So you know how I said I was on the 15-day DL and couldn’t run this week? Well, after 10 days on the DL, I ran tonight! Yep, I I did!

I went to see Dr. Eva today and she liked my progress and gave me the green light to go! So what did I do? I came home and took a nap first. LOL. I’d been up at 4:30 am the past 2 days for 5:30 am workouts and I was beat. (Earlier today, before I knew I could run, I went to the pool and swam 1800 meters. Between 2000 m on Saturday, and 1800 m today, my arms are SO SORE! I had no idea that I could be so sore from swimming!) But after one of the best naps ever, put on my running shoes (this made me so happy) and headed out the door.

Battling the hurt had seriously taken its mental toll on me, so I wanted to keep things simple. No heart monitor, no music (yes, no music), no water bottle, no iFitness belt, no…well, let’s not get too crazy, I did run with my Garmin. I’m just too Type-A that way. I tied my house key in my shoe laces and took nothing else with me.

Since the pain went away, I’ve caught myself still reacting to different movements as if I expected pain, and found myself doing it again as I warmed up. But once I realized that I didn’t feel any pain, I relaxed.

I decided to just run 3 miles to see how I felt. When you don’t run with music, a lot of random thoughts float around in your head:

- So this is what its like to run without pain.
- Oh wait, my left calf feels weird where Dr. Eva worked on it today.
- Sheesh its really hot out today.
- This no music thing sucks.
- I really wish I had my water bottle.
- Crap, I forgot I have a fantasy football draft tonight.
- I’m so bringing my iPod next time.
- This feels harder than it should be.

That last one — yeah, those short miles did feel harder, cardiovascular-ly, than it should have. Spinning, swimming and other cardio work just isn’t the same as running.

After the three miles, I stopped and took inventory. I felt okay! The places where I’d hurt, didn’t. But I still iced anyways. And stretched for a long time. And did my exercises. I’m gonna do everything I’m told to – not gonna be lazy and take any chances.

I’m so happy to be back!

PS (Random rant: I so hate that the Wordpress template I’m using requires a thumbnail image for every post. I swear, I spent more time looking for some random image, than I do actually writing…)

I just ended a week of not running, and I have one more to go.

After the Summer Breeze race, I limped around for three days. The pain in my lower left leg still lingered. It hurt most when I walked down stairs. When I saw Dr. Eva, she was troubled by this. My calf and achilles had cleared up nicely, so what was still causing the pain? After an examination, she concluded that I had Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome. Its like Carpel Tunnel Syndrome, but on the leg. I researched it online and based upon what I read, it more or less fit the bill of what I was feeling. It especially explained the numbness I’d been having for weeks.

The doctor is treating it with ART, which significantly reduced the pain to practically zero. I could walk normally, without a limp, almost immediately after my visit. She gave me some front-leg strengthening exercises to do and prescribed icing and no running through next week. Most people would be bummed about the no running, but to be honest, I felt relieved. Being in pain all the time was not fun.

Being a runner herself, Dr. Eva really stressed putting in long cardio sessions at the gym to maintain my fitness. So that’s how I spent my weekend.

On Saturday, I did an hour of Spin. The class was a mix of hills and intervals.

After Spin, I jumped on the Stair Mill, you know, the machine where the stairs move. The Stair Mill is an old friend of mine. Up until a couple of years ago (i.e., when I started running), used to put in an hour’s work, 6-days a week on it. Its such a great workout and always turns out to be sweat-fest.

After an hour on the Stair Mill, I jumped in the pool to swim. I am not a strong swimmer, but this turned out to be a really good session for me. I swam freestyle for a solid hour. I usually get really bored in the pool with no music, but I was so focused on going for a full hour that the time seemed to fly by. I can tell it was a good workout because my arms, shoulders, and lats are sore today – the good kind of sore.

I followed up yesterday’s workouts with a Pilates class this morning. I used to take Pilates religiously twice a week, but once the instructor ended her classes, I hadn’t found another one that I liked. I really need to build up my core strength, so when I saw an early morning class scheduled at the gym today, I decided to give it a try. I really enjoyed it; I had forgotten how much I liked it.

