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Posts tagged ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’

Jul 25

My first ‘heavy medal’

I had to stop by my parent’s house on Monday to help my brother figure out some financial aid paperwork for school. He’ll be going into his third year at University of the Pacific in Stockton, my alma mater. Each year funding cuts have meant more “figuring out” when it comes to how we can afford to make college work for him.

So I told him I’d stop by and look over his paperwork. When I did, my mom motioned toward a cabinet next to the door.

“You have something there,” she said.

I looked down to the small little package from Competitor Group and I immediately knew it could only be one thing.

My first heavy medal.

Everything I’ve ever been told about these heavy medals is so true. Yes, it is really “heavy.” Yes, it’s beautiful. And yes, it felt awesome to get it in the mail. I can’t even describe how excited I was to get it in the mail.

I’m on track to earn a Triple Crown with if I finish the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon in October.

To earn the Rock Encore medal, I completed the half marathon in Pasadena (not my best race experience) and the full 26.2 miles of misery I ran in San Diego. The latter event was only on June 3. I kind of feel like that’s a nice turnaround.

The original medals from those events weren’t too shabby either.

I love the Pasadena one because it has the bridge we ran across (said to be haunted even). I love the San Diego one because I earned it. That day, I really earned it. It was a tough, tough run.

A lot of races offer incentives such as extra medals to bring people back. Some runners compete as many of these events as possible to earn the biggest bling. I’m often not lured in by extras like this, if only because I’ve spent the past year figuring out what “my” events would be. I’ve tried a lot, not liked some, decided to go back to others.

The Oakland Half Marathon is one of the races I consider “mine.” No extra glam needed.

I was up in the air, though, about registering again for one of the San Francisco Marathon half events immediately after I finished it last year. (Now San Francisco is one of my favorite running destinations despite the killer hills.)

But then I was sent a notice about the Half it All Challenge.

Runners completing the 1st Half Marathon and the 2nd Half Marathon within a two year period, no matter the order, will get an awesome
“spinner” medal.

The medal is as big as the regular marathon medal, but has color added in and a nice ribbon. You get that on top of the key-chain medal participants get for running a half marathon.

It’s a pretty sweet piece of bling.

Last year, I ran the 2nd Half Marathon because I was utterly afraid of the 1st Half elevations. Then I ran the Nike Women’s Half in October. I was told the hills for the 1st Half aren’t nearly as bad as that. I can only hope that’s true.

So, rather than sign up to run the 2nd Half again, which I’m not sure I would have done. This Sunday, I’ll be waking up and getting a very early start (think 6:12 a.m.) in the dark on the Embarcedero in San Francisco for the 1st Half. I’m excited to be running across the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time ever.

But I’m also nervous about starting with so many runners at the beginning. Last year’s 2nd Half didn’t join the rest of the pack until later, and even then the bathroom lines were crazy. Let’s be real: I always worry about going to the bathroom before a race. It’s simple fact. I don’t want to start without going. There. I said it. This is a problem for me. I get very anxious about it.

I digress.

Did I sign up for the race because of the bling? No, there were other reasons. But the medal is a nice addition. And earning it (hopefully this half, my first since March, will be better than what I’d been doing, if not by time, then by experience) will be a nice cherry on top of the already sweetened deal of running across an iconic bridge.

 

Feb 21

Rockin’ through Pasadena: Part II

I figured I’d be out incredibly quick on Saturday night. I’d worked an 11.5 day before and fell fast asleep on Friday only to have to wake up early to get ready for Sam to pick me up. I stayed awake for the trip. I can’t exactly sleep on the road.

And I had a headache by the time I went to bed. So I took an Ibuprofen hoping I wouldn’t wake up with a nasty one the next morning.

That wouldn’t be the problem. No. I couldn’t even get to sleep.

When I finally opened my eyes for real at 4:53 a.m. I knew that it wasn’t going to the best day for running. My whole body was dragging.

Too much work and no sleep kind of does that. But we got dressed and ventured out.

We made our way to the Rose Bowl and only got stuck behind about 10-minutes worth of traffic getting into the parking lot. It wasn’t a bad parking situation actually. We made our way quickly from the car to the staging area. The portable toilets were plenty. I’m not kidding, there were enough toilets that it didn’t seem like there were any people waiting.

Nice. That was good because my stomach was turning knots. One after another. My stomach was killing me.

