Enough already.

This here blog is the old blogged stuff that I can't figure out how to import into runlikeamother. Yet. Someday, I'll figure it out. Until then, I'll link to this whenever I want to remember something old.

runlikeamother.com is where it's at, people.

Re-entry. Again.

Back to reality. Again. 

Good-bye Maui sunsets over Kahoolawe and pretty Kea Lani..

Good-bye Katherine and John.. well, until tomorrow or maybe Weds.

Good-bye, Earthfu#!#r 4000 that we kind of got used to..

The last day on Maui was very mellow. I commandeered a lounge on the Four Seasons beach with the last book in the Twilight series. I know, I'm not 13. They gave me an umbrella. They brought me ice water and watermelon periodically. It was not a bad day for me. Then evening rolled around and we hit the Taste of Wailea on the golf course for blueberry ginger martinis. And probably some food, I think, but you can tell what stood out here. After the eating (drinking), Katherine, John, and I wandered down to watch Paper Love on the big screen. It was a mock-umentary with Michael Cera. I loved it. But I am a sucker for diarama scenes, kind of like when Sponge Bob and Patrick go on land and SB is a dish sponge on a stick.

The Taste of Wailea was a good argument for why I carry emergency tights and an emergency bikini in my bag at all times. I refer to the bikini as my bag-kini. It turned out to be really windy up on the golf course. What started out as a dress became a top.. the tights were enablers, in a way.

Whine as I may, nothing beats coming back to this:

And my little boys, who are less inclined to smile pretty for the camera.

Now that I'm back to stay, it's time to consider training. K and I decided that July 1 is Day 1 of marathon training. My bike is still in Wisconsin, or at least I think it is. The North Shore Summer Swim Series starts Saturday. I'm going to wing it. Practice is over-rated.

Taste of Chocolate Goes Bad.

At the Four Seasons Wailea Friday morning, Tori Spelling's boobs were brunching, along with her kids, two nannies, and tattoo-guy, who I think was her husband. There is nothing low-pro about Ms. Spelling.

Post-brunch I needed to float around in reduced gravity for a while. I lugged my gut to the pool. Then I kind-of accosted Dax in the hot tub, but he was a nice guy. So there, a celeb photo for y'all.

Katherine and I were walking the beachfront path through Wailea when we saw a fit black man pretending to box up ahead. I made fun of him, because he was alone, on the run path, and fighting a ghost. And because I'm a little mean sometimes. He turned around and walked at us on the path, grinned and said Hi there. He was Eddie Murphy. We were cool, I swear. Until he was 10 feet away. Here's hoping he didn't see me making fun of him.

Tonight was the Taste of Chocolate, a party at the Four Seasons. It was all this incredible chocolate (every part of that sculpture is chocolate!) and chocolate martinis and film makers and movie stars and individual souffles and chocolate fountains.. 

It was all great and glamorous.. and then Katherine and I decided to walk home along the path between the Fairmont and the Four Seasons. It was after 1 am and very dark, but there were two of us, so we were safe, of course. We were looking at the Milky Way and lighting the pathway with Blackberries, when Katherine froze and started screaming. My instinct was to run from whatever was freaking her out, but she wouldn't move, even when I pulled on her. Because it seems that the hairy creature that was standing on both of her feet had her totally immobilized. We couldn't see it, but it was a big ass rat. After what seemed like a minute, she was free of the giant rat and I lost it. I was trying to drag her along by her little gucci bag, but I was laughing so hard at her that I was crying and I couldn't stand up.  She said maybe it was a mongoose. And I said, Yeah, because they're out at night. I laughed harder at her disgust.. and then tripped on a giant rat. Holy crap, it was so big it was on both of my feet at once. It was a solid eight-pounder, easy. It was ridiculously hairy and climbing all over my feet. 

It's hard to run from the rats in heels. But somehow we did it. They were scurrying in and out of the Naupaka bushes along the path and I was chanting Pretend it's kittens, pretend it's kittens, over and over. 

It's not all glamour and photo ops, people.

It's a rough life..