I’m enjoying rediscovering all the workouts I haven’t done in a long time, but now that I am pain-free, I’m getting anxious to run again. Seeing my running shoes sitting at the door makes me really sad. I know the rest is needed, but I’m doing everything that Dr. Eva has told me to do in hopes that she’ll say its okay for me run towards the end of this week.

Keep your fingers crossed that I can get off the 15-day DL earlier than expected.

Happy 3rd Blogiversary to me!

Three years ago today, I wrote my first blog post. I was getting ready to leave on a three week trip to Europe, and started this blog to document my travels. It was my first experience using Blogger, so I wanted to write a few posts before I left to get a hang of it.

As I went back and read that first post, it reminded me of all the little details from that night at the ballgame, proving why in fact, blogging is so awesome. Since my first post was about the G’s, its only fitting that this blogiversary post is about them too.

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At this point in the season, they are 2nd in the division race, and tied for the NL Wild Card. They’ve been a “Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde” kinda team all season, but thankfully, this week its been all good. We’re talking “38 runs in three days” good! That hasn’t happened since…a long time ago! Though they lost today’s game, the comeback effort from a 1-10 deficit is plenty to be optimistic about.

I was lucky enough to go to go to Monday’s game with Lauren and Missy. It was one of those rare warm nights in San Francisco, where you didn’t need to wear a jacket at the ballpark. T-shirt weather at a night game AT&T? Hardly ever happens. In fact, I only remember it happening one other time at a game I went to, about 10 years ago.

When I got to the park it was blazing hot, so I went to Blush to get a cookies ‘n creme frozen yogurt. Then walked to Will Call to pick up the ticket Lauren left for me. Once in the park, I headed to the Giants Dugout section where Lauren and Missy were getting autographs. Still hobbling with leg pain, I was happy to grab an empty seat and wait for them to finish watching batting practice. Once BP was over, we got Cha-cha bowls from Centerfield (probably the most healthy food at the park) then sat in Section 128. Monday games are rarely crowded so we had the whole area around us to ourselves. G’s scored 5 runs in a first inning that went 55 minutes. After Sunday’s debacle in St. Lou, it was pretty awesome.

So you know the Ghirardelli guys? The ones that I wrote about in my first post? Well, they were everywhere that night…little demand I guess. LOL They probably should’ve replaced the hot chocolate packs with Ghiraradelli sundae ones instead.

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Up until a year ago, I didn’t write about anything in particular, just incidental things that happened to me. That’s why I named it the “Tao of Me”, because it kinda leaves the door open for me to write about any random thing.

Last year, I started playing around with Wordpress, and my little blog went through a complete transformation. I used it teach me some web design skills, and it continues to be a work in progress.

These days I mostly write about running, working out, trying to stay active and healthy, because that’s pretty much what I spend most of my time doing. And during the summer, Giants baseball, of course!

So happy third birthday to the Tao of Me! May there be many more to come!

Image Source

Ever since Tuesday, I’ve been limping around, barely able to walk. Wednesday was a rest day, and another visit to see Dr. Eva. As I hoped, she had expected me to be *very* sore after the deep muscle work she did on my left calf on Tuesday. By Thursday, I felt slightly better but was still hobbling around, as I continued to do on Friday. Since I couldn’t run, I swam and went to Spin on those days instead.

When I saw Dr. Eva on Friday afternoon, she seemed puzzled, and troubled that I was still in so much pain. She pointed out that while its probably related to the issues we had been working on over the past few weeks, this pain was in a different location.

After doing a careful examination and more (painful) muscle work, her theory was that my gastrocnemius muscle is deeply knotted and irritated.

Thus, we need to determine what is causing the irritation. Could it be my new shoes? I seriously hope not because I love them so much. Could it be the boot that I’d been using at night? It could possibly be overstretching the muscle.

And what about that half-marathon race that I was scheduled to run today? Her advice? Run what I can of the race; if the muscle starts to burn, stop. But while I’m running (wearing the new shoes), take inventory of everything that I experience. How I feel the next day will be valuable information for her.

