We ran the half marathon on July 26 at 5 freakin 30 on a cold, foggy morning. Contrary to the energetic spirit captured in this post-race photo, I felt like I was going to vomit and die right after this shot was taken. I think the hardest part about the race was the 4AM wake-up time. Since early mornings frighten me, I was full of anxiety the day before the race. I took a hot bath right before bed, placed fresh cut lavender in my bedroom, and did some deep breathing in bed, doing what I could to promote sleep. I went to bed at 9PM. I woke up at midnight. I tossed and turned until 3AM. Got out of bed and watched Korean dramas on the Internet until we left at 4:15AM.
Despite getting two hours of sleep, the cold, wet weather slapped me awake before the race. Nerves and all the green tea I drank while watching the Korean drama meant one thing. We got in line for the port-a-potties. We waited in line for thirty minutes and as the loud speakers announced that the first heat started their race, my nerves hit a new high. Our assigned heat was next. I panicked. (But sometime during the race--one has lots of time to think while running 13.2 miles--I figured out it wouldn't have mattered if I didn't start with my heat because my race time is tracked from the moment I cross the starting line via the time tracker affixed to my shoelace. Guess my h.s. cross-country days got the best of me.)
First four miles were actually pleasant. I felt relaxed, strong, and mesmerized by running down the wide open street of Embarcadero at dawn. Yellow glowed from the street lamps, yeast in rising bread wafted from the bakeries, restaurant workers swept the sidewalks at Fisherman's Wharf, dogs and their owners walked along the beach at Crissy Field. It was a glimpse of the city I'd never seen before and probably never will again.
Then came the first hill of the race, from the beach to the Golden Gate Bridge. Suddenly, I imagined cuddling up in a fetal position on the soft sand and going to sleep. I took off my long sleeved shirt for the climb and that made me feel lighter and freer. Then the hill was behind me and I was on the bridge. Cool. Again, I'll probably never run across the GG Bridge in the car lanes ever again. At that point the first group of racers started coming back across the bridge toward Presidio and ultimately to the Golden Gate Park where the first half of the marathon ended. The insanely fast runners zipped past me in a blur and I felt my second wind kick in. They--the professional runners--were inspiring. Hubby and I passed each other, cheering for the other and feeling proud. He shouted I was almost at the other side. At the Marin side of the bridge I felt dead again and luckily at this water station was GU energy gels. I took three packs.
Heading back toward SF on the GG Bridge, Tae and I passed each other. Again, I felt a jolt of excitement as we cheered on each other. In the Presidio I knew there was just a quarter of the race left, but it was here that my body started to fall apart. In the long downhill section going from the Presidio toward Ocean Beach, my knees felt like all the cartilage had worn off and it was bone grinding against bone. The pain from my knees shot up to my shoulders and I imagined myself looking like a dancer from Michael Jackson's Thriller video: stiff body, frightening facial expression.
I was so close there was no way I was going to start walking at this point in the race. The fatigue from two hours of sleep the night before was nothing compared to the knee pain and now the tight shoulders. From the bridge to the Golden Gate Park spectators started to come out in bigger crowds. I really needed their encouragement the last two miles. As I approached the park I could hear music and cheering and loud speakers announcing names of finishers. I wanted to run faster, I'd always been a strong finisher, but my knees put me on autopilot--one foot in front of the other, steadily, slowly. I finished and as soon as I stopped running both of hamstrings cramped and I couldn't walk. The race organizers are experienced and they knew to set up the medic tent right to the side of the finish line. After some time of icing and gentle stretching I could walk again.
The fog never did lift that morning. It was just as cold and wet in the park as it was at the Ferry Building. We all finished, however, and that was blissful. Hubby even beat his last race time. Tae performed consistently. Tae and I vowed we'd never run a long distance race again. We'll stick to running 3-5 miles for fitness, but running a half a marathon at the crack of dawn is simply insane.
