red hair and black leather

Today was my first run in a while - between being sick and then Vegas on Thursday and Friday, I've not been able to really run. The few runs I was able to bang out while sick sucked, to say the least. (This also led to me gaining about 7 pounds and then bitching to la_perkins about being fat. She, amazingly, did not kill me, but just ignored me with her usual aplomb.)

So! Today, I drag my ass out of bed at dark o'clock, grab my iPod, and go. The first 3 songs are Mindless Self Indulgence, Gym Class Heroes and MSI again, which, awesome. Then, my iPod played me nothing but MCR. It even fucking ended the run on "Famous Last Words", which makes it impossible for me to quit until the damn song is done.

Clearly, my iPod wants to save my life. I'm okay with that.

On the other hand, I've been thinking these up on my mid-day runs for a while now. I take my lunch hour and run the Embarcadero and then go home, shower & go back to work. It's a nice break.

You're a runner if...

Your cocktail shaker is most often used for protein shakes.

You judge every song on how easy it would be to run to. (Hint: Bob Seger is uniformly excellent.)

You'll spend more money on your running kit than your work clothes.

Your get excited about how the lead characters run in movies like The Bourne Identity and Casino Royale.

You're a runner in San Francisco if...

They're not tourists, they're obstacles.

"Against The Wind" is always really freakin' appropriate.

A ten percent grade is a mild slope.

The panhandlers & buskers comment on your running style.

You have to fight with the pigeons and seagulls for running space.

Instead of stray dogs, you worry about grumpy sea lions.

You have to dress to combat driving rain and sun & heat. In the same run.

You seriously consider stopping in for a shot of Fernet as you run past your favorite bar. Or any bar. (That last one might be just me, though.)

Random squee-ables:

• aimeejmc will be here on Friday! And there will be rampaging and dinner and wandering and the Komen Race For The Cure! Yay!


• First weekend of October, I will be in Nashville with smonsterbite, luluminion, wildgreentide, and alterjess! Huzzah!


• I may crosses fingers have a bartending gig. More as things develop. Bounce!


• I have a gift cert. for a mani/pedi and another one for a massage. Yum!


• I will be seeing Lucero in October and I just got their new CD & buttons in the mail. SQUEE!


• I'll be seeing Joan Jett in November and The Dixie Chicks at some point with la_perkins! Music-licious!


• I've been working out often & consistently for over a month and I'm seeing very good results. Healthy!


• I have a very good man in my life, and I'll get to introduce him to more friends this weekend. Awwwwwww.

So, what's good in your life?

A work friend just informed me of two races, and I've dragooned aimeejmc into running at one of them with me. Whee!

1st: Komen Race For The Cure, Sunday, September 24th, 9 a.m. 5K out-and-back, Embarcadero. Very good cause, short & sweet, fun! I could even possibly get a PR there.

2nd: Bridge to Bridge Race, Sunday, October 1st, 9 a.m. 12K point-to-point, Ferry Building to Crissy Field. Partially flat, but there's a 30% grade in there. I know that hill. That hill is eeeeeeevil. Still. 7.5 miles is a respectable distance, and one I'd like to get back up to. I definitely wouldn't be trying for a PR on that course.

Especially when it tells you to quit.

Mile 10, my knee gave out on me, and I went home.

I'm sad and disappointed, but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Thanks for your support, everyone.

I find this charming. Therefore, my list:

1) Autumn is coming up fast, and autumn in Minnesota is one of my favorite things in the world. The smell, the colors, the sounds... So very nice.

2) Both of the shows I'm working on are on track to sell very well. They're also very good pieces of theater. Doing good work is very cheerful-making.

3) I'm in the best shape I've been in in a while. All the better to run the marathon with, my dear....

That last one is the one I've been thinking about the most, actually. In the past few days, my body has been in a really good place in terms of running. Yes, I'm tired, but I'm very close to the weight I'd like to be for the race, and I've got more muscle tone than I had before, which will help propel me the 26.2 miles. Also, my form has greatly improved from last year (I started copying Meb). This week is the final push, and then it's tapering for three weeks until the marathong. that also means that I have to stop drinking after this weekend. Less time running=less calories burned, and I don't need the empty ones from booze. It'd be fine if the various casts weren't so damn sociable.

There are still aging-related changes that I don't like - I've whinged about them before, so I'll restrict myself to noting that I really don't appreciate the increased healing time. All in all, though, I feel good (I knew that I would now), and I'm ready to run a good, possibly final race.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have calories to consume before tomorrow's 20-mile run. Carbo-Loading "R" Us.

really need to not drink as heavily or stay up as late as I did this weekend. I cannot afford this rock'n'roll lifestyle. Either Saturday or Sunday by themselves would have been fine, but the combo is killer.

I did have fun, though. Friday night, we opened The President Once Removed to a mostly positive crowd, and then Z & I drove around to each of the other 14 Fringe venues to drop off postcards. We missed Fringe Central or whatever they're calling it this year, because it's at the Suburban World which was on the wrong side of the Uptown Art Fair. We hates the Fair, precious. Anyhoo. Finished that, watched some Eddie Izzard, went to bed.

Saturday, Z worked & I ran 13 miles and cleaned the apartment. After his shift, Z brought home a couple friends of ours and we all sat up drinking and talking politics, religion, et al., until 4 a.m. Hoo. I was not happy Sunday morning or afternoon, I tell you what.

