Thursday, January 27, 2011

Lotso Catching Up

I am going to make a concerted effort to get back to conversational blogging. The last few months has felt like an onslaught of "Monday Marios" and race reports -- which is fine and dandy. But I miss talking about little random things and sharing daily laughs, triumphs, and defeats. I've also been horribly delinquent in keeping up with everyone else's blog and want to keep up better with everyone else.

This week marks the beginning of training for the Oakland Marathon in March. I don't have any super time goals for the course, though I'd like to set a course PR (should be fairly simple to do this since I ended a 3 marathons in 4 weeks streak in Oakland last year). I am using this training cycle to try to get back to my pre-Texas fitness level. I'm hoping to add a little more short-distance speed to my plan as well as focused hill workouts. Oakland is quite hilly the first half and Big Sur is down the pipes.

I am still struggling a little bit with my knee. I am happy to report that my knee didn't bother me at all during Texas or Goofy. But with relatively short runs the past two weeks it has started to nag a little. I have not been taping it since the races when I run so perhaps that is a factor. But I refuse to run with tape on my knee forever so I want to figure this out. I haven't been as diligent with stretching as I was pre-Texas so I am trying to get back to that.

Boyfriend and I went for a run on the Tiburon Peninsula Trail the other week. Along the way I spotted this:

We had just watched "Toy Story 3" the night before and had a good laugh about how that poor forgotten stuffed animal was going to walk home to his owner, see he was replaced, and go mentally ape crazy.

(Warning: Toy Story 3 spoiler to follow) Incidentally, while I was in Walt Disney World, I took this photo of stuffed animals for sale:

I mean really, who would want one of these? I guess stuffed villains are okay, but this villain really was a stuffed animal which is just a little creepy.

7 comments:

Marlene said...

That guy was so evil!!!

Looking forward to the "conversational" blogging. :)

Hope the knee is okay!

Lisa said...

Looks like a such pretty place for a run!

I'm sorry about your knee. Not being an athlete of any sort, I really wouldn't know, but I would imagine it would be helpful if you could find a good doctor who is familiar with acquired injuries common in endurance runners, who could give you some good, honest advice, while understanding your training schedule.

naomi said...

Tiburon! I'm added that to my places that I need to explore; I'll have to get the deets from you on where to go. Take care of that knee!

dawn @ running the dawn said...

its amazing you have so much time till your next race! it'll be fun to focus the training a little and really see what you can do!

hope the knee gets back to feeling 100% soon!

RG said...

Dandelions and leafs on trees? What part of Tiburon and when?

Mica said...

I always feel a little sad for stuffed animals that are left outside. Also, I didn't see "Toy Story 3" because I was afraid it was too sad.

Bummer about your knee still being a little troublesome. Though it is kind of refreshing for me to hear about someone not being a knee hypochondriac like I am. You seem to be taking it in stride!

Nicole said...

the mean scary purple bear!