Running in Washington

The last week saw me in Washington D.C. I went to our nation's capitol to talk to congressmen about the president's FY 2007 budget which includes a nice increase for the Office of Science. I thought it was really excellent that you can make an appointment to talk to our representatives and then fly to Washington, walk into their offices and have a 15 minute meeting. I don't know how many other countries you can do that in. I found out about DOE, NSF and AAAS fellowships that will put you into a congressional office for 1 year.....could be a fun opportunity....perhaps.....Anyways onto the vacation/running report. It's a bit long so to skip all the fluff I have put the running stuff in purple italics so if you are just interested in that go ahead and skip down. As usual click the pictures for a bigger version.

My flight left Chicago on Tuesday at 12 pm. Of course for my insane self....I must be at the airport mega early to catch my flight...I was at O'Hare at 9:30 am. This is not actually my fault as I planned for both traffic on the way and long lines at the airport. Of course there was neither and it took me roughly 30 minutes to get from my front door to the gate. Well I got a lot of reading done which was nice.

I was flying with 3 other Fermi Lab people and after we all got to the hotel and changed....there was a Pepsi incident on the airplane, the three graduate students and some california people decided to walk around and do some sight seeing. We were staying about 3/4 of a mile from the White House so we walked by there and then down to the Washington monument. On the way home we found the Einstein Monument and how do 5 physics nerds resist stopping for a group photo.....well we do not. We did however get 5 cameras to take an automatic picture at the same time...it was funny trying to get that going. Alright everyone press start, now run into the picture. It actually came out pretty nice.

On Wednesday we had our first day of meetings. We started at the University Research Association (URA) office to get any last minute information and then headed to Capitol Hill for meetings. I had meetings at 11am, 1 pm, 2:30pm, 3:30pm, and 4pm. Most of these went really well. There was always two of us meeting with a staffer person. I realized quickly that all these staffers were my age and so I thought about my meetings as if I was talking to one of my friends about what it is I exactly do and why it is important. This worked pretty well and I found out that the staffer from Congressman Visclosky's office (NW indiana) grew up about a block away from where my grandparents and then aunt & uncle lived. He was also a fellow Indiana graduate and so I felt very comfortable talking to him about the issues at hand. After all the meetings were over I realized that my feet were quite hurting me so I decided to take a cab back to the hotel because I wanted to get a run in before meeting the rest of my group for dinner.

It was a really beautiful late afternoon when I started the run. I thought for kicks I would time the run just to see where I was at. The running schedule had called for a tempo run for that day, but I figured that I had done enough walking around and such and just went out to enjoy myself. I ran to the mall area and around the Washington mounument and looked toward the Capitol building and thought that's not too far. I ran all the way there and up the stairs and looked back out towards the mall. It was really beautiful, so I stopped for a second and stretched. There was a gentleman trying to take a picture of himself in front of the Capitol so I offered to take the picture for him. I started to head back to my hotel and thought that I would run around the White House and take Pennslyvania avenue back. I was probably about 10 minutes away from the White House when I looked up and saw 3 huge helicopters heading that way. If I was just a bit earlier I think I would have been able to see the President getting out of the helicopters....ah well. I headed back up around the white house, up Pennsylvania avenue, and to the hotel. I hit stop on my watch and look at it and see that I had been running for an hour. Nice. I just checked on Google Earth and I think the run was probably a little over 6 miles.

On Thursday we had a whole day of meetings. I only had 4 meetings scheduled so I had tons of time during the day where there wasn't much to do. My poor feet were killing me so I didn't want to walk to far away from the buildings where my meetings were. I had my first meeting on the Senate side, then a meeting on the House side and then back to the Senete for 2 more meetings. The last two meetings that I had were an hour apart but in the same building. So meeting one went really good, and afterwards I went and got a Diet Coke with the guy that was my partner at the meeting figuring I had tons of time.

So I get to the room where the office is and the Senator's name is not on the door. SHIT. He must have moved and the meeting is in about 15 minutes. All around these buildings are signs that say where everyones office is, so I quickly walk out of the office and look for one of the signs. Of course there is not one anywhere in sight. I walk around the corner and see one of the signs at the end of a super long hallway. So I walk super fast to the sign, find the senator that I should be seeing and realize that he is 3 buildings away. I ask the security guard the fastest
way to get there and he says to go through the basement (all the buildings are connected through these underground tunnels). So I have about 10 minutes at this point so I get to the basement and start running, in the heels which are breaking my poor feets. I realize that this is stupid so do I stop? No, I take off the shoes and start really running. People were looking at me like I was insane. I get to the elevator at the end of the middle building, just catch it and everyone in the elevator laughs at me because, well, I look ridiculous. In the end I got to the meeting with a few minutes to spare.

The group I had traveled with had a photograph planned for 6:30 pm on the steps of the Supreme Court. My last meeting ended around 4pm so I didn't quite have enough time to go back to the hotel run and get back for the picture. However, I did go back to the hotel changed and walked all the way back to the Supreme court. I would say that this would be about 3 miles or so. We ended wanting the picture in front of the capitol so it was back around to the other side. We took the picture and then the group seperated for dinner. I fell into bed that night like a sack of potatoes.

I woke up around 9am and the bottoms of my feet felt bruised. I stuffed them into some shoes and went downstairs for breakfast. I contemplated not doing anything until it was time to get ready for my meeting but that's really not my thing, so I head back upstairs, but on some running clothes, shove the feet into my shoes and head out. Boy am I happy that I did. It was such a beautiful & warm day out. Although everything below the waist was sore it felt really good to be running. That mornings run took me past the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and I believe the WW2 memorial. This run was not as long as the one I had taken earlier, but I had to get back to the hotel to get ready and check out.

It was so fun running in Washington D.C. I love running in towns that I don't live in because it forces me to think about whether or not I would even want to live there. It makes it feel like home since running is such a normal thing that I do here at home. I loved Washington and will think about applying for jobs here when that time comes.

The Running Report

(from the guy who's not running)

I've taken another day off since my leg is still hurting. It is starting to feel better, but
since it wouldn't support my weight very well going down the stairs, I figured it would be better not to push it. Tomorrow I'll probably try and do a walk/run if it is feeling reasonably okay. I've been using Icy/Hot on it and icing and that seems to be helping.

Leah's in DC right now persuading Congress that science is the new hotness. From what she's told me, it sounds like things are going quite well. Hopefully she'll get to bring home some of that science money she's trying to convince the govenment types to hand over.

Apparently she also went on a run up Pennsylvania Avenue and into the Mall area and had a great time. Nice work keeping up with the runs, especially after a day walking around in heels! She ran for an hour because it was so great she didn't want to stop. Nice work, Leah. Hopefully she'll fill in some details when she gets back.

I ran yesterday too!

What are the odds of that?

Anyway, I just wanted to mention something troublesome that happened towards the end of my run yesterday. With about 200 yards to go in our "run around the ring," my left leg went all gimpy. The pain was shooting through my outer shin/upper ankle area and my leg would no longer fully support me and so I started limping a bit. I hobbled/walked for a few feet until I could get my legs back under me and then finished the rest of the run.

I've had something of this sort happen before where my leg started to feel weak, as if it might give out. However, it has never actually given out before. Now, today, I have these shooting pains up the outer shin area of my left leg. I'm not even sure if shooting is the exact right word as it is more like waves of throbbing pain. Sort of hard to describe other than the fact that this is actual pain and definitely not soreness. It doesn't hurt more or less if I walk on it or rest it and my leg doesn't hurt to the touch. It seems like it might be a nerve thing, but I really don't know.

Has anyone every experienced this or heard of this sort of problem? Is there anything to do besides the usual icing/resting formula? Help would definitely be appreciated!

Runnin' The Ring (again)

Yesterday was, as usual, a long day at the lab. I had a 9:00 am meeting and so needed to catch the 7:40 train, which means in my insanity to be everywhere 20 minutes early, I had to leave at 6:30am.....which means that I woke up at 5:30 am. We had a volleyball game at 8:30 pm...ugh. I wanted to get a run in yesterday because I didn't think I would be able to run today and I am going to be so freakin' busy in DC over the next few days that it might be tough to even get runs in...but I am going to really really try. So we ran around the ring at Fermi Lab this is about a 3.75 mile run. Things felt good for the most part...as usual a little bit of a sore shin but nothing that stopped the run.