When we arrived on Maui, there was a problem with the rental car, and they had to upgrade us. To the Earthf#$*!er 4000:

Katherine had a personality change within 4 minutes of getting behind the wheel. We turned into the natural food store, swerved at some poor man in a fuel-efficient compact and she yelled Watch out, buddy! The rest of the drive was full of Outta my ways and You people had better moves. It was fun to watch the transformation.

The lobby of the the Fairmont Kea Lani:

Our room wasn't ready, so we went for a run and a swim while we waited..

It was a pretty serious workout.

It only took me 2 hours on-island to run into celebs. Kristin Bell and Dax Sheperd were in the beach shower with us. Dax either liked us or was waiting to be recognized. I played it totally cool and just said hi like I would to anyone I was sharing a shower with.. sorry, I will take pics of my next celebs, I swear. I have to work up to annoying.

How do you know the tri dork? She's wearing shoes with her bikini.

I was working hard, lying on the beach (like this:)

when suddenly, a woman came running at me. It was my college roommate, Tess! And her husband, Ben and son, Jonah. I hadn't yet called to make plans to see them.. and there they were at Polo Beach. I love little islands. We spent the afternoon at the beach.

And then it was off to the interviews. Zooey Deschanel at 7 pm, followed by movies on the golf course. I can't wait to see Sita Sings the Blues at 11 tonight. Tomorrow, we (and really, by we, I mean Katherine, I just stand still don't talk) interview Willy Nelson. Awesome.

I don't know who I think I am.

At 7 am I'm heading to Maui for the Maui Film Festival.

Yeah, I know. I have a full time job. I have three kids. I should be training for something, you'd think. I've been home for two days. I'm kind of a shmuck, but I'm a lucky shmuck.

Sometimes opportunities arise, and you just have to go for it. Katherine is covering the Maui Film Festival, and as of 4 pm today she had an extra plane ticket, the hotel room and car, and passes for all the events. I'm just going to be her loquacious little helper. And watch a lot of movies on that big outside screen. And go to some parties with famous people. Famous people! I admit it, I'm a big fan of People Magazine. I know my famous people. I will not stalk them. OK, I will, but I will do it tastefully. I'm officially taking photos for Katherine, but I will abuse this privilege and take many photos for my loyal blog-land friends with my own camera too, of course.

Clearly, Katherine does not hold a grudge. My mother could learn something from her. (just kidding, mom. Seriously, I'm joking, don't be mad, OK?)

This is going to be way better than work.

After Alcatraz

Done! 

And 30s later, I somehow had a second wind when jumping up and down screaming for Katherine as she rolled in. That's Kathy next to me, in the rare in-between-KN-and-RR finish spot. I meant to take off my fashion-faux-pas arm-warmers before running, but I didn't have the time/energy.

Post-race split analysis. She is still speaking to me. Really.

I followed that man in the speedo on the left for all of the run. His butt said Canada. Poor me. And on Sunday, I fell asleep at 8 pm. That's how beat I was. It was still light out.

Then Monday morning it was off for a fun ride. You know when going down the stairs after a marathon hurts more than pushing a small person out of you? It was one of those days, and K caught me whining down the stairs on film..

We rode over to Marin. Slowly. Some views from the trip:

Sports Basement is awesome. It's an old grocery store, and I was kind of bummed when I realized there wasn't actually a deli under the DELI sign. But they let us shop with our bikes. They let me try on clothes over my cycling gear. And they cut the price of a dress I liked in half because it matched my orange TTX. Which is now somewhere on a UPS truck between SF and WI. And I am home. And I worked all day, and the kids are asleep in the next room, and my quads are so sore from the hills that they're black and blue all along my IT bands.. all is well.

California photos and a race report

The trip started bumpy, when my bike went to Lombardi and came back jury-rigged with a seat that wouldn't fall down, but was drilled into place and rocked back and forth at least 20 degrees while I rode it. Friday in SF was busy, but I was able to get a nap in to make up for the un-sleeping red-eye. I had forgotten how much I love this city.

