Steve - 3.1

Achilles still feels like crap. I did 3.1 miles in 30 minutes on the treadmill. Had some moderate pain, so its improving. But I didn't want to push it too much. I have 48 hours before my race, but I think I'll be ready. The intensity of the pain is decreasing. I just dont want to go too hard and blow it out. I did some swimming after the run for extra aerobic work. Got in about 15 minutes worth of my crappy attempt at the breast stroke where you dont dunk your head under the water. Anyway, I'm going to probably run 5-6 miles with strides thrown in tomorrow assuming no setbacks.

Oh I was watching NFL network late on Wednesday night and they had a feature on Chad Ocho Cinco Johnson. They showed him running on a sand hill. I was like, "hey that looks like the Manhattan Beach one." When they came back from commercial, they did like a 2 minute piece on how he is training in L.A. for awhile and sure enough it was the Manhattan Beach sand dune! He was doing some speed drills going up the hill.

One more tidbit. I ordered some new shoes (Mizuno Wave Inspire 4) from Zappos.com on that same night. I tried to use Paypal for the checkout, but it wasn't working. So I did the online chat support thing to figure out what was wrong. Ended up speaking with a bird(gal for you Americans) named Sharon. When she explained that Paypal was down in a funny, excited way using all-caps phrases, I couldn't resist messing with her. I said I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the transaction now, because it wouldn't be secure. But if she gave me the go-ahead, then I would throw caution to the wind and play Russian Roulette with my credit card in the crazy world of E-Commerce. I didn't phrase it exactly like that, but you get the idea. Well she assured me it was OK and said she would upgrade me to free next day shipping (25 dollar value) for free. Not only that, but all my future purchases would also be treated the same! So I rolled the dice* and put in my credit card, and now the shoes should arrive on Friday. I can also send them back for free if they don't work out. Who would have thought shopping online could be so much fun?...

Notes:
* I am not actually adverse to using my CC online