After days of looking overhead to sights such as this, I now look up to see the plain white ceiling squares of the office. It leaves me feeling a little down. I am, after all, like a flower that needs sunshine and fresh air to thrive.
Archives for July 2010
flex this…and that
Leveraging my training log for Santa Barbara, I’ve populated myCal with a workout plan for Portland. Almost as soon as I laid it all out, I had to modify it in order to accommodate my ever growing social schedule. The camping trip moved up my long run to Friday – so as not to worry about finding 12 consecutive miles (in addition to the time) to run. This week’s 6-mile race with also require some juggling of the schedule by either having me double back on the point-to-point course or move the long run to another day. Then there is DD’s upcoming visit which honestly has moved 3 times already so I’m not sure if any amount of planning will be adequate to account for it.
Honestly, I’ve always needed to be extremely flexible in my training approach. This is the reason Jeff gave me the nickname Gumbyhead shortly after he started coaching me in 2007. When things like fallen trees or downed fences tried to obstruct my training, I’d just “gumby it” and move on. I don’t know why I thought this training would be any different.
Bug bites, bruises, and beautiful memories
We packed up camp and headed down the road a few miles for some time at White Pines Lake. Unlike the Stanislaus River, where most of our hanging out has been, the water is rather comfortable and the beach is hot and sandy.
After a bit of open-water swimming with the gang, I sit on shore surveying the amount of bug bites and bruise on my body. I’m so relaxed here and would be happy not to ever leave this spot. I do a little reading, a bit of writing, and enjoy the sound of families enjoying togetherness.
This, I think, is what it’s all about.
Small Tent, Big Trees
I’m still tired, but I just couldn’t sleep any longer. Maybe it was the rock under my right hip, or perhaps it was the new and fabulous day ahead of us that woke me.
Once again, we’re camping in Calaveras Big Trees State Park. Sitting here with my book, I look out on the meadow and listen to the birds singing their morning song. It’s all good.
While the rest of the campsite sleeps, I can enjoy this.
Last year’s downsizing of the MommyVan to a tiny little Honda Civic made packing for this trip a huge challenge. The plan to take Ronin, our nearly 100 pound dog, was the most obvious result. I’ve no idea how or why I couldn’t see that he just wouldn’t fit. But it was a bigger challenge than I thought.
After completing a 12 mile trail run, I returned from the grocery store with enough food to clearly show that there was just NO WAY that everything would fit. I moved to Plan E, and headed off to Enterprise Car Rental for a mid-size vehicle but found that they didn’t have any in stock. So we made due.
just because
