Bunch of Runs

Today was 5 miles @ 9:27 pace. Yesterday (7/19) was 3 miles @ 9:58 pace (very hot) and Sunday was 7 miles @ 10:09 pace (ran w/ Erin). Cooking some dinner (rice) and watching Platoon right now. Worked on the "work plan" brief with Carmine, Rita, Doug, Ahmed, and Mike. Not too bad. Worried about all the work still to be done.

5 miles / 9:48 min. pace

Brutal run today. So hot even though I started at about 9- could not keep my pace up. This was a rough week in general though and glad that its over. I briefed for Ed on Friday and it looks like they're trying to find another 6 @ 266 and 12 @ the 286. I really hope they leave my stuff alone. Cleaning the condo now, especially the bathroom. Hungry going to grab a bite.

4 Miles / 10:00 min. pace

This was a bad run. Very hot and hard to breathe. Pretty much reflected how this week has been going. Jay felt like he didn't need alot of support next year re: convergence so I did alot of coordinating w/ him to keep the staffing- 3 conv. and 1 cross-domain. Tommorrow I'll brief the OMT on next years work and this week will be done. So ready for it to be over but things have gotten better.

I met a runner girl who is running 100 miles this weekend. Insane!

10 miles / 9:59 min pace

Oh man it was hard gettting up today. Yesterday I spent the day climbing with Vegas and Gil over at Franklin. Did two 5.8s and a 5.9 (Anchors Away)- was wasted after the 5.9 and really dehydrated so I didn't climb much more after that. We got back late last night though (11:30) so that made getting up this morning harder. I really did not want to run today.....so tired but I ran away. I'm glad I did, the run went fine. I felt pretty solid. Icing the knees now...

5 Miles / 9:18 min./mile

Not a bad run today.....was shooting for a 9:20 pace and ended up with 9:18. Nice and cool weather so it felt better. Stayed home from work today and now the AC is fixed but I still have a water leak. Very annoying but will need to look into that on Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going climbing at Franklin w/ Vegas and Gil. I haven't done any lead climbing since Red Rocks so I'm looking forward to that.

Here we go again

Despite my better judgement, I've decided to run a second marathon. This time it will be in my home territory of Chicago. According to the website its 94 days, 11 hours, 48 minutes, and 36 seconds away. Training has been ongoing the last couple of weeks but, like the last marathon, I've decided to log my training runs. Along the way, I'll try to capture some of whats been going on in my head.

Today was a 3 mile run and the pace was 9:06. The goal for the first marathon was just to complete it but this time I'll be shooting for a 9:00 min/mile pace or ~4:00 total time. Erin is training with me and we'll be running this together. We'll be training together on our long Sunday runs.

My observation now, having done this before, is its hard to get motivated to do this again. Unlike the first time, now I know what lies ahead.....the summer runs where it feels like you've taken a shower, sweat burning your eyes, constant hunger, power gels, cliff bars, sore legs. Although I'm looking forward to the sleeping soundly for once...after the long runs, those were some of the deepest sleeps I've had in a long time.

Maybe this will help me get things back on track. I feel like I'm rudderless right now......

Braces are history!

Just had my first lunch w/o the braces on. I got them off this morning, it feels great and the teeth look good. It was a bit of a pain to get them off since there was alot of scraping to get the glue off. I almost bit the women who was scraping off the glue. Need to go back this afternoon to get my retainers.

Haven't posted anything in awhile...been lazy about this. Since Nov., I had the CR trip which I'll post pictures about. Got all my performance reviews done and now need to get my Feb. WV and Terminal arch. deliverables together. Still not comfortable with work yet but hoping it'll get better with time. Thats it....

Performance Reviews

Need to start writing FY04 performance reviews....I hate doing these..I've got 12 to do and they're due by Dec. 17th. For whatever reason, they've pushed the due dates up so now we have less time to get them done. I've blocked out all day today to work on them. Unfortunately, I'm feeling sick...woke up yesterday morning w/ a sore throat and have been feeling worse since then. May try to play some texas hold 'em tonight....we'll see how I feel.

The Terminal work is not good right now...one of my key folks has been out alot and the future stuff is a mess. I need to reorganize that piece and I've lost time. I'm frustrated with some of the folks since they don't seem to care too much about the work. Trying to work my way through it...

Tomorrow is turkey day with Meg and Lauren...that should be fun. I hope I feel better. Also, ran 3 miles on Tuesday, time 25:47...about an 8:36 pace...8 seconds faster than last time but I was feeling it.

Sunday night

Watching "touching the void" on WETA. Its a little different from the DVD, they have some additional voiceovers but not too much. Got the car washed today and it looks pretty good when its clean. Its running fine too so I have a hard time justifying getting a new car. Looked at my finances too and I'm better off waiting a few months before buying so I'm thinking I'll get the Forrester in March or April. No hurry either way.

Went to watch Michigan and Illinois play yesterday but the bars were really crowded, Erin, Drew, and I tried three different bars before we ended up staying at Mr. Days. Left just after halftime since we were standing.

Saw Julius today to observe a visitation. He looks great and is walking around alot- he just wanted to explore. It was a good visit and L seems to be doing well. Also went to the gym and ran three miles and worked the legs. Total time: 25:55....thinking about running another marathon in May w/ Erin. She convinced me to shoot for an 8:45 pace with a marathon time of 3:45 hrs....thats a full 1:30 faster pace and 45 minutes shorter than what I ran in SF (10:15/4:30 hrs). I think it can be done....I figure I can take 15 minutes off right away because of the SF hills so then I just need to shave another half hour. Yeah right, we'll see......

Risk-taking

Kind of a long read but interesting:

http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19941101-000027.html

It talks about that climber I mentioned in the blog below. I like this quote:

Maddi suggests that well-adjusted people are "good at turning everyday experience into something interesting. My guess is that the safecracker or the mountain climber can't do that as well. They have to do something exciting to get a sense of vitality. It's the only way they have of getting away from the sense that life sucks.

Well-adjusted people? Thats harsh. So according to this, if I wasn't climbing I'd be addicted to drugs, gambling....Hmmmmm.....strangely enough I have noticed my "need" to go to Vegas at least twice a year has dropped since I've started climbing. Also going to learn snowboarding this winter. After reading "touching the void", now I want to try mountaineering. I'm sensing a pattern. We'll see.