Of course mermaids can run

Until some other guy brought it up, it had never occurred to me how funny it would be to ask women in the East Bay Mermaid Run how it was possible for mermaids to run, given that, well, except for a bit of time in a Disney movie, they don't have legs. As it turns out, it gets old really fast (a veteran Mermaid Run friend says she gets asked that almost every time she wears the race shirt).

So I'm not going to go there. (And trust me, that isn't easy.)

Today was the East Bay Mermaid Run out at Quarry Lakes - the same place where the Brazen Western Pacific race was held a few weeks ago. I had wondered if it was possible for men to sign up for the race (that same Disney movie had mermen after all), but it turns out you would have to lie - when they ask you for your sex, there is only one answer. So grandkid Riley and I provided support to Mrs Notthat, Weird Haired Mom, and Darci, who all participated in the event.

We were able to pick up the shirts, goody bags, and bibs on Friday. Mrs Notthat and WHM put theirs on as soon as we got home. What you can't see is that the shirts have a hood in the back - they are really very nice shirts.

Naturally, I will start race day with a bathroom picture. Sorry.

Mrs Notthat and WHM signed up for the 10K race. Darci and her friend Salma (in green - you'll be seeing more of this gazelle later) signed up for the Mini-Mermaid 1.5 mile race. We ran into Mr and Mrs Brazen and their two kids (Mrs Brazen did the Half Marathon).

After a bit of a delay (there's a large parking lot but there is also a large line that forms so you can pay your $5 to park), the 10K race started. As you can see by looking at Mrs Notthat, the weather was no longer sleeveless, and in fact, was a bit cool most of the time, even to me.

Once the 10K race started, we had some time to kill to wait for the Mini-Mermaid race to start, so we wandered over to the lake. Darci picked out the perfect picnic table for us. (This lake is much fuller than normal, and there were lots of partially-submerged trees and shrubs. And picnic tables.)

Salma and Darci still killing time, watching some of the 5K runners finishing. One question was whether the Mini-Mermaid race would start before Mrs Notthat or WHM finished their 10K. After last weekend, I refused to offer an opinion.

Which was a good thing since Mrs Notthat did indeed finish her race before the kids started theirs. (Mrs set a new PR by over 18 minutes! And she has the blisters to prove it!)

Finally the Mini-Mermaid race started. Darci started out strong but faded a bit later.

Salma started out strong, would pause to let Darci catch up, then take off again. I told her to not worry about us and to finish as fast as she wanted, and she was gone. She's a really good runner.

Darci ened up finishing with a friend she made on the last part of the course. Darci's official time (using precise Notthat timing methods) was 32:57. I have no idea about Salma's time, but it was much quicker.

I turn my back for a second and here comes WHM and a policeman walking away from Riley. This can't be good, but at least he's not in handcuffs. My guess was that either he wouldn't leave the fishermen alone or he wouldn't stop making train noises. (It turned out that someone thought he was lost. WHM and the others were in a very slow moving pancake line, and "slow moving" and "Riley" never belong in the same sentence.)

Finally the chocolate chip pancakes! And some token fruit.

Mrs Notthat and I opted for In-N-Out burgers. Mrs, who swears she has never eaten there before, walked up to the counter and ordered animal-style fries (which are not on the menu). She claims she heard about this from The Boy. (They were very tasty, however.)

The bib and the necklace all runners got (including the kids). The front says "Mermaid Athlete" and the back says "Finish Strong."

It was a great day, outside of both Mrs and WHM ending up with foot blisters.

And Riley nearly getting a police record.

That's it - move along...

PS: You can see a lot more pictures from the day here.

It's summer!

There are a few signs that summer is really here.

The cherry tree is blooming.

Fresh calla lilies have burst forth to replace the ones destroyed by that hail storm a month or so ago.

The iris are strutting their stuff.

And the alyssum are getting freaky. (Several years ago we planted some white ones next to some purple ones, and now we have these weird hybrids. One year we planted two yellow and two white corn plants together. The corn ended up being interracial. A botanist could easily explain this, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the Giants winning the World Series.)

Another sure sign is The Boy taking the top off The Long And Winding Road, his Jeep. (Although doing this pretty much guarantees that one last rainstorm is on its way.)

The top and doors snuggly tucked away, under the bottle brush tree (which I forgot to include in the Parade of Blooming Things earlier).

One last sign of summer is Mrs Notthat being outside and sleeveless. I took her out to Rancho San Antonio this morning so she could finally see the park where I do most of my training work. (Work has been all encompassing so far this year, so I more or less took today and tomorrow off to try to catch up on a lot of things around the house. For example, I discovered I was three months behind in balancing the checkbook. Yikes!)

