Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happ -- yeah, that's enough!

I had a mostly fabulous weekend, lots of running, lots of eating, lots of friends. It really doesn't get much better than this. At least not in my life.

Saturday morning was a Coaches run at the San Leandro Marina. As I drove over the Dublin grade I got a baaaaad feeling. It was drizzly and windy. But the lowlands looked ok; lots of dark clouds and a breeze, but still dry. I was going to run only about 4 miles, taking it easy in anticipation for Sunday's run. I started to run with one of the newbie peeps, going a nice slow 13-ish minute mile, and just stopped when we were past the 2-1/2 mile area. I decided to walk/run/meander back to the start, cheering on the people who started later than I did. La di dah, despite the wind it was really beautiful out there as I strolled along. The dark clouds added something to the atmosphere (pun not really intended) of water, waves, birdies, marshes, etc. I cheered and yelled whenever I saw a teammate coming along, knowing they had quite a run ahead of them. Then I felt a drop of rain. Yep, I thought, must be rain because I certainly wasn't going fast enough to be dripping sweat. Another drop. More drops. I decided at that point that running was probably a good idea, just to get back to the start/finish before any real rain started.

I don't know why I sped up, or where I thought I'd be going. Fabulous Cindy and her family were cooking breakfast for the team. The whole nine yards; eggs, pancakes, sausages, etc. etc. etc. Tons of food being cooked in the on-coming storm. Luckily for them they had brought a tent to cover the cooking area. Unluckily for us, there was no other cover except for a really big tree. That was ok until the wind and rain got going. We all wanted to wait for the entire team to finish before leaving, and that meant waiting for quite a long time in the cold wet. We were all whining about frozen fingers, frozen faces, frozen bodies. We whined a lot quieter when the runners came in since they had all run 14 miserable miles. The breakfast was fabulous and the team came through and waited for the last finishers before running for their nice warm cars.

While waiting around we received the sad news that Brenda only had a very short time left. Later Saturday afternoon Brenda passed away. I never knew her personally but felt like I knew her and loved her. She left behind a loving family and an enormous group of friends. Rest in peace Brenda.

Sunday morning started early. Way early. To get to my 6:15 am run I got up at 4:30 am. Oy. I'm so not an early morning person, despite the way it might look from when I get up on weekends. Sandy and Bree joined me for our long run, 20 miles for me and Bree and 10 for Sandy. It was a nice sunny morning on the Alameda Creek Trail. There was no breeze until Bree jinxed us at mile 7 or so by saying "at least there's no wind." Uh huh, right after that, within seconds of that, the wind picked up. Often on the trail it's a swirly wind and it was that way Sunday. It wasn't horrific going east but was very strong and directly in our faces when we went west.

We dropped Sandy off at the staging area after 10 miles and continued our run eastward. Once we got out to the DUST marsh area it was really beautiful. Spring wildflowers were in full bloom and the red-winged black birds were flying all around (ok, I don't know that they're technically red-winged black birds; that's really just a description, not a name). Good thing it was so scenic since Bree wasn't feeling too well there. We decided to walk for a while; what the heck, I was in no hurry and just wanted lots of time on my feet. We ended up walking most of miles 15 and 16 but then went back to running for 17-20. It was amazing how good I felt a the end. Stiff, tired, a little achy here and there, but nothing too bad.

I went home and just washed my face and went back to bed. Ahhhhhh. Not much sleep but the rest was wonderful. I popped up after a few hours, showered and dressed and met my buds at PF Chang's for dinner (and drinks -- don't forget the drinks!). Their food is definitely not recommended while you're on Weight Watchers, but I had just run 20 miles and didn't really care. I finally got my ginger mojitos (no, not ginger martinis as I had thought) and the food was wonderful. Thanks guys, for a great evening!

I finished Clapotis. All of it, dropped the rest of the stitches and wove in the ends. It's beautiful. Even better than I had hoped. I wore it to dinner to show it off and it was soft and warm and -- just wonderful! I decided that when I win the lottery (uh, exactly when will that be, hmm?) I'm only going to knit with silk. I can't wait until I finish a couple of other projects so that I can start something with some of my stash silk.

My (step)nephew Noah finished his first full Ironman yesterday in an amazing 13:09. Wow! Because of that, doesn't he deserve your donation to his Man of the Year campaign? If you haven't made your donation this year to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, please consider doing so now through the link on the upper right of this page. I'll thank you, Noah will thank you, the L&L Society will thank you, and grieving families of cancer victims everywhere will thank you. To me, this is personal. We need to keep up the fight against this deadly disease and every little cent counts. Thank you!