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July 29, 2005

Harry babes and a return to the heat

I do not know why I feel like calling Harry Potter 'harry babes' today. Probably because it is Friday and I am loopy. Also I think I may have been struck down by West Nile Virus after my multiple mosquito bites last weekend. Well, I doubt that but I am not at the top of my game physically today, I kind of feel like I have the flu or something. Hopefully it's just because I didn't get enough sleep last night, and it'll go away if I get some rest. Also, I think it is mostly impossible to stay hydrated in this ridiculously hot weather, so I'm going to try to drink lots of fluids today, including a vile Vitamin C drink.

So this morning I ran 8.5 miles (really mixing it up, I know), ending at Starbucks after almost being run over by some yahoo in a truck. I have quite the bias against people who drive enormous trucks because not only do they pollute the environment and use about three times as much gas as I do, but they tend to be more inconsiderate and do not seem to care if they run me over. The Starbucks was nice as I have been mostly off the caffeinated products this week. I walked home with my coffee and water and got to work. I have worked about 9 hours Monday through Thursday this week, so today I will be done pretty early. We are going up to Fort Collins to see Matt's aunt who is visiting, and his brother who is leaving for New Zealand for a year tomorrow. If we leave early enough, we're going to stop at BRC so I can try on and possibly pick up a pair of the new Saucony Grid Omni 5, which is supposed to be a big improvement over the Grid Omni 4 (I was not a fan). I am a running dork but I am really excited!

Anyway. On to Harry Potter. Like alweiss, I have always found the HP books to be light, happy reading with the trimuph of good and innocence, over evil. However, I think that with the last book and this one, they really have veered into more realistic and sad territory. As an English major I've never thought of them as 'literature' per se which is fine of course but they have always been a nice escape, and usually a warm and fuzzy feeling when I finish the books. Not so this time - as I may have mentioned I bawled my eyes out for about the last 25 pages of the book.

However, I do see a parallel between the world as it is now and the trajectory of the novels in the series. I believe the first HP book came out in 1997. When I think back to the way my world view was in 1997, I see a parallel. Life seemed pretty good in 1997. I am sure that part of this was because I was in college and I didn't have to work, but even at a world view level things seemed more positive. In 1989, Francis Fukayama wrote a fairly controversial essay called 'The End of History?', in which he posited that history had reached its end because there would be no more major conflict (this is a very brief and I am sure highly inaccurate summary as I have not read the essay in a long time). I think that for Americans, 9/11 ended this feeling. Obviously for much of the third world the idea was ridiculous even at the time of its inception.

Now, we are at war, the North Koreans often threaten us with their nuclear ambitions, and terrorist attacks are a real everyday threat for people in major first world cities. The world isn't a safe place anymore, just like for Harry and his friends violence and evil threaten and even dampen the weather. There is a constant cloud over us and over them.

So to me this is sad but also quite appropriate. I hope that Harry will beat Voldemort in the end! And let me also say, on a more trite note, I hope he ends up with Ginny. This whole 'I am dumping you because I need to be alone and fight evil' is way too cheesy and Spider Man for me.

Anyway those are my thoughts, unedited, but at least I used punctuation. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Posted by barb at 10:08 AM | Comments (2)

July 28, 2005

Lazy, bad blogger

I can't believe how lazy I've been this week about blogging! I thought I would have a ton of time to blog this week since I am working from home but actually I seem to have less. I think part of the reason is that when I am at home, if I need a break from working I can do something productive around the house, as opposed to the office (and being out of town), where I can't do anything productive while I'm not working except maybe get a snack. So that is my very poor excuse.

This has been a pretty crazy day already, even though it's only 9:30 in the morning! I should cover yesterday first, however, and even Tuesday night, because I didn't write yesterday. Tuesday morning I ran 8 miles, and Tuesday night, while it was still nice and cool out and Matt was at the baseball game, I ran 4 miles. This was a great run and I was all excited because I felt like I had kind of modified my stride where I was pushing off more with my toes and my strides felt longer and awesome. I do not know if this was a temporary thing but I think in my next workout or race I will try it.

Yesterday morning I ran 8 miles as well. I am in an 8 mile rut this week for sure. It was a fine run, nothing very exciting happened. I thought about running again but it just didn't really work out, which was fine. I was ravenously hungry all day, so when the opportunity to cook dinner came up, I went with it. We made a really good dinner last night by the way - pork with nectarine relish, couscous, and green beans. It was so nice to cook and eat something good at home! I have been out of town so much that I am very sick of eating out right now.

