slept in.

Yeah. Well, I blame my bunco sisters. We all got together last night and had a fantastic time, and I was out late. I am really grateful to have them. We are a group of the most awesome, intelligent, beautiful, fun women ever in the history of the world. Last night was supposed to be a bunco night, but we were missing two people, so we just ended up talking, laughing, inspiring each other (more on that in a moment), and eating good food (it was simple sandwiches last night, but it was great!).

I could do a whole blog post on girlfriends, and how very special and important they are, but I will do that another day.

About that inspiring each other thing. One of my bunco girlfriends is Aimee at La Familia Luis. She has been doing P90X and modifying her eating, and she looks really great. She was always gorgeous, but I can see a real difference since she's been doing all that hard work.

She has inspired me.

I have decided that I am going to also work hard and finally get rid of these final pounds that I've been toying with since the half marathon, and I'm going to get my muscle tone where it really needs to be.

I'm starting today. I'm going to do Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred workout, and then I'm going to the Y to spend an hour on the spin bikes. I might take my swimsuit and jump in the pool for a little cross-training; I don't know. But I'm back on the wagon as of now.

Even though I squandered a perfect running morning.

Oh, by the way, I don't get any kind of ad money for the links I put to the workout DVDs or the Forerunner up there; the links are for informational purposes only. If I could have found a site that described them without selling them, I would have used those.

Best Day Ever

Yesterday was Labor Day here in the United States. It's a day that we get to take off from work to celebrate work. Apparently. I don't know; I just know it's the holiday for all the end-of-summer barbecues and swimming parties. It's a nice little holiday to fit in there between Independence Day and Thanksgiving (wow - two other strictly American holidays).

Anyway, Julia and I were planning to grill some steaks and have a nice little just-the-two-of-us patio party. Now, we like to eat steaks for dinner, not for lunch, so we decided to grab our cameras and take a drive into town to see if we could get any cool photos. We're both trying to get better at photography, and it was a beautiful day to go out and get some practice. Neither of us have taken any lessons; we just enjoy it (we'd both like to take classes someday).

Our first stop was the farmers' market. There were so many opportunities to get really cool photos there! Here are a few of Julia's best ones:













And here are some of mine that I liked:















We were going to eat lunch at the Greek restaraunt at the farmers' market, but they were closed (Labor Day - duh), so we drove uptown to have lunch at a chain restaraunt on the main strip. Our waiter looked like Will Ferrell and juggled for us after bringing us our food. Yes, that was as odd as it sounds.

After lunch, we drove back downdown and parked by the art museum. The plan was to walk up and down the street a bit, getting some nice architectrual photos, then go to the museum for a while.

We were both kind of fixated on the old Union Station building, so we both took several photos of that. Here are some of Julia's:

















And some of mine:
















Then we went to the museum and stayed until it was closing time and they kicked us out.

By the time we got home, we were both way too tired to grill, so we grabbed something simple and got ready for bed. Julia thanked me several times for spending the day with her and doing such fun stuff.

I thanked her for spending the day with me and for being the greatest kid on the planet.

Best. Day. Ever.

I Do Still Work Out. I Just Don't Write About it as Much

So, now I have been coerced into doing a Spring half marathon with a couple of my online friends. We will most likely do one in Florida, so at least it will be flat.

I'll probably start the serious training in October, but for now, I just have to get my body used to running again. I've been doing spinning classes and Zumba for cardio lately because it's better on my knees, and they really needed a break. But running is another animal altogether.

So, one thing I'm going to do to get a little running under my belt in the meantime is join the adult soccer league at my YMCA. Maybe. I can only join if you don't already have to know how to play soccer. If they don't teach beginners, then I'm out of luck. My only soccer experience is watching Julia play. So we'll see.

Yeah. Not much to say today. Just a little snippet to try to get back into the swing of blogging.

Faster Than the Speed of the Brain

This post is going to seem pretty random. These thoughts were swirling through my head last night because my cat was particularly snuggly.

Shutty. I can be as warm and fuzzy as anyone else.

Well, with animals. With people not so much.

Anyway.

Last night, as mentioned, my cat was needy. He jumped onto my bed and snuggled up tight with his butt in the pit of my arm and his body across my chest, cheek-to-cheek with me. In my half-asleep daze, I brought up my free arm and started petting him, without thinking twice.

For some reason, this reminded me of the time there was a mouse in the house. I remember on some nights, before we were able to get the exterminators in (sorry, PETA people, I HATE MICE), I would be absolutely freaked-out paranoid that the little bugger was going to jump onto my bed at night. I don't know if mice do that; but I was scared of it anyway.

There's a point here. Be patient.

Now. Had a mouse actually jumped onto my bed as I was sleeping, I would have had an immediate response to shoot out of the covers like a rocket, catapulting the mouse across the room, screaming like a little girl, and then stroking out. No thoughts, no debate. Just reflex.

What this led my incredibly geeky brain to analyze was the amazing processing speed of our brains. When my cat jumps onto the bed and sticks his nose in my face, I immediately know that he is an animal that is safe to handle. I don't have to go through the long process of thinking "This animal is under my care, is clean, has been innoculated for disease, eats a controlled diet of non-contaminated food, and is not violent; it is safe for this animal to be on my bed."

My brain knows all those things to be true, and no doubt processes them, but all that goes through my head is "Awww! Kitty!!!"

For the mouse, all I would think is "AAAAUUUUAAAAUUUUGGGGGHHHHUUUUGGGHHH!!!"

I don't know why this stuff amazes me so. It's really pretty elementary; but when you're in an exaustion-induced, perfectly relaxed, ready-to-sleep state, and then a cuddly kitty jumps up purring like mad and snuggles in cozy, relaxing you even further as well as giving you a little shot of happy, your brain thinks weird stuff.

Shutty.

Still Here, Still Running.

So, after the half marathon, my first thought (after the adrenaline subsided, and then the pain started to die down) was, "What now?"

Well, I took two weeks off from running; I continued with strength training and did spinning class, but no running. By the end of the first week, I was itching to run again.

So today I did my first run after the race. It felt great; I set out to do three miles. My plan was to go to the greenway, run a mile and a half out, and a mile and a half back; but, when I got about two-tenths of a mile past the .75 mile marker, there was caution tape across the path, and when I looked past it, I saw that the remainder of the greenway was basically a lake. That is because it has rained for 31 of the last 30 days here.

Okay; my math might be a little off. But it has rained a lot. I don't remember when I moved to Seattle; but apparently, that is where I am.

(Because, you see, it rains a lot in Seattle. For those of you not familiar with US weather patterns.)

So, I ended up turning around at the trailhead and just doing the .75 mile out-and-back twice. Which, according to my calculations, is three miles (.75 X 4 = 3, right?).

It felt really good to be back out on a trail. I really enjoyed the run, and I feel really good now that I've done it.

I'm going to start training soon for my next half. I have the running bug, and I don't want the antidote...