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Happy New Year!

 This is my 3rd attempt writing this. I hit the wrong button and closed the browser once and let it sit too long another time. Third time's a charm though, right?

It was a cold (for Okinawa anyway), windy, rainy run today! My husband & I had been planning to run together. After much debate about whether to run at the gym (his choice...he needed to sweat for the meds the doc prescribed) or outside (my choice...I ran on the treadmill yesterday), we decided on outside. Then we went outside and it started raining while I waited for the Garmin to pick up signal. I don't mind rain if I've already started my run, but it's hard to start while it's already raining. We came back in and decided to go to the gym, but then I remembered that the gym would be closed. So we headed back out to run and it wasn't raining anymore! Isolated showers in Okinawa are like none I've ever seen...it had only been about 4 minutes from when it started raining! I stood there waiting for the Garmin, but David didn't want to wait and took off without me. I had fun chasing him up the hill. It's easy to drag up the hill, but having him ahead of me was really good motivation to speed up instead. I finally caught him right at the top. When I was getting closer, I was saying, "get to the speed limit sign before he gets to the tree" and "get to the brown sign before he gets to the stop light" and "get to the stop light before he gets across the street" and finally "catch him before he gets all the way across the street"! When I caught up with him, he said he was just going to do the rest of the 5k loop, but I wanted to run more, so I did a larger loop for 6 miles. It was SO windy! My hat blew off twice and it was tough running! Somehow, even when I was heading home, I was still running into the wind. When I was almost home, the sky ahead of me was blue and beautiful, with puffy white clouds. I turned my head to look and cross the street, and the skies to the side were dark grey. By the time I was about a half mile away from home, it was raining...not really pouring, but all the wind made it seem like it! I was so glad I was close to home by that time and had just a few minutes more to go! 

Enjoy your first run of 09! 

I declined a ride to running group this morning ...and a good thing, too, because the ride slept through her alarm and missed our run... so I jogged the mile to the gym to meet my "group" which turned out to be just one guy! When I was on the way there, I saw this guy walking down the street carrying 2 cartons of milk in a grocery bag. I thought it was very strange because the grocery store wouldn't open for three hours, and the shoppette (about a half mile away from my house...maybe give or take a little from where this guy was going) wouldn't open for another hour. There is another shoppette on the other side of base, about 3 miles away but I thought that 6 miles would be a long way to walk for milk. I wish I would've asked him. I'll probably be wondering about this forever!!

Anyway, my running partner Mike and I decided to run 10 miles, one of my favorite routes. We run along the main road for a while and then cut in to run on the sea wall for a few miles, and pass by lots of fishermen and a marina (I was really surprised that we didn't see any surfers...the waves were big!) Then we cross a pretty red bridge and take a pit stop at the Family Mart (like Japanese 7-11 with sushi instead of Slurpees!) and then head back. The weather was great and our run was peaceful, other than tons of "motorcycles"...the kind that sound more like bumblebees than well, motorcycles. 

I thought maybe I'd make it to Power Yoga which started at 9, but when I went into the gym, I learned that it actually starts at 8. So I ran back home for a total of 12 miles. My knees were a little creaky today, but other than that I felt really great!

I usually don't run on Sundays and I didn't actually think today would be any different. I fell asleep on the couch this afternoon and when I woke up, I just wanted to go for a run! I headed out at 6pm and with a full bladder, because David was in the bathroom (we only have one... I think they have it better in the barracks!)  I was losing daylight and needed to get far enough away from the house before it got dark so that I wouldn't feel guilty about not wearing my reflective belt, so rather than wait for my turn in the bathroom, I decided to run the 5k route and use the bathroom at the gym along the way. 

There is another 5k (same course) this Saturday and I hope I do as well as or better than I did last time. I've run up that last hill several times since then, 3 times in just the last week, so maybe it won't be so daunting on Saturday! Today I looked at my watch and noted that running the hill (at the beginning of my run since I started at my house instead of the gym where the 5k starts) only takes 3 and a half minutes. I like knowing things like that so I can encourage myself during the actual 5k. I also do this at theme parks... I am terrified of roller coasters and whenever I do manage to be convinced to try one (which is not often!) I time the coaster while I wait in line and when I get on, I close my eyes, scream and say, "It's only 68 seconds" over and over until it stops.

Anyway, I still have one clean long sleeved shirt, so there's no excuse for me to skip running tomorrow!

 Edited to Add: The other day Marion mentioned the "Mileage Board" on her blog entry and I was curious so I clicked it. There are lots of things on this site I haven't clicked yet! Just now I clicked Mileage Board and I see the big benefit to being in this time zone (other than knowing the future ;) ) I've got the highest mileage so far this week, with a whopping 3 miles! I got a head start!

