Happy Halloween!

I've recruited my first new runners to SD TRY! They aren't as fast as Katie and they aren't as dedicated as Aubrey or Susan...and actually, come to think of it...they don't even run at all. But, I've decided that I need to focus less on the running part of the running group anyway. So, welcome to SD TRY, Bubbles and Chastity! I look forward to not running with you next Tuesday!

Boring?

I've had an early (unsolicited) critique that my posts are boring. Well, of course they are boring. I'm posting them. What did you expect? I'm not going to have stories about going to Tijuana and seeing a donkey show and I'm not going to have exciting stories about drunken nights out picking up college women in the Gaslamp District. I'm going to have stories about where I went running and where I took my beaver hat. If you find this stuff boring, then obviously this blog is not for you and you don't need to read the entries. This is for people who miss my boring stories in person and therefore enjoy reading my boring stories from afar.

A Beaver in the Pacific

This post is for Barb. You know me well enough by now that you probably believed me when I said that I would take my beaver hat with me to San Diego. But, just in case you didn't believe me, here is the proof. "The beave" came with me to the beach in Oceanside and got some rays on the beach, then went in the ocean to cool off, and even caught some waves before calling it an afternoon. So, your present has made it all the way to the pacific ocean! Thanks! :-) (Can one of my loyal readers please make sure Barb gets a link to this post, please? I still don't have email access to get it to her myself yet.)

Weekend happenings

Do you think the experts are giving the Phillies a chance now? Is there pitching still overmatched? Sorry, I couldn't help myself. They are on the brink! Up 3-1 and the offense actually showed up finally. I say it ends tonight. (Monday). Get it done, Cole! And Pat, how about you get a hit before its too late?

So, I should probably give a weekend update. But I'm lazy. And tired. I'm sort of on pacific time, but sort of not. I'll keep this short before I fall asleep.

I got shown the San Luis River Trail on Saturday morning. And it's a lovely river trail if you don't need water to be a river. From what I could tell it was a water run-off area that was as dry as a bone. Some river. I wanted to do an 8 mile run, but I knew 2 miles in that wasn't going to happen. Too much running this week and it was too hot out. I barely finished off another 10K training run...I was totally fading down the stretch. Aubrey, where were you? I needed you to pace me!

After I recovered I went to the beach in Oceanside. It was a little more crowded than Mission Beach on Friday, but still not crowded even though it seemed like a beautiful day to me. So, either everyone here is spoiled or there just aren't that many tourists around to go to the beach this time of year. There was a big fishing pier right there where people were catching and keeping very small fish and there were the biggest waves that I've ever played around in. And this was the first time that I've actually played in the pacific ocean at all. I had waded in a time or two during past trips to California but I had never actually swam. I borrowed a boogie board and dorked around for a while in the huge waves. The water was shockingly cold at first contact but wasn't bad once I was fighting the waves and current in an attempt to actually get to where the big waves were breaking. Here are some random shots from my afternoon at the beach. I managed to not burn myself, which is impressive since I won the competition for whitest-white-guy-at-the-beach. But I still have not managed to see a thong in the wild. It is still my life's quest however, so I will continue to go on thong hunts until I manage to spot one and get that check-mark out of the way. So, ladies with thong bikinis...get out here and show them off!

The first friday

The work site here is on a 9-80 work schedule so Friday was the "off" Friday but since it was my first week, I didn't have the extra time in order to take fully advantage of it. So, I had to work the morning to get in my time and then I headed to Mission Beach in the early afternoon to get in my run. Well, it was a little warmer and it was timed better and there were actually people at the beach! And not just surfers in wetsuits. There were actually people wading in the surf and there were actually people sun bathing. In bikinis! Not a lot, but enough to actually make it feel like I was at a beach. So, people in San Diego do go to the beach this time of year. But it certainly wasn't packed. I suffered through a run - I decided to do the boardwalk again so I could people watch and this time I did the entire stretch from end to end. It was just over a 6K run. By then, I was dieing from the heat and from not eating a real lunch, so I bought some ice cream and walked around eating that, trying not to collapse. (So, a typical late October Friday -- a run along the ocean and then some ice cream to cool down.) Here are some pictures:

The place where SD TRY would meet. Next to the sculpture that explains the concept of the "green flash". (Just like from Pirates of the Caribbean 3...apparently there is a debate as to whether the phenomenon actually exists.)

The sculpture is next to the "famous" Belmont park roller coaster. An old roller coaster that was refurbished and is still in use.


A picture from the far end of the boardwalk. On the pacific beach end.



As I was coming back, a look at crystal pier in the distance.



As I was eating my ice cream I went into the "wave house" and watched a couple people play around in the standing wave. It looks fun, but I'm not sure that I dare try it. Plus, with anything cool and unique like this, they want a ridiculous amount of money to do it.