We'll see how my shins/feet do after this week since I have to be in "fancy" clothes which includes non running shoe attire.

How's the Running?

It's going good!! I haven't posted in awhile but have had a good weekend of running. On Friday the boy and I worked at home and we ran 3 easy miles in the afternoon. Not too fast, not too slow just right. Friday evening we went downtown because I had to get grownup clothes for my upcoming trip to Washington D.C. (not as fun as getting jeans and cute skirts at the Gap.)

Saturday morning we were planning on doing 3 miles at pace. We had to stop by the place to get neighborhood parking permits because my friend was coming into town in the afternoon and so didn't know for sure how far we would run. We decided to run faster than normal, but not too fast...we tried to find a comfortable stride and stick with it for the full run. I think we did a good job of this. We got home around 11 and frantically cleaned our apartment because my friend Corey and her son were coming over at around 12:30. Our cat Dagny was a big hit with little Aaron, but she didn't think he was so great she just looked at him like, "Are you freakin' kidding me with this?"We had a great time with them, walking around the city. We went to Goose Island for lunch and then headed to Ethel's Chocolate shop for coffee and desert.

On Sunday we ran 6.5 miles. The scheudule called for a 5K race but because we were so screwed up last week we decided to run 6.5 in order to be inbetween the 6 miles last week and the 7 planned for this upcoming Sunday.

Other than that we had a good city weekend walking around plenty, stopping for Garrett's Popcorn and I even found a pant suit with pants that were long enough (always a great find for a gal who's almost 6' tall). Tomorrow I leave for Washington DC and hopefully will be able to find time to get a run or two in. I think it'll be totally fun to run in DC so hopefully my busy schedule will allow it.

1/4 Miles Not THE 1/4 mile

First a little background info:

When I was in high school I ran the 1/4 mile in Track and Field. That's all I did. I ran the 1/4 in the medly relay, the open quarter and then the final leg of the mile relay. I once asked my coach if I could perhaps try and run hurdles, he looked at me like I had a second head and said, "Leah, think about what you just asked me." and walked away. So I was pretty fast in high school. My senior year I went to the state compition in the open quarter mile and placed somewhere in the top 25 people in the state. Not bad. (I had one race below 60 seconds and yes I will be riding those coat tails for the rest of my life :-) )

Jason and I are now starting to incorporate speedwork into our training plan. Yesterday we ran six quarter miles which was supposed to be at a 5K pace. We decided to try and run them in 1:50 as this would be close to our 8K pace at the shamrock shuffle last year. However, my mind reels back to 1997 and I go, ready start......RUN RUN RUN YOUR ASS OFF!!! I couldn't slow down to 1:50. Not that I was very fast either but we had the following splits :1:39, 1:33, 1:38, 1:38, 1:38, 1:36. So we were consistent just a little faster than what a 5K would be for us.

Anyways, it was a good workout and running the two blocks worked out well. Man did I sleep well last night....probably because I could barely move. We have an easy 3 miles either today or tomorrow. We will pass our corner bar on the way home tonight which is serving dollar beers....and we are working at home tomorrow...it might work better to run tomorrow.

Feet Like Feathers

Do you people realize that it is not summer yet. I hate the month of March because I so want it to be spring and it's so not even close. The next 10 days on weather.com have the temps in the 30's & 40's. It's just so annoying as winter closes out because it can never quite do it in a timely maner.

Jason and I are now taking trains/walking to work so we tend to notice weather more than if we are just driving. As the temperatures rise we will start to rid our bikes downtown to the train station instead taking the subway which ends up being much faster or at least much more consistent because it always takes about 30 minutes to get down there. We are also considering trying to move downtown but coordinating a sublet on our place and finding a place we can afford in a month might be tough....but perhaps it could be done.

In about a month we will start detector shifts here at the lab. Better known as Data AQuisition (DAQ) shifts and I am going to have put on a happy face for 4 months to get through them. The schedule for these shifts is one week on (all 7 days of the week...no weekends off) two weeks off. There are then three types of shifts Day, Nite and Owl. So your first week is 8am - 4pm, then two weeks off, then a week of 4pm-midnight, two weeks off, then one week of midnight-8am. Then repeat that set of three one more time. It ends up being 4 months total. So ok ok, maybe not so bad but there are two of us on these shifts and unfortunatly we have it set up as I'm on for a week, then jason for a week then a week off. In short (maybe I should have just started with this) we will be here 14 days every 21 days. So scheduling life and runs and commuting is going to be a nightmare...but I already have a matrix working that should work as good as it can with the scheudule the way it is.

The question is, do we try and train for a fall marathon? Still working on that one. We will totally keep running, but I don't know if we can keep on with the disipline of a marathon training program. I am guessing we'll try it for the first few weeks and see how it goes.

Ramble a litte more shall I? No? Ok then, onto last nights run. We had a 3.5 easy run and it went great! I was worried since we had been out of the house for about 12 hours, but it ended up going really well. I had no pain on my legs, my breathing was awesome and it was a run where it was a shame it had to end. Ok this might sound really really stupid but I think that if I wear thinner socks my legs hurt less. I wonder if thicker socks are forcing my feet some how in my shoes and hence causing me to run a bit stiffer? I don't know just an observation of the last few weeks.

Tonight is another session of speedy quarter miles. I had always heard that in Chicago there are 8 blocks to a mile. I measured two blocks using www.favoriterun.com and sure enough 2 blocks is .26 miles. So we will just run loops around our apartment. Run two blocks, walk one-two blocks, run two and so on. We have 6 repeats so we'll see how this works out.

wE mAde iT!!!!

After a week of craziness it's all over. So let's recap the last few days. We woke up around 3 on Friday afternoon, took a couple of one hour naps and went to bed at 2am sunday morning. Woof.

That's right. Woof.

Last night the graduate student association had organized a formal winter ball that we went too. I was so tired that I wasn't looking too forward to it but once I found some nice clothes to wear (in the back corner of my closet) and got my hair all done (not in a pony tail!) I had woken up enough to get through the night. The music was all ballroom dancing music which I don't do so I didn't dance at all, but I did meet a lot of new people which was tons of fun. We had to help clean up and ended up leaving around 1:30 am and got home around 2am. I think I was asleep by 2:03 am.

And what time did you get up you ask?

4 pm!!!!!!!! That's 14 hours of sleep!!!

Whew. After we were up for about 1 1/2 hours we went out for a 6 mile run. Of course I was worried since I had been horizonal for so long but it ended up going ok. Slow but ok. We were very excited when we realized that one of the water fountains along the lake front path was still turned on. The water runs continuasly so it doesn't freeze and holy crap that water tasted good! It was super cold and I love love love Chicago water. So that hit at about 3.5 miles and revitalized the last 2.5 miles of the run.

So the end of a long week ends well. I am looking forward to getting back on track with a more consistent schedule this week. We'll continue to take the train so gotta get everything organized including eating a bit better on a day to day basis.

I almost see the light

Alright just about another 30 hours and I will be done with this crazy schedule. I have to work shift tonight from midnight - 6am but then I have a meeting at Fermi Lab from 9:30 -12:30. After that we'll drive home and sleep for a couple hours and then we are going to this formal dance type thing that I helped organize. There is a dinner at 6pm and then the dancing ball goes from 8 till about midnight. After that we'll drive home and crash! (not the car, but ourselves into bed)

So I will only miss one run this week which I think is not too bad considering the schedule I have had. Tomorrow the schedule calls for a 3 mile pace run which doesn't fit anywhere unless we forgo a few hours of sleep, which I think would be a bad idea. However, we will be able to get the long run of 6 miles in on Sunday and then perhaps even we can run three miles on monday before we play volleyball or something.

In other fun news, my dad and step mom are coming to watch the Indy Mini in may! I don't know if I have mentioned but they live on a sailboat and are currently in the Florida area. It's always exciting when they can come home for a few days and very exciting that they'll be here to watch the race. Helps me stick to the schedule for sure.

