really done

the marathon went pretty well yesterday. my final time was 3:33:50, which is an 8:10/mile pace. at the half, i was on pace to run a pr...and then we turned and started heading south. there was a fairly ridiculous headwind, which was so strong people were actually drafting off of each other. i would like to take a moment to remind the ready that we were RUNNING. if there were cyclists, they probably would not have been cycling much faster than we were running. anywho, i felt like i was dragging pretty much the entire second half of the race, so that wasn't much fun. however, i'm qualified for boston 2010, which is good. my knee didn't bother me at all during the race, and its feeling fine now, which is also good. my legs aren't as sore as they have been in the past after a hard marathon either...yeah!

in dallas i stayed with becca, a friend from the ride this summer, and it was great to be able to catch up. then today i had lunch with todd, another friend from the ride. its funny because i spent such a huge amount of time with all these people last year and over the summer, and have seen very few of them in the months since returning to austin. it leaves me with a feeling sometimes of, did that even happen? was it all a dream? but catching up with them is like seeing a friend i haven't seen in a long time (as opposed to just a few months). its fun.

my roommates and i were planning to ride the trail of lights in zilker park this evening...however its been in the 30s all day and now its starting to rain. so let's suffice it say the plan has gotten nixed. if its below 40 and raining, none of us want to be riding. the tacky christmas sweater party we through on friday was a success...although i've decided its more fun to go to end-of-the-term parties when you don't have to go to bed early to get up to race or drive to a race and you can stay up talking to people.

done!!

i'm done with finals! yeah!

on a completely unrelated note, it snowed here last night, and when i woke up this morning there was still snow on the roof of the building just outside my window! brrr....despite this, weather.com is predicting mid-70s for this weekend with lows in the low 60s...perfect marathon weather!

the studyfest continues with just over 24 hours to go before my final. i'm antsy as all get out. this is the first year in six years that i haven't had a marathon to run BEFORE my final(s). generally at this time of year, i start tapering during the last week of classes, which is convenient because there are lots of deadlines and i need more time to work. then, i get to race and recovering from the race makes me want to sit and study. the late thanksgiving holiday this year messed with the schedule, although as i'm able to sleep 9 hours a night right now, i can't complain too much.

i saw the doctor today and got cleared to run on sunday with the understanding that i was to recover properly afterwards for the sake of my knee. she seems to think the bump is going to go away and that the irritation is due to having moved everything a tad out of place when i fell. she said i can ski...as long as i don't fall. i'm looking forward to sunday, but i can tell i'm still in the midst of a taper because my legs feel heavy when i run.

for the anatomy nerds, here was the interesting thing from that visit that i hadn't noticed. your muscles can start to atrophy (shrink) after 72 hours if not used. my muscles have been shrinking all fall just because i've been running so much (some people have fat and skinny jeans...i have cycling and running jeans because my legs are different sizes depending on which i'm doing more of). well, dr. merket and i sat and looked at my vastus medialis and vastus lateralis (two sections of your quad located on the "inside" and "outside" of your thigh, respectively). though you have to look closely and know what your'e looking for to see it, my right side is visably smaller than my left now. despite not taking time off to recover from falling, the muscle on the injured side still atrophied. i must have been using it differently than i was before. spending time in the gym and on my bike will fix the problem in no time, but i was pretty shocked to see that my muscle could change that much in a month despite not decreasing my activity level.

happy finals week to all! and now back to studying...

don't worry be happy

we'll i figured out why being around my roommates makes me happy. happiness is apparently contagious. apparently the researchers in the article are also doing an experiment on facebook too looking at who smiles in their profile pictures. within my own network of friends the trend is quite interesting--the people i hang out with the most all have smiling pictures, which is what they predict.

its been nothing but studying the last couple days and i'm still going strong. i finally bought my plane tickets for winter break. i'll be in sf 12/18-1/6, so if you're there during those times, let me know. i'll be bringing a bike with me so if you're in town and want to ride, that would be swell.

six more days until dallas.

congrats to julia and chris!

