My Lord, Scottsdale is SO much less stressful this time around. I actually feel RELAXED here. Over the holidays there was just so much pressure to do things and see people and blah blah blah but this time I have been absolutely loving this trip so far. In fact, I’m thinking I’m gonna extend it a week or so and just soak up the sunshine. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed bright, sunny days until I walked outside this morning. I am terrified to do the half-marathon in this heat, but LORD it was gorgeous today. Shiny and warm and perfect. It’s worked wonders for my anxiety levels.
I went to the Expo for the Rock N Roll marathon today. It was in the Phoenix Convention Center, which is across from the arena where the Phoenix Suns play, and there was a game today at the same time I went to the Expo. So I could not for the life of me understand how it was reasonable for them to charge $30 for parking to pick up my fucking marathon bib, but then I saw all the people on the streets in Suns gear and put it together. Dude, I totally thought it was football season. I didn’t understand that there was overlap. I’m such a chick. Anyway, I eventually found street parking like a mile south and walked through some pretty shady neighborhoods in the dark to get my stupid marathon bib. But the Expo was HUGE and really exciting. I finally started to get pumped for this race. There were so many cool freebies and lots of running gear, and just a ton of people — women especially — who were serious about running. It was also inspirational to see how many women were there with booths; there were at least 10 of them who ran their own companies selling women’s running gear. I mean, personally, I cannot think of a deeper level of hell than attempting to build a vaguely differentiated women’s fitness gear company, but, still. Good for them. Even if it is a totally profit-proof business model.
As I was buying an over-priced running top (which was actually very awesome because it has a huge zip pocket in the front — why don’t more companies make running gear with large zip pockets?), I overheard two of the sales girls chatting. One was like, “Are you running many marathons this year?” and the other was like, “Oh, yeah, about 7 or 8. I only did one last year because I was focusing on doing triathlons. But this year my goal is to qualify for the women’s Olympic time trials,” and then the first girl was like, “Oh, how fast do you have to run for that?” and the (crazy) girl is like “About 2:45.” In my head I’m thinking, “Is that figure in days?” So then the first girl says, “What are you running now?” and crazy girl says “Well last year I did it in 3:10, but I wasn’t really trying.”
ZOMG.
I’m going to run a half marathon in about three hours, I think. I wanted to slap crazy sales girl, and it looked like the other sales girl did, too, but we both just smiled politely. In my head I was like “Slap slap slap!”
After that I went to see my friend Tiffany, who’s also running the race on Sunday. She flew in from NYC for it. Tiff and I have been really good friends since we were about 5 years old, so I’m super excited to do this race with her (and her super-fit mom!). I stopped by her house, where Tiffany’s little maltipoo and her mom’s puppy terrier were running around the house making out with each other. I’m not kidding. They suck face. Like insert their tongues into one another’s mouth and go at it. I’ve never seen dogs do that.
Since we’re running the PF Chang’s Rock N Roll Marathon, we thought we’d have dinner at PF Chang’s, which is right down the street from us anyway. Tragically, the rest of the city thought that, too, and there was an hour wait. But the girl said we could sit on the patio and order drinks and appetizers while we waited, and we were like, “Done and done.” We knew we’d never leave that patio. Since it was packed, we ended up sharing a little corner area with an older couple from Philadelphia, here for the Eagles/Cardinals game on Sunday. (There are a lot of big events going on in Phoenix right now.) They were super cool and we ended up chatting with them the whole night. They have a teenage daughter who recently got bit by the theater bug, and Tiffany’s an actress in Manhattan, so they had a ton of questions for her. Since I knew Tiff wasn’t going to brag, I was like, “Tiffany was on Law & Order: SVU. She played an underage hooker.” (This is true. Tiffy co-starred in the episode that Hayden Panettiere was in. Sometimes when I am flipping through the channels late at night I will accidentally come upon a half-naked Tiffany grinding up on Chris Meloni’s lap. I always scream.) Anyway, they were very interested in all of this and we talked a great deal about Tiffany’s on-screen hooker exploits.
The couple paid their bill and left just as we were finishing up. Because we were all on the patio, they walked through the restaurant, then out the front door, and then back around past the patio to their car. All of a sudden we hear a guy screaming “Hey! It’s that girl from Law & Order! The prostitute!” and pointing to Tiffany and screaming “Whore!” in the middle of downtown Scottsdale. Everyone was staring. “I can’t believe it’s that hooker! Right there, sweetie!” OMG. I think we both turned bright red. Perhaps the gentleman had been a little drunker than I’d initially assumed. But he was laughing jovially about it; he hadn’t meant any harm. Regardless, Tiffany being called a whore by a middle-aged man on the Scottsdale Waterfront was the highlight of my day, and, possibly, of my entire trip. I don’t know what could top that.