So today (what day is it?) we got home around 8:30am and I worked for another hour on a plot that I screwed up the night before and wanted to send my advisor the correct one before I layed down. We slept until about 3 and then from about 4-5:30. THEN we got up off our butts and got out there for about 3.2 miles. It felt great to get out there and I was happy that I pushed myself out there.

Below I just have some pictures of the electronics that are reading the detector I am working on. The detector is a prototype muon detector that could be used at a new detector called the International Linear Collider or ILC. The wiring is ridiculous at Fermi Lab and this is just an example. Click on the image to see the full size (the full ridiculousness)

Got It Done

Whew. That's all I can say. Jason woke up at 5:30 Wednesday morning and I woke up at 7am. We went to bed at 7:30 am Thursday morning. woof. I totally passed out on the training coming home from the lab, which was funny because I woke up when we got to the city and my neck hurt because I was sitting in some ridiculous position. I slept until about 2 in the afternoon, Jason until about 2:45 or so.

Today was the first time we were going to try and do a tempo run. All these "fancy" runs are very new to us as I am sure I have mentioned before that all we have done is gone out there and plodded through whatever distance was listed for that day. So today we warmed up around the block first and stretched and then did the following. 10 minutes easy running, then for the next 10 minutes we picked up the pace every 2 minutes. At 20 minutes we held that pace (the fastest we would go) for 1 minute and then slowed down a bit for another 4 minutes. At this point we were pretty winded and our legs were not moving very fast. My original plan was then going to be to easy run for 5 minutes, but decided to walk instead. So we walked for about 5-6 mintues, ran for about 10 minutes and then walked the rest of the way home. I was dissapointed that I wasn't able to run that 5 minutes after the speedy running but then realizing what I had done to my body over the last few days I realized it wasn't a big deal and I was out there and that was something.

I have to mention the gracefullness that is Jason. We were only about 8 minutes into the run and are just cruising along and then all of a sudden Jason trips on the sidewalk and stumbles, but not just stumbles he completly falls onto the ground rolling around. Of course I am laughing hysterically (shut up i am a good wife) but his hands are bleeding. Good thing we don't use our hands to run and we were able to get through the rest of the run.

Our schedule is to be back at the lab tonight, we are going to take the 7:40 train, I'll work for a few hours before my shift and then shift and then back to the city. I would like to run in the morning tomorrow because I want to go into the lab as late as possible friday night because I have plans on saturday night and don't know how much sleep I'll get on Saturday at the moment because of an AM meeting I have.

Late Night Labwork

Quick! We need the labwork back from the...muon detector? Hmm, that really works better on ER.

Yep, Leah is working hard on the late night shift helping research the detector of the future. Meanwhile, I'm also at the lab trying to finish up the last of my research for the measurement I'm working on. Fun stuff all around.

If there's one point in all of this (and there certainly isn't more than one point), it's that you've got to get those runs in regardless. We were up early this morning and into the lab for meetings, working from 8:30-5:30. Then we had to hurry over to the gym to get changed and run.

runrunrun.

Back to the gym - shower - and over to Leah's cousin's apartment to meet up for dinner (she has a great apartment, btw. Lots of character). And now we're back at work until 6am tomorrow.

But the key? Yep, we managed to wedge the run in there. I thought it was a great run, personally. Very refreshing and a welcome break from all the work. In all the insanity, at least one thing will always remain constant...pain.

No, wait! That's not it.

No, the one constant, of course, is running.

Push It Back

Well yesterday wasn't the best day for me. I only got a couple of hours sleep because I found out at 11pm that I really did need to take a test for radiological worker training at 9am the following morning and had only slightly gone over the first half of a 50 page document which I would be tested on. So I had to study for that before I went to bed.

I ended up going to bed around 1:15am, but MissyCat had been sleeping on my side of the bed and when I layed down I realized that the entire bed smelled of...well let's say it didn't smell good. This is when I realized that we would have to put her down the next day. So I slept on the couch for a few hours and woke up to continue to study and make sure that I caught the early train out the the Lab.

I thought that I would have to be on shift last night from midnight to 6am so I left work around 1:30pm so I could go take care of MissyCat sleep for a few hours and get back into the lab for my shifts. Thank goodness the shift got cancled last night because otherwise I would have had to be at the lab for about 40 hours or so.

ANYWAYS. I had to push all the runs back one day. Today I'll run 3 miles, tomorrow 30 min tempo, friday 3 mile, saturday 3 mile pace and sunday 6 miles. This doesn't give me a break between runs but since none of the workouts are too strenuous yet this should be a huge deal. Today's run will be at the lab before meeting my cousin Sarah for dinner. After dinner it's back to the lab to work with this detector from midnight -6am (this will be my schedule though the weekend :-( )

Missy Could Give No More

Well she gave all she could, but today we saw that it wasn't nearly enough. Our 16 year old cat Missy had deteriorated to a point where we couldn't conceivably keep her alive any longer.

I believe that her kidney functions were down to about zero percent because the poor girl had lost a lot of weight and could barely walk around the house anymore. I noticed last night that she wasn't smelling her best either because I think that the toxins had over taken her body since she couldn't process them anymore.

Jason and I made the tough decision to put her down this afternoon. The Doc was very good and suggested we not stay in the room. So we gave her one last scratch under the chin (she loved this one little form of attention) and said goodbye.

The picture was taken right before we left for the vet. :-(

Something Had to Give

Well I love to do it all. Get all my workouts, work work, reading, netflix watching, commuting, cleaning, eating in everyday. I don't like to let one thing go. This morning I realized though I had to. I had planned on getting up at 5am walking over to the YMCA (we are now leaving our car in the burbs so we can take the train to work) working out, walking home, showering, walking to the el, getting downtown, walking to the metra train, training to Wheaton, stopping at the post office to mail something to my dad (wait it's president's day anyways so that didn't happen) work all day, play volley ball at 7:30pm, take the 8:54pm train home, putting us back at Stately Wayne manor at about 11pm.

Right. That's a lot.

So I did get out of bed right at 5am and I thought to myself, "Something has to give. If you go work out now, it'll go fine but volleyball and the end of your work day will suck" So I went back to bed where Jason was still curled up under the blankets and I just told him I thought it would be less than brilliant to try and get it all in today given the late volleyball game. So I went back to bed for about 90 minutes and got up closer to 7am. I am way more rested today and hopefully volleyball will go alright tonight.

I think that strength training is one thing I can move around a bit and try to fit in else where. So we are playing a team we might actually beat tonight (although I'm not too positive of that) so hopefully all goes well.

Battling The Cold

This afternoon Jason and I braved the low temperatures and headed out for a 5 mile run. Fortunatly we don't have the snow covered sidewalks that our running compadres in Wisconsin are dealing with so we don't have to worry about that aspect of winter running.

The temperature however was only about 18 degrees with a "feels like" 5. I don't know if I really trust the "feels like" temp, I think it's just a way to make it seem like it's worse that it is. I arm myself with three layers on top, tights on the bottom, thick smart wool socks on my toes, gloves on my hands and an ear band to keep my ears warm and I head out. I was correct in that it wasn't actually that bad out. My legs got a bit cold as we got about half way through the run, but other than that it was a beautiful day out. There were quite a few other bundled up runners on the path including one gentleman with a beatiful golden retriver running in the opposite direction. I always feel happy seeing other runners out there on not particularly wonderful days and want to talk to them, so I told him that I thought his dog was very pretty, he said thanks, smiled and kept running. Which is great because sometimes when I smile and wave at other runners they look at me like I have a screw loose...

It was just one of those runs where you love being a runner. I always have days where I wish I wasn't a runner (not many though): my legs hurt, or it's really cold (or hot!) out, or work has consumed 14 hours of my day or life happened and I have to rush through my run and just get it over with so I can do the 18 other particles of stuff that seemed to pop up. Not today though, it was just one of those runs where it just goes.

I love when that happens.

I love those days.

Treadmill?

You mean Boring Mill?