So as of last night, I ceased wearing the boot and woke up this morning feeling the best I had felt all week. I was actually walking normally, without any hint of hobble. In fact, the only pain I felt was the soreness from the leg exercises I’d done on Friday (more on this in a future post).

I got to the race site early so that I could downgrade to the 10K. I was really torn about doing this, but everyone advised me not to push myself, and they were right.

Brazen Racing was great about letting me downgrade races; there were no issues to do this. In fact, there were no issues with the race period. This is the second Brazen event I ran (the first being this one) and they are so much fun! The races are cheap ($54 to register 6 days before the race), well-organized, and they just have a good vibe to them. Most participants are regulars and after a while, you start to recognize each other. Like this guy — hey, I know him! We first met at the Bay Breeze in February!

And like February, it was a cold, cold day. There was no rain, but it was overcast and windy (which we really felt on the turnaround back).

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from myself. I had no idea if I could even run. Up until that morning, I could barely even walk. But once we got started, I felt okay. It was the least sore at the start of a run that I’ve felt in a long time. I ran the entire first mile, but then started to have some foot numbness (an ongoing thing), so I changed things up and ran for 3 minutes, then walked for 1 minute, for the rest of the race. I’d never done that before, and to be honest, it kinda felt like I was cheating. As we neared the end, I was still feeling fresh, while the other runners looked like they were dying. I also noticed that a number of the 10K runners also looked like they were either nursing an injury, or trying to come back from one. It was like the 10K was for the walking wounded.

As soon as I crossed the Finish Line, I was handed this medal.

Its the funnest medal that I’ve gotten so far, I love it!

After the race, I stayed pain-free for a few hours, then the same pain returned and I’m hobbling along again. Its not as bad as it was earlier this week.

I’m so glad that I downgraded to the 10K. Making that decision, in and of itself, was huge for me. I’m pretty proud of myself for doing that, but overall, I’m just glad to know that I can still run. Now let’s see how I feel tomorrow…

We had our annual summer picnic at work today which included a little 5K race!

A couple of weeks ago I’d gone out to run Shoreline to map out a 3.1 mile course and came up with this course, which perfectly looped our picnic site:

Some photos I took from the mapping run:

* View from the course looking across the lake to the picnic area

* Mile 2

* Park entrance crossing

* Mile 3

This morning, a colleague and I got there a little early to mark the course and put up signs (meaning, I did the course twice today).

* Our cute little Start Line

While doing this, my leg (the one that’s been bothering me) hurt really badly. My co-runner was also dealing with a heel injury herself, so we loaded up Biofreeze for the race. I think it was an old tube and not nearly as potent as we needed it to be…

* I swear, we did not color coordinate our outfits…

Strangely enough, once we got started, my leg felt okay, so I ran! But since my workout today was supposed to be an easy run, I didn’t go all out. In fact, I kept telling co-runner, “I’m going too fast, I need to slow down…” So we did.

* Belting out some Jay-Z and doing Statue of Liberty poses?!

When we finally crossed the Finish Line, we each got a Finisher’s Medal!

* Love the bling!

* The Finishing Group

Scenes from the Finish Line:

After the race, I went to my chiro visit with Dr. Eva and told her all about my leg pain. She examined my calves, my running shoes and told me:

1. The Pearl Izumi shoes I just got are *MUCH* better for my feet than the Nike Vomeros I had been wearing.
2. I must’ve had a cramp in my left calf that I pushed through because the muscle is deeply knotted.
3. She thinks the same muscle might be tangled with a vein. She’s seen it before when increasing mileage and it usually works itself out.

She worked on my calves a lot; i.e., me wincing in pain, but it already feels so much. Bottom line is I have to keep stretching it and *strengthening* it, along with my hips and rest of my legs. That means more squats, lunges, and calf raises…guess I’ll be hitting the gym tomorrow to do some lifting…yay for me!

