Great job, Frances!  You're being very thoughtful about your training, a good thing!

 

I dropped DS off at the track at 2 pm, and got my 3.6-mile run in right from the high school.  I was happy I didn't come across any fast high schoolers!  Don't want to embarrass DS, lol.

 

He ran a GREAT race, but came in second - the other boy had an unbelievable kick the last 200 meters and came from behind.  His 3200 time was 9:42, the best he's run in a couple of months.  The state meet is next week, and he won't be up against the other boy, because he's from a different school size.  So he has a decent chance of winning the Class B championship.  Best of all, he's very happy with how he did and felt, and that's what matters!

Teresa - Congratulations to your DS!  I bet he's fun to watch run.

 

Frances - Keep up the good work.  Glad the shins are feeling better.

 

Holly - You're going to do great on your trail run.  Just don't be afraid/embarrassed to power walk the hills.  Even the really great trail runners walk the hills, depending on the size/length  Wait - am I talking about me?? Uh, no.  But I do power walk the hills!

 

Speaking of trail runs - did 16 this a.m. in 3:38:28.  The last 3 miles were horrible.  l don't know if I worked the strength training too hard yesterday, didn't eat enough carbs the last couple of days or what, but those last 3 miles sucked - big time.  And my calves - OMG they hurt!  I haven't been doing calve strength training 'cause it made my ankle hurt.  I must've overdid it yesterday, 'cause today - yeeowza!

 

Well, off to get some transcription done.  Later!

Nice runs all.  Henrun and I stopped in Albany on our way to Toronto for the 31st Freihofer 5K for women.  Having only run Tufts as a women's race, it was an interesting experience to run another women's only race.  I prefer Tufts.  But this also gathered many elites from Kenya, Ethiopia, and of course Joanie (wearing her sox cap)

 

Jay - there was also a 10k race walk - 10 laps - that had some fast walkers - we thought of you.

 

my time was underwhelming, but that's ok considering i've done minimal running while recovering from Boston-related pain.  We're now sitting at a B&B being locavores and drinking a wine only found in Ontario.  Life is good -

Marj

Teresa, that's one fast kid you've got there!

 

I'm thinking of signing up for a local trail race next weekend - not sure if I'll do the 7 or 12 mile option. (There's also a 30K, but that's more than I'm ready for).  I plan to go run those trails tomorrow before I decide. It's in the state park closest to home - part of the park actually borders my property, although that's not the part of the park where the race will be.

 

Leslie, that sounds like a tough run this morning - I hope mine tomorrow goes better.

 

SloHand, looking forward to your RR!

 

I just came in from 5.5 miles around the hilly neighborhood. I only took the dogs for the first 1.3 because Ladybug is limping.  Cool and light rain again today - IRC for running but not for just hanging out outside.

4 miles of walking today along with more travel stress than normal.

 

26.2 easy miles tomorrow (plus another 2.5 miles to/from my hotel and the start shuttle/finish area).  This is why I do 50ks as training runs... so I can handle running a marathon *and* getting back to my room.

The dinky 2 1/2 hour flight went very wrong.

 

The weather was crummy.  We were about 100 feet off the runway when either the pilot or the tower gave the abort command and up we went.  Now, because of where the San Diego airport is located (right next to downtown), this meant that we went from landing speed to full throttle with a huge climbing angle.  It seemed a little like an Apollo launch, though I know I'm being overdramatic by saying that.

 

Anyway.  Up we went.  Turns out that the plane right in front of us was the last one they let land before they shut down the whole airport for fog.  Our plane and dozens of others had to circle.  Except that we had no gas... so we went to Palm Springs and landed.

 

And waited.  Nobody could get off.  We sat.  tick tick tick tick

 

Then they decided they had a maintenance issue with a deicer (and, of course, ice is a worry when you are planning to take off in 102 degree heat).  So they worked on it.  tick tick tick.

 

2 hours went by.  They announced we were ready to go.  Pre-flight briefing, start the engines, and.... shut them down again.  It seems that Air Traffic Control into San Diego is very backed up and we'll have to sit "at least another 30 minutes".

 

Now, 3 hours have passed since we landed at the wrong airport and they've held us kind of hostage.  They decide to open the door "for 15 minutes" so people can go inside and stretch their legs.  This was very kind of them, but OTOH, this means that actually finding all the passengers and getting folks situated when Air Traffic Control released us would be a long, drawn out process.  tick tick tick

 

I realized that I had a decision to make.  It was 1p.  The expo for San Diego rnr would close at 5p.  The drive between Palm Springs and SD is 2 1/2 hours in normal traffic (ie, no accidents).  If they'd let me, I could jump off the plane and go rent a car and make it in time.  However, if I sat waiting on the plane to take off, I might miss that window and then be totally at their mercy.  2p would be the absolute cut-off if I wanted to drive (especially since I didn't know where I was going).

 

So I asked to bail.  The flight attendant didn't understand my question and she got really snippy with me, and thus started a really weird debate that was anchored firmly in "we are talking about two different things".

 

But after a bit, I was allowed to leave.

 

And then a harrowing journey at perhaps faster than the posted speed limit to get to San Diego and find the convention center.  Luckily, the only bad accident (a nasty rollover with a miles-long backup) was in the other direction.

 

The expo was due to close at 5p.  If I missed it, the trip would be wasted because SD does not do day-of-race pickup AND they don't allow someone else to pick up your stuff.

 

I got there about 4:15.  It was too crowded to shop what seemed to be a pretty cool expo, and all the good rnr paraphenalia was gone anyway, but I didn't care.  I got my number and returned my car to the airport.

 

Oh, and if you've never done it, renting a car at location A and returning it at location B can be really easy or really hard (and expensive) depending on if they need cars at B.  In this case, it was only somewhat pricey.  I wound up spending $58 plus $25 gas for the privilege of using a car for 5 hours.

 

But I got here.

 

No idea if/when my plane did.  Turns out, they listed the arrival time for the flight as the time it landed in Palm Springs.  Those government mandated on-time statistics are a bunch of hokum.

wow!!! that was a trek you most likely will not want to repeat in the near future.

I hope you rip that race course tomorrow after such a huge stressful trip.

rock on king.