Oh man. I have not run on a treadmill for probably about 5 years, but since it was SO cold yesterday (never made it out of the single digits) I thought it would be a good idea to not be so tough (stupid?) and go to the YMCA and get our 3 miles in. So I did about 3 minutes of warming up and getting used to the machine and then 2 minutes at 9 minute miles and then about 2.25 miles at an 8:30 pace, and then .75 at an 8 minute pace. I set the machine to an incline of 1 (I don't know what the units are on this....so don't really know what it means, I just know that I have read to make the treadmill more like actual running to set it at this). I mean it's fun because you can see exactly how far you are running and how fast and blah blah blah. I got to one mile however and I thought I had been on there for like 10 miles.

I got through it anyways but I would rather run outside. I think it was smart that we did the treadmill thing because when we left to walk to the gym I could barely take a deep breath because the air was so cold. I keep getting these ice cream headaches with these temperatures. Very Annoying.

The weather today seems a bit better in the high teens, but it feels like 5 degrees. We have a 5 mile run today so hopefully we can get through this without to many problems. I have to make sure that I do only 5 miles instead of the usual well it should be about 5 miles and it ends up being 6.2.

We'll see how it goes out there!

Spread Thin

You know when you go to your favorite bagel place and get that heavenly combination of bagel and cream cheese. Sometimes the proportion of cheese to bagel is perfect and others there is hardly enough cheese to cover half the bagel let alone both halves. These days I am the cream cheese in scenario two. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutly love being busy (it's my thing), but recently I have been looking at all the things in my life and how many hours in the day and there is no way. The easy things are being put on the wayside and tough things look much much tougher than they actually are.

For exampke, Jason and I were in car hell for awhile where were juggleing 3 different cars. My dad took one of them, and the then my old Nissan 240 SX was just stuck in I don't know what to do with you land so I'm going to park you "secretly" at work until I have time to deal with you. I just sort of forgot about it out there at the Lab and I recently was in that neighborhood of the lab and yup, the car is gone. Alright then. Now I am going to go have to go through the hassle of finding the car first off, second off paying to get it out to then take it to some donation place or auto wreckers place, all for a car that is 15 years old and worth about $15 (although it's a super cool car that I loved for the years that I drove it)

I was getting completly fed up with driving lately and so Jason and I decided to take the train home last night. It was raining and so on and I knew that traffic was going to be horrific. So even though it's probably longer to take the train it's more enjoyable because we can read and relax and so on. BUT i have to be at the lab at 7 am this morning because I am working on a hardware project for a few days. It's something different to work on for awhile I guess so that's interesting. But I have to catch the 5:53am train and so I spent the entire night up looking at the clock convinced I would miss the alarm. 2:10. 2:15, 2:30 (at this point jason wakes up and I say, "Don't worry we still get another hour and a half of sleep.....").

I would like to try and take the train from now on and see if that helps my cream cheese complex.

Anyways I was up at 4 so today will be a long day, good thing it's an off running day. yesterday we had just an easy three miles which went well.

Also the weather right now says for today :currently 20 degrees, high of 19 degrees and low of -(!)4 degrees. ooooooh damn it's going to be cold!!!!

Jason and Leah Do Some Speed

Running that is.

Today was the first day of our running careers that we attempted to run a speed workout. The Hal Higdon plan called for 5x400. So we decided that we would need to do these at work because we had meetings all day and wouldn't be able to get it in when we got home or before we left for the lab in the morning. So my original plan was going to be to use my Timex GPS watch system and run until the thing go to .25 and then walk .25 and so on around the ring. However when I looked at my watch this morning I was saddened to see that there were no numbers, so the battery must be dead on the watch. Damn. so the site said that you should run the 400's at about a 5K or 10K pace. I figured this was about 8 min/mile so I decided that we would run for 2 minutes and that would be able 400m. This worked pretty well. We warmed up a bit and finished with a cool down and had some excitement inbetween. It was nice to have a change from our usual plodding on for more distance. I think I am going to like this new training plan as there are many different types of runs (speed, tempo, @race pace and so on).

Other super excitment happened at the lab today. Daniel Dennett who wrote a book called Dawin's Dangerous Idea came and gave the weekly Fermi Lab Colloquium presentation today!!!! Wow was it amazing. I dated a guy in college that told me I should read Dawin's Dangerous Idea. I think I made it through about 1/3 of it....me being 19 at the time and not having enough under my belt to handle the book. However, I know his name along with Richard Dawkins as big evolution guys so I was really excited to see Dennett's presentation today. He has a new book out called, Breaking The Spell : Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. It's a really fasinating idea in which he talks about organized religion from the view point of a scientist and tries to break it down and so on. It was a really AMAZING talk and I am excited to read this book as he just wet my whistle on the topics.

Another reason it's fun to work at Fermi Lab because we get really intersting talks that aren't necessarily physics based. The biggest science lab in the country gets that I guess.

Much Better Run

Today our run went much better. I got home and checked the weather and it was 55 degrees out! So Jason and I both ran in shorts which is always a nice thing to do in February. Unfortunaly it's going to be a high of 16 on Saturday. I hate the midwest. I wish it would just pick a freakin' temperature and stay there. Like in French Kiss where Meg Ryan's character says,"Match the corresponding face with the corresponding emotion. Happy smile. Sad Frown" Here it should be, "Match the corresponding temperature with the corresponding month. February 25. May 55." Sheesh.

But I'll take what I can get. Had a nice easy run. 3.2 miles in 30:05 = 9.4 pace, which I'm fine with. I guess you are supposed to be able to carry on a conversatioin with your running partner on these easy days. Jason and I talked about an upcoming trip I am taking to Washington D.C. to talk with representatives about how cool science is and to hopefully fund the President's recent budget which has a 14% increase for the Office of Science. I have a practice meeting tomorrow in front of the other people going on the trip and I am bit nervous about it so Jason helped me work out what to say during the run. All of a sudden the run was over which is always a nice phenomenon.

Dear Shins,

May I ask you what the hell it is you think you are doing to me. What have I done to you lately? I iced you yesterday, I massaged you yesterday, I took it easy yesterday. Why Why when I run must you scream out in pain. Why does it feel that with every step I take someone is jamming a knife into you and dragging it down my leg until I have the brief interval of a pain free moment as the pain has moved to the leg that is now on the ground. Oh wait there it is again. STAB STAB STAB. If you would please stop the incredulous pain you have been providing me, I would greatly appreciate it.

Sincerely,
LeahC


Alright Alright. So what's the deal with my shins. I was about in tears today on my run the pain was so incredibly bad. I thought I started off slow enough, but perhaps not slow enough? I really need to warm up. I just don't know. I had to stop 3 or 4 times to try and stretch the area out. The problem I am having is out the outer part of my lower legs. Jason went ahead of me because I was a, well I'm going to use the word "crab" while Jason might use the word "bitch", and his run was going alright. I know that he worries if I am out running alone so I got to a point on the path where I could turn off and go home, but he didn't look back at me so I had to keep going forward. He never looked back and so I just had to keep going. It ended up being good that he did that because I did run the entire loop that we planned although I don't like to count it because I had to stop so many times to try and stretch my legs out.

The numbers : 6.93 miles, 1:05.35, 9.46 pace (notice the 9.46 is not 9 minutes and 46 seconds....) So not too bad, again does it count if I probably had some miles at 8:00 and others at 11:00? I need to get this leg stuff under control.

Also click here for a link to graphs that I have made for the week.

They Can't All Be Perfect

I love Saturdays! It's a whole free day. Sunday's are a close second, but nah, I love Saturdays.

Got up this morning around 8am and was out running by 9am. Wanted to run about 4 miles, but forgot that the lakefront entrance is closed and so we lost some distance by not crossing over, and we needed to stop at the grocery store on the way home to get some breakfast food. I love going to the grocery store after a run because we end up getting much healthier food. Instead of vodka, diet coke and ice cream (as we got last night), we got bananas, all natural granola cereal and orange juice along with a few other health food crap. In other VERY exciting news, gatorade was way on sale so we have some of that now which is quite the treat after running.

Anyways...the run....we ended up going 3.64 miles in 33:41.99 which is 9:15 miles. Not too bad.

Both Jason and I had the return of the severe shin pain. I really don't know what to do about this except just run though it. I do feel that when we both get the pain we have started off too fast. Although I didn't feel that we were going fast today...hmm. We also talked about bringing back the warmup around the block run. We do this in the summers because it's so nice out that we can just sit outside and stretch after the warmup and get ready to run long. However, in the winter it's so crappy out that I usually just want to go outside and go. This might not be the smartest strategy though, so we'll try a warm up tomorrow before our longer run.

