The second annual Jingle Blast has finally found a date that makes most folks happy. So henceforth we’re officially on for Saturday January 2nd, 9am. We will be meeting in the North End to get our run on, followed by coffee & crumpets. Bring your tattered remnants of Christmas spirit and residual hangover, along with your present for me if you accidentally forgot to give me one before. Much like it’s cousin-in-spirit, the “Super Bowl”, the Jingle Blast now faces the challenge of being located in a different calendar year than the regular season, making it inappropriate to dub it Jingle Blast 2010 (since the inaugural was held in 2008 that makes it look like we skipped a year). And since nobody wants to end up running the Jingle Blast LDCXXXII I’ll stick this year’s race with the played out but technically accurate 2.0 suffix.

For posterity, here are the specs from last year’s race. I don’t assume the route will be identical but it should be similar in spirit. 4.2 BLAZING kilometers!

Fuzz and I did our last joint SF run this morning, through the park, by the beach, up and around Land’s End. It occurs to me that we’re right at one month post-marathon, and somehow I’ve taken a few giant steps backwards in that time. I’m running like I have a giant anchor around my neck. I would have thought cutting the miles back like I’ve done would give more spring in step, more go but this hasn’t been the case.

BAA registration is closed. That was my backup plan for fixing the situation. Maybe I need something like the Bradbury Bruiser for my birthday. Or the Harwich Cranberry Harvesters Half. YJP and VC have their forthcoming triathalon to look forward to, I’ve got… what, exactly? Anyone down for something?

Yesterday was National Running Day so the dogbrake and I did a midweek 8 to celebrate. It was surprisingly warm out, finally fog free, some welcoming summer sun. The run was unremarkable until near the end, where we found the wind coming off Ocean Beach to be in full-on sandblast mode.

Along the sea wall there are a series of stairwells down to the beach, some of which fill up with sand forming a ski jump-like spout for the rest of their gritty neighbors to ride up and out of, into the face of everyone passing by. So despite gorgeous, magic hour lighting at sunset, turning to look towards the water was not really an eyesight preserving option.

Eventually, DPW will send a truck out and someone will languorously shovel the sand that builds up on the sidewalk back to the beach through these smaller spouts that must be designed just for this. They don’t worry about job security – the wind is always going to blow in from the ocean, making its incremental effort to inch San Francisco eastward. Will this work? Look at the geographic change in the last 15,000 years. It almost seems inevitable that, given enough time, all of this will eventually just blow away.

But for now, we keep our heads down and earn back our elevation up along the cliffs, turn east along Point Lobos, the wind now at our backs and gravity taking us the rest of the way home.

Dog-brake made a case for increasing her mileage quota cap from five to six miles tonight.

Pros: it’s nice to have company, and she was enthusiastic about coming even after I told her I was going to leave her fuzzness home.

Cons: her tendency to throw in random ankle snapping lunges towards the omnipresent holes of invisible pocket gophers throughout Golden Gate Park is getting old.

In the end though she didn’t crap out on me, I didn’t have to drag or carry her at the end, and we finished the massive post-stairs uphill bit by the VA without any walking.

On a related note, one of the surgeons at work mentioned that Robin Williams lives (or possibly, used to live) in Seacliff fairly near to my house (despite them being vascular surgeons and him needing an aortic valve replacement we were just discussing it in terms of running landmarks). It turns out I’ve unknowingly been by his house many times – it’s near the end of my long run route, a huge walled mansion amongst more modest mansions. From a pedestrian perspective his place is notable for the fact that the (very narrow) sidewalk on the left ends a half block before the more normal sidewalk on the right begins making it an optimal location if you’re looking to get run over by a speed-racing luxury automobile. That’s it below.

Given the tiny mileage bread snatcher and I did this morning and the fact that this half is in just over two weeks away I’d have to increase my daily rate by a mere 8 percent(!) each day for the next 19 days to be ready for the Kaiser Permanente Half Marathon. The power of compound interest leads to delusions of grandeur. It’d be easier with a MBF to foolishly Yes We Can along the way with me.

