Run DMZ

Click on the image for a more detailed view.

And watched my building move back and forth during the earthquake that hit about half an hour ago. All's well here, though I'm starting to wish my cubicle was on the first floor and that I didn't wear these freakin' wedge heels to work this morning. At least I did have on clean underwear! May everyone else in southern California be just as safe. 5.8 Earthquake Hits Los Angeles

This morning I discovered a new wellness resource : teleconferences of health-related lectures led by college professors and thought leaders. The lectures currently listed all begin at 9 p.m. ET; 6 p.m. PT. Tonight’s is on “ What Your Mind and Body are Saying About Your Disease ”. Tomorrow night’s is “ How Tea Can Help You Lose Weight and Improve Your Health .” The call-in number is not toll-free, so unless you have an unlimited long distance service or 60 free minutes on your cell phone, the lecture may not be totally “free.” I went ahead and signed up for tomorrow’s lecture and will report some highlights.

I spent the latter part of the week in San Francisco, one of my favorite cities and a place I've written about previously on this blog. This time around, I thought I'd try my hand at a different kind of pictorial to show some highlights of the past two days. It's my first experience with digital video software, but you can trust it won't be my last.

Interesting observations since we started wearing our peds for a companywide competition. It records when you walk and when you run and everything else (biking, rowing, elliptical, etc.) goes down as generic “activity.” Much to my dismay, it’s precise. I’ve synched it to my stopwatch and it records time accurately. I’ve matched it against Google mashups, and the mileage is pretty much spot on, too. It’s got my cadence down and actually knows when I’m “running” versus “jogging,” and it’s forcing me to speed up (hooray!) to get in my minimum mileage each morning. What I’ve learned is that I don’t walk nearly as much as I think during the day and I don’t work nearly as hard as I claim at the gym. I also eat way too many carbs, but that's something the scale, not the ped, told me the other day. This must be what it’s like to buy your first GPS watch and realize that you’ve been underachieving for years. It’s true: ignorance is bliss. Englightment, though, has its own advantage.

This morning I arrived to meet a friend at a Starbucks in Scripps Ranch well ahead of schedule and decided to run a short route I used to do weekdays when we first moved to San Diego. The baristas mentioned a local SRHS student was putting on a benefit race for a girl with cancer. I immediately recognized both the organizer and the beneficiary: both danced at the same studio as our daughters. Suki is organizing the race/walk around Miramar Lake for her senior project; Taylor attended the dance camp where Alex was a counselor last summer. If anyone in the area is interested, the Believe in Taylor Run/Walk will be held Sat., Aug. 9 at Miramar Lake. The 5-miler (essentially a run around the entire lake) starts at 4 p.m. The 2-miler begins at 4:30. Given it could be hitting 90-100 degrees then, I suspect some runners will turn into walkers before the end, but it’s for an excellent cause and you can bet I’ll be there. For more information and a race form, go to BelieveinTaylor.org . Last n...

Silly me. I was so busy pandering for votes earlier that I failed to mention my daughter was going to be on MTV tonight. We just finished watching a show filmed live called FNMTV Premieres . This one featured rappers Nelly and Shwayze, heavy metal band Slipnot, newcomer Lesley Roy and the main attraction, The Jonas Brothers. The last band did an impromptu concert for an elementary school down the street about a month ago, which is when I discovered they were hugely popular. Anyway, unlike when she went to the America's Best Dance Crew finale and was barely seen in the background, this time Alex was featured front and center in one especially long shot (longer than the other closeups, if you ask me). She and her best friend Sondra were showcased several times in fact -- looking smashing, not smashed, in every instance. I jumped each time she came into view, yelling to my husband, "Look! Look!" So now it's official. Not only do I love her, but the camera does too! [Phot...

Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary with a trip to Laguna Beach to take in The Festival of Arts and its centerpiece, The Pageant of the Masters . The Pageant is a unique display of paintings and performance art, in which masterpieces in various media are recreated as "living pictures." The show takes place nightly from July through September at the Irvine Bowl, a large canyonside amphitheater where the stage is framed by mountain ridges void of development, save a few hilltop homes that very few of us could afford. It is a hard setting and show to describe, but describe I must since cameras are not allowed. It's understandable since no one wants their intellectual property stolen or duplicated. Tickets are hard to come by if you don't act as soon as sales are announced in January, which is when my friend Suzanne contacted me. She's very good at keeping tabs on those sort of things, thank goodness. We elected opening weekend since it ...

I've mentioned before that my employer this year started a corporate wellness program. We even were featured on a local television show this spring. Basically, we get daily challenges and track how much we eat, drink and exercise. We also reward each other if we're "caught" doing something healthy. (I've been "caught" more often than you might think.) My personal goal has been a secret; my participation has been erratic. I do about 50% of the challenges and often fail to mark my water intake or food beyond breakfast. This is not really a surprise since I'm what you'd call a Type B Runner. I shun rigid schedules, lose track of training logs and never synch my mileage to my monitor. All that's about to change, though. Our company's beginning a new phase of the program on Aug. 1. Nine teams of five are competing to see who can move the most often during the day and beyond. We're being equipped with special pedometers that hold up to two ...

I didn’t make it to any of the 4th of July road races today, so instead I went to the gym and arrived 15 minutes shy of its holiday opening hour. To kill time, I joined about eight others running on the adjacent outdoor track. My gym is located on a U.S. Marines base; therefore, everyone who works out is either active duty, retired or dependent military. At 8 a.m. sharp a trumpet began to broadcast “Reveille” to announce a new day. As soon as the first notes blasted from a nearby speaker, everyone stopped in unison and stood at attention facing the same direction. I was struck by how seamless the movement and how quiet the moment on a day normally reserved for revelry. Here I was doing what I appreciate most in a community dedicated to allowing everyone to continue enjoying the declarations in the document we celebrate today. When the music ended, we simultaneously turned toward our lane and continued as if we’d never stopped. Shortly thereafter a guy pulled alongside me. After severa...

I doubt many, if any of you, go back to read comment threads more than once. So most, if not all of you, likely didn’t notice the later comments to a post a few weeks ago from staffers at SMITH Magazine. One was from an intern named Elizabeth; the other from the magazine’s namesake, Larry Smith. Remember that six-word memoir meme that circulated throughout the running blog community? It turns out it originated with SMITH, an online magazine devoted to storytelling. Inspired by a six-word Hemingway story, the editors solicited six-word personal narratives and collected enough worthy submissions for a book. Not only that, but their popularity spawned more specific projects on food ( A Life in Bites ), motherhood ( Six-Word Momoirs ) and relationships ( Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak ). I want to thank Elizabeth and Larry for making my day when they took the time to compliment my own contribution to such a vast collection. And while I’m at it, I want to thank each of you who’...