28 Days Later

In every sense of the word, February was a success.

I PR'ed the living day lights out of the Kaiser Half, I ran over 30 miles on trails, and Kara Gourcher is totally my new friend.

New chums - dcc and KG

Now I am facing March head on and I hope I'm able to have another epic training month as I get ready for my Marathon in Tacoma on May 5th.  But it doesn't look so good.

A step back

It is the end of the year. It is the end of our lease. It is the end marathon training. It is the last time those of us reading this post will ever see a 12-12-12 dateline.  But then again, isn't it a new beginning? (What was that noise you ask? It was me throwing up a little in my mouth.)

The Year: Facebook bombarded me with the Year in Review app that told me what was so fantastic about my year.  Unsurprisingly there were lots of posts about running and missing my wife in the first half of the year and lots of posts about running and living in San Francisco with my wife in the second half of the year.  As I said in my self-review for work, this year was "trying" and to be honest I am glad it is almost over.

The Lease: We are leaving our apartment after dealing with leaking walls, drafty windows, and general disregard for the upkeep of the place.  I will disclose more once I get my security deposit back, but I will say that after living in a place that I took pride in keeping up I was shocked that people don't want to keep their property in top condition.  Abby and I are moving into a place now that is clearly well maintained by a proud owner.  It is smaller but it has a washer and dryer.  And that is the sexist thing I have ever seen.  Abby agrees.

We are both thinking dirty thoughts...that will soon be clean.

The Training: This year's marathon training was insane. I started training on a schedule for New York in July.  I wanted it to be an epic PR.  And I was ready for it.  Thankfully, I didn't waste my training and got to run in the CIM.  It was supposed to be a fun and easier run after NYC, but it turned into a really tough race in the rain.  I am relieved that my training for the year is over.

I will run the New York Marathon, if NYRR ever figures out what they are going to do with the 47,000 of us who got caught up in the wash.  But I will run at least one other major event, what it is I don't know. I have the Kaiser Half on the schedule but nothing else.  An ultra sounds interesting but honestly 26.2 sucks enough. Not sure I am cut out for more mileage. However, I am pretty sure I said that about Marathoning for the first five years I lived along the New York City Marathon route.

I am currently assessing my goals for next year's races, but I am not making any concrete plans until January 1, 2013 (when the prices go up on the Oakland Marathon).

They are very pretty..

12-12-12: I don't care about that.  Some people think it is lucky and others think its just another day.  Others are right.

Over the next few weeks, we will move into a new place, start a new training schedule, and begin a new year. There are other new things too that will start in the new year.   But the best part of this past year has been the new things, especially our new friends here in San Francisco.  I have a pretty good feeling about the new year so here is to it.

Great. Now What.

Yeah. This happened:

“At a certain point,” Mr. Obama said in an interview in the Cabinet Room at the White House with ABC’s Robin Roberts, “I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Great news, and the two sure things that come from this news is that every LGBT and Marriage Equality group (and the bigots on the other side) will make money off of the news and that LGBT rights will be a major presidential campaign issue.  Other than that, nothing has changed.

Words are powerful, especially when they come from the leader of the free world. But as of right now they are just words.

If anything, this great news makes for more work.  So get to work, you say.  I say, this isn't a letter writing campaign or liking something on Facebook, this is lots of work.

As we know, it is an election year and there is no chance that Congress will do anything about this.  There is no chance a Democrat in a tight race will come out in favor and there is so no chance a Republican anywhere outside of the Castro, West Hollywood, or Chelsea is supporting these words.

So yeah, this is good but nothing will happen. Now we need to get a Democrat majority in the House and a filibusterer proof majority in Senate and then maybe we can celebrate. So that is the work.  Now we got to do it. Like I said, more work.  And it isn't like young people vote and we can't count on the pissed off left like the Republicans can count on the pissed of fright.

Celebrate today.  Celebrate something that should have been done years ago.  Tomorrow, it is time to get to work.

The begining of the end

This is it. Today is the last Monday of the separate coasts thing.  And I am ready.

Within three days I will be back in NYC for one last hurrah, which will include two graduation ceremonies, a goodbye party, a half marathon, and a birthday party for a dear friend, as well as a few days of work. Oh yeah, and packing and moving our apartment.

These past few months were hard but the last one really sucked. While the end was near, there was more "stuff" than needed to be addressed (like moving), making the distance all the more difficult. It was no longer just being alone.  It was being alone and feeling out of touch, or alone and pissed off, or alone and misunderstood.

I am excited just to feel out of touch, pissed off or misunderstood.  It is much better to do those things with your wife than far apart from her.

I will post before and after pictures for both apartments when I have them and hope to have some good news to share after the Brooklyn Half.

But for now, I blog about nothing in particular and am happy that it is just three more days.

Perspective

The wife and I went out to see some very big trees today.

Cute, no?
During our trip to Muir Woods, driving the somewhat death-defying roads and taking in the forest that has been standing since long before they started fighting in the Middle East, it was easy to get all philosophical.

It has been two solid months of living apart now and we are into the final two and half months until we live together again. Time is relative, as they say, and for me these past two months have passed both slowly and extremely quickly. For those of you who went to camp, you understand that days have the value of a week, a week a month, but those summer nights...

More often than not however, time moves slowly. But life is good for me. I have no complaints. So I will spare you the painful analogy between the the trees' lives and mine and the feeling really small thing and simply say, two and half months to go and I am pretty happy about that.

Also I get to see my lovely wife at the end of this week, so that is an added bonus!

Big Trees for Big Thoughts

I like it

People asked me within days of moving here if I like living in San Francisco better than New York. Clearly these people have never lived in the greatest city in the world. But trying to be nice, as is the custom here, my answer was I can't tell you that yet.

For the most part, I am a happy dude who can get along in any location, and San Francisco is no exception. After visiting New York last week, a city I love, and my wife, a woman I love more than anything, I know I like living here in a City by a Bay.

Yesterday, as I got into a Zipcar to take care of some errands and head out to my run, I caught a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance over the shimmering bay. I thought, well this is easy to like. And for a New Yorker, even by six year proxy, that is hard to admit.

An additional benefit

When Abby and I were dating, we did the long distance thing for about six months before she moved to New York. At the beginning it was hard but doable. We both had jobs with a bit more flexibility than we do now and we were young and in love and stuff.

In fact, the long distance thing was even a bit fun. We went out on dates and got to plan for our time together; every second of being together was extremely special. We were really into each other and it was always great to spend time together. The day-to-day stuff was put off for six months and is the reason so many long distance things don't work when people are in the same place.

A little too cute, but a good visual.
When we were apart we talked more than daily, but we both had other stuff going on in our lives and we were just starting the process of building a life together.