Signs that I'm nearing 30

A week and two days away to the dreaded 3-0 and my body is in pain. In my last run, a painful 10 miler, I could hardly get through the first 4. My legs felt like tree trunks.. Apparently (diagnosed by my running bff), my calf muscles are probably all tangled up with each other.. they should all twitch individually but when they've worked too many miles, they start twitching as one muscle, which leads to pain. All this right before the Nike half (I signed up for the Nike full, but have since decided to just do the more sane half). I signed up for a sport massage to work on both calves for Friday at Psoas Massage & Bodywork. Hopefully it will do the body good.

My cousin viv and her bf are flying in from Toronto for a visit to start my 30th bday festivities. they arrive Thursday.. Friday, we'll be at the Berkeley's Greek Theater for the Shins (drool), and we'll try to squeeze in a visit to Zachary's (a deep dish pizza place that's supposed to outshine any Chicago deep dish pizza place - hard to believe but I'll report back). Saturday, Justin's leading the surprise festivities, but I'm hoping to run 8 miles on my newly massaged legs before everything begins. Sunday is unclear - I guess it depends on how I do on Saturday:) Maybe it'll just be a day of R&R and Wii, though I'm tempted to fit a ferry ride to hike on Angel Island. Monday, we'll be heading down to Santa Clara for south bay exploration.

Then I turn 30 on Thursday.. the monthly BBQ at work will coincidentally fall on the same day.

Saturday, we head up to North Bay for some sushi, and then to Napa for a night at a B&B. And wake up at the crack of dawn for a hot air balloon ride, and champaign brunch.. then over to another surprise bday party for a fellow libra friend - also turning the dreaded 3-0.

Don't worry. I'm not dreading thirty that much. I just have to realize that I can't get away with as much because I should be at a more responsible age. That goes for everything I guess... Like I can't get away with eating 3 cupcakes and thinking that I won't feel it an hour later.

We will become silhouettes

Despite the difficult start of this past week, I was able to escape reality for awhile and attend the much anticipated Shins concert Monday night - the first of 3 concerts at the Fox Warfield.

It was just what I needed.. uplifting, soulful, haunting music coupled with thoughtful, somewhat silly lyrics carried out by the amazing and modest James Mercer, who at the end of the crowd's applause would just say "Wow, thanks!", as if he was surprised that we liked it so much. The two band members on guitars whose names escape me now ( but I think one of them is dating Elyse Sewell - model from the first seasons of America's top model - her blog by the way is very entertaining. I peruse it on occasion when i want to look for unannounced Shins news ) totally rocked out, and were able to say a bit more to their captivated hipster-yuppie audience.

I was worried with their third album release for awhile, since their second album is one of my all time favorites, but it's proven to be equally addictive. I'm often seen bopping to their music on my morning commute. I've turned to it much more this week, in trying to make sense of everything.