we missed the bridge run last night.  we both layed down for a nap after work and slept right through the run.  it was nice to know we were missed as nightingale called to see if we were okay afterward.  this morning, we overslept again.  we’ve been sleeping in the guest room this week since our room is torn apart due to painting.  that means cell phone alarms which is generally hubby’s job.  last night, i crashed and didn’t even think to remind him.  apparently when he came to bed several hours later, it didn’t occur to him.  no alarm this morning meant i was forty minutes late to work.  not a problem since i didn’t take a lunch break but i am shocked that we overslept twice within thirteen hours.  and guess who’s still tired?

i might as well post this one that tat took after dinner and drinks sunday night.

panda, train, hubby, me, o'neil, tat, nightingale, mello

even though i got up ridiculously early yesterday to run, i managed to go to yoga last night.  i actually liked the dvd track that we did last night.  it was a killer on the legs but it was a good slow one.  other than the crazy pretzel handstand thing that none of us even tried.  i’m glad that we went because it really helped my left leg, which was a bit tight from my phenomenal run.

we celebrated by getting up at 05:15 to meet up with our group for a 06:00 bridge run.  seventeen of us dragged our crazy butts out of bed to do that early run.  although, i think i’m the only one who’s not a morning person to begin with. 

i purposely tried to keep a very slow pace as i’m still nursing my legs from last thursday’s run.  since it was just going to be a once over for everyone, i considered cutting mine in half too by turning around when i got to the top of the bridge.  for some reason, i got to the top and kept going.  about halfway down the backside, tat was waiting with her camera to take a pic of me running. 

like the wind!

i joked with her about being the paparazzi and expected her to go along her way back to the parking lot.  instead, she turned and trotted along with me.  i told her she didn’t have to but i was really quite happy to have the company.  after we had turned around and started climbing the bridge again, she started giving me some pointers about my swing, strike, and breathing.  she also kept updating me on my pace, which i greatly appreciated and found encouraging.  about a hundred yards from the top, she made me sprint.  sadistic witch!!!  i didn’t think i had any more in me but she managed to drag it out.  at the top, we went back to a slow and steady pace and pretty much kept it up all the way back to the parking lot… which we reached in 37:58!  that is under a twelve minute pace, overall!!!!!  and i was seriously trying to go slow this morning. 

we got back in time to see mello getting interviewed by the local news and then i headed to the car to get my water and eye the donuts that were waiting for us.  i walked around a bit and talked with folks until i was cooled back down, at which point we were asked to go over and stand behind mello while he was being interviewed.  so those of us who were still there clumped up behind mello talking amongst ourselves and “acting natural” while he taped another interview for the noon news (which i watched and clapped at myself for being such a tv star!).  i broke down and grabbed a donut, thereby ruining any caloric benefit from the run, before hopping in the car to get home and start the work day. 

how did you celebrate national running day?

sheesh, between work being a madhouse and being super busy on my own time, the rants have seriously suffered.  this will be a long catch-up of everything that’s happened since memorial day weekend.

• this memorial day weekend was a blast!  our best one since the days of camping and rafting with my brudder, SIL, and their friends (why don’t i have any pics posted from 2006 when we had the huge group including my friends?).  anyhow, our three day weekend consisted of hanging out with our running group friends every day.  we kayaked, surfed, sunned, swam, watched a movie while the boys watched sports, cleaned a boat, played mariokart and rockband, and had some yummy meals.  it was a great and tiring weekend!
• we continued the party by hosting a poker night on tuesday.  it was just us, scooter, and cargo since it was also mello’s birthday but we had a good time.  cargo whooped all our butts until he decided to throw the game.  it ended up with hubby and i playing heads up and he won.  we followed up with a soak in the hot tub and the end of the magic game. 
• tuesday, wednesday, and thursday were also exercise days. 
• friday was our first night by ourselves since the previous tuesday.  not complaining at all but we did take advantage of the time to rest up. 
• saturday morning we got up early and walked to our plaza to run.  unfortunately, it seemed that i had injured my legs on the bridge run and walking was painful so i never ran.  i barely made it back home.  we spent the day relaxing down on the beach and on the couch. 
• sunday was another lazy day.  i kept intending to start painting our bedroom but it just never happened.  we went to our plaza in the evening to grab some dinner and ended up running into mello, nightingale and several others from the bridge runs.  several hours of good conversation, food, and drink ensued. 
• monday night i spent 7.5 hours painting three walls in our bedroom.  tuesday we moved the bed and i spent another 2.5 hours painting the last wall.  i used to love painting but it has become such a chore.  my body still aches.  the room will remain in shambles for the next few days as i let that last wall cure really well so that i can tape and paint some stripes this weekend.  i’ll be happy to be done with that project.  then the only unpainted walls will be the common areas. 

