Looking forward to Virginia Beach

I'm starting to get very excited about the weekend in Virginia Beach. I've found out that my second TnT running buddy, Heather, will be coming to see us and run the 8k with us! I started to run with Heather in 2002 when we were doing double training for the Silicon Valley Marathon and the Honolulu Marathon. She was a touch faster than I was (well, who isn't?) but we ran well together. Although we were on the Team at the time, we ran many extra miles to get ready for Sili. We both wanted to PR and make a good showing. Ahhh, yes, I remember those days when I was trying to run faster ...

I can vividly remember a couple of the windy, ugly, long runs we did. Sili went well for both of us; we started together and passed each other a couple of times, ran together for a while. Honolulu was another thing. For a long time it was my PW. I had a touch of stomach flu, never a good thing to experience during a marathon. Especially during a very crowded race like Hono where the porta-potty situation was --- well, gross is too clean a word. Heather stayed with me as I struggled along and made a bad race into a fun experience.

I was terribly sad when she and her family left the Bay Area for the east coast. This past winter they moved down the coast to the Raleigh area. Since it's close-ish to VBeach (by California standards anyway) Heather decided she could day-trip to see us. I'll have a full report of the visit when I get back. Oh yeah, I'm not leaving until next week!

Had a nice run last night with Pam. We ran our short short regular route. My legs are starting to feel more normal. Last night no cars ran the light or tried to run us over. While we're running I'm so focused on the traffic now, instead of on the street lights, that last night I started to run across a busy street before the light changed. Pam was behind me spluttering about how I was going to kill myself. Whoopsie. My bad. The only positive thing was that traffic was definitely stopped and nobody was coming. Note to self: "look both ways" now means look at BOTH the lights and traffic. Sheesh; you'd think I'd have learned that when I was a toddler.

Today's GBotD is Essbee. Yes, that's really SB. Which stands for Santa Barbara. I'm sure my originality in naming bears will begin to astonish you soon. Carol gave me Essbee on one of her trips to the bay area in the late 70's (Carol: do you remember?). Back in the day we used to drive back and forth between there and here very frequently. We'd party all weekend and drive home late on Sunday. Ahhhh yes, back in the days when sitting in a car for hours didn't drive me (heh heh - drive me, get it? oh, shut it!) batshit. And when I could actually party all weekend. I think Carol got Essbee at a fair, or something like that. Or I could be remembering the details incorrectly, it's happened before. Once or twice ...