One thing I did this week was revisit some of the first posts I ever wrote on this blog, way back in 2007. I so enjoyed reading them; they took me back to that moment in time and reminded me of so many details that I had forgotten about…

I haven’t been regularly writing these days; hardly as often as I would like to. Mental fatigue and laziness are purely to blame. I need to do better, and will start now.

The last post I wrote (not counting the one on the Portland Marathon course) was a week ago. Since then, not much has been going on. My life is pretty much up at 5:17 am, run, work, watch the Giants on TV, sleep and repeat. Seriously.

And while I track my workout data, they don’t really tell the story behind them. So in the interest of documenting stuff so I can come back in read them again later, indulge me while I do a recap:

Monday
Still tired and queasy from Sunday’s run, I went out for 4-miles. In my head, I felt like these were the 4-miles I wasn’t able to finish on Sunday so I attacked them. It took about a mile to warmed-up, but once I did, I felt pretty good. Finished with each mile faster than the one before.

That night I went to yoga. We had a sub who practices Forest Yoga. I didn’t feel like going, but I forced myself to go, and was so glad I went. I don’t really understand what Forest Yoga is, but we did traditional yoga poses, but focused on completely relaxing the neck. There was a lot of emphasize on listening and connecting with your body, kinda like a healing philosophy. Personally, I prefer restorative yoga and sometimes Hatha yoga is a little too much for me. This was a nice balance of both.

Tuesday
Early morning work meetings called and I wasn’t able to get out for my usual 6 am run. My chiro visits after work leave me too sore to run afterward them, so my only option was to run in the afternoon. I worked out of San Jose that day and ventured out at 2:30 pm (the hottest time of the day) to the Guadalupe Trail right behind my office building. Needless to say the lack of shade made it quite desolate. I ended up doing half of the planned 6 miles. Considering the heat, I was pretty damn proud of those 3.5 miles.

Wednesday
I was never so happy to have a day of rest. I normally would have gone to my 6 am Strength & Conditioning class at the gym, but my body was worn out and for once, I listened to it and did nothing. Actually, I slept in, which is just as important as a workout. In fact, I got 8.5 hours of sleep. Unheard of for me! I also had another chiro appointment. Two days of chiro work in a row leaves me sore, but good sore.

Thursday
I was up at 5:17 am again for a scheduled 5-mile run @ 9:20 min/mile pace. Admittedly, as I made my bed, I was tempted to crawl back in and get another couple of hours of zzzzz. I had stayed up late to watch the So You Think You Can Dance finale (my most favorite summer show ever!). The only thing that motivated me was that it would be my first run in my new Pearl Izumi syncroFuel shoes. It turned out to be a great run! I ended up running the whole thing with an overall pace of 9:01 min/mile with 2 sub 9-min/miles. That is unusually fast for me. It must be the shoes!

That evening, after work, I went to the gym and spent some time in the whirlpool. I’ve found that if I can spend some time there at least once a week, it really helps me out. Although my time limit in it is 10-minutes max. Its boring and too hot…I don’t like heat.

Friday
That great run on Thursday left me really sore on Friday morning, especially in the usual area that’s been bothering me – the inside of my left shin. Since I had 18-miles scheduled for Saturday, I didn’t push myself at all, and was just happy to get the 4-miles done and out of the way.

After last week’s digestive debacle I knew I had to be careful about what I ate on Friday night. My usual pre-long run dinner is a salmon crepe and breakfast potatoes, but I was tired of it and wanted something different. I’d been craving honey-wheat pizza crust, so I got a BBQ chicken pizza from CPK. I also skipped the fro-yo that I’d been having every night before bed.

Saturday
I had a non-committed goal of being out the door at my usual 6 am time, but who was I kidding. It was Saturday and didn’t happen. I still woke up at 5:30 am, but vegged out for about a half hour, then had a bowl of granola for breakfast. In hindsight, I should’ve ate more because by the end of the 18-miles I was starving.