Anyway, this morning I forced myself out of bed (with Matt's help) at 7:00 and ran 8 miles. It was already somewhat warm out, although I saw the weather on the east coast yesterday and I have absolutely no room to complain. I had quite a bathroom emergency around mile 6 but luckily my old apartment building was right by there so I made a stop. I finished in 1:11 so I am running this route consistently faster lately which is nice. Even when my legs feel kind of cruddy, like today.

So now on to why this morning is so crazy. I was running back, maybe 3-4 minutes from home, and I saw something really disturbing. I was running up a one way northbound street, and was almost at an intersection with a one way eastbound street. A lot of people turn right from the northbound street onto the eastbound street while the light is red because there's not a ton of traffic. I saw one person turn and that was normal. But then I saw a second car turn, and when they turned a very small child fell out of the car. He/she started screaming and crying immediately, and they stopped and a woman rushed out and held the kid. But my God, what could they possibly have been doing that their little kid (maybe 2 or 3 years old) was not in a car seat and was able to open the door enough so that they fell out of the car while it was moving. I sincerely hope that this little child is all right, and that whoever was so negligent to allow their child to fall out of the car got some kind of comeuppance.

Anyway, that is no way to end a blog entry. I am at a coffee shop that I like, I am heading to lunch with Matt and a few of our friends in a little bit, then I am working on Matt's birthday present which I am excited about, and then I will work more. Tonight we may go to dinner with friends, but if not we will go shopping - I redeemed some Amex points for $400 in gift certificates from Crate and Barrel, so they are burning a hole in our pockets. Tomorrow I am free most of the morning, and then working from 11-3, and then we are heading up to Fort Collins for some quality family time. It should be a good, busy couple of days!

Posted by barb at 9:23 AM | Comments (1)

July 26, 2005

Cool at last!

I have no ground to stand on in the area of complaining about the weather right now. I was in temperate California until last Thursday and only had to deal with the heat for a few days. But this is still a welcome respite - today I don't think it will get over 80 degrees. It feels really nice and I know it helped me on my run this morning. I still am a lazy bum and need to start getting up at least by 7:00 every morning but right now it is so hard! This morning I got out of bed around 7:30 and started running around 7:45 or so. I did my Wash Park run and completed it in 1:11, which is about a minute and a half faster than normal. I believe it is a long 8 miles. Nothing too interesting happened, I had a lot of stuff on my mind so it went by fairly quickly and I came home on autopilot. Sometimes I seriously wonder if I will not end up in the wrong place, as I hardly remember how I got home when I get there!

Now I am working at my favorite coffee house in Denver. This is about a 5-10 minute walk from my old apartment so I used to come here all the time but haven't been in quite a while. It is such a nice place. I've been here for about 2 hours now and I have cranked out a lot of work, which is nice. Even though I have spent less hours at work this week, I am so much more productive when I am not miserable. There is the most adorable Bernese Mountain Dog sitting outside here. I am totally obsessed with this breed, I think that they are completely adorable! They must shed like crazy, though. The one outside is the most hyper one I have ever seen.

Anyhoo, I digress. I am heading off to get a haircut and color in a few minutes, then on the way home I'm going to stop by the grocery store. Then I will work for a while longer and see Matt for a little while, and then my plan is that when he goes to the baseball game with his friend T., I will run again and possibly do a little more work. I need to lift weights at some point again this century, so I think that on Thursday after I go to lunch with a few friends I might head to the gym - either then or Friday. While I am at home (hopefully for a while of course) I want to get back into lifting once or twice a week, and I would also like to start doing more cross training.

Anyway I am off to enjoy the cool weather!

Posted by barb at 10:35 AM | Comments (1)

July 25, 2005

What is it with me and bugs?!

As most of you know I got a pretty wicked bee/wasp sting last week while I was running. Unfortunately the fun did not end there - yesterday I got between 15 and 20 mosquito bites on a hike! Today, most of them are doing all right although there are a few that are just enormous, and that itch like crazy. However this trail was really nice and we hope to go back there, with lots of mosquito repellent, this coming weekend. Yesterday I don't think we hiked more than 3 miles round trip because as we kept going the mosquito problem got worse and worse.