Hubby took this week off to work on the deck, and he's made lots of progress. The frame is pretty much complete, and today the wood for the deck will be delivered. It might be very well possible that when I return from work today a deck will be in our backyard. (From the completed frame, the deck seems a lot bigger than what we originally imagined.) It's Friday and the sun is out, finally, after a couple of foggy days, and this weekend is supposed to be very warm. Maybe we'll be sipping iced tea on our new deck tomorrow afternoon. YeeHaa!
Jade Park listed seven things she loves on her blog: JadePark
and here is my list:
1. Driving away from Bolinas toward Stinson up and around Bolinas Lagoon after a day of surfing. The salt water rinsed off, the car windows rolled down and the sun and the wind on my face and wet hair, body refreshed, recharged, and enlivened, anticipating a cold beer at our usual spot, Sand Dollar, in Stinson
2. Cooking with hubby in our quaint kitchen, our bodies gliding off each other, like ballroom dancing
3. Alice Water's cookbook, The Art of Simple Food
4. Using vegetables from our garden in our cooking; The food tastes that much better with fresh ingredients
5. Scents from our garden: lemon basil, lemon verbena, mint, lavender, rosemary, lemon thyme, lemmonii
6. Reading a good book lying on the cushions atop the tatami map in our living room with the filtered sun rays pouring in past the oak tree through the many windows
7. Feeling strong and relaxed on a long run
Disclosure:
I partook in this meme because I needed to partake in something uplifting on this foggy workday, and although it was sort of fun making the list, in the end I feel not so happy because I'm not doing any of those seven things I love now. Oh well, it was worth a try.
Working at a software company, hubby has a ton of South Asian coworkers and they are all relatively similar in age, young married couples with small children. We went to our first Indian party this past Saturday for a coworker's son's first birthday. The women donned their saris and gold, and the children and men put on their party clothes and gold too, as seen here of the birthday boy and his proud father with matching pin stripe suits and bling bling. The food was South Indian which meant super spicy, right up our alley. The food was delicious, better than any Indian food I'd had in the past and I met a super sweet wife of one of the coworkers who is going to teach me to cook Indian style lentils.
I have to admit I felt a bit uncomfortable when we first arrived seeing we were the only non Indians in the entire place. That discomfort, however, was fully self induced and once I started chatting with some of the folks the time went by fast. What I thought was going to be a courtesy appearance turned into a late night of eating, drinking, and talking.
We had perfect summer weather yesterday for Father's Day and summer solstice. Hubby and I played the entire day at Golden Gate Park. We ran 9 miles, the entire length of the park and up to Sea Cliff and back (the last 2.5 miles of the SF Half Marathon) as part of our training for the July 26 Race Day. Unbeknown to us it was also Alice's Summerthing, a free concert in GG Park, so on top of the usual weekend crowd there was the Father's Day crowd and music lovers crowd all congregating in this part of the city. It was festive, to say the least. After the run and nearly collapsing (a little exaggeration) from fatigue and dehydration, we quickly changed into sandals and headed to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant in the city, Yummy Yummy's, which is conveniently located near the park, and gorged on salt-n-pepper crab, pho, Vietnamese coffee, and shrimp rolls.
Having regained our strength, we ventured back into the park, as if we hadn't gotten enough exercise, and walked through the botanical garden and the Japanese Tea garden. They were both lovely. I'd been to the Japanese garden before, but I didn't quite appreciate it then as much as I do now. Since becoming an avid gardener, and having been landscaping our backyard for the past two years, it was truly a feast for the senses to see the various plants at different maturing stages grouped in ways to highlight the best in each plant. We were especially thrilled in the Japanese garden, stealing ideas and concepts.
The deck is coming along nicely. Leveling the beams was bit of a challenge due to the uneven ground, but it was resolved and now half the joists are connected. And hubby chose redwood after all over ipe which will move the project along in a timely fashion. Can't wait to see the final product.
The man worked tirelessly all weekend starting Friday right after work, even skipping his favorite Total Athletic Conditioning class at the gym. The foundation is the most time consuming and difficult part, so I'm told, and once the foundation is set, laying the decking will be a breeze (although it's not going to be as simple using Ipe (pronounced eepay) rather than redwood b.c. this wood is so dense it has to be pre-drilled before nailing or screwing it in, and Ipe is our choice wood after a long deliberation). I'm learning about deck building by merely pocking my head out the window once in a while to offer a glass of water or holding the end of a measuring tape and asking the two-year-old's questions of, what's this for? why you doing that? how does this work?
