Back to normal life

Not that I want to...but vacations have this thing about them - they eventually end.

Sunday drive was actually better than expected. My legs stayed alive and only stiffened up when I would get out of the car for a first few steps, I had no pain anywhere that would deserve attention, and 11 hrs went by pretty quickly. Stephen entertained himself with game-boy, I - with dreams, and managed to not fall asleep even once (I have a tendency to do so while driving).

Monday was an early wake up for some reason, so I went for x-training on StairMaster for 45 min. Then - back to work:( One more thing to mention - Monday was the day I started in this crazy "cleansing diet" from Lisa, what pretty much means fasting. I am drinking some sirup mix with lemon juice and water. That's it. By 3 pm I was starving, especially cooking dinner for Oleg, and snuck in a piece of chicken:) It supposed to eliminate toxins and lead me to a healthy weight...hmm, I'd like to see where it comes to and if it stays.

Tuesday I slept in - yay! - and went to run trails in Tryon park after work. That was a recovery run, very slow, some minor aches after the race showed up, I also felt low on energy - no surprise. But I enjoyed it nevertheless. I stopped at the gym for a quicky with weights/abs and a short sauna stretch before heading home to take Stephen around his busy schedule. The hunger is not that horrible, but I steal stole the apple:) I have a few spots of Poison Oak on my legs and it's itching.

Our car died...I am just so happy it didn't happen on the road! On Monday it was complaining for lots of things, and today it made such horrible noises, I was scared to drive it home. I even had to borrow a car from a neighbor for Stephen's appointments. It seems to be breaks and axel - the favorite stuff for Subaru, we had same problems with the previous one. But - this baby was good for over 150,000 miles, so what else can be expected, it needs a bit of help to stay healthy. Tomorrow it goes to a hospital.
On a good note for a car front - Oleg's friend is giving him his old Jeep as for nothing (that also requires minor work) - and now we'll be a typical American family with two cars! What I wouldn't care for but we both are very active people, especially on weekends, and faith has it - we like different activities. So every weekend it's a "who's taking a car and who's getting to ask a friend for a ride" thing.

I am excitedly awaiting to meet Angie and Johnny in less than 4 weeks. Then back to SF to see everybody I just left. And the very next day after Miwok - trip home to Russia, see Mom, Dad and my sister. Yep, I am not much of a "home-stay" person. If I could, I would just travel...won't we all!

So, here you go, nothing "training" or "running" in this entry. What also reminds me about another mishap on Monday. My favorite Bushwhacker Mike was super-excited about AR50 report and managed to send the link to this blog to the NW ultra-list. It took him some explanation from me and a threat to kill him next trail run together to realize - blog is not only race reports, it's also a bunch of personal stuff. It's a journal...I just hope nobody really cared enough to come here and check it out, and if they did - forgot the link afterwards. Though Mike is trying to sooth me by telling if people read that, they'd understand me better and appreciate more. Hmm, sounds nice. Basically, I can't dwell on it now as it already happened.

One last thing. Coming back to my frantic letter to Lisa, written in desperation on Wed: I will never be a runner I want to be. The real question is - what kind of runner do I want to be? As I said to her, I am not talking about getting faster or better, but one who goes for a run without looking over a shoulder expecting a pain, and hating it (pain), and not been able to love what is actually trully loved...I definitely need friends around...and I surely seem to need to run longer. Everything else will fall in place.

p.s. happy B-day, Jason!