A Case of the Runs

Another year, another Halloween (see here and here for a bunch of previous costumes and pumpkins!) Here is my contribution to the slew of themed posts today: NOTE: Organic pumpkins seem more difficult to carve because of their thinner skin and inability to stay fresh for very long. Keeping in with the video game party theme...

EVENT:  Rock n Roll Los Angeles Half-Marathon DATE: Sunday, October 28, 2012 LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA RACE BEGAN: 07:30 am FINISH TIME: 02:08:23 Since I've done LA Marathon so many times, I was hesitant to sign up for a half-marathon covering similar territory.  However, I was pulled in by a discount and T-shirt the last time I went to a Rock n Roll expo in February . At the expo. This race is meant to be a costumed race, which is something I've never done before (besides our  LA Marathon bunny ears).  Even when I ran the Disneyland Half  a couple of years ago, I didn't really think of wearing a "real" one until it was too late in the starting corrals.  This time, I had a feeling that costumes would be expected, so I put together something simple for "The Ukrainian" and myself. Two weeks left. I guess I could have been more original with my costume, as I saw several other brides, some more simple than me, some with the full-on go

As you probably know, my workouts for the past five months have primarily been Insanity ones.  I started a second round in August and am nearly done , again (I'm on Week 8 of 9). For a something like three weeks, I did follow a P90X/Insanity hybrid schedule, but it wasn't working for me (perhaps I will post more about that another time). One of my most popular posts on this blog has quickly become this " How Hard is It ?" update I did in my first round, so I can see that this program has generated a lot of interest.  [I also recently read that Shaun T got married  this past weekend, so I've been thinking about this program often.] Now that I'm nearly done again, I thought I'd answer some of the frequently-asked questions that I get whenever people find out I'm doing the program again: 1) Why??! The simple answer of why I came back to this program was because P90X wasn't working out, it got WAY too hot to run this summer, and frankly,

I'm not going to write some elaborate, sentimental post about the official sixth anniversary of this blog, but you can find that kind of stuff below: Five  Four  Three  I will say, though, that I'm pretty proud to still be blogging, even though there is total blog OVERLOAD out there.  At a conference I attended recently, they cited IBM's claim that 90% of the world's data was created in the past TWO years.  Can you believe that?!  It is kind of hard to fathom. So... thank you to those who are still reading! 

UPDATED 10/24/12 -- Giveaway is now closed .  The winner is #8, Heidi !  I will email you, but if you miss it, please contact me. ------ Sure, I avoided running a lot during the icky summer, but now that it REALLY can't be much longer before cooler days (it IS October, after all!), it's time to get out there again.   Just because it's cooler doesn't mean you should put the sunscreen away, though.  I've mentioned this quite a few times on this blog, but once you've seen a piece of your skin scalpel-ed off for a biopsy, you will probably not want to "go without" very often at all. I recently got to try a new line of Coppertone sunblock spray, which claims to actually "move" with your skin so that it offers better protection. What did I think of it??  Well, it definitely had a better smell than most spray-on sunscreens I've used, and I really didn't think it felt icky, which is kind of surprising.  It dried on really wel

"Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married, all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me! Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible then marriage would be possible -- Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover so I wait -- bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life."     ~ excerpt from Gregory Corso, " Marriage " (one of my all-time favorite poems) Ready or not, one month is all that separates us from the legal status we call marriage . Growing up, I never considered myself the marrying "type."  At worst, I figured I would become obsolete by the age of 30 and, if not, that "marriage is death."  I'm not exactly sure where all this negativity came from -- although far from perfect, I had many stable marriages serving as my benchmarks of sorts. My past luck was relationships was pre

EVENT:  Long Beach ICB Half-Marathon DATE: Sunday, October 7, 2012 LOCATION: Long Beach, CA RACE BEGAN: 7:00 am FINISH TIME: 02:06:09 Somehow, I feel as though I've done this race five times, but it was actually my fourth time (see here , here , and here for my past three recaps).   I tend to drag and perform sub-optimally in this race because there is a section, miles 7-10 or so, that runs along the beach.  Although this is touted to be something good, to me, it's always boring, and always in the sun.  I guess another reason that I never really run well is because an October race means summer training, and that never really materializes very well. I don't have a lot of additional commentary on the course itself.  Beyond the boring stretch, it's pretty well organized and had adequate aid stations. I've only been running once a week or so for the past few months, since I've been doing Insanity and avoiding the summer heat as much as possible.  Considering