Wednesday evening, Clark got home from work pretty late and I didn’t feel like running anymore, so I just took the rest day.
Yesterday, I did a strength training class, and then I ran 4 miles at an 8:47/mile average.
And this morning, I managed to get up early-ish for once and run before work. I just did another 4 miles at an 8:56/mile average.
That finished off (a rather slack) April for me, so here is the monthly summary.
Mileage:
Week 1 (April 1-3): 10.5 miles
Week 2 (April 4-10): 30
Week 3 (April 11-17): 22.4
Week 4 (April 18-24): 22.8
Week 5 (April 25-30): 16
Total: 101.7 miles
Dang, barely broke triple digits this month! Not doing long runs — or any runs longer than 4 to 6 miles, for that matter — for a couple weeks will do that.
Of course, there was still no racing to speak of this month. I was signed up for a 50K on April 17 but it had gotten canceled in March due to ongoing COVID restrictions, so we were all deferred to 2022.
In May, I do have a virtual race I guess I’m participating in. In January 2020, I signed up for a 4-mile race across the bridge to Coronado that was supposed to be last May. When the pandemic hit, they deferred us all to 2021. And then it became clear it wasn’t going to happen in-person this May either, so they said screw it, you’re all “racing” virtually, we’ll send you a medal and T-shirt in the mail.
Other than that, my first training plan in a long time, for the St. George Marathon on Oct. 2, officially begins May 31, so, just a few more weeks of winging it!
This weekend, I’m planning on the Weekend Warriors class and a shorter run tomorrow, and then I can hopefully get back into the long run thing Sunday.
Saturday morning, I did the Weekend Warriors workout, and then later that morning, I ran a different and slightly longer variation on my hilly route, which turned out to be 6.6 miles at a 9:43/mile average.
I spent the rest of the day reading “Dead Wake,” by Erik Larson, about the sinking of the Lusitania, a British passenger liner, by a German U-boat in 1915. Larson is definitely one of my favorite authors and this book was just as engaging as anything else I’ve read by him.
I do like a good fictional story, but right now I’m on a “true accounts of terrible things happening to real people” kick, because next in my pile of library books is “Radium Girls,” about the women who were being poisoned by the radium they were painting onto watch faces. (Thanks for the recommendation, Laura!)
Clark spent most of Saturday working on the toilet connection in our guest bathroom. Long story short, there had been a leak between the drain from the toilet to the cast iron pipe under the house for a VERY long time — it was absolutely there when we bought the house because there was caulk around the base of the toilet, evidence that someone had tried to slap a Band-Aid on it to sell the place. The leak had been getting worse lately so Clark finally pulled off the toilet to see what was going on there, and it was a mess.
He’s still working on grinding down enough of the corrosion in the cast iron pipe to be able to fit on the new drain, but other than that, he’s about got it done.
Meanwhile, our second toilet is chilling on the back deck haha.
Throne with a view!
Sunday, I really meant to do a long run. But I kept finding other things to do, and also my quads and butt were pretty sore from something we’d done in the Weekend Warriors workout the day before. I never ran.
But I do have some garden updates!
Things are actually growing! Those tomatoes in the front two boxes needed cages within a week of planting, but I think the furthest-along plants we have are the squash and zucchini:
Pepper checked out the peppers:
And then he had to be physically removed from the box with the cucumbers and one of the tomato plants when he decided that was where he wanted to stand:
Maybe he liked the feeling of dirt between his front toes?
That afternoon, we went to a garden center and got a few more things to plant in the veggie garden — cilantro, basil and Carolina Reaper chili peppers. I thought the last one was a terrible idea, but Clark insists he’s not actually going to eat any of them.
We also got a couple really nice indoor plants and planters.
Draecaena carmen.
We’re going to have to reposition this one once Clark’s record storage cabinet gets here and we get those plastic totes put away. The plant is tall enough it’ll be in the way of the guitar that hangs from that mount (Clark puts those away most of the time so they don’t get dusty.)
Split-leaf monstera.
This one is in the corner of the kitchen where we should have a dining room table, but instead we’ve just got Pepper’s food and water bowls there. Someday, after we replace that stupid tile flooring, we want to install a built-in bench along the corner there, and a table.
This morning, I had an email from my boss about the hybrid in-office/at-home schedule we’ll be shifting to and the move to our new office, which is now official.
June 1, I’ll start going to my office every Tuesday and Wednesday. The other three days of the week, I’ll be at home.
That just happens to be exactly two weeks after my second vaccine dose, which is when I’ll be considered fully vaccinated. Perfect timing!
I texted Pepper’s dog sitter this morning to let her know when to expect part-time dog-sitting to resume. She said her dog, Riley, will be very excited to get to spend a couple days a week with Pep again. Pepper, not so much haha. Oh well.
