Injury

When I am injured and can neither run nor do yoga I tend to turn inward upon myself. I rarely go out, as riding my bike can hurt too; so I stay inside and think. And get lonely.

Now admittedly I seem to be recovering from this most recent injury and went to a yoga class yesterday and warmed up with Rusty’s group the day before. (Finally)

Still — when I got an e-mail from Google asking me to interview for a job, I was more interested than I might otherwise have been. I have no desire to live in Silicon Ditch, and I’m generally quite happy with my own project. But — perhaps it would do me good to interact more with people. So I actually followed up on it.

Hmm. The job is in Mtn. View and Zurich. Now living in Zurich might be kind of fun (though I’d rather live in the French speaking part of the country) but commuting across the Atlantic on a regular basis? That sounds miserable. To say nothing of the environmental damage it would do.

And the job itself? Internationalization/localization in some form. Humph. The little knowledge I have of internationalization/localization makes it seem very simple — too simple for them to want to hire me. Which makes me think I don’t have the faintest inkling of what they want, which means I’m not the person they should hire.

They went to some effort (I presume) to find me, I did not contact them, they e-mailed me. Why ask me to interview for a job when I’ll probably just show off my ignorance rather than be useful?

Nonetheless. I scheduled a phone interview with them. Perhaps I am qualified. Perhaps I can telecommute.

Perhaps I shouldn’t answer the phone next Tuesday:-)

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Well, I did.

It sounded as though they didn’t know what they wanted done either, they just wanted someone who could figure stuff out. Also when they said “Mtn. View and Zurich”, they meant “Mtn. View or Zurich” — so I wouldn’t have to fly across the Atlantic every week.

Snow

Rain

It rained, and it rained and it rained. Piglet thought it would never stop.

Winnie the Pooh, A.A.Milne

It has been three weeks since I last ran. Not since the resolution day race. Injuries are such a waste of time.

I still don’t know what happened. Presumably I somehow tore my right gluts. Nothing seemed to work for the first two weeks, and then it started to improve. Yesterday I decided I would try a run this morning if I felt up to it.

Well, I felt up to it, but it was pouring rain. I waited, hoping the rain would ease. It didn’t. Finally, at 10:30, I set out. Nothing too strenuous. I thought I’d run up to the Wilcox and then run the loop a couple of times, and then come back.

I’m not running very fast. Jogging really. Still, good to be out on my feet again.

It was wet. And cold. And the wind was strong against me.

Tame little Arroyo Burro was a thundering torrent as it spilled under the bridge at Cliff Dr. I climbed up the hill, and headed off to the bluff over the ocean.

Grey sea. Grey sky. Merging together somewhere. Whitecaps below, rain above.

A little waterfall where the rain spilled over the cliff down to the beach.

A view of Hendry’s beach from the edge of the bluff: A vast river of mud runs out into the sea and then turns and trails down the coast.

I reach the end of the park, and head back into the wind. No ocean to watch now. I start to notice my glut. It feels sore and tight. Not really painful, but probably I should stop running. For once, I’m not a total idiot, and even though I had intended to run around the park twice, I turn back.

But when I get home, I dash inside and come out with my camera. For once, I am a total idiot, and even though I had intended to stop, I go back and do the whole run over, and take pictures this time.

With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
And the rain, it raineth every day.

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare

Santa Barbara International Marathon 2009

The first public notice of the Santa Barbara International Marathon has appeared! There’s a website. Nothing much on it yet but some of my pictures, still it’s finally there:-)

Now (22 Jan 2009) open for registration!

Resolution Day 2008

For some peculiar reason I like to watch the sun-rise and sun-set on New Year’s Day. A little ritual of mine I’ve been doing for several years now. Sometimes it gets modified — last year I watched the sun-set on New Year’s Eve. Sometimes it rains. But I try.

Generally I watch the sun-rise on the way to the race. Of course for the last few years the race hasn’t been on New Year’s day, so last year I had the freedom to hike up Cathedral Peak.

This year I reached the harbor just as the sun rose.

I had no particular expectations about this race. Haven’t done any significant training since the marathon, and am still basically resting up from it. I knew I wouldn’t equal last year’s performance. I thought I might try to do the 5K at a 6 minute pace, and treat the 10K as a tempo run. I didn’t really care, I just wanted the thrill of running hard even if not very fast.

I did the first two miles a little below 6 minutes (5:55) and slowed markedly on the third (6:17). Oh, well, close enough.

The 10K surprised me. I had assumed I’d run somewhere around 6:30~6:40, but that was not too be. It was very hard to get started, and I was only running a 6:45, trying to chat with Travis, who was also taking it easy. But the third mile was above 7. Brrr. I was tired. Travis was appreciably ahead by now. I considered stopping once I reached the end of the first 5K lap. But I passed Ricky and figured if he could keep going so could I.

Ricky has very loud feet. Or perhaps his shoes are loose and slap. Or something. In any event I didn’t need to look back to tell when he started to gain on me again, and then he overtook me. We trotted on. On the slight rise by the bathhouse he faded again and I passed him for the final time (interesting that, I had the same experience when I passed Ricky in the Half).

I did not fade. I started to feel better. I think I just needed more of a rest after the 5K than I’d gotten — and somehow, 4 miles into this race I was starting to feel rested. Mile 5 was under 7 again. Then I started gaining on the two in front of me, by the time I reached Milpas I figured I could speed up a bit and take them. I presumed I’d slow down afterwards, but I didn’t seem to. Mile 6 was 6:31. Finally I was rested enough to run what I thought I should — but the race was almost over:-) No matter.

First time I’ve put more emphasis on the 5K than the 10K in this race set. The ~26 minutes I get between races just isn’t enough for me to recover. Next year: back to the 10K!

My right gluts started to cramp up. I went for a cooldown with a couple of friends and they (the gluts) nagged at me.

I had invited people to meet me at Tunnel trailhead at 3pm to hike up and watch the sunset. When I went over to my bike to head up I realized I was in no condition to walk, much less hike. I figured I’d go up and apologize (I had no idea who would show so I couldn’t phone, I’d sent out a blanket invite).

Luckily no one else had wanted to hike so there was no need to disappoint anyone. After waiting a bit at the trailhead, I biked back down to find a sunset-watching-spot I could lurch to.

It was worth the lurch.

Dolphins!

Most Sundays I go for a beach walk to watch the sun set. Usually I take my camera with me in hopes it will be a pretty sunset. This sunset was not spectacular, but I did get some rather nice (I thought) shots of birds.

After the sun was down, I turned back to walk home… and saw a dolphin breach. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dolphin do that before. I wished I’d had my camera out, but then realized that even if I had I would not have been able to react in time.

But then there was another breach. And dolphins were zipping through the waves far faster than I’d ever seen. So eventually I got out my camera. It’s hard to catch a breach, there is so little time to react, and if the camera is pointed in the wrong direction there is no chance. But they kept playing, and eventually I caught it. One animal in an arc, and another poking its nose out for its own leap.