my little brother and his girlfriend got engaged today! i'm very excited for them!

before that excitement today, there was other completely unrelated fun to be had. brooke, jason and i went on a bike ride down to buda. on the way back we stopped at the cathedral of junk, a fortress made of, well, junk, in south austin. vince, the creator and owner, was home at the time too, so we got to talk to him for awhile about his creation. basically, it started as a shrine, of sorts, and then it got bigger. now people bring him stuff to use. the structure itself is multi-level and has just about everything you can imagine it--from old skiis and car fenders to cds, computers and bottles. its impressive. the next time i go, i'll try to bring a camera.

ut winter graduation was also today, so now i'm off for graduation celebrations. i would like to be able to say 'go mizzou!' but i was reading the paper this morning and discovered that if ou wins, it would likely mean texas went to the fiest bowl...to play ohio state. that is a game i have been wanting to see for the last year and a half. i think i will have to do some pretty deep soul searching about where my alliances lie though. i grew up in buckeye country, but never went to ohio state and now i'm in school at texas, but not from here. maybe i should cut two shirts in half and sew them together...blend my worlds.

final stretch

all i have left is to print out and turn in a paper tomorrow and one final next week. yeah! tomorrow is basically holiday parties and master's presentations. funny how that works.

i made an appointment to see the doctor again about my knee. let's suffice it say that it hasn't gotten better and i think its becoming more sore. as someone who studies walking, this is sending chills through my spine and thoughts of not being able to run 50 years from now. not good. the bump hasn't gone away, and i think it might be starting to rub my femur (thigh bone) the wrong way. so i'm going to try and get them to x-ray and mri the heck out of it and tell me exactly what's happening. all i can feel is that something is wrong. hopefully this doesn't me i can't run the marathon in a week and half, but i suppose that would be small price to pay.

anyone interested in roadtripping from austin to sf in december? or the reverse in january? i was doing a cost-benefit analysis and with gas prices as they are right now, it costs about as much to drive as to fly. however, i've been thinking about taking one of the bikes i have here to sf with me and i would want to bring both it and my skiis back in january...which would get rather expensive. i suppose i'll worry more about this next week though when i'm actually done with the term.

party in the moonlight, dance until the sunrise

unfortunately that's not what i've been doing lately. its the last week of classes and i'm trying to finish my two term projects. this should be easy, yeah? well, i was sitting in the airport sunday night waiting for my flight back to texas and working on one of my papers. my power adaptor fell off the arm rest of the chair i was sitting in and all of a sudden, both the adaptor and my computer went black...and my computer wouldn't turn back on. i almost had a heart attack. i let my computer rest for about 15 minutes, at which point it still wouldn't turn on, so i started calling people i knew who might have some idea of what happened. while on the phone with my brother i decided to just take the battery out and put it back in (i didn't blow on it though). whatever was wrong was solved by this remove and return to previous position technique.

last night, i got home from class and am all set to work and then my adaptor stops working. less than 45 minutes later, at 8:45p, my laptop battery runs out. i sigh, hoping i can fix my adaptor, but it doesn't start working again until sometime this morning. in the interim, i realized that i hadn't emailed myself the most recent version of the paper, and thus, all my work was on a computer that couldn't turn on. well, the adaptor magically worked today during class when i needed it too. whew!

last weekend was both a good and a bad thing. it was nice to see friends from college; however, it also made me grateful for something i had been not liking for the last couple months. i had wanted time (if only a few days) to chill out before school had started but i didn't get it. well, being away from here made me realize what that would have been like. i'd have had time to think. not good. i brood over things, which is a terrible habit, and going non-stop with school and being constantly doing something with my roommates has actually been really good for me.

i did a brief cost-benefit analysis of plane tickets for winter break the other day. the result was that i think i should just drive to california. that way i can take a bike with me and bring both the bike and my skiis back with me in january. it might take a bit longer to drive, but i could stop a couple places along the way and maybe actually get to see zion national park...or stop in colorado and ski too! the mainland made me restless again. go figure.

i'm focusing. really, i am.