my run last night started great.  i managed to keep up with the woman twice my age all the way to the top of the bridge.  my head was killing me and i kept telling her i was done but she cheered me on and i made it to the top by her side.  you would think that i should have easily been able to stay by her side at that point because it was then downhill.  unfortunately, my head was pounding so badly from all of the exertion going up that i just couldn’t keep up with her any more.  i didn’t add any distance, just the basic one-lap bridge (3.2 miles).  i made it all the way down the other side, turned around, and slowed to a walk as soon as i started back up.  i was very disappointed since i haven’t had to walk any of it since march but i just couldn’t put my head through more uphill.  i didn’t even try to walk fast; it was slow, dragging my body up the incline.  i started jogging again when i got to the top and met up with hubby on my way downhill.  he turned and started back with me and made a comment about how great my pace was.  i confessed that i had only just started running again but he insisted that i was still on track for a great overall pace.  actually, i think he was right.  i finished in forty minutes.  i don’t remember if i ever timed myself on the basic once-over before but i timed a 5k once a month or two ago when running around the park and it was forty-five minutes.  the bridge is just over a 5k with inclines so i’ve got to think forty minutes was improvement for me.  just imagine if i hadn’t walked!

the bridge runners from last night, minus a few stragglers who showed up after we started running. yes, i am the only one in pants.

tuesday:

ran 2+ miles around our plaza’s park.  i really need to do something about measuring my progress but i felt like i was faster.  i forgot to even look at the clock before we got out of the car but my figuring is that i was down to nearly a thirteen minute pace.  who knows.  all in all, it was a super sucky run.  i REALLY did not want to start.  and i never got to the point where i wanted to keep going.  it was hotter than heck and ridiculously bright.  i think the only reason my pace was better (if it actually was) is because i was trying so hard to get it over with.  i was upset that for all that pushing and suckitude, i didn’t even get to do my third lap.  we were a bit short on time since we had folks coming over for a poker night.  next week i’ll have to get an earlier (and, therefore, hotter) start so that i’ve got plenty of time to finish my full workout.

wednesday:

yoga at the running store.  they did an audio only thing this week which was tough for me because i totally depend on watching the video to see what i’m supposed to be doing.  i felt far more uncoordinated than usual.  i gawked at my fellow yogaers trying to make my body twist into the same shapes as theirs.  speaking of gawking, we had an audience as well.  about halfway through the cd, i started to notice people looking in the windows.  it was a huge group of asians, totally cupping the windows to look in.  they watched through one side, walked around the corner and watched through the other side (right behind me).  it was highly uncomfortable.  seriously, they watched us for close to ten minutes.  it was one whole series of exercises.  we even called mello out to chase them away and but they wouldn’t leave.  it was very odd.  the workout itself was pretty tough for me.  there were some balance exercises i just couldn’t pull off at all.  and the last track was abs, which wasn’t really hard for me, but it was tough.  the sadistic voice on the cd must have had some learning difficulties because her counting was drastically slower than ours.  she said we were going to do fifty bicycle crunches but she didn’t count aloud.  by the time she got to fifty, i had done well over one hundred.  and i feel it today… not that that’s a bad thing. 

