Mardi Gras Marathon

Today was a gorgeous day: the perfect running weather. It was cool but the sun was shining out of a brilliant blue sky.

This is me getting ready for a perfect run!
But my run was far from perfect. I'm disappointed. Actually I have good news and bad news; let's do bad news first.
Bad: my race. 4:08:20's the time, and I'm embarrassed to publish that!
I started poorly because the wave start meant I was stuck in my coral with no water or bathroom for over 30 minutes. I got stiff and cold and thanks to the no water, I was dehydrated for the entire race. I never hit my pace. Then the coughing started. I coughed, coughed, coughed, coughed. It hurt my lungs, slowed me down, and robbed my breath.
I realized that if I slowed down, the coughing lessened. But that really hurt my pace! And then...more problems. Yes, this is TMI, but around mile 21 I began doubling over with cramps. I was already cramping but I'm pretty sure my body was trying to tell me, "Quit running, you idiot! Go home and get in bed with a hot water bottle!" I discovered it's majorly difficult to run with cramps. Usually during those times I skip my workouts or go on short slow jogs because I experience a lot of pain with movement. Ouch. Meanwhile my knee began swelling so severely that my knee strap popped off by itself! Then I had to go potty. So basically, the last 4 miles totally fell apart. Not that the first few were great. I was jogging at the finish line.

Now I'm mad at myself because other than the injuries listed, I'm FINE. My muscles had plenty of miles left and I feel pretty good. No stomach upset; good appetite. I should have been able to do so much better!
Enough whining: on to the good news!
The good news is that my little brother Abe, while running a slower time than predicted, finished in 2:49:37 - the 16th finisher overall and easily capturing his age group. Pretty good for a first marathon! And he won $1000!

The after party was GREAT - Sister Hazel opened for Cowboy Mouth - and we spread out my space blanket and had some chips and beer.

It was beautiful weather for a concert and once I stopped moving my cramps subsided and I could enjoy the morning.
Overall mood: grumpy my time sucked, happy I finished, worried about my swollen knee, thrilled for Abe!
Next up: a review of the actual race.

Pre-marathon check list!

Tomorrow is the Mardi Gras Marathon, in which my little brother Abe projects a 2:40 finish time. Let me repeat that: 2 hours and 40 minutes. I need to tell you Abe's story sometime: how he went from being an overweight teen to a running powerhouse!

I, meanwhile, just want to drag my wounded self over the finish line. Let's go over the pre-race checklist here:
1. T-shirts: check. We got our packets at the expo last night and luckily we were early enough to have our pick of sizes; I assumed I'd be a small but the shirts ran huge and I was able to exchange for an extra small.

2. Next year's registration: check. I'm so thrilled with this deal: if you sign up early for the marathon in 2011, it's only $65 PLUS you get a free girlie T-shirt! The soft cotton shirt on the left is the freebie. Only size L were left and I asked if there were any other sizes. The guy helping me immediately responded, "Oh, no, we're all out of extra large." "I was looking for a medium," I said scathingly (Abe laughed out loud). BTW I registered early for this year and only paid $50, a deal at just $1.90 a mile!
3. Course: reviewed. This is the stupidest course ever. The marathon and half marathon separate like 6 times! Take a look at this! And part of the course in Audubon park goes off-road. What?! Plus the way it is arranged at the finish, there is no road in to for finish-line spectators.
4. Wrist band: Um...check. They ID you at the expo and give you a wrist band in case you want a beer afterwords. I've NEVER been ID'd at a race. But then , I live in New Orleans. Has anyone ever been ID'd for race beer? Now I have to wear this band all day. Weird.
5. Healthy and prepared: NOPE! I'm not ready for this race at all! Let's go over my current health:
a. Knee: Recovered from apparent ruptured bursa, right knee. I can handle it with a strap.
b. Knees: I still have runner's knee in both knees thanks to bad shoes.
c. Groin: Suffering from a serious groin pull that actually lames me: at a certain point I can no longer lift my thigh. But oddly enough I can run through this injury. It hurts, but it doesn't bother me that much. I can't understand that but I'm not complaining!
d. Blisters: I actually still have severe blisters and raw patches from my barefoot running experiment over a month ago. Ouch.
e. Sick and coughing: I just got over a sickness that involved 105 F fever for three days. I'm a little shaky still and I have a residual cough. The base of my lungs hurt, and when I run I can actually feel my diaphragm hit my lungs - it feels like I'm being kicked in the lungs. This is my biggest worry for tomorrow.
f. This might be TMI but on top of everything else I have cramps. Boo for bad timing!
g. Underprepared: Ok, this one's on me. If I would get my lazy, wimpy behind out there when it was cold I would be in a lot better shape. No one to blame but myself for this one!