So although I look kind of wretched, what with the number of bumps and bites all over me, things are going well. I am enjoying working from home quite a bit so far. It is still pretty warm here, however, and I need to start motivating myself to run earlier. I ran at 10:00 this morning and it was already over 80 degrees which is just a bit too hot for me. I ended up with 7 days of running and 56 miles last week so I'd like to do almost that well this week. Today I ran an easy 5 miles, but tomorrow I think I will try to do two decent runs. I think it'll take 3 weeks to get adjusted to being at altitude again but in two weeks I'd like to start doing some amount of speed work. Although I ostensibly run to get faster, lately I have been getting slower at an alarming pace. This is a bad trend that I think I should start to reverse soon.

Now I am just working away but tonight we are going to the movies to see the March of the Penguins. I am really excited, this is supposed to be a great documentary and penguins are adorable! I hope everyone is enjoying the week so far.

Posted by barb at 7:46 AM | Comments (0)

July 23, 2005

Great to be home

I am really glad to be home, it is so nice. It is beastly hot here but that is okay with me! Yesterday, which was my first full day at home for over 2 weeks, was very busy. I went to lunch at my mom's which was nice because I hadn't seen her in a long time, nor had I seen my brother who was there, or my insane dog, or my stepdad. I got to see my stepdad's new office - they remodeled my brother's old bedroom - which is very nice. His old office had no windows so this is a lot more bright.

In the morning I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed, since we stayed up late Thursday night and went to the outdoor movies to see Caddyshack. I finally got out of bed around 8:15 and went running at 9:15 when it was probably already 80 degrees out or so. It really wasn't all that bad and I felt good on my 8 mile run. I haven't been at altitude for about 3 weeks, which is long enough to make it a rough transition coming back, but hopefully it won't be all that bad.

Last night we drove up to Fort Collins with a few of our friends for the going away party for two of Matt's brothers - one is moving to New Zealand for a year and one is moving to Vegas indefinitely. It was a good time although it was definitely a college party which we are too old for! We got back here around 12:30, so I slept in and now Matt's mom and brother are coming down so we can go to the renaissance festival. Yes this will be quite cheesy, I do not know what to expect since I have not gone for about 10 years. And it will be hot but what can you do. Since I overslept, I will try to run later on if it cools off. I am already at a decent mileage such that if I run tomorrow that will be okay, but I'd like to run 7 days this week.

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend! I am off to call my grandma really quick, yesterday I booked us some pretty cheap flights to go visit her for her 90th birthday!

Posted by barb at 9:47 AM | Comments (0)

July 21, 2005

Good run, barb-like mishap

So as the people who have been reading my blog for a while know, I am prone to all kinds of mishaps when I run. Most notable is probably the time last year when a bee flew up my nose, while I was running, and stung me in the nostril. That was really painful but a good story. So yeseterday I got another story, not quite as good, but equally painful. I went to the trail near here (about 15 minutes away) and I wanted to run the entire trail which I thought was about 11 miles round trip. Which I did. And even though from the mile markers you would think it's 10.5 miles I really think it's at least 11. So I am calling it 11 miles. The first 5.5 are really hard - they are all uphill - but the last 5.5 are really easy as they are all downhill.

On the way up, I had a very small mishap of running right over a snake. Well I jumped over the snake but anyway I did see him. He was just small and black so although I am not a huge fan of snakes it was not a big deal. Then, on the way back down the trail, I was running along and felt a stinging sensation in my lower back (almost exactly spot on top of my tattoo, which is a sun). It hurt enough that I screamed 'OW!!' to no one. I had no idea what had just stung me and I could not see the wound as it is in the small of my back which is almost impossible to see. It hurt all the way down and when I drove back to the hotel it hurt even more. While I was running down the trail I was worried that maybe a rattlesnake leapt up and bit me in the back but of course that is ridiculous. There was a sign at the trailhead that warned about a number of animals and such including yellow jackets, so I believe that a yellow jacket was the culprit.

Anyway that was a somewhat eventful but overall a good run. This morning I thought I would feel like crap after running 11 miles in the evening but actually I felt fine. I only had time for 4 miles this morning which was too bad because I would have enjoyed running more. But that is okay. I had to get in and work on a presentation for a meeting that I will attend for the first 30 minutes, before I have to leave for the airport.

