cornucopia

I haven't felt - surprisingly - inspired to write this week. While this has not been a week of food, so to speak, it has been a week of abundance in many other things... I jammed last Tuesday night and attended a gig of Scientific Remedies on Thursday that was quite good, and I've been flooded at work with scheduling the annual meetings we hold with California's Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). If you really want to know what those are, which I highly doubt. But I have six of them to keep me good and busy.

Mom's death certificates finally hit my estate attorney's office, and the process of getting her estate set up and things rolling - so it can get through probate before the end of summer - are underway. I will need to schedule some time to go to Iowa, clean out my house, and put it on the market. That means summoning an estate sales firm - to appraise what's in there, and make an offer on the stuff that I don't want (which is nearly all of it) and then have a moving company ship what I don't want out here to California to eventually be put in the house I'm going to buy... because it *is* time to buy here, particularly if you've got a secure job - which I do.

So, to that end, I looked at about a half-dozen open houses today. I'm not going to buy way out in Sacramento's burbs; the houses in most of the burbs here, aside from Roseville and Folsom, are, well, crap that was built during the boom. East Sacramento keeps its value, and more importantly, since I will likely always work downtown here, I really don't want to be more than 5-7 miles from work. That's quite bikeable and Sacramento will always have transit service in the core and inner ring suburbs. 

Moreover, there's no reason to be far from work. Time is one of the things in life that you can't buy more of. I've been bouncing back and forth between buying somewhere in East Sac or Land Park, but I think the houses in East Sac are nicer and for some reason it just seems like houses in Land Park cost more and you don't get as much for your buck. I may also look at River Park, although most of that was built in the 70s and the houses that are available often are in desperate need of updating.

The only downside of being in central Sacramento is it doesn't have a really good high school. There is Sac High, which is a magnet program but you have to apply to get in there. There's McClatchy in Land Park - its  OK... Schools are fairly good up to 8th grade, but, after that, most people put their children in one of the private academies if you live in East Sac, River Park or Land Park.

I ran 4 miles this morning. Its too early to tell if my body will hold up, but getting ready for the Parkway Half in 12 weeks does not appear to be out of the question. I know I can finish the distance; if I increase my "long" run in this matter...

W2 - 5
W3 - 5
W4 - 6
W6 - 6
W7 - 7
W8 - 7
W9 - 8
W10 - 9
W11 - 4
W12 - no long run

When I sat my PR in Parkway in '07 in 1:58:12, my longest run was 9 miles beforehand. So I don't get injured again, I'm thinking that if I stick with 4x of running a week, and keep my distances reasonable - with my goal after this coming week of being 3/3/3/long run the first six weeks, then 4/4/4/long run the next six, I'm keeping the distances and the beating on my body down...

I doubt if I'll set another PR... I've been on a year and a half layoff from serious running, period - but I doubt if I'll run my slowest half, either. Its an easy course - you run 6.05 down the American River Parkway bike path - which is paved - and run 6.05 miles back up. Its smooth and nearly all flat. And, if I can tell in a month that I'm not getting in half marathon shape fast enough, I can register for the 5K instead and focus on smacking that into the ground. I can already run 5K!

If I can get down to < 150 from my current weight of 165 that should help as well. Fastest way I know to gain speed in running is to, well, lose weight (same principle applies to cycling, obviously).

I think my biggest issue is going to be losing weight - and not pushing myself too fast too far too early.