My brothers showed up in the evening and we went to the Cake show. It hadn't occurred to me that something called the Harmony Festival in northern California might be a little bit hippie. Tom, the youngest of my brothers, looking like a man in need of some Holistic Hooping (read the sign!):

I got a henna tattoo on my wrist. Because when in hippie.. Then it was time for Cake. We are Cake addicts. John McCrea was on fire. He had everyone rolling laughing. And the music was awesome. Me and the brothers:

We stayed at a lovely condo in Cow Hollow courtesy of the Dinsmores just five blocks from the race start. Our attempt at driving the bike course was disastrous, I think we found about 10% of it and almost crashed my brother's truck numerous times during the attempt. So we went out riding to see if we could do better, with me rocking rocking rocking along on my rickety Trek.. 

After a wrong turn I found myself here -- not a bad place to be!

I was lucky enough to catch up with Guinevere, my bff from high school on who lives here in SF. It was so fun to catch up and wander the city and then Berkeley with her.

I slept terribly Saturday night. I don't usually do that before races, it's worn off over time.. but the night was long.

After a seven-minute test swim Saturday that left me with a painfully frozen face that required lots of backstroke, I was nervous about the water. We lucked out, the water temp was 58 degrees this morning and it was sunny and gorgeous out. And once the boat rolled around, the dread washed away and Katherine and I were both excited to race. We found a place to sit on the ferry, and Andy Potts came over and sat down. So we got to pick the mind of the man who regularly wins it.. he pointed us to the best place to start, told us how to sight, and then made me zip him up. Which was scary.. what if I rip Andy Potts's suit and he can't race? I told him it was too much pressure and he told me to shut up and zip. 

We got off the boat fast and no one jumped on us. Katherine and I started together and I hopped on her feet.. and got dropped. The crowd thinned along the diagonal course out to Chrissy Field and it was pretty lonely. A few times Katherine stopped, let me hop back on her feet, checked our line out, and we were off.. I was so grateful for the company. It was so choppy that sometimes my arms would miss water completely in the trough of a wave. And the chop was coming from the right.. which is the only side I can breathe on. Every other breath was a mouthful of bay. 38 minutes later, it was done. I thought we'd be faster, but it turns out even the fastest were slower than usual.. it wasn't an easy swim day. I was so relieved to be out of the water.. hard part over, right?

On the bike course, which was filled with the most climbing I've ever done in a race, I found that I had no legs. There was nothing in them. And this wasn't a place where you could fake it. The eventual amateur winner passed me early and I couldn't go with her, which was highly annoying. I would get to the top of a long hill and start to fly down the back, only to find a 90 degree turn at the bottom. I was moving all over my dumb seat with each pothole, and there were tons of them. I struggled. I was totally a bitch in my head, but I smiled at the spectators, thanked the volunteers, and enjoyed the sights anyway.

Kiet was all over the course (dude, you were running faster than I was riding) and he totally cheered me up. Katherine caught me near the end of the bike and yelled that now we could run together. I knew I was going to need her and was glad to come into T2 just behind her.

She started running a little faster than I thought I had in me and I said so. She told me no, just stay with me, we can do this. We settled in at a tempo pace that I thought I might survive for a 10k.. but this was going to be 8 miles. A mile in, the obstacle course started. We came off the gravel path under the Golden Gate and hit stairs. Tons of them. Up up up we went, and then through a tunnel that was about 4 feet high and rocky. From there on, it was trail running, and hill after hill after hill. I don't know how to trail run, because every time I try it I sprain an ankle in the first mile.. so I was pretty nervous. After the snake pit, they dumped slime on us. OK, not really, but being a road runner, I felt like I was on a reality show fighting for immunity. We were running single file on the trails, but K & I stayed together, pushing each other along. We flew down the path to Baker Beach and ran 1/2 mi in the sand to the turn around. It was so gorgeous coming down the hill that I reminded Katherine to smile, this is so incredible! like a total geek. The sand ladder was longer than expected, and just as evil as promised. At the top we had another big climb on a narrow trail. I suddenly felt good. Real good. I get away from Katherine on the ups, and she catches me on the downs, that's the way it works, so I took off. I got a glimpse of another girl and decided to get her now. I passed on the narrow trail, and glanced back to check on Katherine, only to find her a little further back than expected. At this point I was running all-out, and I knew I could get another girl or two in the last few miles. Since Katherine always always runs me down, I figured if I got them, she would too because no way would she let me run away.. and one was the only girl up in her AG. So I went for her and passed her with a mile to go. Then it was just hold on hold on hold on.. I finished in 2:41 - 3rd amateur. Katherine didn't quite catch the girl I'd thought she would, and finished just under a minute after me, 2nd in her age group and 5th amateur. 