So the 2-ft. deep holes are filled with cement (so far 60 80-lb bags have been used and still need more), and brackets and beams have been installed. Next joists (cross beams) will be installed and then the decking.
I'm quite proud of my hubby for taking on this project and working so hard on it, even if he's acting more and more like a construction worker (constant dirt and dust on his clothes, sour smell of sweat, and beer drinking starting in the late afternoon).
After a spurt of steady writing of the blog, the writing has tapered off, evidenced by no new entries for the last couple of weeks. Ideas don't always jump out at me and if one or two days slip by without writing, the writing momentum is all too easily killed.
Speaking of writing, I'm reading a fantastic memoir on writing by Stephen King titled On Writing. I've never read any of his novels b.c. they are too scary for me, but hubby got me King's memoir as a birthday gift last year. Over the weekend, as I got really annoyed by terribly written resource books on pregnancy, I picked up King's memoir to ease my irritation, hoping some good writing would put me in a better mood. Boy, was I in for a truly pleasant surprise. His writing is crisp, illuminating, hilarious, and contagious, for I've returned to writing on this blog. I've only read a third of the book, but throughout the day I look forward to reading more of it before going to bed.
The first third of the book mainly chronicles his life in linear order, how a writer was made, under what type of life circumstances, predispositions, and writing/reading experiences. Couple things that I remember most vividly: first, in high school he takes a reporting job at his local newspaper, the job was literally handed to him by his guidance counselor and teachers who saw Stephen needed an outlet for his creativity and writing talent, and after he turns in his first writing assignment to the newspaper editor, the editor takes a black pen and quickly edits it. Stephen King writes that at that moment he learned more about writing and story telling than he did all through high school and college English/writing classes. The editor says to Stephen (I'm loosely paraphrasing here) first you write to tell yourself the story, then you revise to tell the story. Click. The second thing I remember from the first third of the book is actually the final line to this section of the book: Life doesn't support art, it's the other way around. Double click.
After consecutive busy weekends since winter, hubby and I did absolutely nothing this past scorching hot weekend. He tried to convince me to take Friday off with him (totally out of character, he is always lecturing me to save up my vacation and sick days). Ironically, I, who is always fishing for excuses to not go to work, chose to go into the office. Had a few things to take care of in order to allow myself a worry-free weekend. Hubby, though, was relentless and did at last convince me to take a half day and go swimming at noon. We swam at the super duper Cal Olympic size outdoor pool and got out just as we started to get funky tan lines (across my forehead from the swim cap). What is it about being in water? The body feels weightless and nimble, magical powers.
We worked up an appetite and headed to Poulet in Gourmet Ghetto, a French style delicatessen where he had roast chicken, that's what they are known for as the name indicates, and I had a bowl of soup that was clean and simple with lingering basil fragrance.
It felt like we were on vacation, playing during work hours (and how strange, there were so many people out and about on this Friday afternoon, don't folks work around here?). We did our grocery shopping for the week as well so we wouldn't have to over the weekend.
Besides our regular Saturday morning bad-ass yoga class, this class makes my whole body tingle for two days, I lounged around in our airy, naturally bright living room the entire day! and it was marvelous like vanilla bean gelato marvelous. I finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao I had started few months back (there are three half read books on my nightstand. Lately, I haven't been making time for reading).
Yeah, I totally agree with the all the hype around this book, it is super fantastic on many levels. I don't have the energy to even begin tackling this book, but if you are curious, here is a NY Times review.
Oh, it was so indulging to lay around and read books I've been wanting to read. Even husband, the productive busy bee, took it easy, reading magazines and napping near where I read. We poked around in the garden for just few minutes, but the intense heat shooed us back indoors. It was the first time since I started this job, little over a year ago, that I felt this relaxed. I should try being still more often.