I really cannot believe I actually get to go home today, it has been so awful and I feel like I have not been home in such a long time. But I guess that I do. I really hope that my flight will be on time! It has been beastly hot in Denver this week - yesterday they set a record of 105 degrees, which is the hottest it's been in Denver since 1869. However, I will be so happy to get home that I do not really care. Matt's mountain bike came in yesterday, so we are planning to do some very hot mountain biking this weekend, which should be fun. I will update tomorrow. So far this week I've run 38 miles so I think I would be remiss as a runner if I did not run at least 50 miles this week.

Posted by barb at 10:22 AM | Comments (6)

July 20, 2005

Other news - upcoming race(s)

One other thing I forgot to mention. I am running the last leg in a half ironman triathlon relay with my friend M. and her boyfriend S. M. is doing the swim, S. is doing the bike, and I am doing the run, which is a half marathon. If we can each do our part reasonably well (S. is an amazing cyclist so we are not worried about him), then we might actually be able to win the coed relay. My part is a half marathon and I'm hoping I can run it in 1:45 or so. Hence part of my motivation to do a longer run today. I am looking forward to it, and I hope it will be a good time!

In addition, I might start getting into mountain bike racing a very little bit. A friend of mine who is really good at mountain biking is doing a race in Winter Park on August 13. Once Matt gets his bike, we are going to go ride the course to see if we think it is doable. If so, I think we will do the race. It should be fun and we will see if this is something we could be good at. The course is about 13 miles long so it does not sound too hard.

Posted by barb at 10:16 AM | Comments (1)

Iron Deficiency

I am obsessed with my iron levels. Every time I go for a run and I feel like crap, I decide that I have an iron deficiency and I need to either eat a bunch of red meat or take an iron supplement. Since I am away from home right now, I decided yesterday I needed to eat some red meat. It did not have an immediate effect but I am hoping that I can at least survive my runs until I get to go home tomorrow.

Anyway I have not updated my blog in a little while but nothing exciting has been happening. Yesterday I ran 6 miles in the morning and 5 miles after work. It was uneventful and for the most part I did not feel too great. During my run after work I did run a lap around the Stanford track, just to be able to say I did it. Of course since I am away from home I got no joy from the experience but maybe someday I will. There were a lot of Team in Training people there, but no one famous. I think it was a bit late in the day for the famous people to be running.

I was going to get up and run around this morning but when I woke up I mainly wanted to go back to sleep until I could leave, so I decided I rather come to work early so I can leave at 5:00 and do a long trail run. I am planning to run about 11 miles today so we'll see how that goes. The one redeeming factor in my life this week is that I've been able to run a decent amount, so I'd like to keep that going. I haven't really been doing long runs lately, so it might be hard but it is the kind of run I enjoy - uphill on the way out, downhill on the way back.

I can't really believe I am going home tomorrow. I just feel so messed up and out of sorts right now, I don't even know how to explain it. It's like I am just sad and kind of numb and I try not to think about my situation because if I really think about it, I feel that I am being buried by this enormous sense of despair. It stops me in my tracks. So I try to stay on autopilot and focus on surviving and putting one foot in front of the other, proverbially. All I really know is that I can't keep doing this.

Posted by barb at 9:16 AM | Comments (2)

July 18, 2005

If you don't have anything nice to say...

Don't say anything at all. Or so my mom always said. And I tried to obey this tenant last night and this morning when I had nothing nice to say! I am really sick of being in California which is the cause of my angst. Matt went home last night and I have to stay here until Thursday which sucks royally. I want to go home!

Nothing exciting happened over the weekend from a running perspective. I ran every day last week but Sunday - and I should have run on Sunday but I was sad so I didn't. This morning I ran a long 5 miles around my new hotel which was fine and after work I drove to the trail L. and I ran on last week, and ran probably a short 7 miles, which all works out to about 12 total miles for the day. So the trail run was really nice and very beautiful and stuff. I had a good time although it seemed to take longer without L. It seems like a good place to do some decent running though, which is cool. If I feel really ambitious on Wednesday morning I might go run there early in the morning to do a cool 10.5 or 11 mile run that I think might be nice.