Tomorrow we'll go north to Montrose since we have not gone that way FOREVER and onto the lakefront path and then completing the loop the same way we did last Sunday. This might be adding on too much distance, so we can make adjustments at the end of the run.

I am the WINNER!!!

Alright for those of you who know me (and I think if you look at the people that know me AND read this blog we are down to my father) you know how I like to win things. When I was little my favorite sentance was, "Is this a winning game?" In my childhood lots of gameboards went flying across the room, there were tears, it was all very tragic. Parents learned to NEVER sorry me in Sorry because well, "THAT'S NOT FAIR!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH"

So I have grown up (a little)....but I still like to win. For example I was a bit upset after Jason and I ran our first race together (the Indy Mini in 2004) and we ran the whole thing together, BUT when we checked the finishing times he was 1 second ahead. Of course this is ridiculous because the shoe he had the chip on probably crossed first or whatever. Now, I did let him know that I "beat him" in the marathon (same deal because we ran the whole thing together). I know I know I am ridiculous (at least I realize it)!!!

Tonight Jason and I went to the YMCA to play some raquetball and then work out. I would say that instead of Jason and I being equally good, we are equally bad. However we had some great games tonight. Lots of times when we play, it'll be one shot and there are LOTS of shots hit way up high on the wall. But tonight we were able to keep the ball down more. The final scores being 16-14 (Leah wins!) and 17-15 (Leah WINS AGAIN!!!)

Alright I do get some bragging rights with raquetball because Jason and I played for like a year and I didn't win ONCE (that wasn't the best year for Jason as it always, "NOT FAIR") But we had a good time playing, lifted some weights...but not too many as we were so tired after playing. It's so funny how different a sport like raquetball is. I can run far and never be out of breath, however 10 mintues of stopping and starting on a raquetball court and I am exhausted.

Tomorrow and Sunday will be running. I am thinking maybe 4 tomorrow and 6 on Sunday. This would put us in really good shape I think for starting our training program next week.

Sleepy Thursday

Yesterday Jason and I got home from work.....Well maybe I first should mention that we got to work at 6:30am, so we were up at 5am and Jason didn't go to bed until about 2am, and I had a night filled with nightmares and was continually waking up. Alright, so we left work around 2:30 and got home and 3:45 and both of us just fell onto the couch and fell asleep!

We woke up around 5 and actually felt way refreshed and so went for a very short/slow run.

Alright, the following complaint will make zero sense for those of you that are not from Lakeview in Chicago and run on the lakefront path.

The lakefront path, is well on the lakefront, so it's on the "other side" of lakeshore drive. So to get over there they have tunnels at certain points along the path that go under the drive and over to the neighborhood. I tend to use the tunnel that is at Waveland Ave and for like 3 months it was under construction. This is not a huge deal as we just run another 1/2 mile south and go onto the path there instead. But I love the running on the path because there is no lights and there is a gravel part of the path so slightly better for the knees. So finally finally they finsihed the construction about a month ago and all was fine until yesterday where it is COMPLETELY closed off again. WTF? I mean full construction equipment and half the road is blocked off again. Hopefully it won't be under construction too long this time.

The run numbers are 3.2 miles is 30:27 = 9:30 miles/min. A tad slower, but lights and a slower start probably account for this.

Alright, today is an off day but we might head to the gym later this afternoon.

Another Good One

After sitting in traffic for a LONG (and i mean LONG) time. Jason and I went out for a nice run around the neighborhood. I am really liking my new mix because all the songs are totally upbeat and are all the songs that I wish were on my shuffle when I was running before. It was also a nice winter evening with a light dusting of snow on the ground. The temperature was a bit on the chilly side but not too bad. I wore my thicker jacket and was actually warm (when the wind was at my back :-) ).

We went 3.94 miles is about 35:30. I pressed the wrong button or something on my watch and so it didn't stop right away, but that should be about right. This puts us at a roughly a 9:00 min/mile pace which I feel very comfortable running at. I am going to try and keep our pace here because my legs are feeling great (!). I have had only slight shin pain and instead of slowing down to try and nurse it, I have been sticking at the pace that I am at and I have been able to run through it. I am wondering if when I slow down I bounce up and down more therefore putting more stress on my legs. Maybe keeping up a slightly higher pace is putting my stride in the right place instead of cutting it short. I don't know. Just an idea....gotta think of something while running.

The Fermi Report

I went for a run along with Leah yesterday, although my route was a mere 40 miles west of hers. Yep, being stuck at the lab, I ran around the ring: the ol' "race the protons" route.

There was one problem with my run yesterday was that was that it was really freakin' cold. I checked weather.com before I left and the current temperature in Batavia was listed as 31 degrees (feels like: 22). Turns out I should have paid more attention to the "feels like" as the wind was apparently imported directly from the Arctic.

At the start of the run, the wind was right in my face and my hands were beginning to freeze, crack, and fall off (like in the end of Terminator 2, which would be pretty cool if they weren't my hands). However, one of the benefits of running around a ring is that the wind can't always blow in your face. It's simply a basic tenant of physics which just can't be violated (although I'm pretty sure this doesn't apply by the lakefront where the wind will blow in your face regardless of direction). So I ran faster than I would usually at the start of my run, willing myself around the ring to the warm side. To my great relief, the second half of my run was quite warm and comfortable. And, as a result of my cold start, fairly quick.

All in all, a pretty good run. I had been feeling a twinge in my calf since my last run, but I can report today that it seems to have worked itself out and my legs feel good.

...getting geared up for the Indy 1/2. Woot!

Garmin for Macs!!!

That's right people.

Beginning in spring 2006, Garmin will offer a Mac version of its popular Training Center software. Used with Garmin’s line of Forerunner and Edge series of fitness products, the Training Center software lets users plan and analyze workouts. Fitness enthusiasts can create their own workouts or use workout templates that can be downloaded into the unit for any level of personal training. The software also offers interactive analysis tools that will now allow Mac users to chart their performance information like speed, heart rate, cadence, elevation, and pace.

Also in spring 2006, Garmin will make the www.MotionBased.com upload interface Mac compatible. MotionBased.com translates GPS data into performance analysis, online mapping, and route sharing for endurance and outdoor athletes. Data collected by a Garmin GPS device is uploaded to MotionBased.com where time, distance, speed, elevation, cadence, grade, and heart rate analysis is displayed through charts, illustrations, and reports. This activity data can also be displayed as a route and replayed on street, photo, topographic, and elevation maps as well as the popular Google Earth service. Members can also use the TrailNetwork database to seek out and download new activities in their region, to find popular routes while traveling, or to engage in "virtual races" with other MotionBased users.

The new Garmin Forerunner 205 is pretty cool too. It's real small, about the size of a normal sports watch and is said to have much better reception/better coverage as in better for under heavy tree cover or between tall buildings. Plus you can download all the workouts to your computer and keep track of EVERYTHING. It also looks like you can upload to the watch a previously run route and the time you ran it and then race yourself so you can see if you are getting better/worse. It also has a virtural training partner where you can tell it, ok I want to run 9 min/miles and there is a little computerized image of a runner running that pace and then a computerized image of you running whatever pace you are running so you can see if you are "winning".

Ok, I actually don't have one of these the above is just things I have read about the watches. I currently have a Timex version which I love and works fine for me. I do like the upload ability though, but they didn't have all the software for macs....but looks like the world is a changin'

Speedy Speedy

Whoooooo hoooo!

Man I had a great run this afternoon. I have made a new playlist on iTunes called 'RunningFast' I wasn't really thinking of running fast, just of some more upbeat tunes. I have an iPod Shuffle and so usually just randomly load the thing from my full library, or I had a subset that had somewhat more upbeat tunes, or at least not super slow ones.

I just was feeling the need for some speed and so decided to put my favorite running songs together. You know I had some Micheal Jackson (Billy Jean), Hall and Oates (leave me alone! (and you know you love 'Private Eyes')) but the third song that hit my ears on todays run was the new Eminem song "Shake That"

Alright Alright.

