Running for two--or, mostly walking

Well, I did it.  For those of you who don't know me (pretty much everybody except Paul), joining the gym is a big step for me.  I wasn't even bored.  Paul showed me some hip/leg weight machines, then I hit the elliptical for 20 minutes.  I was surprised that I really enjoyed the elliptical.  I was half expecting to not be able to support the weight of my body for that long on my left knee and right ankle (since I almost fell down when I got out of bed in the morning) and was pretty much set on the fact that I would be on the bike, but when I got on the elliptical it was awesome.  I can't walk right now, but I can do 20 minutes on the elliptical like it's nothing.  I'm not sure how elliptical miles convert to running miles, or I'm not actually sure that they do, but at least I'm getting some cardio in while I'm on a hiatus from running. 

35 minutes on the elliptical.  The ankle is throbbing a little bit, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good.  I think I was walking a little better today, too, so I might be able to run again by next week.  If I do, it'll probably be to the gym and home (1.5 miles round trip) and then maybe on Saturday.  I kind of want to make sure I'm up to it before I run again, though, because I don't really like being injured.  This is what happens when you go from being completely sedentary to running 2 miles a day.  I didn't want to start with 1 mile because it wasn't worth it to change my clothes to run a mile, but now I'm wishing that I had just done it.  Hopefully this will be a quick recovery and I can get back to training for Moab.

New York City. Woke up late this morning (thank you , Mike K, for letting us stay at your house) and hit the airport. Hobbled over to the the International Terminal after checking in because we were "running late" (apparently getting there 40 minutes before your flight counts as running late). Our first flight was at 8:50 a.m.and we finally arrived in New York at 5:00 p.m., so it's been a long day. I was so glad that I didn't have to drive to the hotel, though, because it was crazy madness and I don't do well driving in heavy traffic. Paul got a chiropractic adjustment when we finally got to the hotel (over an hour to go 7.5 miles) and ran half a mile on a treadmill in the hotel gym, but I watched TV instead. We're going to dinner tonight with my sister, Keri, and her fiancee, Michael. It's 7:30 here, but only 5:30 back home, so I might have trouble sleeping tonight. We'll see.

I guess I should say something running related. Paul thinks he has seen some running celebrities. Ryan Hall, Mbarak something, Culpepper's wife. Yeah, this is getting exciting. Stay tuned.

PM--dinner with my sister and her boyfriend at a little Italian restaurant called Pinocchio's.  The place was so small that there were probably only 10 tables, so we had to wait for somebody to leave before we had a table, which took about 20 minutes.  I've had longer waits than that in Logan, though, so I wasn't bothered.  My sister looks great.  She's lost 50 lbs. since I last saw her in January (I think I said before that it had been a year-and-a-half, but I forgot that I went out in January to see my other sister's baby).  Her "whatever", Michael, is really nice, but their relationship is kind of weird.  I think it works for them, but you can never tell for how long. 

New York City. Breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The restaurant is supposed to open at 6:30, but we got there after 7:00 and they still weren't open, so we went in and sat down anyway. I was supposed to get up before breakfast and hit the hotel gym, but it was hard enough getting up at 7:00 this morning, because that's 5:00 Utah time and half a day isn't long enough for me to adjust to the time. Nothing too interesting this morning. Paul is doing race-related stuff all day, so I'm going to go be a tourist with my sister. More later.

I spent most of the day walking around downtown. I took a taxi (my first) from our hotel to my sister's. They were at 47th St. and we decided we would just walk from there down to the pier to go see the Statue of Liberty. Well, when we got down around 10th St. we decided to pull out the old map and saw that, contrary to what we thought previously, after you get past the numbered streets there is another mile or so to the water. So, instead of walking the whole way, we hopped in another taxi and went down to the World Trade Center Memorial. It was kind of surreal. I mean, the place has so much emotional meaning, but it just looks like a construction site right now. We talked some about where we were when it happened and then moved on to conversations about stupid stuff we did as kids (our conversations always move in that direction). From there it is a pretty short walk down to the water and we were soon there. Guess what was there to greet us! A two-hour-long line. That kind of put a damper on things, since my sister had to leave for the airport in a few hours. We decided to just take the subway (my first time) and head back towards Times Square for some lunch. After lunch we did some souvenir shopping (you can't pass up the 7 for $10 t-shirts) and then it was time for them to head for the airport. I wished that I had more time with my sister, but I'll take whatever I can get.

After they left for the airport, I went back upstairs and Paul was there (after his race-prep day).  We relaxed for a bit, then tossed around what we should do for dinner, blah, blah, blah.  We're pretty much home-bodies, so we ended up ordering some delivery and hanging out in the hotel room.  Logan slept over with us so that he wouldn't have an hour subway ride in the morning before the race.  We all went to bed some time around 8:30 (6:30 in Utah), which was pretty amazing.  More tomorrow.

Paul and Logan left at about 5:10-5:15, I wasn't really awake enough to remember.  I just know that I did remember to have Paul reset the alarm so I wouldn't sleep in and miss the race.  I got up and caught the charter bus down to the finish line.  That's when I had the most drama that I did all weekend.  I got off the bus and realized when I saw everybody else's breakfast passes that I had the wrong one.  The security guards were doing a very good job of following orders and wouldn't let me in without the pass.  So, with all due embarrassment I started crying like a baby because I was missing possibly one of the biggest moments of my husband's running career.  Well, I decided that, despite the fact that I was hungry, I decided to give up on getting into the breakfast and just try to see some of the race, so I walked around to one of the general spectator entrances and just reserved myself to sitting with the average people.  I wouldn't be able to eat, but at least I would be able to see the race.  So, at that point I called Katey Fielding, Logan's wife, and told her that I couldn't get into the breakfast, but that I should probably meet her somewhere to give her the bracelet that she needed to get into the post-race finish area (different from the finish line).  Turns out Logan's mom wasn't going to be there for over an hour, so she let me use her pass to breakfast (which I proudly displayed for the security guards who were giving me a hard time) and then came back out to get her later.

The race itself was awesome.  Ryan Hall was amazing!  There was a good fight going on for second and third.  Dathan Ritzenhein and Brian Sell ended up with those spots, but at various times Meb, Abdi, Dan Browne, and Khalid were contenders. I started crying when Ryan Hall was approaching the finish and he just started praising God.  It's awesome to me to see somebody who displays their faith so readily.  At the finish I heard some people talking about Ryan Shay having a heart attack, but only found out later that he actually died during the race.  It seemed so strange.  I felt really, really sad for his wife of three months.  Just imagine.  It broke my heart.

After the race we hopped back on the bus back to the hotel took showers and headed back down to the bus to go to the luncheon.  It was really, really tasty.  Then we popped into the Brooks party where we got awesome Hanson's shirts (it's a t-shirt with a picture of a singlet on it) and Hanson's playing cards.  We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Logan and Katey.  I know that I should have felt like doing something New York-y, but I was happy to just sit and chat for a while.  We ended up in Times Square again and ran into a guy who sold us tickets for a comedy club (Comic Strip Live, the one where Seinfeld did his thing at the beginning of his show).  We were all a little leery that it might get raunchy, but decided that at $10 apiece if we didn't like it we could just leave.  It ended up being pretty funny, so I was glad we went.  That pretty much wraps up Saturday.