Other than that, not too much is going on. I am eating dried cherries right now and contemplating the idea of possibly going and getting something more substantial for dinner but it's not sounding good. I might just eat cherries for dinner and obsessively read the new Harry Potter book which I started last night. I'm enjoying it so far but luckily I'm not enjoying it so much that I need to read it to the point of not going to work or running. I will probably finish it by the end of the week. As an English major and someone who considers herself to be something of a literature geek I used to have a healthy sense of self-loathing due to my obsession with Harry Potter but now I just embrace it, they are fun stories.

Speaking of fun stories, we went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory over the weekend in San Francisco. I do not know if a lot of people would really enjoy it, but I just loved it! It is so much more like the book than the other movie, and Johnny Depp is such an awesomely creepy Willy Wonka. If you don't like Tim Burton I think you would hate it, but I like him and I really enjoyed the film. The oompa loompa songs are so awesome.

So that is the news. Hopefully I will survive the next few days with most of my sanity intact so that I can go home!

Posted by barb at 8:50 PM | Comments (2)

July 14, 2005

Chocolate-Inspired Run

I wonder if I am the only runner that does this = sometimes after my alarm goes off, and I really don't want to get up, I think about what I ate yesterday and decide that I have to go. For example this morning I woke up, almost went back to sleep, and decided that I had to run because of the large, delicious chocolate dessert that I had last night.

Anyway, I was glad that I got up once I started running. It was a nice morning, sunny and maybe 65 degrees. I took the run that one of the other consultants out here told me about and found the correct trail (the one he had told me about) today, although I actually preferred the incorrect trail or the one I took yesterday. The trail today was okay but just really short, so I had to keep going on a bunch of sidewalks and stuff. I ended up right around Stanford and pretty close to the Dish trail so I think this would be a good way to get a long morning run in. I might try it next week. Anyway this morning I ran about 7 miles (62 minutes), then packed my stuff up and came in to work.

The reason I was so tired when my alarm went off is that we didn't eat dinner until around 10:00 last night, as Matt's flight was delayed for a long time so he got in about 90 minutes late (after leaving almost two hours late and sitting on the plane for a very long time). I felt so bad for him but at least he made it last night! We had a great time last night and I am so excited to get done with wokr today so we can go hang out and explore San Francisco. Matt knows San Fran really well so it will be fun for him to show me around. I could tell how excited he was to be back in the bay area last night which was really nice.

As a side note, Matt got a grappa at the restaurant last night while we had dessert. I remember that my dad had always said grappa tasted like motor oil. This is in fact true. Do with this bit of trivia what you will, but I would not recommend the grappa unless you enjoy drinking motor oil in a pretty glass!

Posted by barb at 10:23 AM | Comments (10)

July 13, 2005

Maybe I am in good shape, maybe I'm just at sea level

This is something I wonder about sometimes, like today when I ran a 4 minute negative split on the second half of my 8 mile run. Or maybe I just need to go out for longer because all of my runs are uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back. Who knows. Also I think in the morning I start out my runs really, really slow and I finish them much faster.

But I digress. I actually have two runs to write about this morning. Yesterday morning I ran 7 miles, as I mentioned in my last entry, and after work I went for another run at the dish. The dish if you do not recall is an asphalt trail that goes up a lot of big hills to a large satellite dish on top of a hill. I am not sure how long the dish loop is exactly - I keep forgetting to check - but the run I did last night lasted 54 minutes (after I ran around the parking lot for a while to add on) so I am calling the run 6 miles. It was pretty warm when I started out but it wasn't too bad. After my run I was in the parking lot at work and I was chatting with a guy who used to stay at my hotel a lot and he gave me a run for this morning so that was cool too.

Last night we went for Thai food which was delicious. Both of my coworkers I went with got dessert and I was proud of myself for being good but then I was coerced into eating part of my friend's deep fried banana. Which tasted good but my heavens could I pick something more unhealthy to eat, outside of possibly a fried Snickers bar.

This morning I rolled out of bed unwillingly and went to explore the run this guy told me about. I am not sure if I really did what he said but I did find a bike path very close to the hotel which was nice, then I found a continuation of the path, and ran on that for a long time until I found a nice quiet road with a dirt sidewalk, which was awesome. Then I turned around and came back. I think I ran about 8 miles. So I have had a solid running week so far which makes me feel good about things, although I will not be doing any more doubles because tonight after work I am going to pick Matt up from the airport! I am so excited I can hardly stand it. I am very excited to do some running and some hanging out in San Francisco and Sonoma Valley. I am also very excited to go around and taste a bunch of yummy wine!