The day before that, May 31, is the first day I’ll finally be on a training plan again, for the St. George Marathon in October. It feels good to know I’ll be getting back to “normal” in a lot of ways pretty soon.
Speaking of training, today I’ll just do a short run later.
Yesterday, I didn’t feel like doing strength training after all, but I did go for a short run when Clark got home. I had to walk a bit in the third mile to make it to a bathroom thanks to the leftover spicy burrito I’d had for lunch, which brought down the overall average pace for 4 miles to 9:39/mile.
Today, I haven’t done anything yet, but I might go for another run when Clark gets home.
This weekend looks pretty quiet. No big plans. I’d like to do the Weekend Warriors workout tomorrow (my arm feels quite a bit better today) and a shorter run, and then a longer one Sunday.
Happy Earth Day! All the press releases we’re getting at work today are about electric vehicles. The future is coming!
Tuesday evening, I did my first strength training class in a week, and then I went out and ran solo, also for the first time in a week, since my sister had left that morning. I did 4 miles at an 8:41/mile average.
Yesterday, I ran again after work. It was a gray, cool and, it turned out, drizzly day — which meant I had far fewer other people to deal with on the coast. My legs were pretty dead though, so I wasn’t feeling very peppy. Also, my left arm is sore where I got my shot Tuesday. But I got in 5 miles at an 8:57/mile average.
I usually do a strength training class on Thursdays but I don’t know if I will today. My arm still hurts. Either way, I would like to get in another run later.
Yesterday, my sister and I did one more run together, 3.2 miles at a 9:09/mile pace, and then Clark and I took her to Pizza Port for her last dinner here.
She had to fly back home this morning. It was so nice having her here!
Hopefully we will get to go home and see her (and everyone else) sometime soon-ish. I got my first dose of the Moderna vaccine today, and Clark got his a couple weeks ago. We both have appointments for our second doses in May, so we should be good to go by June.
As far as training goes today, I’m about to do a strength training class for the first time in a week, and then go for a short run.
Friday afternoon, Julie and I went for another run, this time along the bike trail, to the coast, along the sea wall, through the village to the other end of the bike trail and back. It was a total of 3.7 miles at a 9:41/mile average after we took a brief walk break around the 3-mile mark.
Then we got cleaned up and went to the Flower Fields. We took a ton of pictures.
Before I remembered I could take off my mask for pictures.
Persian Ranunculus fields in bloom.
I liked this one because it caught the sunbeam.
There were several other photo ops around the grounds. We had to get our pictures with this one:
We also perused the large garden store there and picked out a little planter and a few succulents, for a centerpiece for our outdoor dining table.
We made a couple more stops, to get some supplies, because we had a little party that night!
Clark invited Ian, my brother’s best friend from his days in the Navy, who’s stationed in San Diego now and lives in this county farther south. I hadn’t seen him since before he went to Italy several years ago. Clark also invited his now-former coworker, Arash, who has the golden retriever we’ve watched a couple times, Grace, and of course he brought her too. Friday just happened to be Grace’s first birthday!
So we grilled some Schmidt barbecue chicken, listened to our record player and sat around the fire pit. Arash and Grace went home what turned out to be early in the proceedings — the rest of us stayed up way later than I’ve been up in a very long time.
Saturday morning, Clark got up and went to the grocery store to get the fixings for one of his famous big breakfasts. Ian kept saying he was going to go hang out with one of their other Navy friends who lives in the area, but he wound up just staying another whole night haha. We all had another late night.
Sunday, Ian went home, and the rest of us decided to do something that involved leaving our back yard.
Julie had looked into taking one of the tandem paraglider flights at the Torrey Pines Gliderport near La Jolla. She’d called that morning and they said it wasn’t windy enough yet then for the flights, but we thought maybe it would pick up, so we drove down there.
Well, unfortunately the wind did not pick up, so she never got to take a paraglider flight.
But we did almost kill Pepper!
This poor dog. Close to the glider port is Black’s Beach. Clark and I had been there once — on our honeymoon, in January 2010. It’s a clothing-optional beach and we’d seen one dude with no pants on that day, so we thought we’d check it out since we were there. Maybe we’d see another naked person in public.
I remember there being a long set of steps down the cliff to the beach, but I had remembered actual staircases. I was wrong. It was basically a path cut into the cliff, with some plywood boards, cement blocks or large rocks jammed in it to make “steps.”
It was very steep, and a very long path.
This doesn’t do it justice. It’s way longer than it looks here, and gets MUCH steeper in a lot of places.
We got down it OK, though I was already sweating like crazy from trying to keep Pepper’s old butt from slipping and falling the whole way down.
As soon as we got to the edge of the water, we were approached by our first naked guy. (There were a TON of naked guys at the beach on a warm April day, by the way!) He told us dogs weren’t technically allowed on the beach and the lifeguards, like the one who’d just pulled up, would probably tell us to leave if he noticed Pepper.
