The weekend...and more running

I had a bit of an adventure this weekend as I ventured up to LA meet up with Claire's (this time on the OTHER coast, just 2 weeks later after meeting her for a first time) and be part of her entourage on Saturday after she came in after her 545 mile biking adventure of the AIDS Lifecycle event from San Fran to LA. This also gave me an excuse to stay with a good friend of mine who had been a housemate of mine in MA.

Prior to meeting up with Claire, my friend, her cousin and I had plans to get Thai massages. They had a great experience...for me:

two.hours.of.constant.pain.

I had a Thai massage once when I was in Thailand and that experience was much of the same very painful. I don't really know why I agreed to this again aside from the fact I did need a massage as I've been pretty tight lately. But basically in a Thai massage you are paying to have a 100lb Thai lady literally walk on your back, or step on your hamstring, or stand on your thigh...repeat or try to stretch you like you are more flexible than you really are. The intent is to find all those lovely trigger points and then get rid of them...lots of accupressure. Owch. My hips are still sore from this endeavor, fortunately not the part where I have been battling my injuries...but still...it's been two days.

After this lovely massage, I did manage to meet up with Claire and her friends. Claire and her friends who had come off of this ride seemed no worse for wear. They commented that they could have just kept going. It sounded like the week was a great adventure and a ton of fun. Claire and I had our own bit of adventure as we were caravaning with some of her friends back to where they were staying. My advice, when driving in LA always have directions on where you are going...don't think you can caravan across this city and actually stay together. Um...yea. We had no directions. Claire had left her cell phone in the other car. I had no one's phone number and we had barely a map that would take us to the right suburb of the city. While the adventure became a boarder line fiasco...we somehow managed to A)not ever technically get lost B)find everyone in the end. All in all...it was more hysterical than anything else. (especially after she said: "Do you think they would answer my phone if I called it with your phone? I have you listed as 'Pants in my phone." For some reason, we found that little fact hilarious. It almost produced uncontrollable laughter....I think Claire was disappointed it didn't. )

I headed back to my friend's place that evening and stayed for part of Sunday. When I got back to SD, I managed to squeeze in a hilly 7 mile run. My hips weren't too crabby and weren't talking to me too...too much. But then today I decided that I'd go trail running, ummmm...today, with some colleagues since the mud run is this weekend. Not too far though, just under 3 miles. Um...my hips aren't really happy, but they aren't terribly pissed off either. I think tomorrow I'm going to get myself to yoga and hope that helps a bit.