return from france

after a wonderful 9-day vacation (which was too short!) i am back stateside in washington, dc. i have to admit, being on vacation made me lazy and i slipped on one of my long runs! i missed a 10-mile run last saturday. but in my defense, it was really cold and raining and would have made for a miserable running experience. the shorter weekday runs that i did were really nice and very scenic. while i don't have photos of me running, i do have one of regis and i, where in the background you can see the beach that i ran on!

mid-week, after regis' brother's wedding, we took off for the bassin d'arcachon (merci beaucoup a benoit et sa famille for letting us crash at their flat!) for a map of where arcachon is, click here. arcachon is really nice; it's in southwest france (near bordeaux) on the atlantic ocean. it's famous for the dune du pilat, which is this large hill of sand that you can climb and when you do, you will see the breathtaking view of the basin below! i'm attaching a photo here, where we are at the top of the dune!

i did some nice runs on the beach. however, i'm nervous for this weekend's long run since i missed my long weekend run last week. this saturday, it's a 20-mile run! eek! this will be my longest run until the marathon! after this weekend, we start tapering, in order to give the body time to repair for the marathon!

until saturday...

a long weekday run

since i'm heading to france tomorrow (yah!) for regis' brother's wedding, i will not be running with my team for the 18 mile run they are doing this weekend. in fact, rather than have to run this weekend, i decided to do my long run during the week. so this morning, at 6:45am i dragged myself out of bed, threw on my clothes and hit the trails. it was dark, cold and rainy! however, i got through it. one thing that i love about dc is that you can run to a different state (something that is really hard to achieve in california!) so today, i started out in dc and then ran over to virginia and then back to dc again! anyway, i logged in 9.6 miles and all before the workday! if you want to check out the route, click here. i should have taken a photo of me after i finished a run so i could post it on here, because i looked crazy! my hair (which was down for the entire run) was tangled, sweaty and super big! my hair had expanded 2 feet away from my head. it was ridiculous. coupled with the fact that i was sweaty and tired, let me tell you that i looked like a million bucks!

since i got my long run out of the way, now, on saturday, i can just chill and cross train by getting my groove on out on the dance floor!

i'll write after i get back, with tales of running in france. hopefully i'll remember to take my camera on my run and take photos of auvergne! a+, mes amis. avez une bonne semaine et bisous!

allez les bleus

last night, france beat italy 3-1 in their qualifying match for the euro 2008! payback for the world cup, where italy beat out france in the shootout! ALLEZ LES BLEUS!!!

18 mile run across the golden gate bridge

on sunday, at 9:30am, kelvin and i set out on my 18 mile run. when we left the condo, it was typical san francisco weather, chilly and overcast. kelvin and i both looked really tech savvy and anti-social running together, with our separate ipods and earphones. i, of course, also had on my nerdy little fanny pack water bottle holder, equipped with gatorade and water!

at mile 4, around fisherman's wharf, kelvin and i said our goodbyes, and i continued onward.

my run included the following: starting out at at&t parkway (home of the giants), running along the embarcadero (with the bay to my right hand side), passing pier 39 and fisherman's wharf, going inland past ghiradelli square, running back to the bay and along the marina, going inland to the presidio and golden gate park, and across the golden gate bridge to the rest area on the marin side (where i took the photos below with my cel phone). then, i turned around, ran across the bridge again, past chrissy fields, back to the marina, inland, and back along the embarcadero! (to see my route, click here)!

what a run! at mile 17, i was exhausted and my legs were so tired. and i thought to myself, why in the world did i ever decide to run a marathon? the run was definintely tough, but it was beautiful. and running across the golden gate bridge was pretty amazing, especially since i haven't been across the bridge in a long time! and running san francisco gave me a better lay-out of the city, at least the parts along the coast!

this will be one of my longest runs until the marathon. i've only got one run that's longer than this, the 20 mile run on september 30th! until the next post...

learning a new technology...

at 7:30 yesterday morning, right after waking up, i went on a 4-mile run. starting out half asleep, i haphazardly put my ipod sensor into my shoe key contraption and went out the door. after running a mile, i was suprised that i had not yet heard someone over my earphones tell me "you have run 1 mile," so i looked at my ipod and noticed that it read 0.06 miles! uhm, what?

so i bent down to check my little sensor and realized that it was placed backwards so that the apple nike sign was facing down into the ground instead of up towards the sky. i never thought that this would affect the sensor's ability to work. but after i changed it and went about my run, it registered the next 3 miles. so for all you ipod+nike people out there, make sure your sensor is facing upwards!

i'm heading home to the bay area this weekend for labor day weekend. hopefully it will be much more sunny than here, where it is expected to rain rain RAIN because of hurricane ernesto! i'm planning on running 18 miles, from my sister's place by the giants' stadium, along the embarcadero, across the golden gate bridge, and then back home again! we'll see if i make it! if you want to check out the route i plan to do, click here.

by the way, i finally got race photos emailed to me from the new york city half marathon. at the event, they actually have a ton of cameramen/women to take photos of runners. anyway, here are a couple of me during the race and after i crossed the finish line! until sunday's run...


running in the rain in times square



cruising the west side highway




and finally finished with the race!