Today's run was kind of "blah". I can't put my finger on why, but I just didn't feel very well. At first I felt slow and the air didn't feel like it was going in right. About 4 miles in I had a cramp in my stomach/under my ribcage.  Also, it felt super-hot. I guess it's already time to put away my long sleeved shirts. (I won't put them too far away, though, as we should be in the midwest in a few more weeks...I have a feeling I'll need them there!) I had to make a choice when it was time to start heading the direction of home--turn at a stop sign or keep going and turn at the stop light--and I chose stop light because I thought I might be cutting the mileage short if I turned at the sign. That was a really dumb choice, because it was lunch time and since I was running on the main road of base, there was tons of traffic. There were cars turning out of or into just about every single side road and parking lot entrance, so I had to slow down and stop a lot to assess whether a driver was going to see me and let me go, see me and go anyway, or not see me at all. It turns out that the route was more than a half-mile longer than I wanted (so I had a cool down walk home) and I probably could've just gone with the less trafficky route and still gotten my entire run in.

 That was one big complaint, but I really am glad that I got out and did it! Oh, I did take into consideration the idea of not wearing clean clothes on every run. That "conversation" was going on on Leslie's blog, I think?? I wore the same hat that I wore yesterday, and had my dirty shorts in my hand, but opted for a clean pair at the last minute! ;) I heard my neighbors outside and didn't want to gross them out while I chatted with them until my Garmin picked up signal!

My Wednesday treadmill workout again today...I'm getting better and better at it! I might change it up soon, but this week, I wanted to do thinks a lot like I did the last week before the 5k run on Saturday.

1 mile jog up (literally!) to the gym. Hopped on the treadmill, chose a 25 minute podcast to listen to on my iPod, and started my 3 miles at 8:00 pace. I tend to stare at the distance screen on the treadmill, which is not very good for my morale, so since the podcast I was listening to was an interview, I tried to only look at the distance display when the interviewers asked a question.

When I got to 2.5 miles, I sped up to 7:47 pace for a quarter mile and 7:30 for the last quarter mile. Then I slowed down to between 8:45 and 9:45 for 3 miles of cooling down on the treadmill while I listened to another podcast and caught some of Dr. Oz on Oprah. I was extremely irritated by the headphones not staying in my ears. I need the other kind that don't go in your ears because they just don't stay put once my ears start sweating. Actually, I'm not sure if ears really sweat or if it's just other sweat that runs in there or what. Whatever, it's gross!

Ran back to the house for a total of 8 miles.

On my way home, someone shouted out "Rebecca!" and I waved...then they said, "Get back here!" and I looked around and saw a little girl running across the yard...and felt a little silly for waving.

Good thing I had entered this run the last time I did it a few weeks ago. My Garmin kept losing signal (between all the beeping in and out, it lost an entire mile!) The whole time I thought it was a 6 mile run, but I see it was just 5. Oh well. I ran the hilly habu trail and then up the big hill that will be the end of the 5k on Saturday. There was a huge line of cars waiting to get off base, and running through their exhaust for about 3/4 mile was not fun. I did see someone I knew and waved at her and then I had fun switching up my "get up the hill" game...normally I count sets of 6 bushes, today I got to "just get to the red car" and then "get to the car with its lights on", etc.

I decided to do 2 laps around the track instead of just 1 so that I could take some time to walk down the hill to my house. During my 2nd lap, I had to take a 3 minute Star Spangled Banner Break. It was 5:00. I got really irritated at one guy who did NOT stop when retreat started. He finished his lap and then stopped. I don't care who you are or what kind of workout you're in the middle of... if you're on a military base and it's 5:00, the national anthem is going to play and you need to stop for it and be respectful for 3 minutes of your day. It happens every day at the same time, so it's not like he couldn't have planned his workout accordingly. When I left the house at 4:18, I knew that I would have to stop for the anthems at some point. It is my pet peeve when people don't stop when the anthems play... I always tell my students when we say the Pledge of Allegiance that that's our chance to say "thank you" and "I hope you're safe" to all the moms and dads, brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles and grandpas etc. who are away from their families and maybe in danger and we might not be able to say it in person, but it probably makes them feel good to know that every morning at school (and every 5:00 during retreat) we stop and think good thoughts for them.  Maybe I should've done another lap to catch up with that guy once retreat was over and given him my 2nd grade teacher speech.

I felt like I did this run faster than last time... I know the first mile was faster, then the Garmin started getting cranky. My special reward for doing so well...pizza!! Yum!