I’m not even going to pretend to do a recap. Every mile was painful. Every mile was hard.

And this is what it looked like:

OK. I didn’t hit the 13-minute average range. But still. This was a bad run. I did a Gu on mile four and mile eight.

That propelled me through a little bit. But it wasn’t enough. I just never picked up pace. At mile 10, though, I felt as if I could run awhile longer. I did. Then my butt started hurting, as if I pulled a muscle or something.

Then I slowed again.

Along the way were beautiful sites, including the Colorado Blvd. bridge, and Old Pasadena.

There was a ton of cheering. This was my second Rock ‘n’ Roll event, and I have to say I enjoyed it just as much as the first in terms of fun, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I was tired.

Too tired.

And by the time I reached the end at 2:48:19 I knew I’d given it all I could.

I pushed myself a little farther, passed the finish line and was handed my medal by a nice volunteer who gave me some strong encouragement.

I snapped this photo as I saw a member of the Half Fanatics group as for a second medal for his sister, he said. And, more shocking, the volunteer actually gave him one. Really? Wow.

I loved the medal. I actually held it nearly the entire way home because it’s so awesome and I really felt like I’d earned it for the five or six times I felt like quitting during this one.

When I got to the finish, I waited for Sam as they tried to kick me multiple times out of the area. I actually stood in one place for about 10 minutes before being asked to move. And yet a lot of people were around that weren’t being asked to move. I think I was just annoyed, which made this all feel so much worse.

Ugh. Double ugh. Triple ugh.

Then Sam crossed the finish line:

She’s somewhere in all that. She grabbed her medal and we headed off into the rest of the finisher’s area, which wasn’t nearly as packed as it was in San Jose during the October event.

I grabbed a Gatorade and some water. A volunteer gave me a heatsheet, even though it seemed a little warm and, by then, I’d already put on long-sleeve shirt.

And I was done.

The one good thing about this half was that the band that played at the end was Sugar Ray. I was really looking forward to seeing them, especially since I should have been finishing around the time they started playing.

By the time we finally got to the finish, after picking up our bags from bag check and getting some food, Sugar Ray was in the last half hour of the concert.

But they rocked.

I have some great video of Mark McGrath rocking the cowbell which I’ll post another time. Overall it was an excellent concert. When it was over, we headed to the merchandise tent where I picked up the gray shirt photographed above. And we headed to the car. It was a quick ride back to the hotel room where we cleaned up and packed within an hour.

And then, it was back on the road, our whirlwind trip to Pasadena ending.

Four and a half hours after we hit the road, we were home. I was tired. I fell asleep quickly on Sunday night, which was great because of the Monday holiday.

And now, as I reflect on it, I think part of me knows it was the result of fatigue. But I also know I’ve gained some weight recently that hasn’t helped.

I run the Oakland Half in a month or so. I want to be more prepared for it than I was for this. I thought I was prepared for this. Nope.

Now I’m taking a look at my diet and training plan to see where I went wrong. I know bad runs happen, but they also make a runner reflect on what he or she did wrong and right. That’s where I am right now.

So did I really rock through Pasadena? No. Was it still a good time? Of course. And I’m glad I did it, despite the pain and discomfort of all 13.22 miles.

Feb 20

Rockin’ through Pasadena: Part I

My car breaking down on Thursday should have been the first indication that things for our quick overnight trip to Pasadena weren’t going to go as planned.

At 70 miles per hour, my throttle body went out. I drove it to the dealership. The damage? $1,650. Even worse, I don’t get it back until sometime Wednesday or Thursday of this week because of the long holiday.

I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a repeat of last year when it was gone for two weeks. Still crossing my fingers on that one.

In any case, our plans for me to drive changed fairly quickly. Sam, last year, mentioned wanting to do more of the Rock ‘n’ Roll runs because they reward runners with some awesome swag if you do more than one. (Heavy medals anyone?)

So we signed up for Pasadena, the first California Rock ‘n’ Roll Half during 2012. It was also an inaugural event for the series.

We knew it was going to be a quick trip, basically there and back all within a less than 48-hour period. But it turned out to be a bit more strange than we were anticipating.

