"Not to Scale"

The New Orleans AIA (American Institute of Architects) started a bowling leauge and the first game was last night at Rock N Bowl. It was crazy there were 24 teams composed of different firms with well over 100 people there. Our team name is "Not to scale".
For some reason the guy at the shoe rental felt like I needed to be the only person in the bowling alley sporting these "LSU" shoes. Yeah purple and gold complete with a tiger and "LSU" on the side. People kept thinking they were my personal shoes.... um no I do not own my own bowling shoes and if I did they would not look like this.

The way it works is you play three teams each night, rotating your team members through all ten frames. We were not aware of this until our second game so the first game everyone on both teams played all the rounds. Well with 12 people per lane you can imagine this took forever. We only made it to frame 6 before it was time for the next team. So with 6 frames of bowling I had bowled a 41.... 4 out of the 5 people on my team had bowled a 41, are we consistant or what?

It was lots of fun and I can only hope we improve for next month~

There it is....

In case anyone is intrested in seeing my stress fracture, the culprit of my hiatus, lapse, suspension, break, and freeze in my running .....

Here it is..... in the form of a black spot.... I hate that black spot. :(

The Jacket

The New Orleans Track Club has a thing called the Grand Prix Series. This is composed of certain NOTC races throughout the year that are worth points. Depending on what place you come in you get a certain number of points.

The past two years I have come in second place in the 40-under division and received a nice plaque. 1st place however gets a jacket with their name embroidered on it, so this year I decided enough with the plaques my goal was to get the jacket!

I worked hard and somehow made it to every race and got 1st place this year. So last night was the award banquet. They called my name and I went up to get my long awaited for jacket, only to find out they misspelled my name..... go figure.

Crime Happened Here

The city of New Orleans has been placing these signs in places where, well you guessed it "crime happened". They list the date, location and what kind of crime it was. It's all hand written of course for a more personal touch. I don't really know what I think of them, I don't think I like them though.

I mean I don't want to see that crime is happening everywhere, I know it is.


What if the criminals think of these as trophy's, take pictures with them saying "I did that.." I just don't think a little yard sign will prevent them from committing a crime.

Yes I understand the city is trying to help prevent crime but I think this might just scare away the innocent people. One lady said she is having a hard time selling her house, there is one of these signs right down the block from it. What tourist are going to want to come to a city pointing out every spot that a crime was commited? Are we proud of how many signs we have?

I guess I just don't understand. Are these signs suppose to make you want to be more careful or aware in these areas, when really you should be like that all of the time no matter where you are?

Next time you pass one of these signs just remember "Crime Happened Here"

Bad News

Well I had my bone scan on Friday. I got to watch the screen as I was being scanned and I am no radiologist but what I saw was not good, so of course I was dreading Dr. Hoffman's phone call today. What he said was pretty much what I expected..."Kid you have a stress fracture". What I didn't expect was that it was in my leg and NOT in my hip (Adam says this is much better than in my hip). Then Dr. Hoffman continued by repeating about 6 times in a row.."no running, no running, no running"

He's gotten to know me pretty good over the past 6 years so he followed that with "you heard me??" Every time I would try to say something he would cut me off with another "no running.."
I was afraid to ask "so this means I can't do the Mardi Gras 1/2 Marthon in 2 weeks?" kidding, I think I knew the answer to that one.

I am very bummed right now I was finally to a point where I felt like I had trained well for the race and now I don't get to run it. I'll never know if all of those long runs had paid off, if my new pacing plan was going to work or if I was going to run a P.R.
Looks like I will be volunteering and cheering on all my friends who will be out there pounding away, a side I've never been on but it looks like I don't have a choice.

as Dr. Hoffman has stressed..... NO RUNNING, NO RUNNING, NO RUNNING.........:(

Blush Ball & Soccer

Besides being sick all weekend I did manage to attend the PussyFooters Blush Ball and Adam's soccer game.

The Pussyfooters are a group of women who get all dressed in pink and dance/march in the Muses parade. Adam's sister Allison is one of these ladies so she invited us to the Blush Ball at Mardi Gras world Friday night. Big Sam's Funky Nation played as the ladies danced and showed off their 2009 costumes, which are pretty fabulous!

Adam and I also had fun playing around with all the old float pieces that are all around Mardi Gras world.

