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Archive for October, 2012

Lookie What I Bought

Posted in Gear, Half marathon, Running, tagged , , , , , on October 2, 2012| 5 Comments »

Disclaimer #1: I am not a fashionista. Nor am I a running “fastinista.” My three kids have more style in their little pinkies than I have in my whole body. Disclaimer #2: My seven-year-old took all the photos in this post. She’s won an award for her photography in the PTA Reflections program, but I’m still blaming her for any imperfections (sorry sweetie, it’s your fault that my ribs stick out and compete with my 34Bs).

Yesterday after school I took the girls with me to Sports Authority to buy KT Tape Pro. I wanted the blue tape, not because “blue” stands for depression about plantar fasciitis, but because blue stands for “blue streak” — something moving very fast. 🙂 There were plenty of rolls of bright yellow (also very cool) but I snagged the last roll of “Laser Blue.” Good omen? You tell me.

Ever the optimist, while I was at the store I shopped for potential technical shirts to wear at the marathon on November 10. I’m looking for something light-colored and close-fitting. It’s got to be short-sleeved rather than a tank top, to avoid any chafing issues. My favorite technical shirt is my short-sleeve “marathon tee” from the OC Half Marathon, produced by Greenlight Apparel. Unfortunately I think that it would be a bit of a faux pas to wear a half marathon branded race tee at a different brand marathon race, so I looked online to see if I could buy a plain Greenlight Apparel tee. I didn’t see exactly the same style.

At the store I happened upon this Under Armour shirt, on clearance for $16.98 from $22.99. It goes nicely with my Under Armour compression shorts. I swear it’s a coincidence that the color matches the KT Tape exactly. See disclaimer #1. I’m not that matchy-matchy.

Me and the KT Tape

I loved this shirt in part because it was an extra-small. I didn’t realize extra-small meant “shows every rib and belly paunch from your compression shorts.”

My kids begged me to buy it, which I did, along with several packets of green apple PowerGel and vanilla Clif Shots and Honey Stinger Waffles. So far the PowerGels with caffeine are the clear winners, and the regular Clif shots (offered on the marathon course) are second place. I’ve never tried Honey Stinger Waffles and I’m curious.

My 10-year-old got some new running shoes while we were at Sports Authority. Can I just mourn a little bit that she now wears a 6.5 in women’s shoes, and that means we pay twice as much for her shoes as we paid when she was a “girl” size?

We couldn’t find any shoes for my 7-year-old (who now wears a size 2, sob) so we headed off to Sears. We found two pairs of shoes there for the price of my 10-year-old’s one pair, and threw in an even cheaper pair for my four-year-old. While we were there, I took a quick pass through the sportswear and came out with these Everlast beauties for $7.99 each, on sale from $24 each. I’ll need to test them out on a run, but I think they’re pretty cute with the indented seams on each side, much like my beloved OC Half Marathon tee from Greenlight Apparel. My kids had a clear favorite. Here’s the light blue:

Everlast technical tee

The light blue Everlast technical tee

and the pink:

Everlast pink technical tee

Everlast technical tee in pink

What do you think (Under Armour blue, Everlast light blue, Everlast pink)? My kids liked the pink. How do you choose what to wear on race day? How far in advance do you plan your race day outfit?

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Another 15-Miler

Posted in Biking, Family life, tagged , , , , , , , on October 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

No, I did not run 15 miles again, this time I retraced my running steps on the bike. My two older girls got invited to a birthday party at Mission: Renaissance, a great little art school tucked in a shopping plaza just five minutes from the Santa Ana River Trail. While they drew this:

owl pastel

My seven-year-old’s owl, which she named Spring. Love those eyelashes!

and this:

red brown owl in pastel

My 10-year-old’s owl, which she named Amber. Love the shading on the sky!

I rode my bike on the trail for 65 minutes. I thought it would be cool to take a different look at how far I’d run the day before. Ha ha, I said “cool.” I should have said “absolutely broiling hot.” It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees C) and I could swear it was even hotter on the black asphalt. By the time I walked my bike from my car to the trail, my elbow pits were sweating. Elbow pits? Please wait while I Google that term to see if it’s real. Hmm, it appears everyone knows what you mean by the elbow pit, but its scientific name is the cubital fossa. Good to know. I’m sure that will come up a lot in the future. Anyway, my cubital fossa was dripping with sweat and I hadn’t even started riding. Not a good sign. Then I hopped on the bike and it seemed like I stopped sweating altogether. The breeze, and by breeze I mean blast of hot air from an inferno, evaporated any sweat before it could even appear on my skin. Ooh, let’s have another scientific lesson, this time on how sweat evaporates:

In general when water evaporates it requires heat energy. The amount of heat energy required is called the latent heat of vaporization. If the water is not sitting on a stove that supplies the energy, the energy must come from someplace else…. When we sweat, our skin and clothing become covered with water. If the atmospheric humidity is low, this water evaporates easily. The heat energy needed to evaporate the water comes from our bodies. So this evaporation cools our bodies, which have too much heat.

(Source: Suite 101: Physics of Sweating). Nifty, our very own human cooling system! Except I didn’t feel very cool. I didn’t cool down until I headed back to Mission: Renaissance and grabbed some leftover fro yo from the birthday party. Chocolate with cookie dough topping, to be exact. Question: is 41 too old to call it fro yo? Just wondering. I fear I’m not that “cool.”

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