home

i've been in hawaii for almost a week now. it feels amazing to be back if only for a short time. yes there is the whole sun and warmth bit (which don't get me wrong, is great), but i have been most excited to see the people. two of my good friends have also been here (one still lives here, the other is back visiting as well) and i have gotten to spend a lot of time with them. as we haven't all been together in over 6 months, all the really inappropriate jokes, witty commentary and drawn out analyses on movies have all been shared at once, which has made for a rather amusing past few days. i have been out eating lots of yummy food, shopped, swam at Kaiko's and Waimea, hiked Ka'au Crater and run Tantalus. a professor at UH also informed me of her scheme to have me come back as a professor in a couple years when i am done with my degree (which i am all for). monday night is a full moon, which means tonight and tomorrow night are fair game for night hiking, surfing and swimming (and maybe some skinny dipping?). it's good to be home.

and that is how it's done.

this semester finally drew to a close yesterday with a final...at 2pm on a saturday. maybe i've been spoiled the last few years, but prior to ut i only went to schools that had the decency to not make students take finals on a saturday. leading up to this final, i basically moved to san antonio so i could be at work for (on average) 10+ hours a day and not have to drive all the way back to austin. so, while i probably should have been studying all week, i was at work. there are a few good things that came out of this though. first, i found another use for my oceanography background in biomechanics. i took a physical oceanography statistics class one semester and i learned how to do spectral analyses on buoy data to determine whether or not there would be big wave events in waimea. this past week, i was looking at another dataset and realized i could use that same analysis to examine how people move when exposed to perturbations in a virtual reality system. it was pretty exciting to see how i could take the analytical technique and (successfully) apply it to something completely different. the other thing that happened this week was that i got to watch the stanford-usc game in the semifinal of the women's ncaa volleyball championships. i was staying with a co-worker while i was in san antonio who is an avid volleyball player. it was really nice to sit around on a very comfortable couch and watch sports. i realize that this may sound trivial, but with my semester as crazy as it was, this was actually a very nice break from the norm.

that i am now on winter break has not yet set in. tomorrow i will be off to honolulu. yeah for warm weather!

boston bound 2008

i ran the dallas marathon today in 3:28:34 (chip time). this was a pr and boston qualifying time, so i will be heading back to beantown again in 2008. in general, it was a pretty crappy day outside. it was cold and drizzling. about 3 miles into the race i started getting hot and thought about taking my long sleeve shirt off, but then we started running around white rock lake. the wind picked up and i couldn't feel my right hand and lower arm for the better part of 10 miles. i was glad i kept my shirt on! i started out with the 3:30 pace group and ran with them for the first 9 miles or so and then picked up the pace and just maintained. i think my splits were almost dead on for the first and second halves which was awesome. here are the stats: 450th place overall (446th based on gun time), 45th female overall (44th based on gun time) and 8th in the f25-29 age division (out of 252). for the gender and age division finishes I was in the top ~3% and overall I was in the top 11%.

see you in boston :)

things not to do

if you realize a couple steps into your run that the drawstring on your shorts no longer works, i do not recommend continuing to run. rather, turn around, go back home and put on a different pair and then start your run again. this is especially important when it is freezing outside and you can't feel your legs. if you can't feel your legs, you're not going to be able to feel your shorts sliding down a little too low (or just falling off) and that may lead to some general awkwardness. i avoided disaster this morning, but having to pull your shorts up every couple strides during a five mile run gets a little old after say the first block.

my entry for the bandera 50k went in this morning. trail running in january on the mainland--this should be a chilly, yet exciting adventure!

happy running :)

biking

I think the problem with Austin is that I have only be able to ride once since moving here...which is pretty crummy. This morning we had all the Tx4k-ers into Bicycle Sports Shop to be fit for their new rides. We will be getting Specialized Allez Elites. Check it out:

http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?sid=08Allez

We're also getting a pretty good deal on mountain bike shoes and SPD pedals...getting these is my excuse for getting into mountain biking. Look out world.

globe trotting

Winter vacation is almost upon us and this means globe trotting! I will be in Honolulu 12/17-12/24 then in San Francisco for a few days and then it is on to NYC for new years and adventures with the East Coast crew. If you'll be in any of those places, let me know.

In the meantime, I am occupying myself with calculations concerning nonlinear dynamics of gait. Six-dimensional state spaces watch out! Now if only Matlab would stop crashing...