Tiny painting

David put this adorable itsy bitsy canvas and easel in my stocking last Christmas. I'm finally displaying it!

This painting joins two pelican sketches and a pelican painting in my apparently swamp-themed dining room.

Running in the heat

I'm a pro at running in heat and humidity. It's always hot and humid here, so I get lots of practice, and in addition heat follows me wherever I go.
Example 1: Clarence DeMar marathon. (High during the race: 81 F)
Example 2: Mississippi Gulf Coast marathon. (High during the race: probably around 80 - 82 F)
Example 3: Publix Marathon. (High during the race: 83 F)
Example 4: Boston Marathon. (High during the race: 89 F)

If you don't like running in hot, humid conditions, don't sign up for any races I'm running. Just a tip.

Anywho, I skipped most of summer running thanks to my persistent and annoying injury, leaving me the lucky girl who got to start back up in beautiful fall temps in the 70's (one morning last week it was 71 F!).

Clothes plastered down with sweat! 

Today the weather sort of reverted to standard September - still not brutal, but 80's and high humidity. I poured sweat. I chaffed under my jog bra and it stung (I have been out of running so long that I actually forgot about body glide). And my pace pretty much made me ill. Seriously, I am out of shape. And I'm not just referring to the thigh chub in the photo to the right (which, like all my mirror pictures, does not show what I wanted it to show at all. Here it is showcasing my sausage thighs and what I wanted to show you was my sweat-drenchedness).
I've lost a ton of speed! Running in the heat makes you strong. I missed that season, and now just a little warmth and I'm dying out there.
In past years I used summer to run slowly and build strength and endurance, setting me up for "fast" (on the scale of my ability) fall races. Not so this year.

How was your summer running? Are you ready for cool fall temps and fall races?

I signed him up.

Good thing David knows I love him, because I signed him up for his first full marathon without telling him. I emailed the Louisiana Marathon director and politely asked him for a discount code. I told him that if he gave me one, I would sign my husband up for the race. He kindly complied and David has to suffer the consequences!

David and I after Freedom's Run, David's first half marathon - about 2 years ago

I'm putting together a training plan for the hubby, but it's complicated by the fact that David doesn't want to "just finish", he wants to break four hours. I don't think this is out of reach for him at all. Last December he ran a 1:52 half with his only training being his typical daily 3 miler and one ten mile run the weekend before the race. So I think he could run in the 3:50's. One big thing he has going for him is that (OCD little dear that he is) the man loves to follow a plan. Loves it. Give him directions to follow and he is a happy man. So as long as I write it out for him, he'll do the training.
A strike against him is that he really doesn't like discomfort. Not a good candidate for first pregnant man here. So the last few miles of this race will be harder for him than for most.

So, I need your advice as I craft his training plan. What should I include for a first time marathoner?

NYC 2013?

Either I'm losing my mind, I'm terribly forgetful, or NYC marathon changed their tune.
I distinctly remember considering registering for the 2012 NYC marathon because I qualified to do so without the lottery, but I would not next year.
In case you don't know, you can run NYC marathon if you have a qualifying time in the full or half. If you don't, your name gets put in a lottery for acceptance. I read that the qualifying standards were going to drop for 2013 - and drop a lot. Women went from 3:23 to 2:59!
I really debated registering last January. Plenty of my friends were running it, and I knew it was my last chance to qualify unless I grew a third leg with a wheel on the end of it.

But I think NYC reconsidered. I just read this:

Well that sounds a little more reasonable. That I can do, and in fact I have the appropriate qualifying time in the window, too. So now I'm thinking about NYC 2013!
Is anyone running NYC this year? Or planning on it next year?

Death of the birthday dress

Still clinging to my youth, I chose to celebrate my birthday at Chuck E Cheese.

I put this picture on Facebook and all my friends thought I was serious about  having my birthday party there.

Actually I was there for a nephew's party, wishing I had earplugs and covertly eating a pork, fennel, and angel hair salad I had snuck in from home. So much better than germ and pepperoni pizza. I think that venue brings our the worst in kids - not to mention that it's teaming with bacteria. Gross.

For dinner we decided to grow it up a little and use our Groupon to Tempt, a restaurant self-described as "trendy" in the Saint hotel. That was a mistake. It was one of those pathetic attempts to be way-too-cool that falls flat. I do not enjoy dinner while sitting on a lucite chair listening to thumping electronic rave music. And the food was nothing special, ok but not good, which in New Orleans will not cut it.

