Run with Burritos. Offend Mission Hipsters.

Note to Self: Always wear obscure punk rock band t-shirts when running through the Mission.

After our loop up some hills and down some others, Team Zombie Shuffle decides to stop off at one of our favorite burrito spots to undo any good our jogwalkshuffle has done us. I figure, heck, if I'm going to eat a pollo asado super burrito, I'm going to run the rest of the way home with the thing. Two Mission burritos and you've got yourself a pair of hand weights to be reckoned with, right?

Crossing the 16 block and weaving carefully, single file, and an Ipod-wearing and ear-plug wearing hipster yells out in the bitchiest voice imaginable,

"Dorks."

To which I yell, "Yep! Thanks!" 'cause it's true. We totally are. Still, in my head I'm thinking what I commonly think in this city of too-cool transformations: "Jerkface, I was living on this block when you were still back home in Iowa."

Not that there's anything wrong with Iowa. I have just prefered warm people to cool ones these past 10 years or so, and it's weird that the Mission is lately such a minefield of cool. It's also weird to see life from what looks like the soccer mom side of the tracks, simply because I don't care enough to try to look or be cool anymore. It's tiring, being cool, and I'd rather be tired from dorky exertions.

Like burritos. And running!

Wow, Technology!

This is so neat:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

Now, control freaks like me can know where they're going before they get there!
Using this neat mapping tool, I worked out a fun path out of this valley and up through the city. The total mileage was 3.7-something round-trip, through neighborhoods with a lot of distraction in the form of people, architecture, parks, views, and (most importantly) dogs.

I didn't count on the hills.

Wow! It was almost all hills for several blocks, so we did end up walking more than we might have otherwise. But each walking section was a good tromp up some pretty hilly terrain and the heart rate was kept kabooming. Better still, my bum is going to be mighty shapely after a couple weeks of this path.

I'm "running" but I'm far from being a skilled, comfortable runner just yet. A fitter runner would have had no trouble with this route. But it kicked my former smoker's self in the lungs.

And it was good.

We came home and relaxed with a grilled dinner on the landing and a lovely cool Anguilla Killa. My friends, it's the cocktail to end all cocktails. Fairbs the mad-mixologist threw it together last night. Sweet rum and citrus, chock full of hardcore boozyfloozy goodness.

Hello, happy summertime.

The Birth of Baby Wheezes

The Birth of Baby Wheezes
Hooray! Husbanks and I had our inaugural run for the AIDS Half Marathon at Waltyworld on Saturday. We're timed and placed. We will shuffle. We will moan. We will suck brains.

Okay, we won't suck brains. Zombies are great, but they're as played out as a deck of Unos.

But we will probably suck.
And we will prevail.

Zombies make a good totem animal for thems of us what don't run fast. I asked someone at the marathon office what to do if we found ourselves sucking, and unable to suck enough air into our crispy little former smokers' lungs. She told us to just slow down. I told her we'd probably run as slowly as possible, but she assured me one can always run be slower. "Walking-like?" I asked. "Yes," she said. I told her we feared if we walked slower it'd be something like a zombie shuffle.

And lo! team was born.

So we ran at the edge of the world on Saturday and we spent Sunday running around Sacramento. We pondered what sorts of costumes we might don in September to be both properly aerated and festive and aerodynamic for our purposes.

Stay tuned for the tales and travails of Team Zombie Shuffle.