This is how hot it got today - even in the shade, Mrs Notthat was running around sleeveless.

This week I got a nice flashback to the opposite of summer - March's Mt Diablo trail race. This month's UltraRunning magazine included a story about the race, and even better, one of the pictures I took!

My picture is the big one, which I can honestly say I make sure to bring up every time I talk about how famous I now am. Which is often. Actually, it turns out that another guy, Etep (not his real name), who uses a proper camera, had two of his pictures used for the story, and ended up getting all the credit and fame.

I hear that he hasn't had to pay for a meal since the magazine hit the stores.

That's it - move along...

PS: Did I mention that mine was bigger?

Mrs Notthat tames the Wildcat

Last year at Brazen's Wildcat race, my brain's inner GPS malfunctioned and my Half Marathon became a bit unscripted. So I was looking forward to this year and getting to do the course properly. Unfortunately, a commitment that required The Blog and Mrs Notthat to be cleaned up and in spiffy clothes by 1:30 meant we had to back off and do shorter races - her the 5K and me the 10K. (An alternative was for us to just get faster - a LOT faster - but that wasn't likely. Yet.)

Earlier this week, Weird Haired Mom presented me with this mud-themed hat that says "Ultra Runner." (She admitted to finishing it up while running on the treadmill. Kids; what are you going to do?) It was a bit ironic that my first race after getting it was going to be my second 10K (although at 10.4 miles, it was an Ultra-10K; my only other race this short was my very first trail race - the Brazen New Years race back in 2010).

One of the first things that happened was that we finally got to meet Hteb (not her real name), who we had "met" by reading her blog post from the Diablo Trails Challenge race.

Her son Bubba (not his real name either) was wearing the opposite of barefoot running shoes. Given the ruts and cow-hoof created potholes that parts of the trail had, these boots would have been wise footwear.

We were joined by Hteb's husband, Nairb (not his...oh never mind), who was also doing the 10K. There are two notable things about this picture: notice the sunshine - this was our second sun-infested race in a row; and notice that Mrs Notthat is already, before 8 AM, peeling off her jacket. 

A few minutes later and the long sleeved shirt was also gone. Can it really be true that summer has arrived?

I took up my normal spot at the back of the pack once the 10K started. Here we see the real runners out way ahead of me (so much of the trail was tree-free that I got to be reminded quite often how far ahead of me the other runners were - tiny specks flying up the hills and careening between the hoof prints) while Brazen Hussy Eriam guards a shortcut.

This was the only real mud on the trail, and it wasn't much. I had to work pretty hard to get some to splash up on my leg.

The clear weather made for some fantastic views. Every hill climb was rewarded with scenes like this. The cows were clearly enjoying watching us navigate the hoof prints.

The hills were not particularly steep, but the second one on the 10K was relentless and particularly good at tricking you into thinking it was just about over before springing another 300 foot climb on you.

From about the 2 mile point of her race, Mrs Notthat running UP THE HILL. Granted, it was for the camera (you HAVE to run for the camera), but still, this is impressive. And note the view behind her. Brazen posted a lot of great pictures from this race.

I had three goals for today (two were long shots though): 

1) Beat Mrs Notthat and WHM back to the finish line (the 5K race started 30 minutes after the 10K race, which gave me a long head start and Mr Brazen a bit of a headache when he tried to remember why he set it up that way).

2) Not let any Half Marathoners finish before me (they started 15 minutes before me and had to cover more than twice the distance).

3) Beat my last 10K time (which should be pretty easy since I only walked that first race and I was recovering from a cold to boot).

Above we see the blur that is WHM about 30 seconds ahead of me. Oh well, at least I should be beating Mrs Notthat in.

This is WHM, who had a terrible time with her asthma during this race (this spring has not been kind to allergy sufferers), caught on camera running towards the finish line.

And then I was passed by half runner Werdna, who worked with me at a moist Bay Breeze aid station earlier this year. (He ended up winning the Half by three seconds. As he flew past me, he slowed to talk a bit about how it was going, the weather, and how the Giants will do this year. If he had lost this race because of that, I would have felt awful.)

As it turned out, only two Half Marathoners finished before me, so I didn't feel too bad (and they had to set course records to do it).

The Blog running towards the finish line. It's a miracle I didn't fall after striking this pose.

Once I finished, I headed to the side so that I could get a picture of Mrs finishing. Except she had already long since finished, had made a bathroom run, and was talking trash with Nairb (who also had long ago finished his 10K). 

Between Mrs Notthat and I, we have several "winners" medals for finishing within the top three in our age group. In each case, we "won" because there were only three in our age group (it's good to be in an unpopular age group!). She broke that tradition today, and got second in her group by beating three others! She finished 55th out of 100! This is so stunning and cool.

