Time to visit the doctor

Yeah, so I was doing real well for a whole week and a half with the running comeback. Then, one day when I was in Austin, while out for a nice cold morning run, my knee starting hurting pretty bad again. I took 5 weeks off, then on my 5th run of approx 3 miles in length, the pain was back.

The appt with the orthopedic is next Friday. I hope it's something that can be fixed easily. I'm sick of not being able to run.

5!

Joe should be shaking in his boots. (Or running shoes or Manolos or whatever)

My long run is up to 5 whole miles! 5!

So yeah, today I dragged my ass out of bed and met with my running group for the first time in like months. Because really, it isn't worth it to meet my group when I am running such short distances. Especially in winter when I would rather wait until mid day to run instead of the crack of dawn.

Since I don't wear my Garmin, I'm not sure how fast I went (since there was some creative route adjustment due to a locked gate). Somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 min/miles. So yeah, not speedy, but I'm building here! I can do 2.5 miles at sub-10 min/miles, but 3 is still elusive.

In other news, I ran five days in the last week, got my ass kicked in spinning class on monday, lifted twice, didn't even celebrate Thanksgiving, and gained a pound.

Seriously.

It's muscle, right? Right?!

Unintentional bloggy meetup!

So today was the Living History Farms cross country race. Last year was a blast, but since my "long runs" are four miles these days, I decided to abstain and just volunteer (although being undertrained doesn't stop the vast majority of the runners of this race...)

My job was to hand out the chips. This is the first year they used chips. I'm actually sort of curious how well it worked, considering everyone's feet are submerged in water at least once during this race.

Anyway, this year I got to stay dry and just cheer for people and ring some cowbell. I was cheering for the folks from my running group when, lo and behold! Along comes Miss Allycat! We chatted it up for a bit after the race. I am pretty sure there was a commitment in there to come down and run for doughnuts next year...

In my own personal running news, I suck! Okay, maybe not royally, but I have been lazy lately. But the National Half Marathon in DC in March is tenatively on the plate. And I have some Jewish computer nerd ass to kick. So I better get crackin'!

The comeback continues

I've been running every other day for the last week, and I'm feeling pretty good. I feel a little sluggish because I took so much time off, but my knee doesn't hurt and I'm able to continue with the heel strike stride without falling back into running on my toes, so I guess so far so good.

I am going to be in Austin for the next week for a conference for work. I am hoping to get up and run in the mornings before heading off to the show. When I looked at the weather, it's supposed to be in the 60s, to which I thought, "Sweet!" until I looked closer, and found that at 6 a.m., it's supposed to be 35. What the hell?! 35 at 6 a.m. and 65 at 3 p.m.? What's wrong with this place? Oh well.

I was looking at a calendar today, and noticed that, should D and I manage to pull off the New Zealand trip, the race is 14 weeks from tomorrow. Guess it's about time to start getting serious about training. It's a good thing D's been a grad student for the last bazillion years. She's quite used to being schooled, so the race should feel pretty natural for her.

Back on the horse

4 weeks since Chicago, 3 visits with the chiropractor, buying orthotics and new shoes, I decided it was time to get back in the saddle, so I went for a run today. I only went around 1.5 miles, mostly because I simply wanted to test my sea legs out (I'm all about mixing metaphors, it helps keep my enemies confused). After about five minutes, my knee twinged a little, but a few minutes later, it was gone. Overall, I felt pretty good.

I went to the running store the other day and got fitted for some new shoes that weren't specifically designed for toe runners, as my old ones were. I gotta say, with the new shoes and orthotics, the heel strike stride feels pretty good.

Here's hoping I'm on the road to recovery, ready to give D a run for her money if we make it to New Zealand.

Cruisin'

Oh so one thing I didn't mention about this job offer...

Wait, I shouldn't even say I have an offer until I actually have the formal offer. I feel like will jinx it or something. The guy I will be working for is a Pretty Big Name and I am still afraid when I talk to him that I will say something stupid and he will rescind my informal offer.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. While the position wouldn't start until the end of the summer, I do have to go on a cruise for the month of April.

Now "cruise" would probably be the euphemism of the year.