Last year the leaf pattern was white, this year it is light blue after washing! 

I wore this dress that I made last year. Now, I love this dress, but tonight was its second and last wearing. After I made it last year, I realized two things about the super cheap Walmart fabric I had used:
1. It falls apart when you wash it
2. It bleeds terribly
Actually it bled while I was wearing it - it rubbed off on my skin, turning me blue, and it ruined the purse I had on my shoulder that night. To wear the dress again, I had to restitch several seams where the fabric had basically disintegrated, but the bleeding I could not fix - once I again my body was blue by the end of the night! So much as I like the dress I have to throw it out. I'm sad. I like this dress, and since I designed it and sewed it, a LOT of work went into that thing!

On the running front, I wanted to take it easy today after a longish run yesterday (I don't want any gains I've made on my adductors to go right out the window), so I went for a conservative three miles this morning. Not much, but it put me over 40 miles for the week for the first time in many months. It feels good to get in some mileage! I just feel better all over. Not running does some strange things to my body: My appetite is all off, my tummy is troubled, my skin dries out, I get mentally tired easily, I become forgetful, and - strangest of all - my joints hurt! (Now, I do know that many of these symptoms sound a whole lot like hypothyroid symptoms, and since I have a thyroid cancer history, I should get to an endo for some blood work. I will, too, but I'll see if it goes away with running first!).

I'm curious what you've noticed when/if you've taken a running break. I'm actually thinking about compiling a post that's a reference of how not running changes your body for better or for worse, so tell me your stories! Unless you're the lucky type who never had an injury!

Birthday miles

Today I turn 30, so it was fitting to run 30 miles this morning!

Longest run in my still kind of new Mizuno Mushas

But I didn't. I ran twelvish. You know, 0.412 miles per year like the old tradition. Darn this injury.
On the way home I ran into David, walking back from the Maple Street Patisserie with a bag of almond croissants for a birthday breakfast! Almond croissants and my favorite coffee were perfect this morning.

Getting back into running is humbling. I'm still feeling pain, and in fact it's really unchanged, but I'm starting to just ignore it. That's what I did all last year and frankly I was better off then. The more time I take off, the more pain I feel when I do run!
But besides the pain, I am woefully out of shape. I've gained some weight - maybe 4 or 5 pounds? I don't know, I don't have a scale, but I can feel some more heft - and it definitely makes running more of a challenge (when you basically can't do any activity with your lower body for 3 or 4 months, it does encourage some weight gain, sadly). Carrying extra weight is hard. I nitpick about 7 versus 8 ounce shoes but I don't mind lugging around ten times that much on my thighs! Silly. This just reminds me to stay fit and stop eating almond croissants.

But it isn't just extra weight. I've lost speed and skill. I'm about where I was a year and a half ago for medium-long runs: doing ten milers in around 7:40 pace. This feels very off for me, since all last fall and winter my long runs were around 7:30 and my mid-distance generally under 7:20s. I joined the Varsity group for a Thursday night run and - I hate to be the b*tch comparing herself to other girls, but - ladies I'm usually far ahead of easily kept pace with me. I'm just trying to approach this with sense and humility and slowly build speed back.

Hope everyone got a great run in this morning. I'm finishing my coffee while debating with the husband whether to go to a baby shower or a child's birthday party this afternoon. Both sound about as fun as a hemlock latte. Have a great weekend!

I'm glad it wasn't used.

Yesterday I spent four hours at a local university giving flu vaccines to employees. Their insurance covers it  100%, so it's a great deal for both of us - the university gets flu protection at no added cost, and I get about 100 vaccines done.
All was going swimmingly until I breezily unwrapped a sterile syringe, except this syringe was defective. Instead of the needle being safely contained in the cap, it was bent outside the cap at a 30 - 45 degree angle. I was moving fast. The needle...

...went straight through my finger. I was just staring down at my finger with a 1-inch needle sticking out of it. I had to yank it out, get the bleeding to stop, bandage up, and continue with the flu shot I started! As far as I know, she never noticed I stuck myself.

Of course I'm extremely careful with needles while using them or once used, but unwrapping a sterile needle you just don't expect a stick!

Beat that for a bad day.