The run itself went fine. I had sore, super tired legs from running 6 days in the past week (something I’d never done before), but there were no digestive issues. It was actually kinda like an out-of-body experience, where I knew I was running, but it didn’t quite feel like it was me. I really spaced out on the first 5-miles. Every time I thought I was running faster, I realized I was going slower. Really weird feeling. I ran my same 5-mile loop 3 and a half times. I know that sounds really boring, but I wanted to be close to home in case I fell apart again. In all honesty, it wasn’t boring at all. I’ve gotten to know the walkers, runners, bicyclists, and even dogs that frequent the loop so I spent most of the time (after the first 5 miles) waving hi to everyone. Its a real pick-me-up when they actually say hi back.

Around Mile 9 my legs were so damn tired, and I had no idea how I was going to run another 9 miles. But somehow, I did (again, must’ve been my new magic shoes). The last 3 miles were the worst. I wanted it to be over so badly; I was so hungry!

When I was done, I walked home, stretched a little, then laid sprawled out on the living room floor. I propped my legs up on a chair and just laid there for about 30 minutes (still hungry). I should’ve taken an ice bath, but more than anything I just wanted to get cleaned up so I took a cold shower, then finally ate some food. Leftover pizza and a cobb salad I had ordered the night before with the pizza.

Knowing I’d be tired after the run, I passed up on 2 sets of tickets to the Giants game, one being Club Level behind home plate. AND, it was a huge weekend series vs the first place Padres. Yeah, don’t say I’m not dedicated to this training thing. I justified my decision with the fact that I was going to a charity event being hosted by Matt Cain after the game. Too bad I was too beat to make the drive to the City. So to justify missing the charity event, I made plans to have dinner at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay. Yeah, that didn’t happen either. I was in bed by 9:30 pm (on a Saturday night!), but thankfully got another solid night of sleep.

Sunday
They say Sunday is a day of rest, and I could not have been more restful. It was pretty much a fat dog day of watching Niners football, Giants baseball, and a Sonny/Brenda marathon on Soapnet. Awesome.

So ends another week of training…and another one starts tomorrow.

Random shots that I took on my run:

* These birds greet me every morning.

* Then they cross the lagoon and wait for me on the other side…I swear! They gawk at me every time I run through them. At one point I thought they were going to attack me.

* I took this one for my sister…it kinda says it all…

This is long overdue.

Since I’m running the Portland Marathon this October, I decided to drive the course when I visited the area last month. I printed out the map posted on their Web site and ventured out with my aunt. She drove while I stuck my Flip Camera out the window and recorded. Seriously.

We started out in the downtown area, in the vicinity of the Start line. But being a typical downtown area, it was busy and crowded with one-way streets, so we didn’t manuever through the streets, so consider this shot Miles 1-4:

The video goes like this:

* Start at Front Street in downtown Portland

* We kinda got lost and missed Miles 7-9, but found our way to St. Helen’s Road

* We drive along St. Helen’s Road for a while. This is the industrial area.

* Then we approach and cross over the St John’s Bridge, which is Mile 17 and the biggest hill:

* Coming off the bridge, we drove along Williamette Road for a long time. It goes through a lot of residential areas, passes Portland State University.

* As the course turns onto Greeley it gradually descents back towards the downtown area. Along the way is the Adidas US headquarters.

* When we get back to the Interstate the video ends. We got lost and my arm was tired of hanging out the window. But we continued the drive.

* We got to the Broadway Bridge, only to find it closed for construction. But it will be open by 10-10-10.

* Since the bridge was closed, we went home. But once you cross the Broadway Bridge, you’re back in the downtown area and you repeat 2 of the miles to get to the Finish.

Other than the industrial area, I think its a beautiful course. There should be one hill in the first 4 miles (sorry I missed it), and then the climb to the St. John’s Bridge. Other than that, its flat or down hill.

This probably wasn’t the most detailed course preview. Its kinda hard to follow a map and the flip camera in one hand, filming with an arm hanging out the window while I held a regular camera in my other hand, taking photos through the windshield. And I was even with a driver who knows the area! But we had fun doing it! Here’s hoping for a cool, overcast and dry race day — which by the way was 2 months away yesterday! 10-10-10!

