Life Moves On

The new water heater is in and hot water is back in da house. Yay! You forget how spoiled you are until the hot water disappears. We live in a blessed age.

Aside from being happy not to shower at the gym, I am now running on the treadmill, at an incline, for a half hour at a time, today at 15 minute miles. Baby steps! Baby steps! I am trying to be good. If a couple more weeks of the uphill thing go well, I will then be including flats, and then eventually the downhill. I am also cutting my physical therapy back to once a week instead of two; partly because we want to see how my body takes it and partly because I used up all my available insurance. Meanwhile, I do daily core strengthening and stretching and have started a martial arts class which kicks my butt in ways it hasn't been kicked in a long time. It took about 4 days to un-sore myself from last week's workout.

The real key is to take things easy and gradually work myself up to strength, which as you probably know is dang hard when your feet are strapped in your favorite trail shoes and you are outside at a race where I will be this Saturday. If any of you see me running when I shouldn't, give me a dirty look ok? Uphills only uphills only uphills only......

Help??!! My Water Heater is Broken??

((Update))Well, for the last several hours, I have had to remove half the floorboards in the family room due flooding. I don't know how many know the pain of having put in laminate floorboards throughout 1400 square foot of house before (seriously it took me about 5 months) , but I do. And the moment it dawned on me that I would have to re-tear out floorboards and most likely be the one having to put them down again, a certain...how to describe it.....pain just tore through my gut and hasn't quite left yet. If I were a crier, I would certainly be in tears. In fact, I would love to be in tears as it would be a welcome release. Instead, I have been laughing hysterically, staring vacantly at the rain outside, and drinking red wine. Seems silly I suppose. It's not like someone died. I think I'm just tired. It's been a busy week. I have been having a good chuckle with Chris though. I told him that I am enjoying the fact that we are sharing (again) one of those disastrous life experiences that we get to talk about in the future when it's actually really funny, whilst hating the whole thing now. Tomorrow I wake up early to take a shower at the gym before I head to a class at 8:30. Mmmm life, don't talk to me about life.




And seems to be leaking in around the fireplace and flooding the laminate floorboards inside the house. Who am I supposed to call?????? Help me!

I've been given the a-okay by the docs. Uphill running is in baby! Sign up for Skyline Ridge if it hasn't filled up. I'm gonna smoke your asses up the hillS. Never mind that this will only be the 2nd time I've run in more than 4 months. It's the thought that counts. :D

And by the way, nice logo eh? EH???!!!!

Sequoia Trail Run 10K Report

((Update: the official list is out. I came in 129 out of 149. Damn I'm good. heh. Oh but wait, that means I lost the Bottom Ten thing. Daaaaarn!!))

Hi guys! I finished!! Unfortunately, there was no way I was going to win DFL. Too many hikers and beginner runners who were struggling valiantly to finish. I also cheated half way through. I decided that running uphill would have the least negative impact on my spine and have the added bonus of satisfying some of my run urge. Mmm, boy did it. It is rather amusing (pathetique?) that not only as a staunch middle of the packer and in this case, disabled runner, I immediately felt compelled to go as fast as my legs would take me in the hopes that ... I have no idea what, would happen. I guess in this case, 124th place out of 130. I seem to be a very competitive disabled runner, who might need therapy.

I still have happy chemicals in the brain today from just being part of a race again. And not just any race, but with PCTR's Wendell and Sarah (this is called ass kissing). It was good to see all the familiar faces and meeting some new ones. Maybe it's because I have no life and taking away my run crowd leaves me with a huge empty gap, but it was shore nice to be back out in the woods again with good peeps. Except for the ones who were helping themselves to food not put out yet and generally asking for 5 star hotel service at a trail race. Gros con!! (found that word on a "best french expletives" website". You can google it.)

So yeeeah, nice nice day. No issues with my body at all. My back held up fine and is fine today. My ankle throbbed yesterday, but a few acupoints later, I was good to go. I went hiking today at Fremont Older with Chris. It is about 15 minutes from my house and I had no idea it existed until I was looking at the Stevens Creek Strider's webpage one day and saw that they ran there weekly. It's a beautiful place which I plan on using regularly when I am ready. Today, all I am is blissfully sore from the last several days and loving it.

I believe Skyline Ridge on March 1st is next for me. There was a warning post on the PCTR Message Board that there have been a rash of car break-ins in the parking lots up there. Someone suggested leaving absolutely nothing in your car and even leaving the doors unlocked to prevent your windows from getting smashed.

All in all, a very happy weekend for me. See you at the next race!


((Sarah, when I came home with the tupperware, Chris picked it up, glanced in and said "There's no energy bars in there.". :p))

photos from Sequoia
photos from Fremont Older

I can't wait for....

my first race t-shirt of the year. I am signed up for PCTR's Sequoia Trail Run tomorrow! It's the 10K and no I am not running. I will be walking it. But a glorious hike it will be. Maybe I can be get the dubious honour of finishing dead last? What is the official acronym for that? Whatever it is, I'm excited.

Yosemite in Winter

Over February 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, I took a little trip with my dad and Todd Wong to snowy Yosemite. I had never been there in winter and since those other two were itching for a trip, I arranged this one as my last hurrah before school started (yesterday). In brief, it was beauitful, snowy, and a total blast. We went snow shoeing, walking, photo taking, snowball fighting, eating, drinking, and enjoying what turned out to be perfect weather. Next time though, I will remember to waterproof my shoes.




This image sums up how beautiful the valley was.











Overlooking the river on Sunday morning after it had snowed heavily all evening.











My dad trying to crawl out from our cabin after heavy snow. His diabetes had a difficult time adjusting to the new environment for the first 24 hours, but by Sunday he was fine.











Me looking cool and listening attentively to the snow shoeing guide, who I think at this point was pulling out various taxidermy-ed rodents from his pockets to show us what lived on the ground underneath the snow.











Badger Pass.











more photos

This Just Doesn't End

I came back from an insanely fabulous time in snowy snowy Yosemite and was quite excited to post something with a more "adventurous" flavor on my bloggedy blog. However, since I returned, I have been felled with a fever, the likes of which I have not seen since I was like...twelve? Can I just go ahead and stop having events in my life which just give me cause to whine? Please? Someone?

I almost forgot to mention that this is my last week of freedom before school starts on Monday. Ironic yes? Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (expletive of choice)