I am pretty sure there will be no fruity cocktails.

Instead there will be 12 hour work days for 25 days straight and sea sickness drugs and lots of science.

And so this will be my home:


I don't know if you can really quite tell from the photo, but the boat is 185 ft long.

What does this have to do with running at all?

Well, this is totally going to eff up any spring marathon plans.

Unless there is a treadmill somewhere on board, a 50 m long boat is not conducive to training.

Can you imagine? I would have to do 50 laps just to do a 5k! Oh my God, I think my brain would explode if I had to do an actual long run!

Add to that the 12 hour work day, which is mostly physical labor.

The cruise really is a solid 25 days at sea. I might be able to pull off a late summer half-IM like I had hoped. Well, I guess in some ways this is good - I can just focus on getting back into good running shape. Maybe I'll see if I can find a March half-marathon somewhere and aim to finally break 2:10...

Oh yeah, so there is a blog here...

So I haven't been writing much because well... I haven't been running all that much.

Total slacker! I know!

But this weekend I did go running.

In Austin.

With fellow scientist who blogs, Tammy (well, who used to blog, but stopped, which is why I didn't link to her).

I ran a whole 2.3 miles. Crazy!

Next thing you know, I'll be running a 5k or something!

Baby steps, Danielle. Don't get ahead of yourself.

So we ran, and then we ate breakfast outside at Austin Java, where a bird pooped her in coffee and another bird pooped on me personally. Twice.

So I realized I haven't posted anything since the middle of October. Here would be the highlights, very few of which have anything to do with running:

* I turned 31 on Mole Day. Me and Avogadro are totally homies.

* I spent my birthday week out in the wind, cold, and rain on my lake, all in the name of science. Good times! Here is me looking very sciencey while mixing up our dye:

* I found out my sister is moving to New Zealand at the end of the month. This was completely independent of my scheming. And I applied for a travel grant to go to a conference in NZ in February. I think I have Joe convinced to go gallivant around NZ for a bit afterwards and told him to find us a race. He found us this one and really what better way is there to spend Valentine's Day than trying to leave your friend in the dust? We are tied at 1-1 for who beats who at the HM distance. Of course, my only chance is if he is injured, so you better watch out... If anyone wants to come NZ, join in the fun!

* I went to Austin to visit one of my best friends from college! Like our college days, we did a few things, but mostly hung out on the couch and watched TV and ate leftover Halloween candy. She was in the hospital for like a month this summer and is still recovering, so she gets tired quickly. The point of the visit was to see her after her bout with pancreatitis, where her lungs and kidneys also decided to shut down and pretty much she is only alive because she is still young, so I wasn't going down for an excitement filled weekend.

* On the way back, I had an Iowa bonding moment with the six of us in the back of the plane recounting funny stories about things like asking us if we grow potatoes and confusing us with Ohio and pretty much how we get no respect. Then to top off the conversation, the flight attendent came over the announcement system and pronounced Des Moines as "Dez Moin-ez" and we all started laughing hysterically.

As an aside, why do people have such a hard time with Des Moines and Illinois? Did you not take 5th grade geography? I am from Massachusetts and I have ALWAYS known how to pronounce Des Moines and Illinois!

And yesterday.

What can I say about yesterday?

I worked for Obama as a poll reporter in the morning and then knocked doors all afternoon. After turning red in 2004, Iowa didn't let me down this year. I have always kidded that I would only move to a blue state (IA was blue when I moved here), and Obama just gave me a whole heck of a lot more new states to move to.

Although that is all pretty irrelevant, since yesterday morning I got a job offer in Seattle, which is in a consistently blue state. I have a month to decide, but I am not going to hear from NSF regarding New Zealand until March and that fellowship has about a 20% funding rate. Wellington has mountains and ocean, but then again, so does Seattle. The only thing Seattle is missing is the boys with cute accents - unless you count the Canadians there and their funny way of saying "about."

So yeah, yesterday was quite eventful!

On an amusing post-election day note, I leave you with this:


PS The Obama office here is trying to get rid of a crapload of Obama posters, stickers, etc etc. If there is anyone who is not in a swing state who wants some schwag, let me know!