Hau'oli la Hanau e Raquel!

And while I'm in the mood of giving shout-outs, here's another one to my girlfriend.

Happy Birthday Raquel!

I promise that we won't have to eat training food tonight. I'll make Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Spicy Chile-Coconut Tomato Salad, and Chocolate Lava Cakes for dessert. If I'm going to cheat on my training, I might as well go all the way for you.

History in the Making

Today's post has nothing to do with training, well..not directly. I'm just feeling really blessed and privileged to be living in this time and place. At 5:01 pm yesterday, the very first official gay wedding ceremony began at San Francisco City Hall. Here's the full coverage: Same-Sex Marriage at SF Gate. Check it out people, it's history in the making.

I just wanted to give a big shout out to those couples who tied the knot yesterday as well as the ones who are intending to wed soon. Congratulations!! It's been a really long road, and I know that they all must have toiled through decades of struggle. But in the end, it sounds like they never lost sight of what was important: each other. I wish them all the best.

So how is this tying back to training? Well, after reading a lot of their stories I can't help but think about when my turn might come around. And if it does, I can't tell you how hard the training schedule would be for that event. Preparing for a marathon is one thing, but preparing for a wedding dress and pictures that my mom will be showing everyone is an entirely different ballgame. By the time the wedding rolls around, I should be fit enough to run the Ironman!

Note: I was just kidding. All I'd really want out of a wedding was for my friends and family to have fun and get drunk. ;)

My Little Adventure

Alright folks, I admit that I've been ridiculously lazy with keeping up my blog as well as updating my runs. But, that doesn't mean that I haven't been keeping up with the training. This past weekend happened to be Raquel's birthday weekend. So, being the adventurous girlfriend that I am, I planned a surprise camping/climbing trip in the wilderness with her friends. Now when most people think of camping they think of campfires, smores, and beer. I'm not going to say we didn't have that, but we didn't exactly sit there and sing Kumbaya the whole weekend. This is Raquel and me we're talking about. It's not an outdoor trip unless it involves some element of danger and a degree of physical torture.

Thanks to the ingenuity of Picasa, I've included the pictures from our trip. It chronicles all of the ridiculous physical achievements from the weekend, which include: a 3 hour roundtrip hike up and down the mountain with backpacks in tow, and a 5-pitch climb up the mountain with 5 people. For those who are unfamiliar with climbing, a multi-pitch climb means that once you complete a climb, you don't rapel back down. Instead, you climb to another spot after the end of your first climb. In this case, we'd have to repeat this process 5 times, and each "rest stop" between climbs turned out to be a piece of rock to hang from in the middle of the air (not a ledge).

Now contrary to what my activities indicate, I do not have a deathwish. In fact, this past weekend made me more aware of my fragile mortality and how precious it is. But, I am going to say that I'm darn proud of where my physical fitness level is now. It may have not been the best performance, but at least I made it out of there alive AND I completed every physical test. That being said though, perhaps the next vacation should basically involve the couch, the tv, and some fruity alcoholic beverages.

Mini Me

Sometimes you just gotta love the little add-ons that Nike+ has. There's a new feature on the website which allows you to create a mini likeness of yourself that reflects how you are doing with your goals and how you did on your last run. For instance, if you've been lagging on your runs, your mini-me will seem a bit lethargic and sad. If you've been doing great, he/she will be jumping all over the place and doing fun stuff. I've created a quick link to it on the right, so you guys will always be able to see it. Unfortunately, it won't paste nicely into blogger yet, but I'm sure they'll add that feature soon. For now, here's the link to my mini-me:

Mini-Me

p.s. For those of you who know me, let me know if you think it's a fair comparison to my own likeness.

Refreshed

Whoo!! I ought to listen to my body more often. It's like a naggy girlfriend. It knows what it wants, and it wanted it last week. Well, when I finally granted it the 2 day rest that I promised it last monday, it granted me a better run than I've had in weeks. I have to admit that sometimes your body really does know best. And this is just another lesson learned for me. I really need to figure out where that exhaustion line is, so that I can learn the balance between overtraining to exhaustion and pushing myself in a good way.

Honestly, I was a bit apprehensive when I started yesterday's run. After my string of bad runs and not being able to shake the stress-related problems from my head, I thought I had perhaps dropped behind a couple of months. But, I forgot about the fundamental benefit of running. After a 5 minute jog to warm up, everything started to melt away and I began to refocus. And even if my temporary problems were still plaguing my thoughts, I used it to feed energy to my next set of sprints. Emotionally driven runs are just as good as focused runs. Yes, you haven't necessarily solved any of your problems at the end of it, but at least you feel more centered.

I'm also happy to say that even though it wasn't an especially long run, I still had enough energy to have done 2 more miles at the end of it. That's a sure fire sign that my batteries have been recharged and I'll be doing harder runs in a couple of days again. So Naggy GF body, you win this time. But soon enough it will be my turn to win an argument, because you can't always be right.

These "slippahs" were made for walking..

I know that on Monday I prescribed myself a 2 day break from running, but sometimes I don't like to listen to myself. I ended up running during my "break", and finally rested for the last two days. So as much as I'd like to report about a fantastic post-recovery run right now, that will have to wait until tomorrow. Instead, today's entry will be about relaxing in my slippers.

For me, after a long run there is nothing better than slipping off the shoes, soaking your feet in hot water, and taking a short walk in slippers ("flip-flops" for the mainlanders) to stretch out my cramped muscles. So imagine my shock when I read this article this morning:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/summer-flip-flops-may-lead-to-foot-pain/?em&ex=1212897600&en=d87164748fc2d7c4&ei=5087%0A

Essentially, the article tells you that wearing slippers are bad for you and will lead to lower back and hip problems. Now, I've been finding this hard to believe because slippers are the footwear of choice for the entire population of Hawaii . If this were true, everyone would be hobbling around. And while I do agree that a majority of our elderly popluation does indeed hobble, I doubt it's cause is any more from footwear than from old age.

Having said that, I'm not about to say that slippers are innocent from engendering any foot related afflictions. My particular brand of injury is rough feet. Now, most Hawaii people tend to think that having this gives you "street cred", because you can walk all over the island barefoot without getting hurt. So, I've never had a problem with it. But, apparently girlfriends don't find this very attractive. Who would've known?? Luckily, this is nothing a nice long barefoot walk through the sand and surf can't fix.

In any case, whether it be in slippers, barefoot, or clogs, I can't stress relaxing your feet during training enough. As hard as I push myself, an injury from over-use will put all that training to waste if I can't run the race. Perhaps there will even come a day when I get some muscly guys to carry me around in a divan chair between workouts. Then again...maybe not, I'd rather they run my errands and do my taxes than carry me around.

Slump

Yes Internet, I'm in a running slump. I can see my running goal graph getting worse every day and the guilt is piling on worse than a Jewish and a Chinese mother combined. But, you know what? Sometimes I need to take a break. I meagerly tried a measly two-miler yesterday and it was pathetic. So for the time being, I'm going to listen to my body. The deadline for this mini-break will be this Wednesday. And hopefully by then, I'll be refreshed and ready to put in a quality run. We'll see if my theory proves to be correct.