So that's it. Do you think I'm ready? Can I do this? Will I spend the last 4 miles limping? Will my "two free beers" be worth the humiliation of wearing a wrist band for 26.2 miles?
Check back tomorrow for details!

A little art in my life

Way back before the world of pharmacy sucked me in, I was a fine arts major. That's right, prim and proper ol' me wore head scarves and grew bean sprouts in my room and said things during critique like, "I can really feel the emotion in your lines".
I do still love art but you know, it's hard to make time for art when you're working full time and going to school full time. Thank goodness those school days are over and I've had more time to whip up some art projects!
One recent project was a pair of botanical prints for my sister in law. I didn't take any pictures of the finished pieces, but here's one of me working on the night jasmine print.

I have sketched the blossoms, but hadn't painted them yet. The other print was of English lavender.
I'm slowly working on a "swamp" theme for the dining room, and I started with these easy pelican drawings. I use watercolor pencils but I don't add the water: watercolor pencils have a softer line than graphite but are easier to control compared to pastels. I'm planning a long alligator watercolor for our dining room mantel...if I ever get around to it.

Don't you like the effect the Christmas lights have on the artwork? We have lights along our chair rails.

Sometimes I use acrylics, although they bore me. Here's the pear detail from a still life in my kitchen. I can't show you the whole picture because I hate the frame. I need to replace it.

This weekend I made a sculpture for our bedroom that I am OBSESSED with. I admit I copied this one. There is an absurdly talented artist in our area named Steve Martin and I first saw these zany wire sculptures in his gallery. I loved that the wire looks like a 2-D pen doodle but the bends of the wire make it 3-D. I made one of my own and hung it over our dressers and I think I'm in love with the shadow-play it creates on the wall.

For perspective, here's a zoomed out view so you can see it over our dressers.

I have so much leftover wire that I'm thinking about a doing a mermaid next - wouldn't the hair and tail be so fun?!

Car and Symposium Trouble

I forgot to mention something yesterday. Two things on my car broke. And nothing on my car has ever broken before. I'm very good to my cars, except that I tend to spill coffee in the seats and sometimes I cook bean burritos on the dash if it's sunny out. I really do that. It's solar cooking at its best. I might share the recipe if I'm asked politely.
Here's the damage:
1. My gas cap snapped off the little plastic chain. This is minor but exceedingly annoying.
2. My car's check engine light came on. I am a firm believer in ignoring lights that come on in the car (as Big Bang Theory's Penny says, when alerted to her flashing check engine light, "Oh yeah. I've got to put some electrical tape over that."). But I also noticed a sort of thumping when I'm stopped at a light, in drive, foot on the brakes. I will have to bring my car in, and this is the first time ever for me except for repairs when someone hit my parked car. TWICE. (Two hit and run incidents in the space of a month!). Other than that, I've been blessed with a very low maintenance vehicle that has only needed oil changes in 5 years.
By the way, I drive a Scion xA, which is no longer made. But it's a great car. It is TINY but ridiculously ROOMY. You can seat 5 more comfortably than in many SUVs, and the hatch back allows for a lot of storage. I really like that the seat position allows you to sit up instead of reclining like many cars. I just like that better. And of course, it fits in small parking spots and gets good mileage. I think I just wrote all that to persuade myself that this car is worth the hassle of going to the dealer!

Last night my boss called me about this HIV symposium. It turns out that yes, I'm going, and this is great news for my job of course. There will be lots of networking opportunities and an enormous amount of information to learn. There is only one tiny problem. The conference starts on a Thursday night - the same night as my in-laws bought us tickets to Wicked for Christmas! I absolutely can't pass up this symposium - it's an honor for me to be asked to go - but I feel bad for my in-laws. I'm not sure how to handle explaining this to them. I'm sure they will understand but I still feel like an ungrateful wretch!