Its Sunday evening. Another weekend has gone by, once again, way too quickly.

The Good
We are having our annual summer event at work, which this year, includes a fun run. I’d been ask to coordinate it and I’d been putting off going to map out a 5K course. Somehow August just kinda snuck up on me and the event is less than 2 weeks away. So on Friday, I forced myself out to the event site to get to work.

I’d had a 5-mile run scheduled and contemplated doing it first, then mapping out the 5K after. But honestly, I had no interest in running 8 miles that day, especially since I couldn’t even crank out more than 1 the day before.

After my 6 am class at the gym, I came home and did some work (while waiting for traffic to die down), then headed down to Shoreline mid-morning. My planned workout was to do 1 mile @ 9:45, 3 miles @ 9:00 and 1 mile @ 9:45.

My results were: 9:33, 8:41, 8:48, 8:38, 9:35. These are unusually fast times for me. I have no idea where this came from, other than, I had forgotten my earphones and wanted to get the whole darn thing over with ASAP!

I felt pretty darn good about this, and was relieved to finally get the course mapped out. And how convenient was it that the loop that I ran came out to exactly 3.1 miles!

It finally feels like things are starting to come together. We still have a few details to iron out, but I think its going to be a fun little activity for my colleagues. We’ll even have some bling for Finishers, and when we’re done, we can enjoy this:

The Bad and The Ugly
I was supposed to spend Saturday with friends, but they got strep throat. So instead of making other plans, I decided to stay in and get to bed early since I had 17 miles planned for Sunday.

I had wanted to get out the door by 6 am, but I despite being in bed by 10 pm, I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed until just before 7 am. I had a bowl of granola (note: that I have every morning). I also decided to try a packet of Gatorade Prime. You know, the one they talk about in this:

or this:

I had been at Sports Authority earlier this week, and when I saw them at the checkout counter I thought I’d give it a try. Talk about being a sucker for good marketing. And I don’t even like Peyton Manning. What was I thinking?!

It wrecked my stomach like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I puked a few times and had to make multiple bathroom stops along the way (thank goodness I was near Target). I was too scared to eat any of my Hammer gels, or drink any Cytomax, so I just sipped water a few times.

I came home at 12 miles to regroup, then headed back out only to puke again. At that point, I decided that enough was enough. My suffering couldn’t go on and I ended the day at 13 miles.

The frustrating thing is that with all the hurting I’ve been feeling lately, my legs still felt pretty good. And despite the lack of fuel, I wasn’t even that tired. Such a bummer.

Later this afternoon I was talking to my Dad and he, being an ex-coach of all things, lectured me on trying new things, especially before a long workout. Yes, I’d already known this, but didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. Lesson learned.

Despite the crappy run, here’s one good thing that came out of it. I took this photo at the start of this morning’s run. I found the scene serenely peaceful.

My goals for this week have been to stretch, and to get decent nights of sleep.

I revisited my calendar and realized it had been about 5 weeks since I’d been to yoga; about the time that my leg problems starting happening. Coincidence? I think not. So I went to yoga on Monday. I always have to force myself to go, but once I’m there, I’m so happy that I went. We did a lot of hip and shoulder work, and despite thinking (once again) that my arms are too short for my body, I left feeling pretty darn good. Since then, I’ve dedicated 20 minutes of stretching in the morning, and 20 minutes at night. I already feel a difference!

As for sleep, I’ve gotten at least 7 hours every night since Saturday. And almost 8 on a couple of those nights. Its meant that I’ve had to miss a few days of blogging to get to bed by 9 pm, but its been worth it. Not getting enough sleep is such a miserable feeling and can ruin your entire day.

As for the rest of the week, after Sunday’s 15-miler, I was feeling quite sore, but did run 4 miles on Monday and 5 miles on Tuesday. I tried to run tonight but learned that its almost impossible to do after a torture visit to the chiropractor.

I’ve had 2 visits so far this week. Both times Dr. Eva adjusted my hips, back and neck. No big deal. But the ART work she does on me is so painful that it makes me break out in sweat.