Dogbrake & I modified our route a little tonight to avoid the GGP stabfest and instead extend down to Ocean Beach. I didn’t have my camera (obviously, and not that it’s working anyway) but this is shot is roughly representative of the color the sky was. The last surfers were packing up and out when we turned back up Cabrillo.

As is custom, an annual moment of gratitude. I’m thankful for my family – specifically my parents who with characteristic kindness were (without comment) willing to wake and take me to the airport at 4:30am. I’m thankful for my various sisters & their assorted hangers on. I’m uber-thankful to see the fuzzy one after a too-long break, thankful for getting to see both NYC & DC during the holiday. I’m thankful to have been able to see so many CNY & EP friends over the break (& Z!) and am immensely thankful to finally get my girl out to California (& to VC for rescuing both of us from SFO).

I’m also thankful for Team HB for a fun and motivating realsgiving race at the Gobble Gobble Gobble this morning, thankful the city of Somerville has fairly modest hills, thankful for the grandma rocking the double stroller who passed me on the homestretch. I have to say though – grandma, if I see you (or your ilk) at the Bay to Breakers, you’re going down.

In yet another thing in a long series of mundanity that only matters to me, I managed to fix the busted DSLR tonight (perfect timing for my little trip to NYC* tomorrow). I was playing with the body with the lens off tonight, and could see that one of the bits of the shutter was sticking about 3/4 of the way down (which made perfect sense given how odd looking the exposures have been. I set the camera to a 30″ exposure, reached in and gently flicked the edge and it popped right up. Took a bunch of test shots, all seems to be well. The downside of which being it weakens my already underpowered case for a Canon 5D Mark II*.

In other photo-wise news, I’m looking forward to seeing CNHB’s shots from her gig at the SRI Charter Member’s meeting tonight (in conjunction with the GreenBuild Conference). I notice the GreenBuild guys are having a 5K race tomorrow to conclude their program – don’t they realize any optional burning of calories for fun, sport or celebration of life is not environmentally sound? My reductio ad absurdum-dar says let’s do the math showing that exercise by it’s very nature is not and cannot be a green activity. There’s a lotta fuel going into making those calories you’re burning up there racers. At least they’ve wisely opted not to loop over the Longfellow as any sudden motion or stiff breeze may well cause that to collapse into the Charles*.

(*not green)

It’s no San Antonio Rock ‘n’ Roll* half-marathon, but the Somerville Road Runners are putting on their 12th annual Thanksgiving Day road race in two plus weeks. The finish line (and post-race debriefing) is at The Burren, exactly what one needs prior to an extended weekend of extended family extended togetherness. It looks like the course goes up from Davis Square and turns at Broadway and Medford, just skirting Winter Hill. Close enough for promotional purposes at any rate. Oh, and yeah – I got new kicks, from Zappos. Rock on.

*Not to be pedantic, but I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this should spelled be Rock ‘n Roll, Rock n’ Roll or even be concatenated to RockNRoll – anything other than the overly grammatically aware double single apostrophied abomination Rock ‘n’ Roll.

UPDATE 1: 10K down for CNHB! 9:42 splits, this is under the low end of her split range (10:00-12:00). She’s somewhere in Framingham now, I think there are fans to see her at mile 6 but I haven’t heard from them yet.

UPDATE 2: 15K down, which should put CNHB passing over the gorgeous Lake Cochicuate. SP just called – she and the old people were indeed at mile 6 but managed to miss everyone. I’m planning to leave Longwood here in a bit to walk up to mile 25 – our most aggressive estimates put SMHB there in 90 minutes.

UPDATE 3: CNHB just passed 25K, her split finally fell below 10:00. That’s expected, hopefully no IT band issues. I’m heading out to see what there is to see, updates mas tarde.

UPDATE 4: Finished! Saw them both! Accidentally stepped on little one’s foot when she came to say hi, SORRY!!

UPDATE 5: Photos! What probably my best Bevo ever and one each from Team HB.