dynamic elf

( The short story: I'm not dead! )

Overall: what a great day! My run time was probably abysmal, but I did run the nearly 2 miles that were paved. And everybody on the sidelines shouting "nice job! go #273!" really brightened my spirits. The one woman walking her dog who stopped and looked at me and then yelled, "YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION!" made me grin like a crazy woman. After the race, I got a kiwi from the national kiwifruit council stand or whatever, packed up my bags, skipped the Rotary club barbecue and free massage (!), and headed back to the car, feeling good. I had one perfect ripe peach waiting for me there, which I had been looking forward to for the last mile or so of the race. Under the windshield was a flyer for two triathlons in the area on August 13th -- one is a 1/4 mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 2.5 mile run, and the other is a 1 mile swim, 20 mile bike, and a six mile run. I might just try one of those. Haven't decided which one, yet. Anyway, once I'd loaded my gear back onto the car and started off, I rolled down the window, broke out the napkins, and polished off my peach. Just lovely.

I'm in San Francisco, sort of on a whim. It's my 30th birthday, and the Bay to Breakers 12k was today, so I thought it would be fun to run it. Mind you, I'm too lazy to actually train, so my longest run to date was 2.8 miles last Thursday. Given that, I'm pretty pleased that I managed to run well over half of the race (2/3, maybe?) without dying. Yay!

Running a crazy race in San Francisco with 45,000 entrants is very much like taking a nice leisurely jog with all of Burning Man. Seriously, this race is bigger than my hometown. It took me 15 minutes to clear the start line. Everyone was fabulous, and the people on the sidelines were as great as the runners themselves.

While waiting for me around the finish line, dilletante ran into vito_excalibur, who I had totally forgotten lived in San Francisco. Accidentally running into someone you know in a big city is wonderful; doing it in someone ELSE'S big city is even better. Especially when you just did a footrace along with an entire small town's worth of people.

One nice thing about traveling west: free mornings! We had a lazy laid-back time in the hotel yesterday after getting up, and I was mystified that by the time we left, housekeeping had not yet pounded angrily on our door telling us to wake up already. That was when I realized that it was only 9 AM. Woo!

One crappy thing about traveling west: if you plan to see a bunch of people in the evening, don't forget that you will turn into a pumpkin before you even show up. Oops. But in the end, I had fun anyway, and was delighted to see the people I did. :)

I feel terribly special and celebrated. I don't remember the last time I went this far out of my way to ensure that I properly celebrated my own birthday, but with 30 it felt mandatory. And it worked! I feel great, and not at all old.

A last note: I feel as if I am missing a year. I have to remind myself that I haven't seen a lot of people in TWO years, not just one. I know what happened to that year -- she's taking a nap right now, actually -- but all the same, I'm happy to be back in my own timestream again.

Woo! I just made an "AA" on a 3-foot DDR song I used to think was hard, and finished a couple of five-foot songs that used to be impossible for me. Fun!

Also on the physical activity front, we went running with lyonesse again this morning. I was doing fine for the first 1.5 miles, but then I felt a little tired, stretched thin but not yet to the breaking point. I thought, "Nah! I'm tough! It's just two more trips around this block. I can do it. I just won't tell her I'm feeling tired, then I'll push through and collapse at the end once I've made the time!"

For the record, this is not a wise line of reasoning for a "relaxed training run". I think lyo smelled this and asked, "Do you need to walk? Go on and walk if you want, it's ok." Narrr! No! Pirate Molly WILL run two miles! So we do, plod plod plod, until we have 1/3 of a block left -- less than 1/8 mile -- and I get a crazy painful stitch in my side and have to stop.

Damn, that hurt! Moving hurt. Stretching it hurt. Not stretching it hurt. Breathing hurt. She did a little work on it and I wobbled to the finish line. So it was a decent time overall, it's just that the last 200 yards took three minutes. Next time, I promise I'll listen. If walking for ten cruddy seconds would have saved me from that, then I'm a fool not to have done it. Lack of pain = Good.

I'm a little surprised that my body is making as good a showing as it is, so far. I'm really really not a runner, and I haven't even been biking since Jan 2 (siiiigh). My only aerobic exercise has been walking and DDR. But the summer aerobic fitness seems to have held - I don't think I've ever run that far without stopping to walk, and I know that even despite the pain, I felt a whole hell of a lot better afterwards this time than I have in the past. My recovery was quick, and I felt chipper for the rest of the day.

The weather is gorgeous enough that I may go for a lunchtime skate tomorrow -- that will certainly make me feel happy and virtuous. The bike hurdle is frustrating. Here's the problem: I have a skinny sporty summery bike, and a workhorse commuter/touring bike. Right now, the summer bike has the only pedals that will work with my winter bike shoes, and my uninsulated, lightweight bike shoes (that I bought on sale for $20 three years and 10k miles ago) have finally given up the ghost. AND - I can't get the slim pedals off of the damn softride, no matter HOW much WD-40 I use. Re: that gorgeous weather: I may just suck it up and either buy new lightweight (non-recessed-cleat) bike shoes, or ride the skinny softride.