My Homework #5

So my class hasn't been going as well this semester as semesters passed, so I really wanted to do well on the most recent homework assignment, HW5. However, this assignment was a programming assignment which generally means it will take longer than all the other assignments.

so I spent probably 20-some hours on it, including taking all of today off of work...but i have finished it and I hope to do well on it. this will help balance out the zero I got on the first assignment. well... we will see how it turns out... it being my grade. i was hoping to get a run in today, but the assignment thought otherwise. tomorrow morning though, I will definitely get some miles in. This upcoming sunday is the ugly mudder, which I am excited for... my first race since the marathon. I am definitely not what most would call prepared for the race, but it should work out ok assuming i don't do anything stupid. unless I get eaten by the enormous dog that was near the end of the last ugly mudder, there will be a race report coming early next week.

My Impressive Leaders

this past week, I was pretty happy with my running. I ran 4 days, which isn't what you would call impressive, but 3 of those were mornings before work, which I am very happy about. The total for the week was around 21 miles so it was quite an improvement over previous weeks, but hopefully the quick increase in miles won't cause more harm than good. we had a big snowstorm here this past weekend so i got a lot of shoveling in and my upper body is quite sore because of it. Hopefully the snow won't hamper the running too much, but if I slide back a bit this week, ohh well.

hmm... i saw the best news headline over the weekend. "VP Cheney Shoots Man". I figured this was some other VP cheney, but no... it was the second in command of our country. Impressive... Now I feel even more confident in our governments ability to run the military. not that accidents don't happen to me ever, but I still haven't shot anyone... and I am not even vice president... yet.

this isn't making any sense...

My Escape

So the last 4 days I spent enjoying the beautiful spring-like weather up in burlington vermont. I am pretty sure that this weather is a rarity this time of year, but kristin and I definitely enjoyed the beautiful weather. It was awesome to get away from all of the craziness that is life here for 4 days and enjoy the slower life for a while. i don't really know where I want to end up long term, but burlington, VT would certainly be on the list of possibles.

When I got back, I ran 5 miles at around 8:30 pace and I felt pretty good. My ankle has definitely improved since I started running again and it doesn't really bother me much at all. I don't know if that is because it has healed some or just that I totally ignore the pain now. either way... i am quite happy with the progress. i only ran like 7.5 miles this week which is pathetic but at least I am running. I am hoping this week I will get more like 15-20 miles again, but who knows.

My Recovery

So it has been about 3 months since my last blog posting and this hiatus has been due to a multitude of reasons, all involving alien abduction, but have returned to the the road, the trail, and the blog-sphere.

This past sunday, I ran about 7.25 miles according to the GMap pedometer (aka the sweetest free tool ever) and it was the first time I have felt good on a run since the marathon in november. I have been running somewhat regularly since Jan 1st, but i hadn't run any longer than 5 miles until this past sunday. I don't think I am in bad shape (not as good as I was last year), but I think the reasons I have felt like crap when running is more mental than physical. Yah, my ankle is still sore, but getting over the mental hump of not doing as well as I wanted to on the marathon was more of a challenge on these runs. After sundays run, I think i have finally moved on.

in the two months I wasn't running, i was supposedly resting my ankle, but the soreness was still there when i started running again around the first of the year. The doctor doesn't think the soreness is anything too serious and I can run on it, but if it starts to get worse, I should be concerned. i plan on testing it thoroughly in the first quarter of the year with the ugly mudder at the end of february and the caesar rodney half-marathon in mid-march. i did these races last year so it should be interesting to see how my fitness/racing prowess compares between this year and last. I imagine I am probably not in as good a shape as last year, but we will see. my butt is much sexier so maybe people will run behind me by choice so I will still finish well. who knows... who cares... apparently I am tired.