Not super positive towards women in general...however it has a great beat to run to. I heard the song last night on the radio and I thought it would be good to run to because I thought that the beat would be perfect for the strides I tend to love falling into....long and fast! Well I was correct that it was the perfect song and it hit me right after I was warmed up enough to try and step up the pace.

Oh Well.

I felt great and extended the run to 4.3 miles instead of the 3.7 I had planned. I really didn't want to get stuck at a light since I was feeling so good so I kept dodging them and going down different streets and so on.

So 4.3 miles in 37:00 = 8:36 min/mile (SWEET!)

Nerd Girl Has Returned

I know you missed me. Don't lie to yourself :-)

Alright, just a quick post to acknowledge that I have updated the running progress plots. If you click the "Running Progress" Link on the upper right hand side and the click on "read more" for last week you can see the graphs of how our runs have been going so far this year.

I know I know, it's totally exciting and way cool!

Alright, haven't gone running today yet, but I will going around the neighborhood and Jason will be running at Fermi Lab. Should be about the same distance though. I will time todays run to see what range I'm in (as in slow or slower)

Um......only 13 weeks

Until the Indianapolis 1/2 marathon.

exqueeze me?

That means that next week I have to be totally serious about the workouts and even start adding in speed/pace/blah blah blah workouts. I mean I have been running 4-5 times a week no problem, just doesn't seem like the first weekend in May is only 12 weeks away. I guess that's good news cause that means that spring/summer is only 12 weeks away as well!!

Doing speed workouts or even timing the runs is going to be very different for Jason and I. I don't think that I have taken a watch with me when I have gone running for probably 6 months or more. I tend to be very concerned about the pace and don't think so much about the running. But I suppose this is a skill tht I will have to aquire anyways. Especially since I would like to start getting faster anyways.

Here is a link to the training program that Jason and I will be following. I have posted this before, but it's VERY exciting so I thought I would post it again.

A quick word about our 5.3 mile run yesterday. I felt "ok". I don't know how to describe it. Nothing hurt, my breathing was fine....but I was just feeling ughhy. After we stopped I immediatly knew what the problem had been. My upper back/shoulder muscles....the trapezius muscles I believe, immediatly clentched up and I could barely stand up straight. I must have been running *VERY* stiff and perhaps this was the reason that I was so weird feeling during the run.

Today no running, but some volleyball and then the YMCA for me (FOR REAL THIS TIME!!!!!) Tomorrow I'll go my favorite city loop as I will be working from home tomorrow and Jason will try and run here at the lab to get a break from the computer (this will be another bad week for him :-( ). I will also start timing my runs this week, just to start to gauge where I'm at speed wise.

Mr. FancyPhysicsBoy strikes again!

You've been hacked, Insane Running Girl!

No, as it turns out, I'm not hacking the system. In fact, I'm actually a writer on this site! Of course, you'd never know this since I've been doing a remarkable job of not writing. In fact, this is some of the best not-writing I've done in a long time.

As Leah said, Physics is hard. Last week consisted of many 16 hour work days mixed in with a 24 hour day and then capped off with a 17 hour day. Not a lot of time for running.

I'm not really okay with this.

I don't like when my work interferes with my life to the point where I can't do the simple things...like run. But, as long as it's only a couple weeks once every many, many months it's survivable. What I have discovered is that I know I never want the type of job that forces me to keep up this kind of pace on a daily basis.

Actually, I think it's sort of impossible to keep up this sort of pace with any regularity unless you do entire buckets-full of Coccaine, which is an expensive habit and can give you a nasty case of the sniffles. So I plan on passing on 80 hour weeks.

What's that you say? This is a running site? Okay, if you insist, I will write about today's run. Leah and I repeated last week's 5.3 mile run along the lakefront. I felt pretty good and mostly I was just happy to be out there. The sun was shining, the air was cool, and I was sweating as I definitely overdressed.

All I know is it wasn't work and it felt great.

-----------Side Note-----------------

So, when I got home on Friday after working from 7am-midnight, there was a little present waiting for me. I unwrap it and, to my amazement, what do I find? An iPod! The wonderful wife, as a belated X-mas gift and to celebrate my (basically) finished first analysis, bought me a fancy new iPod. For once, I am actually in posession of a current technology.

It was a physics miracle.

(I have a good wife)

Um....Like....Physics is Hard

Alright, first of all awhile ago there was a hilarious episode of Will & Grace where Grace has to get a shot or something at the doctors office and the nurse who has to take the blood is really young and keeps saying, "And I was all like, This is Hard"....anyone know the episode? They had a bunch of outtakes of it because Debra Messing could barely get through the scene.

Anyways, Physics is hard.

I am trying to fit some data, and the fit doesn't want to sit on the points, it thinks it's much better to go off into space and fit NOTHINGNESS. Alright then.

Actually physics is hard, but being a graduate student is rather nice. 90% of the time, at this moment Jason would not agree with me. But in general we have A LOT of freedom in...well...in everything. We can work from home, take a day off, go on vacation...whatever. This is very condusive to running as most of the time we have no problem getting our runs/races in.

Just a little thought of the day. When I get really frustrated with my work, I have to step back and realize that the money might be crap but in general not too bad of a lifestyle. I have to remind myself to get to this realization though!

No running or gym today since I was able to get in a run yesterday. I am going to take a walk down to my local Barnes and Nobles to look for some way to spend a Christmas gift card. That's about a 1.5 mile walk one way, so it's something I suppose. Tomorrow I have a meeting in the morning at the lab and then Jason and I will run in the afternoon, and then Sunday maybe start putting up more distance.....6 miles maybe.

Get That Boy Some Air

Well after Jason slept for a couple hours I thought it would be a good idea for him to just

GET OUTSIDE!

so I finally convinced him to put on some running clothes and we'd just go for a short run/walk to get him some fresh air. Well go figure he felt great and we ended up doing the favorite loop at 3.7 miles and a nice pace. Go Jason!

Alright, well dollar beers at the local pub is calling my name so I'll leave you with this picture of my dresser (i know i know great(!) organizatioin).....whos' that in there. oh my cat missy :

All Nighter!

Well I didn't pull one, but Jason did. :-(

I went to bed last night around 11:30 pm and Jason saying he thought he would be to bed in a couple of hours. I woke up at 4:30 and heard him making more coffee and when I got out of bed at 5 am There he was in front of the comptuer finishing up his talk. Man what a trooper. He gave his talk this morning at 9:30 and did a great (!) job. Tomorrow the paper covering all this work is due and as soon as that is turned in by midnight he'll be all done....well for a couple days anyways, at least until the group send him all the comments they have for the analysis and he has to go through and work all those out....but still.

I haven't decided if I will run today or tomorrow yet. I am guessing tomorrow morning since my sleep shouldn't be so screwed up tonight and I can get that done in the morning before sitting down to work the rest of the day. That's my plan of the hour!

There's Tight and Then There's Too Tight

Now, I could be talking about the pair of jeans in the back of my dresser that I refuse to throw out, but probably couldn't wear again unless I got on the ice cube popsicle diet...

But I'm not.

I talking about the shoe that was on my left foot this morning. My poor little piggies needed the jaws of life to free them. Alright, so that's some good information for tomorrow....pull on the laces to tighten the shoes, not death grip the laces and pull them until your knuckes turn white.....too dramatic....I think so.

But the run did go well this morning, I went the same loop I went yesterday and like yesterday I went alone. Jason's presentation is tomorrow morning and then the paper is due on Friday. So soon all this craziness will be over. I better get my ass moving on my analysis so that this doesn't happen to me in the coming months.

So last night apparently (I only vaguely remember) I woke up and started screaming at the blanket on the bed. Something about it wasn't fitting the curve, so I guess I put the blanket back on but then threw it on to the floor saying oh forget it. Well that's only slightly embarrising. what the....

Lonely Runnin'

Well Mr. FancyPhysicsBoy also known as Jason, the other wriiter on this site and my husband has been so busy these last few weeks with his physics analysis that he has had to sit at work for hours and hours and hence, not be runnin'

This leaves Leah lonely on her runs. :-(

(let's be honest....it's only been 2 runs....but still)

It's so different running alone. I know that lots of you do it all the time it's just something I am totally not used to. I love having my partner by my side when I'm out there. But sigh, not meant to be today.

