happy pi day!

first off, i'd like to wish everyone a very happy pi day! if that makes absolutely no sense to you, think about the date and the number pi. it has been the weirdest 8 days ever. in that short period of time, i've averaged less than 6 hours of sleep (if not less than 5) per night so as to maximize all the fun, so my apologies if this blog entry is all over the place.

i may or may not have started seeing someone in the last couple weeks and have been walking around daydreaming with what i am sure is a ridiculous smile on face ever since. spending time with this person has made me realize what a precarious balance my life has been in as far as getting all my work done for school, work or texas 4000. for that i am grateful. priorities have had to be rearranged and sometimes my work has just not gotten done on the timescale i normally demand of myself. i guess what people say is true...if you really want to, you can always find time for someone.

last week was the week leading up to spring break, which meant problem sets due in multiple classes...i had to brush up on obscure integration rules which is always thrilling. it also meant that the time had arrived for the texas 4000 spring break trip. we road from austin to corpus christi over the course of 3 days. we had great riding conditions the first day and camped in schertz, tx (just north of san antonio) that night. five of us (there were 40 total people who went) decided to forgo the tents in favor of a view of the stars. we all hopped into our mummy bags and settled down on a concrete slab on the campsite and commenced starwatching in the rather chilly, but still great out-of-doors. it was the best sleep i've had in who knows how long. it was cold outside and warm in my mummy bag, and the sky was beautifully clear. the next day we had a tough 100 mile ride from schertz to beeville, tx. there was a 30-knot (or more) headwind basically the entire way. only five us actually rode the whole 100 miles. during the second 25 miles, the wind was particularly tough. when i finished that stretch, i was ridiculously hungry, but knew that if the wind was that bad, i had to finish the whole day (the other option would have been to ride sag for a section of the ride, which most people did).

when we got into beeville, the other ride director, the asst. ride director and myself hopped in a car and headed to the grocery store to pick up some last minute necessities. we got back and continued helping to cook dinner and finally got everyone fed by 10 or 10:30p. this day in particular demonstrated (or why) being a ride director will give one a unique experience during the summer trip...the other director and i were the last ones to bed at night and the first ones awake in the morning. and when we're awake, we're mostly doing stuff for other people. we were both exhausted after that 100 mile ride, but were laughing at each other and how tired we looked. both of us were energized by it. i guess that's how we ended up in the positions we're in...and i think we're enjoying ourselves immensely.

the last day of the ride we rode from beeville to corpus. i was riding in the sag car all day since i hadn't driven at all earlier in the trip. it was a gorgeous day to ride--sunny with very little wind. the ride ended at the beach and we started loading the bikes into the trailer and onto cars for the trip back to austin. as we were doing so, over a period of 5 minutes, as storm blew in. the wind was blowing sand everywhere and stung like the dickens as it hit your legs. the trailer was shaking. the temperature dropped very quickly and it started hailing. during all this, we tried to get the rest of the bikes and gear into the trailers...and then realized that we still had 6 or 8 riders on the road...in fact, they were on the bridge into corpus. if what happened next is not a testament to teamwork, i don't know what is. we sent a few people in cars to go 'rescue' the riders and their bikes while finishing packing the trailer and getting all the remaining riders into cars and over to the nearest whataburger. everyone pitched in and volunteered to do whatever needed to be done. i think the 2008 team was tested and they definitely passed as far as i'm concerned. we can always look back and see what we could have done better, but i personally was very glad to be in that situation with that group of people.

the ride back to austin was comparatively uneventful, though involved a session of belting out boyz2men songs at the top of our lungs and getting nostalgic for middle school dances (good music, but boy am i glad i'm not in middle school anymore). a few of us went out for drinks that night with the director of the organization and some of the 2004 riders. it was fun to recount the events of the weekend and see what other people thought about it all.

the next day, i made a spur of the moment decision to head to dallas with one of my housemates...instead of being responsible and going to lab. i spent the night in an area called southlake, which it turns out is the hometown of a bunch of current and previous texas 4000 riders. go figure. and i love meeting friends' families. families are just so cool.

i was only in dallas for a day and got back to austin at around 2a on thursday morning. after less than 3 hours of sleep i was up again and off to work in san antonio. work is going well. i now have data on 9 of 12 subjects for the study i'm presently conducting.

so that has been the last 8 or so days. i'm looking forward to sleeping this weekend...hopefully more than 5 or 6 hours a night. my training schedule has been weird the last two weeks. i need to get into my routine again and be running a bit more. boston is just around the corner and i'd like to be able to qualify there for 2009. i guess we'll see what happens.