I hope that everyone is having a great week.

Posted by barb at 9:47 AM | Comments (2)

July 12, 2005

Nice trails in Palo Alto

The more that I hang out in Palo Alto, the more I like it. It really helps to know someone who knows some cool trails. L. and I had a great, albeit somewhat short, trail run about 15 minutes from my office here. The trails here are really nice, they are very smooth and good for running and there are so many trees! The trail we did basically went uphill for a long time and then downhill for a long time, which in my mind is the perfect trail - I love going uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back. It was so pretty that I might go back there tonight after work to run again.

Last night I did not do much of anything. I needed a new book or two so I went to the downtown area of Palo Alto and checked out the Borders there. It is really cool, it's in an old theater or something so it has a nice courtyard. I bought a stupid chick lit book and because I did not want to feel like an idiot so close to Stanford I also bought 1984, which I have always wanted to read. Then I walked around and checked out restaurants and stores and whatnot. It is so nice there. I was in bed by 9:45 or so and asleep by 10:00, which was nice. I woke up at 6:30 this morning and ran 7 miles. It was a nice run, I went through the downtown area of Los Altos again and found a very small but kind of cool nature preserve near there that has one very, very short trail. I do enjoy exploring new places when I run and finding cool things that most people don't see when they visit a place.

After work tonight I'm going to run again and then I think we're going to dinner in the downtown area. Matt is coming to town tomorrow so I am really excited for our weekend out here!

Posted by barb at 10:21 AM | Comments (1)

July 11, 2005

Hot weekend, and back to temperate California

As everyone who reads my blog knows, I despise traveling for work with every fiber of my being. However, this morning when I got to California and it was nice and temperate and I knew it would not be 96 degrees later on, that was kind of cool. Because it was really hot in Denver this weekend.

I didn't do very much running and working out this weekend. However my excuse is that I have about 72 hours in Denver in the entire month of July so I don't need to spend all that time working out. On Saturday morning I ran 5 miles, which was nice and unremarkable. Then Saturday afternoon, after a work barbeque that I had to plan and do everything for (for which Matt was a HUGE help, which was really nice), I cross trained and lifted. It actually felt good to lift because it is such a rare occurrence nowadays! Saturday night we went to a really nice dinner with a group of friends at a South American restaurant I had wanted to try forever. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday I slept in until a little after 9:00, so I didn't run in the morning because we had to go to breakfast with some friends. Then I didn't run for a long time because it was about 96 or 97 degrees out and it was also surprisingly humid. We did go to the park and hang out for a while and then took a walk around it (a little over a mile) and then ran errands and just hung out. I almost finished the book I've been reading - The Corrections - which I enjoyed more than I thought I would. I actually left it at home for 10 days because I didn't want to lug it around to read the last 15 pages, so I guess I'll find out how it ends next Friday.

Anyway it was cool enough to run around 8:00 so Matt and I went and trotted around for 30 minutes, or about 3 miles. We never run together because we run vastly different distances and stuff but it was so much fun, I really enjoyed it!

I didn't sleep very well at all last night, I think I was just worried about my alarm not going off at its scheduled ungodly hour, so I am a little tired today. I took the 6:00 am flight out here which is good because I need to leave work at 5:00 to go running with L. I'm planning to work out and sleep a lot this week because I have been totally exhausted and totally lazy recently, and I'd like to put an end to that trend. So we'll see how that goes!

Posted by barb at 10:11 AM | Comments (2)

July 8, 2005

A few nice runs

I am really enjoying Palo Alto right now, except for the fact that I would rather be home. However this has got to be one of the best places in America to run - great weather, nice environment, etc., etc. Mainly I think the thing I enjoy is the weather, it doesn't seem like it ever gets too hot or too cold. However I am very, very excited to go home! I have already checked in for my flight and it should be nice because I'm in business class today.

Also I have discovered a new thing. They have oatmeal here in the kitchen so it's free which is cool, and I had some this morning because I was running late and couldn't go to Starbucks, and it was just so filling that it's really nice! Usually I eat at 8:00 and I'm starving by 10:00, but today it's 10:00 and I am still nice and full. In addition to that nice feeling, I just feel good because it seems healthier to eat oatmeal than to eat a scone from Starbucks.

