Running in Ice Water

I've decided not to run the marathon in March, as I haven't been doing any long runs. I cannot tolerate the cold, and the sky's been dumping ice water on us for the past three weeks. Ugh. Heh, last time I went for a short run, a week ago, I could barely move my fingers when I returned home.

Instead I'm going to focus on my third running of the San Francisco Marathon in August, when it's a bit warmer. Warm weather isn't necessarily better running weather, as it's easy to overheat, but... it's San Francisco! In August it'll be foggy and 62° -- perfect marathon weather!

The hottest marathon I've run was Honolulu. Must have been 85°, but it was also a bit humid and drizzly, which helped alleviate the heat.

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I'm continuing the job search, but am also getting a but nervous. My 2.5 years off has not been good for me. I'd only planned on taking six months after leaving Oracle, but then my stupid sister went and got herself arrested. Multiple trips to Washington to deal with the property, and bringing my nephew to live with me, occupied a lot of my time. I didn't want to return to work with my nephew here, as I just didn't trust him in my house. He had a nasty temper, and there was evidence of punched out doors, walls and windows in the place in Washington, and I just didn't want that repeated here.

So I opted to stay home to keep an eye on him.

After a year and a half I eventually kicked him out, when I found him rolling a joint in my side yard. Considering his mother had been arrested and sentenced on a drug charge, I'm clean, and he had promised me he'd stay clean, it was an unacceptable offense. So he went to stay with a friend.

After sending him away I returned to my studies and started sending out resumes. But... no bites. It had been two years unemployed when I kicked out my nephew, and I fear it is indeed working against me. My next door neighbor thinks I'm not being looked at because of my age. My resume shows I graduated from college in 1991, which sends a pretty clear message to people who think developers in their 40's are senile. Yet I freely admit, when I've interviewed in the past, I've tended to favor those... closer to the age of the rest of the group.

Well, we'll see what happens. I'm hoping to find work soon. While I enjoy the studying, I'd really like to get out of the house and have some responsibilities again other than washing dishes, feeding the dog, and putting out the trash every Tuesday. :) I'm hoping to get into Google, where I can so some Java and web development -- maybe even get back into Mac development, as I did before going to Oracle.

Procrastination

Mar 8th, I'll be running my ninth marathon. I was supposed to do a 2.5 hour run today, but it was so damned cold, I couldn't bring myself to go outside.

Two weeks ago I did a 2 hour run, and it was fantastic. It was chilly outside, but not cold. The run went very well, with me keeping about a 10 minute, 40 second pace. Very slow, compared to my prior runs, but... my training runs also include a thousand feet of elevation gain over two and a half miles, where the marathon is flat.

I like to run at Rancho San Antonio, a local park. But with the recent rain, the trails will be muddy. Fortunately there's a junior college nearby, to which I usually run and loop, before heading back to the house. It's mostly flat, more like the marathon course will be. Hopefully it'll be a bit warmer Monday, so I can get my run in. I usually run half an hour out, loop around the college, then head home. I figure if I do half out, then home, then another 45 minutes out, then home, that'll do it for my missed 2.5 hour run.

The weather report for this evening called for freezing temperatures, which is something Bay Area types just aren't used to. I'm non-functional under about 64 degrees, which is unfortunate, as that's actually excellent running weather. :)