Sunday, September 8, 2013

Running with the alligators (again)

As you may recall, I ran into a big alligator (NOT literally) in the Florida Everglades this past January during the Ragnar Relay.  This past Friday, I ran past two smaller (about my size - each) alligators...behind a fence....at the zoo.

Alligators are not native to San Antonio, just in case you didn't know.  But, Friday night was the Zoo Relay in Brackenridge Park - it's a 4x2 mile relay on familiar paths, but the last 1/3 mile or so is through the zoo.  Guess what?  It was hot.  So here's how it went:
Already sweating. Then there was the run.  I won't lie - I stopped to look at the alligators, turtles, cheetah (he was hiding), and flamingos.

And then I pretended I ran the whole thing like a champ.
 
And then I took a little nap while running into the finish


Luckily, I woke back up - after I remembered those alligators are still on the other side of that fence to the house right...

 
then I tried to look tough. 

 But ended up looking like a crazy running chicken



Yep, same old same old - alligators and all.  Oh, and recovery and all...






Thanks to Ceci, IAAP, Emily, Victor, Bertha, and Michele for the pics.  Whew, 2 minutes before bedtime before tomorrow's 10K...

Saturday, September 7, 2013

About being behind and whined

Crud.  I'm behind again.  I would take personal responsibility and admit that, perhaps, volunteering for yet another group (neighborhood ass'n - it takes a LONG time to walk/trot 9 city blocks distributing newsletters door-to-door - who knew?).  Instead, I will eschew personal responsibility for my current state and, instead, blame it on these cats


Seriously-these jerks sucked 15 minutes of my time today (after trotting all over the neighborhood - me, not the cats), tussling over stacked 3-deep new litter boxes.  So, I watched them try to stuff 30 pounds of cats in a litter box and took pictures, wasting time until I separated the litter boxes for them to achieve peace.  I sure wish this strategy would work in Syria. 

It also didn't work here, since I just had to stop typing and stop the orange guy from smacking the grey guy, because he now wants THAT litter box.  See how that works - the cats just time bandit-ed me for almost an hour today.  And that's just 2 of 5 or so animals roaming around here.

So, back to one thing I'm behind on...I ran the SARR Labor Day Whine Run (5 miles) on Monday.  It's a pretty brutal run - hot and hilly.  And outside of my pond, so thanks to a ride from Laura, we arrived at o' dark early.
But, the lovely thing is that the venue is a vineyard! (I really like the way that sounds - say it 3x fast).

BUT - first we had to run
and here I come into the finish - but then Ruben caught me
and then this guy totally bogarted our pic!  But, we recovered like champs, saluted the judges, and continued with our synchronized swimming routine.  Oh, wait, run....
Note that Ruben even grabbed a color-coordinated sponge.  Savvy. 

And on to the best part of this run....recovery and whine.


Then, we recovered some more at Darlene & Adrian's hacienda.




And, there we go, I am all caught up.  Except that I am running two races this weekend, have not written birthday thank you notes, need to weed the front yard, need to set fire to the back jungle, and on and on - stay tuned until I post those ugly pics around Halloween.

Thanks to Victor, Bertha, Celia, Tom/SARR, and my dumb cats for the pics (cats were neither photographers nor were they harmed in this entry).