We left at 9:30 a.m. from Tracy and headed down Interstate 5 toward Pasadena. The trip was, basically, uneventful. Except there were a lot of idiots who didn’t feel the need to move over when they weren’t going the speed limit in the fast lane. Of note: I was tired. I ended up working an 11.5 hour day because my car broke down and I needed to take it to the dealership Friday morning. More on that later.

We stopped and ate in Buttonwillow, about 20 minutes from the beginning of the Grapevine, the stretch of Interstate 5 that weaves into the Los Angeles basin.

There was never a point where we weren’t going to make it before 5 p.m. but I think we kind of rushed down hoping for an expo to the degree of the San Jose one last October. That wasn’t what we came to.

The front of the pickup line was empty.

Sam and I had little trouble walking up to get our numbers. Next came the shirt booth.

The shirts for this half were actually fitted. Much better than last time in San Jose when Sam and I both got medium sized shirts only to have them basically be dresses on both of us. I opted for a Brooks large, which gives me a little extra room. This shirt has a nice back/front design. The front is above.

This is the back:

We also got our swag bags which serve as gear-check bags too. The Rock ‘n’ Roll series and the San Francisco Marathon, where I did the second half last year, are the only other races that I’ve been given a gear-check bag that’s actually a decent reusable bag. Nike gave me a heavy plastic bag, but not the same quality.

It’s good because I didn’t bring something for bag check and we ended up actually using it since we were there alone, without anyone picking us up.

We made our way through the Brooks area where they sale merchandise. I ended up buying a shirt.

Then we checked out the booths. There weren’t many. We did get some awesome samples of organic cake. That was a plus. We got some Snicker Marathon bar samples too.

It was a beautiful day outside the expo.

And inside we got to see the beautiful medal we’d be getting after finishing.

But there wasn’t much there. We did get $15 off for signing up for the Oct. 7 Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose half marathon. We also got a free shirt for the inaugural Pasadena event since they didn’t have any San Jose shirts. Had I of know we’d be scoring those awesome shirts, I probably wouldn’t have bought another one. A day later and I’m wearing the teal-colored T-shirt at home.

After only 45 minutes, we were done. I don’t even think I spent that little time at my first half marathon expo.

We did score a pair each of CEP compression sleeves. Sam opted for black for her first pair ever. I went a little wild with pink.

They look at little something like this:

I actually wore them during the race and they were incredibly comfortable. And I love the color.

So we headed to our hotel, which was a Travelodge on a main street through Pasadena. It was quaint, and OK for the price we paid. But we had a problem: We had about five hours to kill and nothing to do.

Sam started looking at places we could potentially go. We ended up heading to the Citadel Outlets in Los Angeles. Sam needed a water bottle. Despite our best efforts, we didn’t find out. We did find shoes. Lots of shoes. Well, only one pair for me, but lots of shoes for her.

She ended up with four pairs on an amazing sale. And then we decided we needed food. I had a bit of a headache. We opted for a restaurant literally right down the street from the place we were staying. We should have tried something else.

To say it was the worst experience I’ve had eating out might be an understatement. We waited nearly an hour between the time we sat down and the time we ate.

I didn’t tip. The waiter refused to even acknowledge us most the night. (Did I mention we had some crazy experienced on the 110 freeway in Pasadena? Wow, it was nuts. We saw two nearly overturned cars in two places this weekend. Seriously, it was amazing.)

We then headed back to the hotel to settle down. Sam seemed to fall asleep immediately. Not me.

About an hour after I went to bed and I still wasn’t asleep someone checked into the room above us. It must have been a group with girls. They laughed for hours until they went to bed. I couldn’t sleep. I turned on the fan on the window cooler for white noise. Still no sleep.

I finally got t sleep only to awake twice in the night.

I knew when I finally woke up for good at 4:53 a.m. that I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. We had to be at the Rose Bowl before 6:30 to be assured a parking space (which we paid $10 for). It was dark. We looked for a Walgreens too. Nothing.

When we finally made our way to the Rose Bowl it actually wasn’t a bad parking arrangement. We got in and out of the car pretty quickly.

And we had an hour or so to go before race time. Good thing, too, because my stomach was feeling a little bad.

I should have known that was a sign of something bad. But I didn’t realize my run would be one of my worst yet.

Feb 19

A (half) marathon trip

We left at 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning. We ran at 7:30 a.m. Sunday. We hit the road for home at 1 p.m. after the race.

It was a whirlwind trip from Tracy to Pasadena and back.