However, Sunday did have Kung Fu Hamlet in store for us, and nothing can be that bad when you're watching a cheestastic kung-fu rendition of Hamlet. Holy hell, I laughed a lot. V. funny. Then, we cleaned up a bit more, napped, and then went to the Market for karaoke, which was a little crazy last night. In the good way, not in the scary postal worker convention way. Lots of dancing. I sang "Shoop", which is one of my favorite sings evAR. But, I did drink, and I did stay up until 2. So I'm paying for it today. Eeesh.

New iconage, yay.

Tonight, a bunch of "us girls" are going to see Lick!, which is apparently a spoof on male dancers. Ya gotta love Fringe.

I decide that I need to watch Pippen on the treadmill. Although it's nice enough to run outside - I think. I'm just so lazy about slapping on sunscreen, and the treadmill is miles easier on my knees, even with the incline on. Since I've already proven that I'm prone to knee pain/irritation/injury, I think I'll be sticking with the treadmill as long as I can. If world-class marathoners can do it, so can I.

Yes, I'm justifying it to myself. There's a little voice in my head going, "You're not a REAL runner, j. You're a wimp. You know the treadmill's doing all of the work for you." I need to beat the crap out of that little voice. I also need to get my mileage up.

I'm looking at the training plan I picked, and I can see it's just not going to work. I won't have a problem making mileage (I don't think), but I can't tie myself down to "I will be long-running every Sunday" or "I will do my tempo run on Wednesday". There's days when I know I can run 12 miles without a problem, and then there's days when making it 4 miles is an uphill slog through waist-deep mud, and those days rarely follow a regular pattern. Also, I don't like how they've structured their tempo runs. So, I guess I'll list off the workouts that need to be done in that week, and go through them as seems appropriate for that week (keeping in mind that tempo runs should always precede long runs, and rest days are important). Gamma girl strikes again.

I'll be in Eugene this weekend, and I hope to take advantage of the town's excellent park & trail facilities. We'll see if my mom is okay with that much "alone time", or if family obligations prevent such workouts.


Need to remember to carve out time for weights and yoga. I always feel much better and see faster results when I do.

So, I'm looking at the Runner's World training plans. They've got two for intermediate-level runners, one being detailed and planny and the other being much more like "go for a tempo run today - 6 miles". I think I like the planny one best, though I'm not planning to follow either of them strictly. They're more guidelines than a code.

Anyway. I'm doing the math and following along for what they recommend for someone going for a 10-minute pace, which is a bit slower than my goal (4 hours and 20 minutes, which is a 9:55 pace), and I realize that if I wanted to, I could run a 4 hour marathon this year. I could probably run a nine-minute pace. I'm already running faster than what they lay out for the first few weeks, and for about the same distances, too.

Guess I've found my pie-in-the-sky goal: a sub-4, 9:00 pace marathon. Realistic goal: 4:10 - 9:33 pace. Acceptable: 4:20 - 9:55 pace.


And now, quizzes!

( Curses, foiled again. )

( Betcha the Leos get Han Solo. They're greedy like that. )

Yessir, it's been 6 months since I decided to take a header off of a veranda. Another 10 days, and it will have been 6 months since my surgery to correct the damage caused by said header. 2 titanium plates, countless Percosets, and half a year later, I am here. Now I get to go to the doc and find out if any nasssssty bloodborne illnesses found their way in during all of that excitement in various hospitals. If the answer is negative, I get to get another tattoo. Yay!

My bodily recovery has been nothing short of amazing. None of my dentists nor the CT scan tech could tell that there had been any damage to my right cheekbone (until they started working on the affected area, of course). I wonder if it's too late to send a thank you to the ENT specialist who restored my face?

The mental recovery - we know how that's going. Slowly, slowly....


I have to move cubes today. Not only that, but I'm also the one in charge of moving all of the mail station crap. Not that that's ever been expressly pointed out to me, but I know it just the same, because I am the maid of the floor. I'm sure I'll do it wrong, just like I set up the copy room wrong (oh horrors, I set it up how it would be best and easiest for me to use it, because I'm the one who basically lives in there).

Uber-competitive people and perfectionist bosses annoy the everliving fuck out of me. "I *must* win! Ha ha, I won and you didn't! Nyah ne-nyah nyah nyah nyah!" "This isn't the way I want it, and it's your fault. Don't take any initiative, because you won't do it the way I want you to." A hearty fuck you to both classes of people. I wish I could actually say it to faces, but Miss Manners and our bank account forbid such dangerous living.


I ran 9 miles on Wednesday. I meant it to be 10, but I accidentally knocked the Emergency Stop button out at 9 miles and figured it was a Sign. Yesterday, I slept from 6 until 10 and from midnight until 7 this morning. Hmmm. Perhaps one should not run 9 miles and then go out drinking until 1:30 a.m. unless one can sleep in the next day? It's a thought. Since my general health and well-being improves dramatically when I have a 9+ mile run every 10 days (at the very least), I'll have to remember that little fact.


Not much going on this weekend. Take Me Out closes. We have Streetcar rehearsal on Saturday. We found a stage manager for Streetcar! Yay! I'l probably still have to house manage most nights, but that's a better deal. I won't have to watch the show every night - I'll be able to hang out in the lobby and read books. I like that kind of gig.


It's frickin' rainy and cold. Dammit. It's May! I should have packed my winter sweaters a long time ago!


I'd best go pack up my cube. Whee.


What are you planning for this weekend?