Anyway, running. My college friend L. emailed me and told me where The Dish trail is. So after work yesterday I drove up there and ran from about 6 minutes down the road (parking issues) to the trail, around the trail, and back. I think I ran a little over 5 miles, which gave me a little over 9 for the day.

After the run we went to sushi which was often interrupted by phone calls for me, I felt bad but some guys were at the office trying to reimage a bunch of training computers and I had to walk them through it. I am such a technical geek now! Sushi was delicious and afterwards I was tired but I ended up talking to Matt for over a half hour, which may be a record for us as he hates talking on the phone, and then I went to bed around 10:15.

My wake up call came in around 6:15 and I think I would have punched someone if someone would have been available, but instead I decided to go for my run. I only had time for about 6 miles. I decided just to go to this kind of busy road and run East on it (I think it was east, I am so confused by directions here). It turned out to be so nice! I ran by the downtown area of Los Altos which was so cute, it had all kinds of cute restaurants and shops and whatnot. Then I ended up in a ritzy neighborhood called the Los Altos Hills and saw some amazing houses. It was a really nice run and I'll definitely do it again. On the way back I did some pickups so I finished in 52 minutes.

I better get some amount of work done before I take off for the airport. I hope everyone has a nice weekend!

Posted by barb at 10:15 AM | Comments (1)

July 7, 2005

Don't know what to say

Some days I have a really hard time coming up with anything to say, it is like I have writer's block. Today is a pretty sad day in world events and I don't have anything to comment about it, except that I hope for the best for Londoners to get their lives back together, and that it is so sad that we live in a world in which wanton destruction and murder occur. We have so much progress in so many ways, mainly right now I am thinking about technology and stuff, but in the sense of moral progress I do not think we are advanced at all. It is sad.

So last night I went for a run from my hotel, to Stanford, and back. I spotted a few Stanford runners which was kind of cool although I couldn't really say what their names are. I guess that I was spotted as well - by a friend from college - so that is kind of funny. She commented on my blog about it and I guess she is living here now. Small world. I ended up running 7 miles yesterday, and then we drove to San Francisco to meet some other people that work at our company for dinner. Traffic was unbearably bad so I am going to research other transportation options for the next time we go to the big city.

This morning I got up around 7:00, so I slept for around 8 hours but I am still really tired and lethargic. I had a nice, easy 4 mile run around my hotel's area which was enjoyable but not particulary remarkable. My college friend L. told me where The Dish is - a paved trail near Stanford that apparently has nice views - so I'm heading there to go for another run tonight. This will be my first double in a while but I feel like it'll be fine. Afterwards, my work friend and I are going to head to a little sushi place kind of near our hotel for dinner.

In general I do hate to complain about my life at a time when others are losing theirs, because it makes me sound like a self-absorbed kind of idiot but I am sad. I hate to be away from home and although Palo Alto is very nice I miss Matt and home and everything. Luckily I am going home tomorrow so I will be very happy about that. This weekend will be very busy and short since I am flying back out here early Monday morning but next week Matt's flying out here on Wednesday and I think we'll have a really nice weekend in the bay area and the wine country.

I hope that everyone is having a nice day.

Posted by barb at 11:59 AM | Comments (2)

July 6, 2005

First Impressions of Palo Alto

So I flew into Palo Alto (well, I flew into SFO) very early this morning for two and a half days. I’ll be spending 4 of the next 6 weeks out here, possibly slightly more. And next weekend Matt is flying out to meet me so that should be a lot of fun! So far, all I’ve really seen is the airport and the drive to the office. Thus I don’t have many impressions except that I am tired (I had to get up at 4:15 am) and the weather seems nice here. When you fly all the time you get free upgrades so I upgraded myself to first class this morning which was nice. I don’t care too much about being in first class although the seats are so much more comfortable, and free breakfast is always a good thing. I’m also upgraded for Friday which will be nicer since I will be slightly more coherent on that flight. And it’s on a 747 which is a huge plane so I believe I’ll be in the upstairs – how strange! It should be an interesting experience.

So far the client where we’ll be working seems fine. The thing I’m most impressed with is the kitchen here – it is super stocked. On Mondays and Wednesdays they have fruit brought in, which is cool. I just had a white peach and it was delicious! They also have Ramen noodles, oatmeal, cereal, coffee, and like 15 kinds of tea. Overall everything here seems to be a huge improvement over Arkansas.