I finished the half marathon, an inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll event, in 2:48:19.

It was definitely not a day for me to be racing. I was tired. Too much work in the past week, mixed in with a long drive and only about four hours of sleep because of noisy hotel neighbors made for a fairly lame race.

I was tired.

I’m planning a full recap tomorrow, since it’s a holiday and I have some time. But despite the fact that it wasn’t my best race ever, I had a good time away from home for a night.

I’m so tired now. So very tired.

Oct 2

Rocking my way to a new PR

I’m going to say I’m disappointed. I was consistent for nine miles of this race. My aim was to run a 11:30 mile or under. In fact, I was moving along so well, I actually ran seven miles under an 11-minute mile.

I’m actually not disappointed by that. Not at all. In fact, it got me a new half marathon PR by 14 seconds. Yes, only 14 seconds, but still a new PR.

I’m a little upset because I think I could have ran EVERY mile under 11 minutes. I probably could have. But I was getting tired later in the race. My body wanted to keep going. My feet kind of hurt, though.

It wasn’t a total disaster. Quite the opposite actually.

Four weeks ago I couldn’t run at all. I’ve spent a good deal of time reinventing my training plan. I added in rest days. I’ll be adding in cross training this week. I did good today. Only two miles were horrible. And they were under 12:30. And I paced with the 2:15 finisher group for about five miles of the course.

I did well today. I’m allowed to have some regrets, though. I do.

My day started out at 4:45 a.m. I rolled out of bed, took a quick shower and got dressed. I woke Thomas up as I finished packing my gear in the swag bag I got my the Saturday expo.

I grabbed a small bottle of Gatorade and did a 50/50 mix of it and water in my bottle.

We left around 5:45 a.m. to pick up Sam. We were on the road by 6:08 a.m. Moving along. Today’s trip to San Jose went by much faster than yesterdays. No traffic. We were there by 6:50 a.m. We looked around and saw few people. Within 10 minutes thousands were embarking on downtown San Jose.

One of the first sites we see as we make our way to the start line was a huge pack of ambulances. I’m not kidding.

That didn’t sit too well with Sam. She’s a first-time half marathoner. I could understand. No one wants to end up on one of those during a run. (Later in the race she saw a guy go down near mile 12, I’ve been watching the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon Facebook page to see if anyone has information on him, but there is very little confirmed yet).

We checked out the finish line and grabbed some photos before it got too hectic at the main area.

We made or way to the portable commodes (not nearly as cute as the Brooks dressing rooms during the expo) and started warming up. Lots of people were running up and down the street. We kept moving until we had to make our way to Corral 10 for the 2:30 time finishers. I could see 16 corrals in total with about 1,000 each. That’s a lot of runners to get moving that early in the morning.

The race started promptly at 8 a.m. Our corral was projected to move across the start line at 8:07 a.m. We actually went at 8:04 a.m.

My Garmin was under four minutes off race time the entire run. That was nice. I’ve been in races where the clocks are way off, which causes a bit of panic when looking at the Garmin.

Mile 1: 10:14 — Well good morning legs, you are used to the Sunday long runs so lets get you moving.

Mile 2: 10:23 — Not bad timing here. I can see the 2:15 finisher sign.

Mile 3: 10:39 — Bands! We have music.

Mile 4: 10:39 — Lots of cheerleaders out here. Love the cheers about runners.

Mile 5: 10:18 — This pace feels good. Keep moving along.

Mile 6: 10:47 — Ugh oh, getting a little tired. Better have some Gatorade.

Mile 7: 11:38 — Walked one minute when my heart rate did a strange peak.

Mile 8: 11:29 — Moving along, slower now.

Mile 9: 12:26 — Walked through a rather congested water stop AND had a guy step on the back of my shoe and nearly pull it off. Seriously dude, walk much?

Mile 10: 11:47 — That’s a little better, but suddenly feel tired again. More Gatorade.

Mile 11: 11:04 — Yay Gatorade!

Mile 12: 12:25 — That small hill near the end just seems like cruel and unusual punishment. I slowed, but didn’t walk.

Mile 13: Look at Garmin. I’m coming in under 2:30. RUN! RUN! RUN!

Mile .3: 2.42 (average pace of 8:58) — Yeah, I ran 13.3 miles. I wasn’t watching the tangents well with this.