I did end up setting a 10K PR for me, but still finished last in my age group (80th out of 109 total). Mrs and I both remarked at how odd it was to do a short race - when I hit mile 5, it finally dawned on me that there was only about a mile and a half left to go. 

A benefit of finishing early is that we should be able to visit with and cheer on the many race buddies we have developed while doing these events, but sadly, we couldn't hang around and had to take off; for those I didn't get to say "hi" too - HI! and WELL DONE! 

The next Brazen race is a flat, fast, and paved Hellyer. Which means it's another volunteer opportunity for me, but a fun race for WHM and the grandkids, who will be doing the 10K.

That's it - move along...

PS: I put up some more of my pictures, along with snarky comments, here.

The problem with an island race...

...is that you have to take a boat to get there. For a farm boy from Kansas, this is not an insignificant issue.

Mrs Notthat and I ran today's Coastal Ayala Cove trail race on Angel Island. It had been nearly four years since the last time we had been there. The Boy reminded me last night that I had a very hard time coming down a set of stairs on the trail back then (for some reason, I had forgotten all about that - thanks for reminding me and giving me something else to worry about!)

We showed up at the Tiburon Ferry Dock at around 9:30, for a 10:00 ferry to a 10:50 race starting time. Remarkably civilized! That's Angel Island straight ahead - we will end up circling it twice, with the last time getting us to the top of that mountain in the middle of it.

That's our ferry on the right, and a rescue boat on the left. I would have felt a lot better if there had actually been someone in that rescue boat.

Race Headquarters in kit form. Many of us runners helped carry on a lot of this, and once we survived the crossing to the island, helped carry it to the staging area.

I didn't notice until I looked at the pictures that a lot of life preservers were under that pile of Race Headquarters. As if the boat ride couldn't get any more stressful.

Mrs Notthat and I getting in one last hug before we head off into what will surely be our doom. I then went looking for the life boats.

There they are, but how they expected us to get to them was beyond me. I started looking for the tallest guy there to make friends.

Is this a great race or what! That orange cone is the starting line, and five feet past it is the aid station. (I tried not to linger there too long once the race started, but hydration is the key to a good race.)

There were lots of great wildflowers along the trails.

And lots of great trails. There were no real tendon-snapping climbs even though there was a fair amount of elevation gain. There were those dang stairs though...

Angel Island is infested with stunning views. Since the weather was reasonably clear, we got to spend a lot of time looking at this sort of thing.

And this.

The Stairs. There must have been 100 steps, but I flew down them. Three times (once for each of my loops and a third time after going up to find Mrs Notthat). That is Enirehtak (not her real name), a Canadian with a New Zealand accent. Or something like that. She is smiling because she is nearly done with her 5 mile race.

The finish line for some, but for me this was the halfway point, and I got to head up the toughest of the loops - the Mt Livermore ascent.

As close as we got to seeing a waterfall.

A group of hikers I had passed. When they heard me thundering up behind them, the one at the back yelled out "CAR!" I turned to thank him for not yelling "BUS" or "ELEPHANT" - when I turned back around I smacked my head on a low tree branch. The tree branch appeared to suffer no damage. The Blog's ego, however, may never recover.

I hoped to finish my race before any of the 15 mile runners did, and came close, but ended up being passed by three of them.

The top of Mt Livermore. The cool thing was that it was all downhill from here (granted, some of that was on those dang stairs).

The finish line again - this time for real!

I headed back up the trail, and up those stairs, and found Mrs Notthat storming towards me. She said "Hi" and threw her extra clothes and walking sticks at me and was gone. I then said "Hi" back.

Mrs crossing the finish line. She was way ahead of me by this time - fortunately my camera has a good zoom lens.

A fine post-race lunch: a chicken tostada (mine), garlic fries (hers), and some weird vegi wrap thing (definitely hers).

Mrs Notthat waiting for the ferry back to the mainland. It was getting significantly colder by this point, so all the warm clothes were put back on.

It was an extremely fun day. I got third in my age group, but that was mostly (OK, entirely) due to there only being three people in my age group. There were four in Mrs age group, so she did not get a medal. (I'm still wearing mine, and by tomorrow, will be talking about how I beat out dozens of others for this thing.)

Many thanks to Coastal and their volunteers for putting on such a fine race.

I wonder if Angel Island has an airport though.

That's it - move along...

PS: You can see a lot more pictures here.

PPS: There were three distances, each comprised of a mostly unique five mile loop. I thought about doing the 15 mile run, but the first loop was mostly on pavement. In retrospect, I wish I had done it anyway - this island has too many great views to not see them as many times as you can.