Why am I not aware of events on my OWN calender?!

This is a weird Monday. Actually, it's a beautiful day for sitting out on the porch reading the mystery I just checked out of the library. But first I have to check out the mystery of my own calender.
Commitment I didn't know about #1: My dad emailed me asking when I was picking up my little brother for the marathon expo and packet pick-up. Not only was I unaware I was Abe's ride....I didn't even know he was running the marathon. He will probably smoke the competition.
Commitment I didn't know about #2: I got a call from corporate today asking me what flight I was taking to Phoenix for the HIV symposium in April. I didn't know there was an HIV symposium in April and I sure didn't know I was going. But if the company wants to send me to Phoenix for a few days, hey, I'll take it.
Commitment I didn't know about #3: Tulane Medical School emailed me today and asked which date would be better for me for a one-hour lecture for their OB/GYN residents. I'm lecturing Tulane residents?! I'd given out my name while doing clinicals at Tulane and I guess they decided to have me back for a lecture!
So I guess I'll spend the afternoon sorting that out. THEN I will sit in the setting sun and read my mystery!

A run on a beautiful day!

After 2 weeks of being sick and months of highly unusual cold weather in New Orleans, the stars aligned and I got in a gorgeous 10.5 miler Saturday morning. Look at this weather. Be jealous, cold weather readers! What a day to be outside!

And I got plenty of "outside" Saturday, too. For one thing, there was the run. I was hesitant to try running with my lingering cold and wretched cough, but it was so lovely out I couldn't say no. My run took my down Magazine street, Napoleon Avenue, and St. Charles, plus a few loops in Audubon Park. The picture above, however, was actually taken during the afternoon in the French Quarter. I was downtown early in the afternoon for high tea at the Windsor Court, a thank-you tea hosted by my sister in law. She was treated some of us to tea who had helped her out during her performance of My Fair Lady last summer. She was Eliza Doolittle and I, since I sew, was her costumer! Isn't a thank-tea a charming idea?
Anyway, the picture was taken after the tea, when I met the hubby for the Aints funeral. Yeah...we had a Jazz funeral for the Aints paper bags. The paper bag tradition started during a 1-15 season for the Saints when fans started wearing paper bags over their heads, they were so embarressed to be fans. Now, after the Superbowl win, we had to bury those bags. Obviously. Or it was just a chance to drink in the streets now that Mardi Gras is over. You decide.

Either way, it was a beautiful - dare I say it? - Spring day and we enjoyed it the fullest!
Today there's a thunderstorm outside so I'm going to huddle in front of an Olympic hockey game and eat Oreos. Or I might have wine. Or both. What's a good pairing for Oreos?

Foody Friday: Orzo, the gourmet fast food

I love Orzo. It's a small, rice-shaped pasta with endless uses and a wonderfully fast cooking time. You can throw it in soups, add butter and Parmesan, use it as a side dish with various vegetables, or even base a main dish on it. Orzo is on my list of "must haves" for a complete pantry.
Orzo is great for kitchen experimentation (as I like to call dinner when I haven't been grocery shopping in a week). I rely on it for fast meals with flexible ingredient lists. Last week when I was in a rush to make dinner I grabbed a trusty bag of Orzo and whatever else I had and made:

Orzo with sausage and leeks

1 lb orzo
1 bunch leeks, coarsely chopped (wash well - leeks hide dirt!)
1 lb Italian breakfast sausage
garlic
12 oz mushrooms, sliced
sage, salt, pepper
splash of sherry

Cook Orzo according to package directions while you prepare the leeks and sausage part. In a large skillet, fry sausage. Drain excess fat. Add leeks; stir and cook. Add mushrooms; stir and cook. When almost soft, add cherry, salt, pepper, and sage (about 1 tsp) to taste. Add water if the mixture starts to stick. Stir in drained Orzo; heat well.
If you want you can add a smidge of provolone to the top. My hubby did this - I didn't like it.
YUM. Leeks in anything = perfection!