I crossed the finish with an official time of 2:27:20, a new PR by 14 seconds. My Garmin reflected 2:27:27 but I always forget to turn if off exactly as I cross (my husband even asked if I had remembered to turn it off this time, I once drove five miles down the freeway with it still on, that REALLY messed up my time).

Woo for a new PR!

I called Thomas to find out where he was. Turns out he wasn’t too far away. I was handed my medal (which was heavy) and started to figured out if I could wait through the crowd for Sam.

She came in at 2:32:59. She rocked it too even if her initial thought was “finish in under three hours.” She did so, no problem.

We had to make our way out a huge horseshoe-shaped area to the crowd. We were handed water, bananas, oranges and some Snickers Marathon bars. They taste like candy bars, so I keep wondering if they are really good for me.

Sam opted to get her knees wrapped in ice. She tells me if felt really good.

To me it just looked REALLY, REALLY cold.

We sat down for a little bit, just to cool off and decompress. I think both of us needed it. And then we did the obligatory photo opp thanks to Thomas. He was patient enough with us to take our photo and wait while we complained mostly about random stuff and how bad we were hurting.

We headed to the merchandise tent to purchase a new shirt for me. I usually prize my PR shirts and I wasn’t too hot on the unisex size medium I got at the expo. I got a “finisher” size small shirt. I also bought two pint glasses with the race logo (because they were cool) and a pin. All that got me a free shirt, which I gave to Sam (we joked later that it’s because I’m a Dri-Fit snob, I only like clothes I can run in).

Then we hobbled over to P.F. Chang’s for a second day in a row (Sam and I ate there in Plesanton on our way back from the Expo). Our race bibs got us $10 off, so we had lunch for three for only $21. And that included a beer. Good deal.

Overall a successful first half marathon for Sam and a great PR race for me, even if I was a little inconsistent.

Oct 1

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Getting ready to rock it in San Jose

When my friend Sam and I signed up for the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon we did so because we didn’t get admission into the Nike Women’s Half on Oct. 16.

We figured we needed something to train for. Rock ‘n’ Roll would be our October half. It would also be Sam’s first.

By a strange twist of fate Sam, our friend Jennie and I all gained Nike entry in the past month. But that’s for another post.

The race is tomorrow. Today we ventured to San Jose to pick up our race packets (I’m always slightly annoyed by this practice, but understand nonetheless that part of what these races do is bring people into the area) and check out the expo.

Sam had never been to an expo before. I fear she may be spoiled now.

For one, the race medal is awesome. It’s not ridiculously small, like the last two I’ve received. And it’s heavy – very heavy. It’s a beautiful medal. I can’t wait to get one in my hands in fact.

The race packet pick up was by far the best I’ve ever experience. No long waits. In fact, we both walked right up and grabbed our bib numbers. We were handed an extra packet with four safety pins. That was a perk. So often I’m handed bib numbers without any way to attach them to my shirt.

We then moved to the “shirts/swag” area. Our blue Brooks shirts are nice, but they are a unisex size medium and I can swim in it. No kidding. I’m actually kind of in love with races that have sex specific shirts. My favorite so far is from the San Francisco Marathon, but I digress.

We picked up our shirts quickly and found our way to a swag bag table with reusable pull-string backpacks (the first image in this post) that actually double as sweat-check bags. The next stop was the race-specific merchandise area where the prices were a little steep for Brooks gear (one of the sponsors) with official logos on it.

We checked out some of the booths, including some fine Moving Comfort goods. We also checked out some sweet smelling portable toilets (if only because they didn’t actually have a stool in it).

The main floor of the expo was really awesome. There were representatives from big and small name companies. There were brands I’ve ever of and some I never knew existed.

We got free energy bar samples. We tried some recovery drinks (Sam found the Muscle Milk booth) and checked out the booths for other races, including the Oakland Running Festival which we’ll be hitting up in March.

We got to a small booth hidden away on the side of the hall where we got race-size Body Glide for $1. I also got a larger stick for $7, which is as much as I paid for my smaller stick awhile back.

I also found a neon green pair of Zensah compression sleeves for my legs. I’m not too keen on the color, but at $25 the price was right and I figured if I wear them at night people will at least people able to see me.

I’ve already tried them on and I love them. I don’t think they’ll be making their debut in the race tomorrow, but I might try them on one of my shorter runs sometime this week. The sleeves are much more neon green than the photo shows, believe me.