She’s been working on my hamstring, psoas, glutes and achilles. Essentially she is “stripping” the muscles by applying deep pressure while I move my leg. For example, I’ll point my toes, then she’ll apply the pressure as I flex my foot to the fullest range of motion available to me. In some areas the pain is so intense that I can’t move so she has to push my leg for me. This technique breaks up the deep adhesions (knots) within the muscles where the fibers are not aligned correctly. As tortuous as this sounds, it feels a thousand times more effective than just a massage, and I feel relief almost as soon as its over. But it does leave me feeling quite tender.

After I got home from today’s appointment I headed out to the park to start my run. As soon as I started I knew it wasn’t going to be a good one. I made it a whopping half mile at which point I realized that I was just limping along. So rather than make things worse, I turned around and limped home. I was pretty disappointed about it because after a pretty crappy day at work, I was looking forward to releasing some pent up frustrations and getting lost in my music. Oh well, that’s the nice thing about running – there’s always tomorrow.

You know its a great weekend when the Giants sweep the Dodgers, and I was lucky to go to the first 2 games.

But before that, I had my second visit with my chiropractor on Friday afternoon. She adjusted my back, hips and neck; then did muscle work on my hips, glutes and psoas. This time she also adjusted and worked on my ankle to try to help ease some of the lower leg pain. As soon as the appointment was done, I headed straight to the ballpark for Orange Friday!

The Giants always seem to play well on Orange Friday’s and this time was no exception.

It was beach towel giveaway night and I sported my new Buster Posey “He Ain’t Having It” T-shirt, that I made based upon this:

Giants won 6-5 and I had a great time with my “OG Tweeps.”

Saturday we were all back for Round 2. Before the game there was a Wall of Fame ceremony to honor Rich Aurilia and Shawn Estes who played for the Giants in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. Those were the years of my favorite Giants teams so I was excited to be there for it!

The game was a nail-biter, scoreless until late innings. We were harassed during the entire game by delusional LA fans. I’m all for cheering for your team, but if you’re in someone else’s park, be respectful, not rude and obstinate. And for goodness sakes, have good baseball knowledge. It was so sweet when Pat Burrell hit the go ahead run in the bottom of the 8th to put us up 2-1; and we won the game!

After the game we got to go to the season ticket holder’s Picnic in the Park and roam the field, have free food and drinks, and meet the players.

My impersonation of running to first base!

I had 15-miles scheduled for Sunday, and although I got 7+ hours of sleep, I still woke up dead tired. I guess sitting in the sun for 8 hours, and being on my feet for 4 of them will do that to you. Miraculously, I dragged myself out the door by 7:30 am.

I didn’t have it in me mentally to map out a 15-mile route, so I decided to run my usual 5-mile route 3 times. I would never do this under normal circumstances, but since I had been hurting lately, this kept me relatively close to home in case anything happened. Just being cautious.

While I do not like to repeat any part of a route, this wasn’t bad at all. It obviously broke the run down into 3 parts which, in my head, kept it very doable.

My chiropractor had wanted me to run long this weekend to track if and when numbness in my feet occurred. I first felt it at .37 miles and oy lasted for about a mile. I was feeling ok until 3.75 miles. At that point my achilles started hurting so I stopped to stretched. As I did, my right glute spasmed (like a charlie horse). As I walked around, trying to stretch it out, I looked down and saw this written in the cement. Seriously, no joke…ironic, ain’t it?

After a few deep breaths, I continued on. The foot numbness returned in Miles 4, 6 and 8 and stayed for about a mile. I didn’t notice it anytime after that. By the time I started the 3rd time around the loop, I was feeling pretty tired and just wanted it to be over. But somewhere around Mile 11 I got a second wind (probably due to the Hammer gel I ate during Mile 10). All of a sudden I realized that I was running pain-free! I finished the last 4 miles feeling pretty good!

The rest of day was spent icing, stretching, rolling and resting (because I did feel sore afterward), then watching the Giants close out the series with a sweep of LA!

A perfect ending to a great weekend!