In Which SF Road Warrior Lives Up to Her Name

So, hey! It's 2019 & the holidays are over & there's some kind of 10K on February 3??? Time to start doing some running, I guess!

Happy Mexican New Year from me & my hunky boyfriend!

Happy New Year from Don & his massive biceps!

Although, I'm not gonna lie, I'd planned to start last week when we got back from Mexico, but that plan sort of fell through. How so? Let me count the ways.

Ensenada! Highly recommend.

My one run in Mexico on New Year's Day, in which I got lost running back from the town to our house & could not get reception on my phone to call someone. Do not recommend.

Other than the getting lost, it did not suck.

First, there was drama getting back from Mexico, including a canceled flight that resulted in two nights in San Diego & missing most of a day of work, so no Monday strength work. I got my run in Tuesday night (yay!) but then didn't sleep (boo) so no Wednesday strength either.

San Diego, you do not suck either, actually.

Bonus of an unexpected weekend day in San Diego: Getting to hang out on an aircraft carrier.

He was so happy.

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Also, really good omakase. (Not in the aircraft carrier.)

On Thursday I flew to NY, which of course takes an entire day. I had grand delusions of getting to the hotel just in time to grab a little dinner out of the lounge & then jump on the 'mill before bed. But our plane left over half an hour late, and our bags took forever to come, and then it was rush hour in NY (ie, sit in traffic hour). So it was 8pm by the time we arrived (starving), the lounge was closed (so we had to order and pay for and wait for actual dinner), and by the time all that was done with it was 9:30pm and I had just enough time to look over my notes for the next day and go to sleep.

Forget New York, it's cold there! Let's look at more pictures of Mexican wine country instead.

Mexican wine. It's a thing.

No problem! I thought. I'll just set my alarm for 5:00am & run before work! Except my brain had other ideas, which included exciting activities such as "Lie awake staring at the clock for hours and hours." (I expect a little of this due to jet lag but this was truly ridiculous & hit me when I was there in December as well.) So, no getting up at 5:00am for a run. Heck, I barely got through the day given my ~3 hours of sleep.

Maybe I'll just move there.

Stay positive! I told myself. We'll get 'em after work! Except I'd forgotten there was a working dinner, which was early, but somehow still we didn't get back to the hotel until 8pm, and I just felt so awful and exhausted. Maybe a better woman than me could have dragged herself down to the hotel gym but I just could not manage it. Instead I fell asleep at 9am & slept for 10 hours (so definitely no getting up early to run.)

We worked all day Saturday & then headed to the airport for an 8pm flight, which got me back to my house in SF by ~11:30pm SF time (so, 20 hour day at that point). Tonight, I sleep! I thought. And tomorrow, FINALLY, long run!

Ensenada is pretty much Mexico's Big Sur. Or, parts of it at least.
I like Mexico better than New York.

I can't say anything really got in my way on Sunday except the fact that I'd spent a grand total three days in my own house in the last 3.5 weeks, and all I was motivated to do when I got up Sunday was get my life & house in order--grocery shop, clean (OMG our house was SO GROSS), put away the holiday decorations, do ALLLLLL the laundry, cook food for the next couple of days, etc. I kept thinking "I'll just go run when I feel like I need a break" but I never really did, and at some point I just said, "Eh, what's one more week" and let myself go with the flow of feeling motivated to clean & organize & generally get my life back into some semblance of order.

So, yeah. Week 1 of my Stow Lake 5K cycle started on Jan. 14 rather than Jan. 7. Oops. That still gives me like three weeks before Kaiser 10K, so we're good!!!

(And....after being home for Sunday and Monday, I got up Tuesday morning, packed, & got on another plan to Long Beach, where I'll be until Thursday.)

(And then four days after that, I'll be on a plane to Vancouver.)

(What even is my life right now.)