Thirteen

 A week from tomorrow is the 13th San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon/Marathon run event.  This will be my third half marathon for this year, and my 13th half marathon overall.  Am I sad that I'm not running a full marathon?  Not at all.  I'm glad I'm running the half.  I'm also anxious to see if the event coordinators listened to all of the complaints from last year.  I do know that they've repaved that crappy overflow parking and have planted several young trees where the post race festivities will be held.  Last year that lot was rather dismal and disheveled.  I've heard that they've taken care of the shuttle situation to eliminate long lines and long waits, and parking should be better, but, of course, that all remains to be seen. 

I'm not a true numbers person, but it appears that the numbers for race day are looking good.  I'm not sure why, but odd numbers work for me.  The marathon/half marathon is listed as the 13th San Diego Rock 'n' Roll event.  This will be my 13th half marathon.  I'm in corral 13, which makes my bib number start with 13, and all the numbers in my bib are all odd.   Perhaps it's a stretch, and maybe somewhat of a placebo for my psyche, but the numbers look good to me.  13 isn't a lucky/unlucky number*, but it's showing up a lot for this event.  I don't believe in being lucky or unlucky.  It's all about hard work and training. You get out of it what you put into it, and you have to accept the unknown factors, blah, blah, blah. That being said,  I wonder if I can work the number 13 into my finish time?

Oh yeah, a half marathon is 13.1 miles.

Tuesday's Song:
Telephone - Lady Gaga

PEACE

PS:
On a more serious note, I will be running this half marathon in memory of my friend Michelle, who would have celebrated her birthday on that same day, June 5.

 
*I have no lucky/unlucky numbers

Telephone

This year, for  Mother's Day, Hubs upgraded my standard issue cell phone to an iPhone 4.   Thank goodness just about every single one of my friends has an iPhone and have been kind enough to guide me, otherwise I'd have to put on my glasses to read the directions.  The Crack Phone, I mean, the iPhone is rather addictive.  There's so much stuff on it and so much stuff to add to it that it's ridiculous.  There are apps for just about everything.  There are apps that you need that you didn't know you needed.  I realize that I'm somewhat late to the tech party with an iPhone, but now I understand the novelty turning into a necessity.



On my prior cell phone I had an app for tracking runs.  It was Bones in Motion, a GPS enabled run tracking app which I used for all of my runs.  It was user friendly, easy to adjust/correct GPS malfunctions, and had the best graphics and charts.   Tech support was awesome.  They even called me to follow up on an issue I had with live tracking.  I thought I was sneaky and did not need to buy a Garmin. Unfortunately, Bones in Motion was bought out by another company, was interfaced with a different brand, was not compatible with my cell phone, and did not offer the same type of stats, graphics and charts.  I was bummed.  With my new iPhone I discovered I could use the GPS capabilities to track my runs again if I ever forgot my Garmin.  There are several run tracking apps for iPhone.  I went with Nike+ GPS.

By today's standards, I am not very tech savvy.  The 7 year old in my life knows more about computers and techy stuff  than I do. I figured Nike+GPS would work right out of the box, um, right after the upload.  I used it for the first time on Saturday for our track club's 2 hour run.  I hit the start button and placed it in my Spibelt  and went about my run.  When I returned from my run I  took the phone out of my Spibelt and noticed that it said something like 14.7 miles in 2 hours. At this current point in time, 14.7 miles in 2 hours would be a miracle.  With all the injuries I went through last year and purposely backing off speed this year, I'd be happy with 10 miles in 2 hours.  I had no idea that the Nike app needed to be calibrated, and I couldn't figure out why it added mileage.  After returning home and mapping out my run manually, I discovered that I actually went a little over 11 miles and was able to calibrate the run to accommodate the time I put in.  Upon further inspection of the route I ran, I discovered a ton of GPS bouncing, which gave me the 14.7 miles.

