A Case of the Runs

After six Los Angeles Marathon-s, I decided to sit out this year's event. It was a hard decision.  For the last few years, I remember shivering at Dodger Stadium for hours before the race, wondering why I keep putting myself through this.  I haven't exactly been doing well at LA Marathon (save my somewhat-close-to-PR run in 2012 ), and with the growing price tag, I decided to see what would happen if I didn't run it. View of the pier. So "The Ukrainian" registered as usual, and I was now the chauffeur.  This was probably a boon for him, since I was able to drop him off at Dodger Stadium without having to wake up at 3 AM to park in Santa Monica and take a shuttle.  The drop-off area was kind of crazy, but I made it out all right and proceeded to take my sister to the finish area in Santa Monica so she could do the ever-important duty of passing out cold towels at the finish. Since the day's arrangements were not known to me until very close to

I was recently given the opportunity to try the Ensō roller by Evofit.  I have a tried a couple of other popular massaging gadgets and was excited to see one that was customizable. Since I'm not pounding the pavement as often as I used to, I've actually been injury-free for about three years now.  However, once in a while I feel myself getting tight quads and calves.  Worse, my upper back has been an area of constant struggle lately.  I fortuitously won a spa gift card recently and used it for a massage, at which time I was told that my upper back was "really tight."  She proceeded to loosen it up -- painfully! -- and then it took a few days until I would touch the area.  Fast-forward a couple of weeks... still sore.  Carrying my stupid purse/lunch bag during my weekday commute hasn't exactly been helping, either. Anyway, I immediately started arranging the discs per the enclosed instructions.  The discs click into place, and given that I recently saw The L