I immediately realized what a bitch I am. She'd waited to swim with me, and I'd ditched her on the run! But I thought I could get her up there for the AG win. She says she's never speaking to me again.. but she was joking. I think. It is kind of quiet around here though.

So after 38 minutes of swimming in the bay, the world's longest T1, 59 minutes of hills with no legs on the bike, and one of the most satisfying runs of my triathlon career, 8 miles of trails and obstacles and hills in 56 minutes, most definitely negative split, I have to say that I loved that race. And it was the hardest race I've ever done. Kona included. Also, I will probably never do it again. Alcatraz? Check.

Now, we eat.

(maybe if I post her bad-ass abs next to my pudgy bloated gut, she'll forgive me?)

Andy won again, of course. 

I love awards ceremonies. And the bloated pudgy? Now hurt a little.. bet you couldn't tell. I definitely drank too much bay water and was sick for a long time after the race.

Podium with the fastest amateur/supermodel that kicked my ass. 

 Peter & I in front of my kind of hippie sign.. which sums up the rest of my year: peace, love and running.

Off like a prom dress.

I have this song stuck in my head.. I'm gonna see the folks I dig, I'll even kiss a sunset pig, California coming home.. not that California is my home, but after 8 years there, I'm always so happy to visit. And Joni Mitchell always pops into my mind when I land at SFO. My brothers are drawing straws to see who has to pick me up at 6 am tomorrow. Tommy is currently here, but he flies a little earlier than me. Sky enjoyed his visit:

Friday was supposed to be about a little ride/swim and settling into the condo in the Marina that Jeff was kind enough to loan to Katherine and I. Five blocks to the race finish line! But instead, Friday will be about fixing my bike. I had a girl moment and messed up lefty-loosey and righty-tighty, snapping the screw in the wedge that holds my bike seat in place. Oops. Oh well, I thought, I'll call Tristan (Timex manager) and ask him to send me a new screw. He tells me he'll work it out with Trek. Not ten minutes later, Mark Andrews from Trek engineering calls me. That screw? The one that I broke in half? It just ruined the entire frame. A new one is being shipped, and a bike shop was found in SF to get me up and running tomorrow. I am such an ass. And I am so lucky to have Timex and Trek to make up for my assinine behavior.

So back to the trip. First things first - Cake is Friday night in Sonoma. I heart John McCrea.

Then comes Saturday, with all the pre-race jazz, definitely a swim in the bay to attempt to get used to the water.. and then it's on:

I could lie and say I care, but really, if I don't get eaten by a shark the race will be enough of a success for me. I just want to enjoy the ride/run and all the tri people. I think the swim is 30-40 min of cold, then we run a mile (yea! take that, swimmer people!), then we bike for an hour or so, then we run for an hour or so. Or so I've been told.

After the race, I'm Berkeley-bound. I don't know why, sometimes I roll through the bay area without any interest in seeing Berkeley. But lately I miss it. There is a lot going on in life that's too personal for the blog, but makes me sentimental about college days, and the early days of our new family, back in the East Bay. Guinevere and I, who were such besties in high school that we had to go to college together, are going to head over and wander around on Sunday. Things on the list:

• Intermezzo salad
• Cafe Mediterranee
• the bench at the top of the fire trail
• Mather Redwood Grove
• a millet muffin at Rick and Ann's
• Mars for clothes
• a wander through campus
• a cocktail at Henrys
• digging at Amoeba (there's always more Neil Young out there..)
  

I get all day Monday as well to wander around the city, then head home Monday night. No computer time, but I'll bring back lots of photos.. I gave up and bought a new memory card.