I really need to start paying attention to that little "periodically hit save as draft" advice up there. Take 2:

What a morning! It was so cold & really windy (the wind woke me up at 4:30 and is still rattling the windows!) that I decided not to go to the gym where the 5k starts as early as I normally would. I didn't want to stand around too long in the cold.

  I got there at 7:56. The run was supposed to start at 8, and they usually are 5-10 minutes behind schedule. But not today! I was still at the sign-in table when I heard the start at 7:57. I finished my name, rank & signature and ran toward the starting line. When I passed the clock at the finish line, I was already 40 seconds behind, so I made sure to start my watch when I got to the starting line so at least I'd know my time at the end. My Garmin gave me the low batteries warning on my way there (I really thought I just fully charged it 4 miles ago!) so I turned it off because I knew I would be annoyed by all the beeping. Good thing I never learned how to tell the actual time on my Garmin so I always wear my regular good ol' Timex on my other hand!

  I ran past the walkers & started to catch up to the crowd. I felt like I was playing catch-up the whole time! I found my friends Grace and Paul and they said, "We were wondering where you were!" I had given Grace a hard time the other day when she said she was thinking about skipping...can you imagine if I hadn't shown up!? I knew my friend Veronica was out there too, and had to catch up with her. I started playing the "moving landmarks" game: "Catch up with the orange stripes...good job. Now pass the white hat...okay. Black shorts...check. Red shirt..." etc. until finally I caught up with Veronica. It was at the part of the course that passes by my backyard, and I saw her looking toward my house (later she said she was thinking maybe I decided to go out and cheer instead)...I popped up right next to her and said, "I'm here! I was just late!" She said, "I'm sure you'll make up for it....good luck!" and I kept going. Barely kept going that is! Right past my house was the windiest part of the run, and running right into the wind it felt like I was on a treadmill...moving fast but going nowhere! I was actually thankful to turn the corner and start running up the big hill! I thought that the hill would really get me, mostly since I had been running pretty fast to catch up with the group, but it felt surprisingly good. Now, I won't get all crazy and say I wasn't wishing it were over, but I didn't start wishing that until I was already past the first brown sign...usually that feeling starts way before the sign. When the ground leveled out, I saw a girl in a long sleeved brown shirt and I decided I wanted to catch her. For some reason I thought to myself, "What if she's the 3rd place girl and you finish right behind her?" I thought that would be kind of upsetting, to come from very last place and at least 40 seconds late and miss having my name on the board in the gym by just a few seconds. So I decided to really push myself and get around her. I also passed our friend SMSgt H. without even realizing it...he was all bundled up and I didn't recognize him until he said hello. As I crossed the finish line, I heard someone say, "We've got our 2nd female here. In the blue shirt." And I almost fell over in shock when I realized that I was wearing a blue shirt...maybe they were talking about me! Sure enough, the lady handed me a laminated "2"!  That was a nice addition since the last run...usually you just have to stand there all breathless and tell & spell your name. My time on the sheet was 23:52 and the lady asked me if that was right. I said, "Well, not according to my watch, but it's okay."

My watch time was 22:56! I think that's about 28 seconds better than last month on the same course.  Maybe there's some merit to my "arrive over 40 seconds late" strategy...or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm actually running more than once or twice a week!

This will be my last Risner Fitness Center 5k (I said that in December too, but I'm almost sure we're really moving this month!) and I'm glad to leave on a happy note!

Today's 8 mile run took forever... I took my camera along and ran one of my favorite routes off base. I took so many pictures... I guess I'm getting kind of sentimental about leaving this island after 3 years, 6 months, and 18 days. ;) That's 6 months and 18 days longer than we were supposed to be here.

I was late getting out the door because I got 2 phone calls (I don't get so many calls before 9 a.m. on a regular day, but today is my birthday!). I thought about cutting my run short so I would be home before David came for lunch (we went to a yummy Hawaiian restaurant), but then I decided that it's my birthday and I can be late if I want to! ;) He was waiting when I got home, but he had plenty of time until he had to go back to work.

It was chilly, but I was okay in short sleeves...I bet I won't be running in short sleeves on my next birthday! I took (brace yourself!) FIFTY-EIGHT pictures! I'll share a couple today and then I'll scatter some of my favorites in future blog entries.

The seawall is covered with "pretty graffiti": lots of cool drawings, welcome home messages, etc. This message wasn't actually for me, but it made me smile anyway! 

This is my favorite place to run in Okinawa...maybe in the whole world!

No interesting stories about today's run, other than the fact that I actually got out and did it!

