Morning folks..... Leslie, I'll bet our hubs would get along pretty darn good. Ev, some family members are running the 5k. My sister and I are doing the half! I won't be doing much this week. Maybe a short run on Tues/Thur. Thanks for your advice! Nice pics Jim from the last thread. Really pretty...... Late night last night. Got to bed around 11:30. Today is work and double clases. So......I'll be home at 9 p.m. and tired I'm sure. Have a great day everyone........ Jewels

No sweat Ev.......that is why we have that "modify" button. I fix boo-boos all the time. Jewels

Hey there 40's! Jewels - I read on a t-shirt that a half marathon is really just a 5K with a 10 mile warm up . Happy race week to you and your sis! See Ev, you were right after all! Leslie - I suspect you are right that the rest will do your body good even though it was hard. You may not want to watch GI Jane whilst recovering. Jim - beautiful pics! Mountains are good for the soul...glad you got to go! Arla and SR - how did it go in Surf City??? Howdy to everyone Yesterday was a rest day, and I'm heading out for a lunchtime run of 5-6 miles in a few minutes. One of the advantages of working from home, I can wait for the sunshine to run. Hubby has class tonight, so I can do my "make up" work then. No residual owies from the 10 miles on Sat. My friend got new shoes and has a blister and was a bit sore, but otherwise OK. T minus 4 weeks and counting.

Surf City has grown a lot.... 18k people, mostly in the 5k and half. There were 3000 people in the full. When I did it two years ago, it was more like 1000. Beautiful day.

Sorry in advance...this is gonna be long... Leslie - sigh of relief...now, what exactly is this surgery? Are they removing your GB? Can they do it with small incisions?? Otherwise, I'm so behind with y'all after only a couple days...oh, I got a question about the skunk-loving community - from Carol? ...just google around. I think there are some folks on Yahoo Groups - skunkchat is one. Be careful about the groups, apparently skunk can mean something else that's x-rated or something that I couldn't figure out. *shrug* OK a little RR: Huntington Beach gave us perfect weather this year, cool and overcast at the start, with the sun coming out and some gentle warming that was not uncomfortable at all. I had met up with three other girlfriends, one of whom - poor thing - spent all day Saturday unable to keep any food down. We ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Newport Beach, where I absolutely gorged on bread, salad, spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra cheese (my favorite thing there), spumoni ice cream, and a glass of cheap chianti! Yum!! This spaghetti dish has something like 1/2c of cheese and 1/2 c of butter in it and *I DID NOT CARE*: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/2594470644_b77d9e8bc8.jpg%3Fv%3D0&imgrefurl=http://flickr.com/photos/hannahliesje/2594470644/&usg=__fqFU3_OtVispbmJRuuLavYRhcv4=&h=333&w=500&sz=124&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=lw5hPEUPINCS_M:&tbnh=87&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dspaghetti%2Bfactory%2Bmizithra%2Bcheese%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26hs%3DWO7%26sa%3DN Everyone else had a blast, even our sickie, who ate some spaghetti which unfortunately didn't stay with her for long Ms. Sickie decided to go for it on Sunday, so I stuck with her during the run...I was VERY impressed! We finished a slow but happy 2:26 -ish. She later said it was the hardest run she'd ever done, harder than any marathon she'd run...I can't even imagine. If it had been me, I would have been a DNS. I looked for The Man in Pink at the beer tent, but I'm sure Mr. Speedy SR had come and gone already as the marathoners had started over an hour before us. Everyone got two beers included with registration, which tasted fabulous even though it was Michelob Ultra - not my favorite Despite the crowds, there was plenty of room on the course. There was an easy but longish hill around mile 3 and another gentle climb around mile 11 that weren't anything, but I did hear others around me complaining. There were two out-and-back portions for the half, much of which ran along Bolsa Chica nature preserve on one side (a salt flat and marsh with abundant bird life) and the ocean on the other. There were also some not-so-scenic oil rigs, but I'm used to that as I grew up going to SoCal beaches. I don't personally like out-and-backs because I find them a little demoralizing, but that's just me. It was easy to ignore the fact that thousands of people had already made the turnaround as there was plenty else to look at. There were a few surf music bands that were fun, playing "Wipe Out" and the like. Almost no other crowd support, save at the end. En route, aid stations offered some kind of electrolyte beverage (Vitalyte) and Sharkies, which were kind of like gummy bears except they were shark-shaped and tasted like they had a little salt. I didn't like them at first, but they sort of grew on me after I decided they wouldn't pull my teeth or fillings out! My friend tried one and thought it tasted like vomit, but...well.. after what she'd been through I can understand. I'd say this would be a good one for people wanting to run an easy HM or M in mid-winter in a place that is likely to have good weather! The little surfboard medal is really cute. At the expo was a display showing off the medal and jacket for the California Dreamin' series (do Surf City, Long Beach, and San Francisco full or HMs within any 2-year period and they are yours) and they were pretty nice. The medal is HUGE! http://www.caldreaminracing.com/Rules.cfm So just SFO and Long Beach for that bit of bling. I'm really looking forward to SFO - usually it's 110F here about that time of year, and probably 50F at start time in SF. I've got reservations for our little Surf City hopefully-a-foursome at the startline hotel. Like some of you have pointed out, there are some good climbs in SFO - looking at the course map, I see three that look pretty serious. I have exactly one hill or hill-like thing here, down a bluff to the San Joaquin river bottom. It's only about a 0.2 mile climb, and maybe 100 ft. It's on my normal route but it's not enough to be any kind of issue - I guess I should try some repeats on it...? Or just plan to walk those babies... Arla Modified to remove links to pics that didn't work

Arla - Great report! And very nice of you to stay with your sick friend. Poor thing! I do agree that she has some cajones to go ahead and run after being unable to keep any food down. Gutsy. And pasta with lots of butter and cheese. Mmmmmmmmmm, yummy!!!! And yes, it's the GB coming out, and for now it'll be laproscopically - 3 small incisions and tada! I have no idea how you can out an organ through such a small incision, but I'm not gonna complain either. The Hub says it must be a slice, dice, and suction job. Now that's a disgusting thought. MTE: Spelling

Congrats to SR and Arla for there SurfCity accomplishments. Arla, your poor friend. I can't believe she even ran. That plate of spaghetti looks yum......congrats! Leslie, cute pice.........gotta love SR's straw pic, that is funny. Carol, nice to hear you had no owwwwies from your 10-miler. That's a positive sign. O.K., gotta get my slow self movin' this morning, Have a great day........Jewels