Sam had her stance evaluated at one booth. I think she would have taken the plunge and bought some new insoles if they weren’t so expensive.

We then found a booth for “The Stick” massage stick. The representative literally spent a minute on my leg and I was convinced I needed to own one. I’m planning on rubbing my leg out later with it before I go to sleep tonight.

I may have to add it to my “favorites” list if I love it enough. Sam wasn’t as convinced, but she felt the deep tissue version.

That said, she ended up buying a sweet little massager for her muscles. While she was getting a preview at that booth I saw that Marshall Ulrich of “Running on Empty” fame. I ordered his book from amazon.com the other day. I’m supposed to get it on Monday.

But then I saw him there. I nearly had a squeal running geek girl moment. I contemplated not going over to shake his hand and say hello. I was recommended his book by a friend who said it would be a good read when training for a marathon.

I sucked up my nerve and went over and said hi. I could barely ask questions I was so nervous (awkward for a journalist, yes). I talked to him and bought a book on the spot. I’ll send the amazon.com one back. He signed my copy. It was totally worth it. I’ve never been so inspired during a five-minute conversation with someone.

Seriously. He signed my book saying “the only limitations are in your mind.” I’m using that to get through the 13.1 tomorrow. And, hopefully, the 26.2 in December.

Our parking meter was coming close to expiring, so we had to get moving quickly. It was too bad too because Sam was actually loving the whole expo experience. I’ve been to three other expos for half marathons and this was the best of them all. It was well-lit, had a lot of free swag and good deals on other items. Garmin was even there with a booth. I nearly bought a new heart-rate monitor, but I figured I’d wait until mine actually went out.

I’m stoked about running this half marathon for a couple reasons. The first is that there is entertainment along every mile. I think I’m going to enjoy that. The second is that it’s the first half since I hurt my leg in August. I thought for a minute there that I may not run the rest of the year. I had a two-week period where all I wanted to do was cry because my leg hurt so bad.

I feel good about this run. Now I just need to pick out what I’m wearing.

Sep 27

The worst kind of email

This showed up in my inbox this morning just as I was about to leave work:

A race I signed up for just recently, a New Year’s Eve race somewhere other than near my house at that, was postponed until 2012.

A year from this New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t believe it. I went to the Facebook page and saw nothing. I clicked the link, but didn’t ask for my money back quite yet because I thought, maybe, it was sent out in error.

I went to a meeting with my running buddy Sam about a possible new addition to our workout schedule (more on that in a later post) and came home to find the Rock ‘n’ Roll Facebook page devoted to the race flooded with both positive and negative comments.

I’m bummed. I usually get update emails or things telling me hot to pick up a race packet and get really excited.

This is the first email I’ve received telling me I won’t be running something. And I was looking forward to this for a few reasons.

I’m training for the California International Marathon. It’s on Dec. 4.

I’ve spent most of the past six months training for it. I’m starting to significantly ramp up my mileage here in a couple weeks. And I have a sense of dread when I think about running it.

I’m scared. I don’t know if I’ll finish. Some training days I don’t even know if I’ll start. That’s kind of scary.

So I signed up for the New Year’s Eve run to take my mind off the impending doom feeling of my first marathon. There was something to look forward to then at the end of the year. Plus I never make plans for New Year’s Eve, ever.

My husband usually hangs out with a friend. I stay home. I’m kind of lame like that.

So I got really excited because I got to run 13.1 (which I know now I can handle) AND I got to party afterward. I even had my dress and shoes picked out for the party. So I’m bummed. I’m bummed I don’t get to run and I’m bummed I basically now don’t have plans for New Year’s Eve.

I’m not sure if it’s an omen either because I’m running the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose half marathon this weekend. I’m supposed to do race packet pickup on Saturday and run on Sunday. Sam was going to sign up this weekend. She was even going to inquire about a place to stay down there this weekend.

This is way different than the email I got a couple weeks ago with really good news. That one told me I was now a member of Team Somersaults for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon. (I’m hoping to write a WHOLE lot about that later.) That was a great email. This one not so much.

I know there are other races to enter around that time. I also know that I can do something else. But with everything I’ve dedicated to running in the last year, I thought it would be fun to ring out 2012 on a running note. Too bad.

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