Today's run was hosted by a beautiful winter afternoon. The temperature was about 36 degrees or so, but sunny and just that awesome crisp winter weather that I actually quite enjoy running in. Totally not too cold and just nice out. I went about 3.7 miles on one of my favorite city loops. I run right by wrigley field then to the lake front and then back home through city streets. It's the best loop because on the way back through the streets I can totally get around all the lights and hence never get stuck waiting for that magic green color to come my way.

There weren't too many other runners on the path, I think I only saw about 4-5, but I went around 3:30 pm when most people are still at work.

Tomorrow I'll try and get a run in before we go to the lab, if that doesn't happen I'll just run AT the lab......around the ring perhaps. Speaking of the Fermi Ring.

I have heard rumers that a couple years ago there used to be a annual "Race around the Ring" at Fermi Lab. I am on this graduate student council thing and I am thinking of trying to bring it back. There are actually quite a bit of runners at the lab and I think people would get a kick out of it. I am going to see if I can get some money to sponser it and then we could have t-shirts and stuff. or even just a $5 dollar entry fee or something cheap. It would be nice it it could be a bigger event and catch on then year to year. We'll have to see if I can get that going.

My Kind of Town....

Chicago Is.....My Kind of Town.

Jason and I just got back from a 5.3 mile run. Again it was about 48 degress when we left for our run. And again I over dressed.
I had on windpants....which by the way if it's really windy out just turn into like wind balloons :-), then a Nike tank top thing, a dry fit long sleeve t-shirt and then another regular cotten long sleeve shirt over that. It was pretty bad when the wind was with us as I got a little heated, but then of course we have to turn around and the wind goes from helping you to blowing you into the random other runner on the running path.

As I was running today, as frequently happens when I am out running, I was overcome by a feeling of love? desire? I really don't know the right word I am looking for here. But I get nostalgic for this town. Jason and I are nearing the end of our bout with graduate school and will be moving on probably by the end of the year. To where we don't know yet. Who knows maybe Apple Computers will hire me. California then? Maybe a big company in New York City will hire Jason and we can turn into New yorkers? Perfect weather? The biggest city? But what about MY city. I grew up here in Chicago and I LOVE IT. I love the people that live here, I love the lake front, I love the Cubs (if I move to NY and I start rooting for the Mets my father will disown me, but I canNOT be a yankees fan with those stupid rules), I love the Bears......I love all that is Chicago. It doesn't mean that I don't want to see what else this big world has to offer, but I know when the time comes to make a decision it's going to be hard for me to leave my beloved Windy City.

We'll just have to see.

(Ah yes, don't forget to check out the Running Progress link on the upper right as it will be updated today with our progress over the last week. )

Great Run

Today jason and I went for about 3.75 miles. I was concerned after yesterdays run because my shins hurt so bad. I don't know what the deal is with this problem. It almost feels like those muscles in front of my shins on the outside are getting super tight, almost like they are spasming. I really dont' know how to describe it but yesterday when I missed a traffic light and needed to stop I couldn't barely stand those muscles hurt so bad. I spent probably about a minute trying to stretch out that area of my legs and it did feel a bit better when I started up again, but never perfect.

Today though we started off super slow and ran at this pace for maybe 5 blocks and then continued at our normal pace.

no pain.

not even a little twinge of annoyance. So maybe starting off a bit slower is more key than I had thought before. I am really looking forward to our run tomorrow. We are planning on 5 miles so we'll see how that goes (i am also really excited because we finally did laundry and my smart wool socks are clean...I know I am just the coolest person ever....but they are really comfy socks)

Jason also found out that his friend Jon Phillips will be running the Indianapolis mini marathon in May so that should be super fun. Apparently Jon has run two marathons, his first was done at about 4:20 and his second at 3:40 !!! way to go Jon taking off 40 minutes between the two races....that's incredible.

Quick word on two novels. I just finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova which is a really awesome page turner concerning Dracula and I highly recommend it. I am also just starting a book called Saturday by Ian McEwan which so far is well done. The book follows around the main character as he goes about his business on one Saturday in February. So far I really like it......(just a little book info for you librarian/runners out there :-) )

Preferred Start I

So I was just at the Shamrock Shuffle website and not only do Jason and I get a Preferred start but we get a Preferred I start. So I guess there are 3 qualifying bins, Competative, Preferred I and Preferred II

Competitive Start:
004-05 LaSalle Bank Shamrock Shuffle 8K: < 0:35:59
2004-05 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon Half split: < 1:35:59
2004-05 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon time: < 3:15:59

Preferred Start (I):
2004-05 LaSalle Bank Shamrock Shuffle 8K: < 0:42:30
2004-05 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon Half split: < 1:45:59
2004-05 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon time: < 3:45:59

Preferred Start (II):
004-05 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon Half split: < 2:00:59
2004-05 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon time: < 4:30:59

I think last year we ran it in 38:30 or something like this so we are in the Preferred (I) bin. Now I'm a little more nervous. It's so funny because by 1/2 and full marathon times relate to the Preferred (II) bin.

I hope that Jason and I can do at least as well as we did last year and hopefully a little better. I wonder if we could ever get down to the competative start bin for this race....35:59.....7:14 pace......hmmm....maybe not so much.

Today I'll run and hit the gym hopefully. Jason still has loads of work to do so I don't know if he'll be able to join me. I hope so, I don't want to run alone again. I suppose he could join me for the run since that won't take too much time away from the physics.

Cocktails and Brownies

Well Jason had to go into work today because he has to be done with this analysis by next week. eeek. So I had the day to myself as Friday's are the days we deem, "Work at Home days". I did do some work, but I found this cool program called Comic Life on the computer and played with that for what some people might call, awhile. Anyways, it's totally awesome because you can make comic strips using your photos, and then you can give the photos comic book effects. Very cool. Or you could make cool posters of yourself running....

I went for a run by myself today. how odd was that! I can't remember the last time I went for a run alone. It was good and bad. Bad because it got a little boring like instantly, but good because I had to force myself to keep going even though my shins were screaming for me to stop. Gotta find that inner power somewhere. The weather was AWESOME. It was 50 degrees out when I left the house for my run. I wish it wasn't January and this could be real weather. sigh.

So where does that leave me.....that's right I'm baking some brownies and drinking some cocktails. If you mix the juice of a lime wedge, Captain Morgans Tattoo Rum, and Diet Coke you have a mighty tasty little drinky drink. I swear to god it tastes like a green sour patch kid! Jason disagrees with me, but I'm totally serious. Enjoy!

Lots o' MEETINGS

AUGH I hate meetings! Thursdays tend to be a pretty busy day for us here at the lab. We have either an 8:30am or 9:00am meeting depending on which week it is, which is fine, but today we are meeting with our advisor at around 5pm and then I have a Graduate Student Association officer meeting after that.

We decided to push the run to tomorrow because we wouldn't be able to run until pretty late, and we work at home tomorrow so that should work out fine. We will go maybe the same loop we went on Wednesday and then also hit the gym tomorrow.

Of other interest, I am trying to work out new ways to plot my running data, so using iWeb I created another blog that will live at my .mac address. This will just be updated every Sunday with plots of the week, summed distance and so on. You can check it out now (albeit not very interesting yet) by clicking on the "Running Progress" link on the upper right.

Drivers : Always ALWAYS look for pedestrians!

This morning Jason and I got up at our usual 7:15 and were out the door by 7:40. We decided to shake things up a bit, yes we here at the Welty-Rieger household can get pretty crazy, and go for a looping run instead of just an out and back which we tend to do because we can stay away from traffic lights along the lake front path. Everything was going great and then we get to the corner of Aldine and Halstead and we are waiting for a bus to go through the intersection and then we are going to cross. I notice that there is a car behind the bus and also a blue car on the street that we are on, but on the other side so as the bus went by we were hidden from him (although I did see him so he should have noticed us as well). So the bus goes by, Jason and Leah proceed to cross the street and the blue car proceeds to make a right turn RIGHT INTO ME! The driver totally didn't even think about pedestrians. Not only do I almost get hit by a car, but the guy doesn't even give the apologetic wave/shoulder shrug. Very scary actually as that was the closest I have come so far in my running to getting touched by a vehicle. Always Always remember the pedestrians...and know that if you ever hit one it's on you no matter if it was your fault or not.

