Life Behind the Curve

Saturday

10:07 am Stopped off at Michaels to get car paint for our “vans,” GMC Acadias lent to us by our friends at GM. Hitting the road to Napa!

2:44 pm Waiting at the relay point between our second and third runners (Meg and Kari). I’ve been driving so far but am giving up the keys so I can prep for my first leg. (I see Meg!)

9:34 pm Finally eating. Ran my leg in 90 minutes on the dot. Too tired to write about it but it was uphill and hard. I kicked ass on the first 4 miles. Last 3 had a lot of walking on the steep hills. Overall, I’d give myself a B+ for effort (have to save some energy), an A- for pace. Must eat. Must sleep. Should be running around 5 or 6 am.

10:56 pm zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

Sunday

2:10 am Van 2 is up and “breaking camp.” We got a decent amount of sleep at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. We were lucky to be on grass. People are sleeping everywhere including on the sidewalks.

2:25 am Van 1 has arrived at the relay point. Linsey is running over the bridge right now. Then Carrie is off and at it again.

4:41 am Waiting to give Meg some water on Skyline. I’m pretty tired. Just keep telling myself this next run will be a short one. Then we’ll head back to the hotel to sleep. We’re a good hour behind our projected pace (at least).

7:59 am Just finished my second leg. It was labeled as “Easy,” which was true for the first mile and the last .7 miles which were downhill. The two miles in between were uphill. My left knee can’t handle up. Happy with my pace though at 11:15.

11:30 am I filled my belly, got my stuff ready for leg 3 and am settling in for a quick nap. Alarm set for 12:30 pm.

12:42 pm Getting ready to head out again. Forgot to mention that the uphill yesterday had a ridiculously strong headwind in addition to the crazy incline. Hoping that the winds will have mercy on me this afternoon. I talked to my dad earlier and it looks like my parents will be making it out for my last leg so I’m SUPER excited.

4:32 pm We’ve decided to “leap frog” the last set of legs so we have two runners going at a time. Should be done in the next two hours or so. I’m the next runner to leave for a 6.2 mile “very hard” leg. Hold me.

7:41 pm We’re done biatches!!! My last leg was brutal. Again I did it in exactly 90 minutes. It had some nice downhills in the beginning (after going straight uphill through a quarry) which I tried to really move on. I ended the first two miles really fast and continued to unleash on the downhills where I could because I knew what was coming: the last two miles were straight uphill and a whole lot of ouch on my hurting left knee. They suuuuuuucked. But my sister showed up with my nephew to cheer me on and my teammates were shaking their booties as I ran by. I ended up sprinting the last bit with my nephew which was fun and made me run a whole lot faster than I would have otherwise. So glad to be done. So happy to have met all these awesome ladies. Now, to eat.

10:16 pm Back at the hotel and so exhausted. We have to clean out the GMC Acadias that were generously loaned to us by GM. One of the great features is the oodles and oodles of storage space. Unfortunately for this tired lady that means more places to clean out.

Monday

7:20 am I finally went to sleep after midnight last night and got up bright and early to bring Brenna to the airport. The first thing I noticed when I moved was my shoulders being lightly sore, then my knee pain, the overall light soreness. I say “lightly sore” because I know that today I’ll feel nowhere nearly as painful as I will tomorrow. I just picked up a coffee and some breakfast and am then heading to my favorite spa for a massage courtesy of my mom. She so rocks for letting me use one of her gift certificates for it. I. Can’t. Wait.

10:44 am Done with one hour deep tissue massage. I should have gone for 90 minutes. I’m hoping to get to my chiropractor for an adjustment this afternoon. The massage therapist said my IT band is inflamed which could explain the knee pain. She WORKED my hips, hamstrings and calves. It hurt but in a good way. If you do activity and then get a massage afterwards, I STRONGLY recommend deep tissue. Regular Swedish massages just don’t go deep enough. Now to drive home and pick up my boys from school. I miss them mucho.

Though this is my last entry in my live blog, this weekend has given me much I want to write about so look for more soon.

**Disclosure: GM provided us with two GMC Acadias for the weekend and bought us dinner on Friday. Our hotel was provided complements of Country Inn and Suites in Sunnyvale, CA. I was not asked to post about my experiences with either company and received no other compensation. I am grateful for all of our sponsors who can be found at Eat.Blog.Run.**