Tuesday and Wednesday I was always either lazy or dealing with things related to our move, or too freezing to remove my pajamas. (It is in the 50s here, but still...we're not used to that "cold"!)

I was planning to do 3 or 4 more this evening, but after a day of watching my friend's little girl at ballet, lunch, gymnastics, the commissary and playing with all the "toys" (my shoes) at my house, I couldn't resist her sweet little invitation to come over and play with her toys, see her dog, and eat dinner at her house. I finally returned home after almost 10 hours and I'm pooped.  I'm quite amazed that some runners have the energy to wrangle a 3 year old for an entire day and still manage to run anywhere but the couch at the end of it! 

If I run twice tomorrow or twice on Saturday (probably tomorrow), I will still manage 5 runs for the week.

I hope that wherever it is I'm moving when I leave here in 2 weeks, the runners and walkers are more friendly! It's a gorgeous day and lots of people were out. I passed at least 10 people, and only 1 returned my "hello"...she used to come to my running group and also is a kindergarten aide at my school.

I was kind of sluggish today after a big lunch, and irritated once again by my Garmin beeping in and out of signal, but each mile got faster so I can't complain too much! And like I said, it was a gorgeous day so I can't really complain at all! I was just sitting around putting off my run and then I read an e-mail from my dad that said, "It didn't even reach -1 today. I'm sick of the treadmill" and decided I'd better get out and take advantage of my nice running conditions! 

Garmin says: 5.01 miles. 46:18 /Avg 9:15.     9:41, 9:27, 9:23, 9:09, 8:36  Of course, the first mile is uphill and the last is downhill!

Ran to the gym, then out on the seawall with my running group... four people today! Our group used to be much bigger, but most of the members have PCSed in the past couple of years. My turn to PCS next...next week will probably be our last run together :(

It was chilly and I wouldn't leave the house without my fleece jacket. I was warmed up by the time I got to the gym, so I left it in Veronica's car. We started without Mike at 6:40, but he saw us running by the first stoplight, turned, parked and quickly joined us! 

My knees hurt a little, maybe because of the cold. Last night my left calf felt really tight, so I'm going to be a good girl and stretch well today. Veronica gave me a ride home and when I sat down in her car, it hurt! It felt like I had bruises all over my bottom & the backs of my legs. Strange.

On Saturday I think I may have written about my left calf being super tight.  It still is. Yesterday I was planning to run, but had no clean clothes and was a little concerned about my leg. I sat through 2 cycles of "Legs Hips Fatigue" in our massage chair and tried heating and stretching as much as possible.

Today I was going to run before lunch, but ended up talking to my cousin on the phone for too long and having to put the run off until after lunch. My leg felt good in the morning, but seemed to get tighter as the day went on. Still not as bad as yesterday, when I felt as if it might burst out of my skin.

Anyway, thanks to Jodi for keeping me on task with a "no blogging?" e-mail! That was just the nudge I needed to get my running clothes on and go! It took me 3 tries to get out the door, but I did it! The first time, I had long sleeves on and I walked out, then right back in because I knew I'd be too warm. The second time, I ran partway up the hill and decided I was wearing the wrong sportsbra, so cut through the yard back to the house. Had to dodge dog poo because my upstairs-diagonal neighbors do NOT pick up after their dog. They also have loud motorcycles that they like to run early in the morning on the first day of spring break, never say hello even when you do, and drive too fast in their loud loud cars. But the 3rd time, I made it out the door, up the hill and almost 2 miles before I wanted to turn around.

I almost got run over by a lawn mower!! I was watching this riding mower and luckily, trying to anticipate what he would do when he got to a tree...he decided to back up, without looking at all, right off the grass and onto the sidewalk where I had been running...before I jumped over the curb and onto the street! I was a little freaked out by my "near death experience" and thought about heading home, but decided to just keep going.

I ran past a yard with 2 big dogs (looked like a black lab and a choco lab) and "braced myself" for their barking and charging the fence. They weren't bothered by me running by at all...but their neighbor was. It was a teeny tiny long haired dachshund and it was barking and barking... I think I could hear it for almost a quarter mile!

I said I would post more pictures of my running route here, but keep forgetting. These aren't from today's run, but thought I'd share anyway. The bottom is at "Araha Beach" and the top is along the seawall leading to Araha Beach.

The movers are coming on Friday to pick up our household goods shipment. That means I won't have a computer/internet for a few days. I'll try to check in when I can once we are in temporary lodging. 

Garmin Says: 7 miles- 1:04:51.  Avg:9:19 Max: 7:03   9:47, 9:39, 9:41, 9:11, 9:10, 8:55, 8:27 (can you guess which were uphill and which were down?)