Before I head off to bed

Alright, I'm wrapping up the last week of these stupid midnight-8am shifts. I did manage to sleep a couple hours before coming to work, but I'm still pretty tired so hopefully this is at least half-way coherent.

Yesterday Leah and I stayed home from work since I knew that I would be coming in for these shifts and I didn't really want to be at work for 24 hours (I love work as much as the next physicist, but...). She went to our other apartment to take advantage of our super-fast computer and I went to use the wireless at a cafe. Sadly, our favorite coffee shop, Cafe Ballou, is closed on Wednesday so I had to head over to this other place, Cafe Zori. This place couldn't possibly be more Ukraniane.

I just ordered coffee to start off and the lady gave me a nice big cup, simultaneously pushing the cream and sugar in my direction. I thanked her and started grabbing for my coffee when she frowned and asked if I didn't want cream and sugar. I assured her, no, I take it black. She looked very concerned and asked if I was sure. When I assured her I was, she offered to make my coffee stronger with an extra shot of expresso. Other than the extra expresso shot, I'm fairly sure I've had the exact same conversation at Leah's Ukranian Grandmother's house. Oh those Ukranians.

(hmm, that story sounded more interesting in my head. sorry about that)

Anyway, Leah and I worked separately before combining our efforts at the Bucktown library to tackle this coding problem that was driving her crazy. Honestly, thinking about it started to make my head hurt. Eventually, though, Leah triumphed over her code and the error was discovered. Basically, the problem was that pointers are evil, and I'll leave it at that.

Code bugs vanquished and the afternoon growing late, it was time to run. We have 9 miles with 5x1000 meters at our 5 k pace. This was, to say the least, terrifying. I was honestly concerned about getting through this run.

We did the usual, running down Augusta/Chicago to the track over by Lakeshore Drive and then walked about a lap to get ready. Then we were off! The first one was kind of hard, but I think that's because we were a little fast at 4:17. Our goal was around 4:30 for each kilometer, so we agreed to slow it down for the next one (and my lungs were thankful). In the end, the splits were as follows (between each, we walked for 45 seconds and then jogged for 1:15 minutes):

1 k: 4:17
2 k: 4:30
3 k: 4:26
4 k: 4:29
5 k: 4.37

Neither of us could understand how the last one could possibly have been that much slower than the rest, but maybe we were just tired. All in all though, we were both really proud to hit the pace so well and feel that we did them about perfectly. In the end, the first and third ones were hard, but the other laps weren't so bad.

We then jogged 2.5 k back to make an even 15k, which is right around 9.3 miles. A great run, I have to say. We then stopped at a really expensive sandwich place to get a drink, hopped on the 66 bus, and were home in time to eat and fall asleep watching the Cubs play really bad baseball. And after that? Well, I'm here. Boo.

Okay, my relief should be here soon and then I'm gonna grab me some air mattress.