Saturday morning I went to Adam's soccer game. He was a great goalie and they won! Go Ligers!

Hornets vs. Knicks

Last night Corey and I went to see the Hornets take on the Knicks. Well except they forgot to take them on. They lost 101-95. They didn't play all that well, and I am convinced that the referee's were former Knicks teammates just disguised as referee's.

On a brighter note my mission to get a picture with Hugo was almost completed last night. I got close enough to touch him and say "hey bee", but then he ran away... next time I will be more forceful in my attempt.

102nd Jackson Day Race

This morning was the 102nd Jackson Day race. Yeah it's been going on for a long time.....

The course starts at "old Spanish fort" in Lakeview and finishes at Jackson Square in the Quarter. It is said to be the route that the soldiers under Andrew Jackson took in the war.
The race is 5.6 miles and George and I have an ongoing competition at this race and I have never won.... so the goal for today.... beat George.

Yesterday it was 80 degrees outside, not today. This morning was freezing. I got to the bus pickup with what I thought was plenty of time to get to the start line. Apparently they only had one bus running and we were going to be late so I hopped in the car with the guy next to me in the bus line and we drove to the start. I made friends with him along the way , Russ if you're out there, thanks for the ride!

The race went well looks like my long runs have been paying off! I ran 41:27 which was 4 whole mins faster than last years time and the best part was I BEAT George!! yipiee! I was pretty happy with my splits too I acutally had a negative spilt for once, 7:45, 7:02, 7:14, 7:33, 7:27, and 4:24.

My favorite part was on the last 1/2 mile I stopped for a min to walk and a 13 year old boy came and grabbed my arm and said "come on LADY we only have 5 blocks left, you can't stop now", "Lady" wow I felt old. Anyway thanks to him for pushing me to the end.

While I am thanking people, like Russ and the 13 year old I would like to thank my Catch 22 friend Sean (or Jesus)too. I have been emailing him how far I have been running every week and he checks in with me on Tuesday at track. Just knowing I am going to report my milage to Sean (even if he doesn't care!) pushes me to get out there and do it. Not to mention he's a super fast runner so he's full of good advise. so thanks sean too:)

Training update

So about a month or so ago I started "really" training for the Mardi Gras 1/2 marathon and more important the 1/2 Iron Man in April. I am now up to a mile on my swim, 20 miles on my bike and 10 mile long runs.

The runs are killing me though. I think somethings wrong with my hip. Its been hurting since October-ish and I have been to the Dr., had x-rays, been to the sports therapist for a massage, iced (I am currently icing right now...), stretching and on and on.......

Given my history of low bone density and specifically in my left hip Dr. Hoffman ordered me a bone scan. (Which by the way he is about to kill me, last week he said he thought he told me to get lazy and fat)

I was told this bone scan involves me getting some kind of dye put in me, sitting for 4 HOURS while it disperses and then being scanned, sounds like a big ball of fun. Hopefully I will get some good news out of it, specifically that its muscular and not fractured. :) If I ever get the scan that is, you have to love insurance......

Anyway this sure did turn into a whiny blog! so now I'll blog about last night's Catch 22 workout.

It was pretty miserable. We did the 2 mile warm up from Tulane Track to St. Charles. Of course right when we started the workout back on the track the cold front decided to come through, which involved rain and lots of it..... So we ran, and ran and ran. and got more and more wet.

Of course I had decide to debut my brand new shoes last night, which are now sitting at home drying. I hope they are dry in time for the Jackson Day race on Sunday.

Sorry for the boring no picture blog. I found some cool pictures but it wouldn't let me insert them...

New Year's Eve 2008

This New Year's Eve was more laid back than the usual. Maybe it's me getting older but I actually liked it better this way:)

Adam, Andrew and I started out the night watching the LSU game with Stacy, George ,Kristen and Danny. LSU won big, I even saw my brother in the crowd on ESPN and Rocko found his true love... Andrew.

Then we made the two block trip to dinner at The Steak Knife on Harrison Ave. and it was really good!

Adam , me and his new facial hair...

Me, Stacy and Kristen

We did the whole midnight thing there too, countdown, fireworks, champange.

After we went back to Stacy and George's house and made a big fire in the backyard. It was a great time. Looks like 2009 will be a good one!