The last couple of weeks have been less than exciting. For the long weekend (and also Valentine's Day weekend), Josh and I were going to go up to Bishop. Unfortunately, half way through the week I ended up getting sick. I guess the Death Valley 30k plus work plus not enough sleep wasn't a good plan. It was the kind of sick where doing stuff was a bad plan. Friday I rested, so by Saturday I wanted to do something anyway. Josh said we could meet up with a couple of friends in Joshua Tree for some bouldering so that's what we did. We didn't really think about the crowd factor in a national park on a long weekend though. Fortunately, our annual pass got us past the line at the gate and we were free to climb. Most of the day was spent wandering around, looking for our friends, who as far as we knew were in two different places. We got to see a ton of beautiful areas and climbed a bunch of new boulders. Some of the problems were pretty cool, but we didn't really find anything super inspiring. After handing out at the Bachar Boulders, moving over to the areas past the campground, and visiting a bunch of other boulders, we gave up and decided to try to find the other LA people at the So High area. Surprisingly enough, they were actually there, working on Turnbuckle. It looked cool to me and I somehow managed to send it on my second try (mostly due to lots of people yelling at me what to do). Shortly after, the group decided to head back for food. Josh and I went over to Bittersweet so he could climb something more challenging.
Josh and I set up at the base of the problem, and he quickly made quite a bit of progress. I was having major being sick issues. Somehow, whatever virus I managed to get was causing crazy abdominal muscle pain (not like stomach virus pain, but weird I-can't-do-sit-ups pain). I guess I was just getting too tired while being sick. My body kind of quit and I was not longer in spotting Josh mode. Bittersweet's landing was a bit sketchy for Josh to climb with no spotter, so even though he had made really good progress, we decided to call it a day. No more climbing.
By the next day, Josh was sick. He got more sick than I did, so Sunday was a rest day for both of us. Rest days are good I guess. I did manage to make it to church. So much for Valentine's Day. We did a very abbreviated version of celebrating with cards and gifts and then both gave up and decided being sick and recovering from being sick was going to take over. Sleeping is good.
Monday, I had had enough of being sick so I thought I could make it to the beach to go surfing. I drove all the way down to the ocean and watched the waves for a couple of minutes. I decided to take a nap so I'd have enough energy to actually get barreled. Three hours of sleep later, riding waves was no longer an option so I drove back to the house. I guess bodyboarding and being attacked by not cool virus are not compatible. Josh was still dealing with his version of the virus/ear infection/pink eye, so the weekend pretty much turned into illness recovery.
Last weekend was slightly more productive. A week later, Josh hadn't finished recovering from whatever virus we had managed to get, so Saturday was a surf day for me. I drove up north and it was completely worth it (Josh told me to "just go" so I did). The waves were cooperating even though the surf forecast was doubtful.
We also managed to get to the Monrovia movie theater to watch Avatar. Dad and Mom convinced me we should go see it. It was definitely worth the extra cost of a 3D movie just for the experience. It did kind of bother me that they portrayed this fantasy world like its not real. The nature scenes were close enough to real life, unless of course you don't go out into the forest. When the forest was burning in the movie, it looked EXACTLY like when we were running through the Angeles National Forest after the fires. They captured the colors and the falling ash very, very well. And running along the trees...it reminded me of what we do trail running. Scenery like that isn't fantasy. The creatures and plot may have been, but I feel like people tend to forget the real world is even more beautiful. And we can connect to it too (although not with our hair).
Sunday morning, I woke up early as usual to play flute in the LCPC orchestra. Its exhausting to wake up early yet ANOTHER morning over the last...five years or so....but its worth it! Josh and I did a bunch of errands after church including buying his Mom's birthday presents. And I got an organizer for sports equipment for the back of my car which was very, very overdue. :) Calm weekends can be good...I guess we need to recover sometime. Meanwhile, Dad and Mom were in Cape Cod, so I pretended I was there as best I could (did not succeed):
Unfortunately, running isn't working out so well. On Thursday, I ran with a couple of racing team guys and my achilles tendon isn't so happy. That is what I get for not wearing shoes (only five fingers) for months and months to run and then deciding to run a 30k race with shoes. Not good for feet! Plus sand dune hiking directly after the race, and the fact the last 2+ miles of the race were uphill when I had only trained up to 3 miles short of the finishing distance. I guess doing 10 miles on the sand to start my training one week before the race might have been a bad plan too. So now I'm left with hoping my tendon heals fast!
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