And some photographic proof that there were people on the beach. Not a lot, mind you, but more than I had seen up to this point.

Rental Car

So, lets say you are Avis rental car. What sort of car do you give to some farm boy who grew up in a town without any stop lights? What do you give a guy totally out of his element and about to drive on 6 lane highways with crazy drivers? I know -- how about you give him a sporty little car (that actually isn't all that sporty) with absolutely terrible sight lines! The mirrors are too small, the hatchback window is very hard to see out of and the blind spot on the right hand side is almost impossible to see, even when you look over your left shoulder. After my initial drive I was totally thinking about returning the car for something that I could actually see out of. But, hey, they chose to give it to me, so maybe this is exactly the car that I was meant to have. I just don't ever change lanes unnecessarily because I put my life on the line every time that I do.

So, here are some shots of the Mitsubishi Eclipse that Tracie had requested.

Where was TRY? (And the sun won.)

So, there I was on Tuesday night...next to the roller coaster next to the beach, waiting for my TRY people to show up. Only no one was there? Where was everyone? Is nobody else going to show up for SD TRY? Do I need to invite new members?

Some overdue updates:

Work sucks. They were unprepared for my arrival (somehow?) so I don't have a work computer or a VPN token so I can't do anything on a computer at work. That makes it tough to be a software engineer! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they set me up sometime next week...I can only do so much reading. It's been hard to stay at it for 9 hours a day when I'm not really accomplishing anything yet.

Also, I've been exhausted...I suppose its the time change and the running and not eating normally, etc...but I've been worn out all week. I hope that gets better because the work days have been tough to survive even though I haven't been staying up late or doing anything crazy.

As for the running -- I forced myself to go after work on Monday and Tuesday even though I was dead...because I knew the Phillies and their early games were going to keep me from getting out on Wednesday and Thursday. By the way -- would it have been so hard for the Phillies to make contact early in game 2 when they had guys on third constantly? They'd be right in the game if they had just grounded or flew out instead of striking out. They've annoyed me tonight!

Monday night -- went to Mission Beach and explored the southern end. There wasn't much boardwalk in that direction so I had to loop around southern mission beach and the channel some in order to get a three miler in. My lungs and energy still didn't cooperate so it was rather slow. And I was a little too early and didn't stick around for the sun to set over the Pacific.

Tuesday night -- after having no TRY members show up, I thought that maybe I was late, so I pushed it for a tempo type run -- did a hard four miles as the sun was going down. I decided to race the sunset on the way back, but I lost...the sun went fully under with a about a 1/4 mile to go. It was windier than usual, so the waves were bigger than usual and there were a ton of surfers out there playing in the biggest waves I had seen yet. I was overheating, but it didn't seem like other people were too much...not so much for skimpy running outfits. Even though it seems plenty warm to me, a lot of people are running in long sleeves or long pants... Sucks. I want my bikini hotties out there to inspire me! What good is the beach if people are dressed like they are in Syracuse? But, I did feel a lot better and was able to crank it up some. Not Katie level cranking it up or something...but not too bad for sloths like myself.

So, I've seen the entire Mission Beach/Pacific Beach boardwalk (about 3 miles total, one-way) so now I want to start exploring the bay side (Mission Bay). I actually "ran" part of that during my San Diego marathon, but I don't remember much of it since I was in full hurting mode by then and just hoping to survive.

Ugghhh...the Phillies just lost. They really wasted opportunities tonight. They should be ashamed of their situational hitting. I know that I'm ashamed of it.

That's enough for now...I'll try to be better about future updates and to spice them up with some photos.

It's A Whole New World

This west coast living is weird. Do you realize that I can go into work at 10 and people think I'm early? (Where has that been the last 3 years?) Do you realize that they start their world series games at 5:30? That they are over by 8:30? It's like they live in a whole different time zone out here! Morons.

The first one

I thought I should get this started. Not sure how much I'll use it, but we'll see how it goes. After my typical post-flight malaise finally wore off some (I didn't do anything last night), I got myself going early this morning (well, early for west coast time) and drove a few miles to Mission Beach and ran along the ocean.

I knew one of my ears didn't make it out with me yet, but apparently my lungs didn't either. It was a tougher run than it should have been. I yogged about 5 miles on the boardwalk up along north Mission Beach and Pacific Beach and started to get into La Jolla (I think) before making it to the arbitrary turn around point at the 2.5 mile mark on my GPS.

It was nice running beside the pacific ocean, but it was no Onondaga Lake Park. But I guess OLP doesn't have waves crashing and surfers surfing, so at least it was different scenery. It wasn't very warm though -- the sun hadn't really woke up and poked through the clouds until I had finished.

I'll have to get back there soon and do a run to the south to see what I can see in that direction. It shouldn't be too bad to get over to that area after work (if there is enough daylight?) so I think that will be my running exploration area for now.