It has been scorching hot here for the last few days. Somehow we went from two gloomy weeks of overcast skies, highs in the mid 60’s and chilly evenings directly to highs of 98 and little flowers that had just started to bloom being burnt to a crisp. Can I get something in between? Where are my gorgeous spring days that peak at 75 leaving the evenings blissful and breezy? Is that too much to ask for?
The heat has certainly not motivated me to run, nor has the 5 pounds of phlegm I feel like I’m carrying around in my sinuses and lungs from last week’s cold. So today, for the first time this season, I swam. And lo, it was pathetic. I haven’t done laps in our pool since last fall and you would think that since I just ran a half marathon a month ago and am in possibly better shape than I ever have been that swimming would not be the gasping, splashing, flailing struggle that it was today. But damn, swimming is hard. I need to work on that.
The other big problem with the heat is the fact that we don’t have air conditioning. And we live in a two-story house. AND we sleep upstairs (for now). Last year when we moved into this house, we didn’t bother trying to get the a/c fixed since we were planning on doing some major remodeling that would involve moving ducts and upgrading the current system. Of course, we thought that would all be done by now but sadly, it has even started. It just took much longer than we thought it would to get things in order before someone takes a sledgehammer to the walls. We have plans now, drawn up by a great designer but they are still with the city, a process that we thought would only take 3 weeks and has now taken about 2 months. We’re closer to finding a contractor, but still not sold on any one person. Of course, once all of that gets sorted out and we actually start the whole process, we’re probably looking at 3-4 months of living in construction, but I’m really excited about our plans and am pretty sure it will all be worth it in the end.
Work has been hell for the last couple of weeks and although I get a bit of a break this week, next week is right back into the fire. Luckily, once I hit June things will lighten up a lot and I’m hoping they’ll stay that way for most of the summer. The hardest thing about working at night, which I did last week Sunday through Saturday, is not being around for Ashok’s evening activities. Missing his dinner, bath and bedtime that many nights in a row really sucks after a while, especially since on many of those days I had some daytime work as well. Brian and I agreed that this last week was particularly bad. Obviously, it’s hard on him too since he has no one to help out at the crankiest time of the evening, and let’s face it we ALL start getting cranky as the day wears on, so I’m going to try and plan things out a bit better form now on. This is the pain in the ass with freelancing-all the work comes at once or doesn’t come at all so it makes it hard to turn things down, but I would gladly turn down a few gigs to spend more time with these guys:
At Hosmer Grove in Haleakala Park, Maui
May 19th, 2008
Thanks for all the well wishes in comments on the last post. It took a few days of clutching onto the walls every time I moved around, but the vertigo finally subsided. Once I was finally feeling better, I managed to get sick again so now I’m recovering from a cold which may be developing into a sinus infection. But, at least I can walk and drive and don’t need an escort every time I get up to go to the bathroom. That vertigo, she was a bitch.
Hopefully, this will be the last of the sickness for a while-I haven’t been able to run much at all in the last couple of weeks. I had plans to do a 10K on Memorial Day but I’ll have to see what kind of shape I’m in once this cold passes. It is starting to get hot here, which means I’m going to have to start dragging my ass out of bed at an obscene hour to be able to run at all, something I’m not looking forward to. Today though, I’m going to use sinus pain as an excuse to skip the run and eat a chocolate pop-tart instead. I hear they have healing properties.
May 15th, 2008
Now if only I looked as good as Kim Novak. I woke up this morning with a brutal case of vertigo. This has never happened to me before, although I am severely prone to all varieties of ear maladies (damn you, small eustachian tubes). When I got up from bed this morning, the whole room was spinning, a sensation I usually associate with drinking an entire bottle of Southern Comfort, and yet I had been respectably sober the night before. I blame allergies and my stupid middle ear. Thank goodness my mom was staying over last night-Brian was out of town on business-otherwise I don’t think I would have made it to the couch without barfing. She was also able to get Ashok out of bed and dressed while I sat in the living room staring at an electrical socket to keep myself from falling over. What a horrible feeling, and I didn’t even get to get drunk first.
Needless to say, I have been stuck on the couch for the remainder of the day. Brian is back now and being a great nurse and I am hopped up on Benadryl and feeling a little better. Standing up, or even moving my head too fast while seated, will send me reeling though, and I’m wondering if I’m going to be calling in sick for work tomorrow.
mmmm…..benadryl kicking in now…night ni……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
May 7th, 2008
Sometime in the last year, WordPress swallowed my About Me and Archives pages whole and ate them with a side of bacon. I have made a feeble attempt to construct a new About Me page with my limited computer skills. The link is over there to the right. Oh, and the post that link takes you to? Is right below this. Whatever, I’m not exactly in this to win awards for blog design.
April 29th, 2008
My name is Shalini, rhyme it with “colony” and you’re pronouncing it pretty much right, although my Indian mother might not agree. I play the violin for a living in the greater Los Angeles area which means I spend a lot of time driving on the epic L.A. freeway system. I play in a couple of orchestras, on some TV shows and movies and in various other places but no more wedding gigs, I left that behind in New York.