Once I was at my computer at home, I expected to go to the nikeplus.com site and see my stats.  I thought, through the magic of GPS and my new iPhone, that my stats would automatically appear on the site upon logging in. Nope. In addition, I couldn't sync my stats to Dailymile no matter what I tried.  I spent  most of my Sunday afternoon playing e-mail tag with Stephen at Nike+GPS tech support. Stephen at tech support and I were quickly building a relationship.  I was beginning to think the app was a lost cause and I began looking into other GPS run apps.  Finally, after several different ways of resetting and rebooting, it worked.

Yay.

If I could just get my home computer to work properly, then I'd really be living large.

Song from Thursday, May 12, 2011:
To Make a Long Story Short -  Gladys Knight and the Pips

PEACE

To Make A Long Story Short

Taper time. Sort of.

With the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in about three weeks and three more half marathons on the calender,  there's really no such thing as taper time.  Perhaps it's stagger time?  If I were marathon training for SDRNR would be running the longest run of the training session this weekend,  which would be a 20 miler, but since I'm opting for the half marathon it's another day at the office... sort of, but it's the kind of office I enjoy going to.  There's no need to burn the candle at both ends.


Song from May 4, 2011:
Protect Ya Neck -Wu Tang Clan

PEACE



Random internet photo of taper candles, no photo credit attached.

Protect Ya Neck

Product Review, Again.

I've posted a product review for SCAPE sun block before, but since Southern California had summer-like weather again, I figured it was a good time to bring it up again.

San Diego had summer-like weather for the past four days.  There has been no "May Grey" to speak of.  On one of those toasty days I was determined to start prepping and priming part of the house exterior for painting.  I worked on an area that was in harsh, direct sunlight for HOURS.  Before I placed myself in that extremely sun-soaked area, I applied SCAPE to all exposed skin, which was my face, ears, neck, arms and legs.  I  must have prepped and primed that exterior section of house for about 4 hours.  At the end of the day there were no signs of sunburn, or evidence that I had been in the sun.

Finally, a mention about year-round skin cancer awareness, prevention and education.  YEAR-ROUND.  Every day.  365 days a year.  Got it?  Even though the people at SCAPE asked me to give them a shout out about (YEAR ROUND) SKIN CANCER AWARENESS, PREVENTION AND EDUCATION, I would have mentioned it any way. I was given full sized products of SCAPE to try about a year ago, but continue to purchase their products and use them daily.  I'm fair skinned and have been to the doctor for skin cancer screenings on a few occasions.  I've had my share of sun damage, especially while spending plenty of time outdoors swimming, running, gardening, hiking, etc. Ever since I've been using SCAPE on a daily basis, there have been no issues with sunburns.  I use sunscreen every day, even if it's cloudy or if I'm planning to be in doors all day, because I never know what the day will hold.

THE FACTS:

Dr. Nic Martens,  the PhD behind Neutrogena’s biggest product launches in history ~ he developed Helioplex and Ultra Sheer, has developed a new sunblock called SCAPE www.scapelabs.com with a specific emphasis on skin cancer awareness. (Hence the SCAPE acronym.)

SCAPE Athlete Sunblock will protect you against both the harmful UVB and UVA rays, providing the highest quality protection from both sunburn and skin cancer.
SCAPE is:
•   5X more waterproof than anything else – proven
•   Will not rub off and  go into your eyes
•   Breathable – allows the skin to breathe and keep body temperature down and doesn’t clog pores
•   Has the highest UVA protection on the market
•   Loaded with vitamin E and antioxidants to protect and nourish the skin
 

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the U.S.

•   Over 1.3 million will be diagnosed this year

•   1 in 5 Americans will develop a form of skin cancer in their lifetime

•   90% of skin cancers are caused by sun exposure

•   The risk of skin cancer decreases by 80% with the regular use of sun protection

I use SCAPE SPF 30 lotion, SPF 50 lip balm, and SPF face stick sunblock.  This stuff works.  I'm even scraping out the last of the face stick with a bobby pin, just so  I get every last bit of it.

Song from Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Unskinny Bop - Poison

PEACE