Great, we dragged this dog all the way down here and now we can’t stay. Just then, another naked guy came up and asked if Pepper wanted a bottle of water. He was panting like crazy. I accepted the offer and we let him drink most of the bottle before we started the long trek back up.
The way back up was much worse. Poor Pep, he was so worn out already, and going up was obviously way harder. A lot of the “steps” were too high for him to haul himself up, and I had to pick up his back legs for him and put them on the next step. The whole way up.
We stopped at a couple landings where we could get out of the way of the nonstop stream of people trying to go both ways. Pepper looked so bad, a lot of them offered us more water for him. One lady offered to carry him for us the rest of the way if we took her cooler for her!
We turned that down, but Clark wound up having to carry Pepper up a couple of the last steep sections near the top.
I felt terrible for putting Pepper through that. I saw a few other dogs on those steps but they were much younger. I really did not think it was that steep, and then I didn’t think it was that long. I’m an idiot.
Pepper bounced back though. He had some slight digestive issues for a while — basically just a few sharts — that were probably caused by overheating, but he otherwise seemed OK after we got him in some shade and then in the air conditioned car.
Anyway, we left there and went to downtown La Jolla and got a late lunch at a pizza place. Then we came back home and stayed up (not nearly as late) watching Baywatch ha.
Today was Julie’s last full day here. She went to the beach for a bit while I was working. Clark should be home soon and we’re going to go for another short run, and then get dinner somewhere.
Wednesday, we all went to Dini’s By The Sea here in Carlsbad for dinner, and stayed up late sitting around the fire pit and listening to records.
Thursday morning, I had to stop by my office to drop off something, so Julie (and Pepper of course) went with me, and went for a little walk along the beach before I went back home.
Julie took this picture of Pepper and me breaking the law haha.
Julie on a cliff.
Pepper and me on the cliff.
When we got back to the house, Pepper was wiped out. He slept like this the whole afternoon. Made it hard to work on my laptop!
When I was done with work, Julie went with me on a run. We did a very hilly out-and-back.
At the top of the biggest hill on the way back.
We ran 3.4 miles at a 9:55/mile pace and climbed 400 feet. Much different from running on Delmarva!
Then we took her to a really good Mexican place in Carlsbad, Barrio, and came home and watched “The Three Amigos” on DVD.
Today, she wants to run with me again, so we’re going to head out soon, but we’re going toward the beach this time. And later we have tickets to go see the Flower Fields.
This weekend, I don’t know what exactly the plans are, but it looks like it’s going to be beautiful so we will definitely be out and about somewhere.
Monday evening, I took Pepper to see his vet. He got a shot for his seasonal allergies, a deep ear-cleaning and some meds for his ear infection. The meds are his favorite part because I put his pills in peanut butter so he’ll eat them. Sometimes he’ll make a little face, like he’s thinking “this peanut butter tastes weird,” but he seems to forget it pretty quickly because he always scarfs down the next one just as quickly haha.
Yesterday, after work, I did a strength training class and then I ran 4 miles at an 8:53/mile average.
Today, I thought about getting up early enough to run before Clark had to leave for work, but I didn’t, so it looks like today will be another rest day — because my younger sister is here! Her plane just landed and she’s on her way to get her rental car and then drive up here. She’ll be here until next Tuesday.
Saturday morning started out with the Weekend Warriors workout, and then I ran my hilly 6.5-mile loop. I was back to feeling sluggish on it and only managed a 10:26/mile average.
While I was gone, Clark put together the outdoor dining set we’d picked up the night before, and that afternoon, I got a rug and some placemats for it.
We still don’t have any kind of dining table in our kitchen — just the island with a few stools — but at least now we have one somewhere.
Sunday morning, Clark got up early and met the group from the gym for a run.
While he was gone, I finished the first book I checked out with the library card I finally got last week, “The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny.”
I could not put this book down! I’m a fan of historical nonfiction and this was a good one. The author, Michael Wallis, pieced together a lot of first-person accounts (letters, journals) and third-person accounts (newspaper articles, guide books from the era) to tell the complete story of how the Donner Party got stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountain range east of Sacramento over the winter of 1846-47 with no food and had to resort to cannibalism to survive.
Anyway, when Clark got back, I went for a long run.
It’d been sunny in the morning but some clouds rolled in by the time I finished the first mile, which I really didn’t mind at all while I was running.
The run was fine. I just went to South Ponto Beach and turned around, which came out to 11.3 miles at a 9:14/mile average.
Clark put up two of three guitar mounts he ordered:
The third one got here today, so that’ll even it out. He’s also ordered a storage rack for all the records in those big plastic tubs, so once that gets here, we can finally put away the tubs.
Today, I think I’m going to take a rest day. I have to take Pepper to the vet after work anyway. He’s experiencing his annual springtime allergic reaction between the pads on his feet, and I think he’s gotten another ear infection.
A Simple Running Log 