Run, Lucy, Run started out as a running blog back when I was just getting started with slow, painful loops around the Rose Bowl. I eventually picked up a little endurance and (very) little speed and completed my first half marathon in April of 2008. Lucy is my faithful brown dog who accompanies me on most of my runs during which we try to burn off some of that puppy energy that is still lingering in her at age 4. I am married to Brian, who is a computer genius/musician/most patient man on earth. Our son, Ashok (I have no rhyme for this one yet, check back later) was born in September of 2006 and now makes fairly regular appearances on this site as well. We have a cat who is named after a lawbreaking TV psychic with a Jamaican accent. I’ll let you guess.
I can be contacted at shaliniatrunlucyrundotcom.
April 29th, 2008
We’re in the midst of our first official wildfire in Southern California. We live about 10 miles away from the Sierra Madre fire and although we are in no danger at all, I can smell the smoke from where I’m sitting inside my house and my eyes have been burning for the last hour. I had planned to run 6-7 miles today but with the air like this, I decided to skip it and stay inside. I’m hoping tomorrow will bring good news, hopefully they can get it contained, but it sounds like it will probably take a couple more days. I know a couple of musicians who live in that community so I’m thinking good thoughts for them and all the other people who had to leave their homes this weekend.
April 27th, 2008
Ah, springtime. Flowers, fresh air, and beautiful sandals I can’t afford.
April 25th, 2008
So, apparently, my one week Hawaiian vacation somehow turned into a 3 week blogging vacation. I have plenty to write about, the vacation recap including posting pictures of a very sandy baby, the baby shower I threw last weekend and how I managed to not only throw a shower but also throw my back out, oh….the shenanigans. But, I’m lacking in inspiration and I can’t seem to get it up for blogging right now, excuse the euphemism. I’m sure I’ll get around to it. In the meantime, I have finally joined Twitter, after months of thinking it might be fun but fearing yet another website I might get addicted to, (Hello, Facebook!, I’m talking to you! I hate you!). The good thing about Twitter, is that I don’t even have to have clearly formed thoughts to put something out there. I think it may work magically for me as I apparently do not have an attention span anymore.
April 24th, 2008
Indian Barbie modeling my medal
I did it! Yesterday was a great day and I actually ended up having a lot of fun which was kind of surprising to me.
The day started early, since the race was at 7am-I was out the door by 5:15 and was thankfully at the race early enough to get decent parking and not have to stress. Just as I was getting ready to get out of my car, I grabbed my fuel belt and realized that it felt a little light. This was not due to my superhuman strength at 6 in the morning, as I would like to think, but had more to do with the fact that I had forgotten the water bottles that go ON the fuel belt. Oh well, thankfully they had water on the course. I walked up to the start, and I mean UP a serious hill, just in time to hear the announcer describing the course and saying, “If you’re looking for a PR, you picked the wrong race!” How encouraging. He went on to detail all the many hills we would be climbing and I started to wonder if it was to late to switch to the 10K. How exactly did I pick this as my first half marathon?
View of the mountains from the starting line
Once we got started, I managed to stop worrying. After a nice downhill start, we meandered on city streets for about 2 miles before entering the Santa Monica Mountains National Park. The next 4 miles climbed slowly and steadily along trails. I took it really, really slowly in fear of what was yet to come. The scenery was gorgeous but the trail was pretty narrow in places which made passing people, or being passed, kind of tricky but people were pretty good-natured in general.
The view from the trail
After mile 6 the climbing started to get pretty serious but I managed to trudge along at my snail-like pace. At about 7.75, I noticed that everyone in front of me had started walking and was starting to wonder what was going on when I turned a corner and saw the trail head up a switchback along the side of a fucking MOUNTAIN. At that point, I walked too-I probably could have made it at least halfway up the switchback but since i didn’t know how close we were to the end of the hills, I didn’t want to push it. After that horrific hill, the trail cruised downhill for a couple of miles, which felt great. Around mile 9 or so, they had some guy spraying some sort of muscle relief gel on people’s legs which I have to say, felt awesome. Feeling awesome didn’t last too long though, as mile 10 was another crazy hill that had to be walked.
After that last hill, the trail went mostly down out of the park and back into the city where the streets rolled up and down before heading into Chumash Park for the finish. At mile 13 I saw my core fan base:
Some were more interested than others…
Apparently, I looked like this:
A little crazed, if you ask me. And don’t ask me why that fuel belt is riding quite so high, I have no answer other than General Dorkiness.
That last stretch did feel great, and I had enough left in me to haul ass to the finish as fast as I could. My chip time was 2:32:00. Not as fast as I would have liked, but for my first half, I’m just glad I finished and ran probably 90% of it. I’ll definitely pick a flatter course for my next half and hope for a better time, but the scenery on this course definitely made it worth slogging up all those hills.
Afterwards, there was some celebrating:
All pictures courtesy of my wonderful husband and our fancy new camera-thanks, Brian!
And then we went to my sister’s house for waffles and bacon. Pretty much a great morning. We leave for Hawaii in a few hours…hope to post from there if I can fit it into my busy schedule.
April 6th, 2008
I’ve had no time to post this last week, too much work and a little boy with a mysterious rash (not to worry, we went to the doctor and he is fine) have been keeping me busy. Tomorrow morning, I run my first half marathon. My clothes are laid out, Garmin charged, and Brian was nice enough to set up the air mattress for me downstairs in the event Ashok has a rough night tonight and I need somewhere quiet to sleep. I’ll try to post my race report before we take off for Hawaii on Sunday, but if not, expect it a few days later, gritty with sand and smelling of pina coladas…..
April 4th, 2008
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