Tonight we’re going to dinner with some other people from our company who are working in the Bay Area, so that should be fun. Crawling into bed and sleeping for 12 hours actually sounds like more fun right now but that isn’t much of an option. We are planning to leave the office around 5:00 so I should have plenty of time to run and explore a bit before we have to leave for the big city of San Francisco. I think the hotel I’m staying in is within a mile or two of the Stanford campus so I’ll probably trot around over there, but if you’ve been in/near Palo Alto and know some good places to run, definitely let me know!

I’ll post tomorrow about my run here. I hope everyone is easing back into working after the long weekend.

Posted by barb at 11:43 AM | Comments (2)

July 5, 2005

Done with Vegas

Well I am done with another trip to Vegas which will hopefully be my last one for a while! I had never been there before April of this year and now I've been twice in the last six months which is just a bit much. This was a fun trip though and I am happy to report that I didn't get sick this time which was very nice.

We left for Vegas early Saturday morning and that day I paid $20 to use the hotel fitness center, and ran 4 miles while watching the food network. I really like that channel while I run. This was kind of necessary (the whole treadmill adventure) because the temperatures in Vegas this weekend reached 105-110 every day. It is a dry heat but it's still quite hot. In addition, running outside in Las Vegas is somewhat miserable due to the crowds, the level of pollution, and the cars that seem to enjoy scaring pedestrians. But I did run outside Sunday morning and it was actually kind of enjoyable. There is a lot to see along the strip, and I enjoyed running by all the casinos. Their architecture is pretty cool. And they are so big that you can cover a reasonable amount of distance without feeling that you've been running forever. I only ran 4 miles Sunday as well - it was about all I really felt like doing and had time for with the heat.

Monday morning I ran 4 miles on the treadmill while watching King of the Hill - I love that show! - before Matt and I got massages at the spa at our hotel, which was so nice, although I did have the chattiest massage therapist ever! He was so nice but my goodness he was chatty. So my body felt really good this morning in spite of flying home!

We ate like crazy people in Vegas so we are back on something of a diet now, although I do not feel too bad about it. We went to Vegas with Matt's family which consists of a bunch of baptists who do not drink or gamble. So they enjoy eating and shopping and walking around, which is primarily what we did. Luckily although I didn't run much, we probably walked an average of three miles a day!

This morning I had a chiropractic appointment in Boulder at 10:00 just to get another adjustment after my mountain biking incident. I came up a bit early and ran 9 miles on the South Boulder Creek trail, my favorite one in the Denver/Boulder area. I went out and back and tried to go kind of fast on the last 3.5 miles, which I ran in 26:00, for approximately 7:25 pace. That felt really good and it was a wonderful morning for running - maybe 60 or 65 degrees out with decent cloud cover and a light breeze. It was an awesome run.

Right now I'm up in Boulder drinking coffee and catching up on email (and blogs), and I'll be heading back to Denver pretty soon to get some work done and get ready to fly to San Francisco at 6:00 am tomorrow. It will be a tiring week but it should actually be kind of nice in the San Francisco area, so I am trying to not dread it.

I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend!

Posted by barb at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)

July 1, 2005

Ready for the Weekend

I am so excited for this weekend to begin! Luckily for me it did kind of start around 1:30 today. I finished teaching the course at 1:00 and left by 1:30 because I didn't have anything else I really needed to do. I ellipticalled for 65 minutes this morning - a little harder than normal - but I really wanted to run. So as soon as I got home, I changed into running clothes. I needed to drop off rent at my old apartment so I decided to run down to Wash Park, run around it, and run back. It was about 90 degrees out so it felt really hot but I decided I should suck it up. The first 5.5 miles were nice and the last 2.5 somewhat resembled a death march but I kept going. My back didn't hurt at all so that was nice! By mile 6 I was really wishing I had brought money (which I almost did) to buy some water. When I got back, I sat on the couch for a while and couldn't believe how much I was sweating! It was truly revolting so I drank two bottles of water and got in the shower right away.

Tonight we have no plans which will actually be kind of nice, so we're going to hang out and pack for our trip to Vegas. Our flight's at 7:00 am tomorrow so we will be getting up very early - I am making a point of it to go to bed early so I feel okay in Vegas this time. I probably won't update again until Monday night or Tuesday morning. But I really hope that will not be due to lack of running!

I hope everyone has a fantastic long weekend!

Posted by barb at 6:07 PM | Comments (2)