I head home to Seattle tomorrow. I’m looking forward to getting back into my routine, but it’ll be hard to leave all the familiarity and convenience of Scottsdale — or, as I call it now, Los Scottsdale, because it’s a miniature LA these days. It’s ridiculous and it pisses me off. Scottsdale used to be where you could go to escape LA. Now it’s just a suburb that happens to be about 350 miles down the freeway. Which is essentially true of Burbank anyway.
Strangely enough, I’m looking forward to getting back to Seattle weather. It was gray and rainy in Scottsdale today, and I was the happiest I’ve been since I got here. I love cold, rainy weather. I can’t help it, but I really do. And there’s nothing like desert rain! The smell in the air and the way the clouds loom during a storm is unlike anything in Seattle. I’d missed it.
Because the weather was so gray and rainy, I was excited to go for a run. I’ve only run once since I got here — I did 3 miles a couple days ago, around 4:30 pm, and it was still so hot and dry that I wanted to die the whole time. It was awful. I don’t know how anyone runs around here. Today, though, I was able to crank out 7 miles without much trouble, although I am really sore tonight and it’ll probably be even worse tomorrow. That’s what I get for taking two weeks off my training. But I’m really nervous about the half-marathon being in Arizona in a couple weeks. I mean, it’s at 8:30 am, but, if I found it too hot and dry for a run at 4:30 pm, is 8:30 am going to be any better? I’m really worried that all my training in Seattle will leave me ill-prepared to run in the Arizona climate, even in January. I’m not sure how to prep for this. I am going to be doing rain dances all over Scottsdale the night before the race. I hope it pours that day! Then I will have the advantage. I will probably win the whole race if it rains. At 3 hours and 30 minutes, I will have the fastest half-marathon time in the city. Arizonans don’t handle the rain very well.
Also I think Leo will be excited to be home with his feline siblings. He gets so stressed out and lonely here when I leave the house because he doesn’t have Josie and Max and Ashley to play with. I feel awful for him. So it will be nice to have him back home with his buddies. It feels like we’ve been gone forever, but it’s really only been a couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ll both adjust well to being back in the Northwest tomorrow.