*NOTE:  this post was started saturday but i was too busy to get the pix and publish it.

since we’ve got folks coming over tonight, we decided it was time to finish the wall project in the living room.  i finally narrowed my sunsets down to six, got them printed and framed, and they are on the wall.  i think they look very nice (even if the prints did come out way too dark).  i still would have liked a 3×3 grid better but i couldn’t find enough frames.  i bought all of the ones here and in orlando!

so i took a chapter from one of my college psych courses into my run last night.  i recall reading about a study on happiness once.  they were doing a study on the power of positivity and they had some college students describe a series of pictures.  then they had them bite a pen between their teeth and describe the pictures again.  since the action of biting a pen in their teeth simulated the muscles of a smile, they found that the descriptors were much more positive on that go-round. 

for some reason, this popped into my head on the bridge run last night.  i made a conscious effort to force my face to contort into somewhat of a smile throughout my run.  granted, two weeks ago was just a horrible run for me, but i managed to shave 2.5 minutes off of my run (same course) this week!!!  i started the run with absolute dread.  i had a headache all day yesterday and then we got there way too early so we were just standing around…  i really was not into the running.  however, when we got started, i went ahead and forced myself to smile, i concentrated on my music, i made happy comments to those who i met coming back (i’m always the back of our pack), and i made it.  i never felt like “oh my God, i can’t go any further!”.  i never felt like i had to stop and walk.  i just kept going and i was fine.  i wouldn’t call it effortless, but it was my easiest run yet.  and i felt good.  after i went through the college, i started back to the bridge and i knew how far it was.  i started climbing the bridge and i passed by most of the pack but i felt fine.  halfway down the other side of the bridge, my hubby caught back up to me and slowed down enough to jog back with me.  we were the last ones back but it felt so good not being alone.  and i was thrilled that i had cut two and a half minutes off my time.  that’s the best improvement i’ve ever seen!

we made it to yoga last night after some grocery shopping (how happy am i to finally have milk after four days of withdrawal?!).  it was a fast paced routine with a lot of upward/downward dogs that nearly killed my back.  and rocking… what was with the rocking?  anyhow, not even halfway through, i was sweating like mad trying to keep up with some of the crazy moves, a few of which totally showcased my complete lack of balance.  i like yoga so i keep hoping one of these days i’ll get better at it.

despite my painfully pounding head, i had every intention of getting my tuesday night run in.  i (not so) patiently waited for hubby to get off the phone (less because i was waiting for him to stop working so we could run and more because he’s a ridiculously loud talker and did i already mention my head?).  we donned our running apparel, went down to the car, and headed toward our plaza.  traffic in that direction was crazy on our road, which is fairly normal, so i headed in the opposite direction to go the back-route.  when i got to the back road, the traffic in that direction was just as terrible.  i’m not sure exactly what was going on but it appeared to be cutting down to one lane so i pulled an immediate u-turn and headed back home.  some would argue that i could have gotten out of the car and started running down the road.  however, after the frustration of a failed effort even though i was feeling bad to begin with and then the added frustration of being inexplicably unable to parallel park upon returning home, i was done.  i decided that it was better for me to come back upstairs, take a handful of motrin, and eat some dinner.  judge me if you will, but i stand by that decision.  and now i’m about to take another handful of motrin and go to bed.

for your calming pleasure, i present…

my backyard.  looks inviting, doesn’t it?  i sure would rather be down there floating around with those folks than up here working.  i heart my yard.  i love how work and worries just seem to disappear when i walk out on my balcony and look out at this.  a yard like this is great for blood pressure!

as if being home wasn’t great enough… the pool was empty at lunchtime!  it was chilly and super windy but it was so nice to swim again.  i did thirty lengths of the pool; one half mile.  it felt really good.  and tiring.  i hope that it’s empty again tomorrow.  i miss the lunch-swimming.