Friday and Feeling Good

Yes, it's Friday! I'm looking out the window from the home office (the room with the desk/bed combo - real fancy) and I see blue skies and no wind. I just watched the better half and the two crazies walk across the street to the park. What an amazing day. Come on...what global warming?

Look...it's a tree.

What could be better than today? How about yesterday? Finally got to a point where my legs felt strong enough to get out and run. Did the old faithful 6-mile out and back along the delta in the early evening. (I really wish I had my camera or cell phone with me). Heading out, I watched the sun drop and slip behind Mt Diablo (you can see it clearly from our house in the fall when the crap is out of the air). Perfect weather. I left my watch and ipod at home and went into Forrest Gump mode. On the return trip, I decided to up the speed a bit (I can't help it) and it felt great. Cruised the last half mile for my first run over 1 mile in 2.5 weeks. I'm back! Grabbed the dog and headed over to the park to let him chase the ball around for awhile. Damn I missed running. Today, I was thinking of running to the gym but I don't think I want to go inside more than I already have to. I'll probably take the dog out running and let him jump in the delta today.

Have a great weekend everyone!

BTW, I really need to shave today. I'm starting to get that Mutual of Omaha/Grizzly Adams thing going on. Working from home is bad for your hygiene.

Grizzly Adams did have a beard!

Some fellow bloggers are running the Javelina Jundred this weekend. Here's the link to the live tracker for the race. I put it here so I don't have to go find it later.

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Reset

I needed a new post because I was tired of the last one already. I'm over that issue and it seems a bit too angry for here. Besides, tonight starts the new softball season in Manteca. We usually stay close to home to play, but when it gets late in the year, we move our team down to a new league, about 20 miles away. Check out these fields. Each one is a replica of a real baseball stadium. Very cool.

It's been 2 weeks now since San Francisco 1-Day and I'm ready to end my running vacation/recovery period. I can't stand it anymore and I feel like I've gained 5 pounds of Biggest Loser fat. My calf/back of the knee area still has some soreness to it but I'm able to stretch and roll it out. There's not a lot of explosion in that area so I think the best approach for me will be to start building up some support muscle in my legs (thighs, hammies) while going relatively easy on the running. In other words, it's Crossfit time again.

That's it for now. Good health to all...

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My Team = Dog Sh...

Brief detour from normal stuff to rant about my softball team. Last night, we had our playoffs scheduled for softball. We played at 6:00 and if we won, we would play again at 8. Well sure enough, game time comes and we're missing 4 players from our team (yes that's right - 4!). So we're sitting there ready to get up to bat (we're visitors) and we only have 7 guys. The rule is you can play the game until the end of the 2nd inning, and then you have to have at least 8 guys to continue.

We get up and end up batting around twice and go up 9 - 0, with our 7 guys. Of course, when we go out in the field, we're pretty much F'd because you have some big old holes in the field with only 7. Still, we "only" gave up 11 runs and the score is 11-9 after 1. No sign of anyone else. We get up again and this time only score 2 to tie. They get up one more time and finish us off 14-11 and the game ends due to not enough players. It was the funnest 2-inning game I've ever played. Super pissed at the no-shows.

If you're gonna be on the team, how about showing up once in awhile? Especially the playoffs! Damn!

Of course, we still had to have our post-game beers. Although, who in the hell brought the MGD 64's? That stuff is horse pee. At least give us the Belgian stuff (i.e. Bud).

Ok. I'm good. Next season starts Monday (minus a few people)...

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Wash Me

As you can see, I decided to clean up the blog a bit. I figured it was about time to modify the look and feel and add a bit more organization. I wanted to use a different template than the standard ones provided by blogger. Since I didn't have enough time to create my own template from scratch, I found something I liked and could quickly modify at OurBloggerTemplates.com. I also found the header image there which I ended up having a little fun with. I extracted my picture from the end of the Skyline to the Sea 50k and added it to the background. Makes me look really mighty! Ha Ha! It is very Tongue-in-cheek.


As for actual running/training...I haven't done any! And I'm Halloween fat! Ok, yesterday I did a slow jog around the neighborhood to test out the leg. It's weird, I think my calf and knee have merged into a new kind of muscle-ligament injury-pain. I can't really tell where the source of soreness is coming from. I'll keep rolling it out on the foam roller and see what happens. I am definitely ready to fire up the training again - or at least get moving and start maintenance mode until next year. The only thing I have planned right now is for a 10k on Thanksgiving morning. Since I'll be pushing either a 4-year or a 2-year old in a jogger and not going for time, I'm not concerned about "training" for it. My only concern will be on keeping said 4- or 2-year old in a jogger for an hour. Tell you the truth, I'm not even sure the 4-year fits in the jogger anymore. Oh well. We do have our softball playoffs tomorrow (make up from last week's rain), so I'll find out if my leg wants to play games with me.

Take care everyone. Please let me know what you think of the new look and good luck to everyone racing this weekend.

Oh yeah two more things... Congratulations and good luck to Obama. Time to clean up 8 years of poo.

And speaking of poo, I'm a bit embarrassed and ashamed to say that my home state of California passed Prop 8, which denies same-sex couples the right to marry. I have no idea how to talk to my kids about these things, but I do know that everyone deserves equal rights. By the way, I hate politics.

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