But we did have a great run, total distance of 3.7 miles. Yes that's right, we are building up that milage again. I will have the cool plots again in the coming days.

In other fantastic news the physics program now works on the new computer! So a shout out to Fons Radermakers who is The Man who got this running on this intel architechture. (he's actually really awesome as he is one of the original creators of the program!)

No Gym but Great Run

Last night we didn't leave Fermi Lab until about 8:15pm (after losing 3 games in volleyball :-( !! ) So by the time we got near the gym it was 9:15 and Jason and i were exhausted and so decided to skip on the gym so that we won't totally wear ourselves down.

Our run this morning was nice. It was 35 degrees out which I over dressed for a bit. We just went 3 miles, but it just feels so good to be out there again!

Nothing else is new here...including my comptuer woes. I cannot freakin' get anyone to write me back. don't really know what to do now. I am trying to remotely log into my machine at work and that is painfully painfully slow because of the computers talking back and forth.

alright, frustration is turning into utter annoyance.

sigh

**but i would like to note that the computer in general is AWESOME. It's super fast and there is almost no waiting for things to load up or quit out of. As soon as this one little stupid program works I will love it 100%**

New Technology

I am starting to freak out about our new computer. As it is a new technology I am starting to worry that nothing I need will work. And by nothing, i mean one program that I need for my physics analysis. I have posted a question on a discussion forum with no response, sent an e-mail to a mailing list with questions with a promise to "look at it tomorrow". I love my new computer and I know that it will work *eventually*. But what if eventually is in a couple months? I need the machinary now! well at least by Friday since this is the next day I will work at home.

sigh.

So frustrating. I know that a lot of other physics nerds are going to be very interested in the new macpro book and hence the creators of the package will have to have the program ready for more people soon.

Maybe all will be fine and I'll get word back that everything will be fine sooner rather than later, but I tend to freak out about things like this. It could not even be their problem and I am doing something stupid.....I just don't know.

Tonight we play volleyball against my least favorite team. It is very *VERY* important for this team to bitch about every call the ref makes.

The Call : Out of Bounds
Mean Team : Um, actually that wasn't out of bounds.

The Call : Lifting the ball instead of setting properly
Mean Team : What is wrong with you, that clearly wasn't a lift.

Many calls later : Serve into the net
Mean Team : IT DIDN'T HIT THE NET & Remember that Out of bounds call 10 mintues ago? yeah? Well it still wasn't out of bounds!

It's so frustrating. This doesn't help my already crappy volleyball game because I just want to beat them so bad and my play goes down the toilet. But perhaps this will be the night that we conquer the team.....we'll see.

After the game we'll head back home and stop at the YMCA to get big and strong, then home to try and get my program to work again :-( Maybe a miracle will occur

Remembering LOoOoOng Sunday runs

Today Jason and I went out for what ended up being ~4.5 miles. It was really a wonderful as the weather was pretty nice (at a balmy 32 degrees) and our underpass has finally been reopended so we were able to jump onto the lake front path immediatly.

When we got to the lakefront path which was about at the Totem Pole for those of you that know Chicago I was smacked with an image of Jason and I going out for one of our long marathon training runs last summer. I remember we would get the Totem pole for say a 16 mile run, and i would go, "Ok, Leah get settled in, only 15 miles to go". Wow. And it wasn't ever a big deal, just alright, keep putting one foot in front of another and kick this run's ass. Today we only went 4.5 miles, but we felt great. I am really looking forward getting into our mini marathon training and bumping up that long run again.

tomorrow we have volleyball and a workout at the YMCA and then the plan is TWR run, F gym, SS run. So we'll see.

oh yeah and going to bed at 3am and 4:30 AM the last two evenings has me pretty screwed up at the moment. I'm just got up from a nap (this should make falling asleep tonight NO PROBLEM) and jason and i ate lunch around 5 or so. what! What time will dinner be then?

Google Earth

So they recently (finally!) released Google Earth for the Mac. And now that I am running Tiger I can use said program. Holy Cow is that program amazing! Below is the little easy 3.something mile run that Jason and I have been doing lately, click on it to make it larger. When you draw the line on the map it will tell you the distance as well. It's just like we live in the 21st century! Very Cool! (by the way, did anyone notice the time of this post. We just got back from video gaming and movie watching at Bryn and Tina's place....it's just like I'm a grownup and up late on a Saturday night! Good thing I can run tomorrow afternoon)

New Shoes and Apples

That's right Jason and I purchased the new 20" iMac with the Dual Core Intel Chips in it. It's super cool and with the built in camera we can take funny pictures like this:











So, although the pictures are fun (and I could take them for hours) I really needed this computer so that I could work from home more efficiently....unfortunatly I am having quite a time getting the main analysis tool to compile on this computer. I know it will work eventually just a tad frustrating because I want it to work now. sigh. and because I have some work to do sooner rather than later. I know that it will work eventually and be blaziing fast when it does, so hopefully it will happen soon.

We also went for a run this morning which I am proud of as we were up till 3am working with the computer. Just went three miles again, but will go 4 tomorrow. I noticed that my favorite entrance to the lakefront path that has been closed for the last several months was back open so that is good news. The weather today was AMAZING. The temperature was somewhere in the mid 20's, but there was NO wind and NO clouds. It snowed last night so there was the familar crunching of snow beneath of feet. Very nice.

Oh Macintosh, how I love Thee

So Apple just release some fancy new fast computers.

Who loves fast computers? Leah and Jason!

So my dear dad would say, "Calm down there gadget girl," in which I would reply, "But I feel the need......the NEED FOR SPEED". As I have mentioned Jason and I are working towards a graduation date of the end of the year and for this to happen I think that we will need to work some on the weekends. When we first made the decision to hurry up and graduate I thought we would need to move to the Lab because we would have to work many hours and many days. All I'm saying is that with a new fast machine we can work A LOT from home....including weekends.

Have I convinced you yet? Not yet?

I e-mailed the creator of a graphical program we use to graph our data (name of this program is ROOT) to ask if their program would have any problems running on the new intel chip, his reply was:

ROOT has been running since last June on the Intel Macs (we have two dev platforms here). So just get one and enjoy the speed. I did :-)

Ha.

Well something we are definitly thinking about. We are going to go downtown for a movie tonight...and if we so happen to stop at the mac store....so be it:-)

Right, working out then. We went to the YMCA today and did our usual loop of machines. Next time I go, I will bring some paper so I can write down exactly what we did. I did lots of ab work, but I don't think I am doing some of those runner's world ones correctly....or maybe I am just really strong! Tomorrow we will go for a 3 mile run, and then 4 (that's right we are building on up!) on Sunday.

Workin' workin'

No running today :-( But actually that's ok as we are trying to get back into the game without blowing out our legs this time.

We had a long day at the lab today. We have early meetings on Thursday so we got here around 8:30 and will leave probably around 7 or 7:30. The meeting this morning is usually 1.5 hours long but today it was something like 2.25 hours. There are tons of physics conferences coming up (that's right, we're big nerds!) and so lots of people are presenting analyses that hope to be shown at these conferences. Jason is working on one that will hopefully go through for the Moriod QCD (Quantum ChromoDynamics) conference, who's deadline for presenting is creeping up on him. As I won't be ready for these winter conferences I have a bit more time but I am working on an analysis for the APS (American Physical Society) conference that will be in Dallas, TX the 3rd week of April.

Tomorrow we head to the gym for more good ab work, we'll see if Leah can keep her feet off the ground this time. Then running on Saturday and Sunday. Next week we'll go for T, W, R, S &S (running) and M,F (YMCA) which will be our schedule while training for the Indianapolis half marathon.

New Shoes!

Oh man, do I love shoes! When I was in high school I worked at our local sportmart and oh man, you get like 10% (that's right!) off on anything in the store. Let me tell you where my paychecks went :-) Kidding really.

But I recently went to Momentum Running on Clybourn Ave to peruse their inventory, mainly shoes as my current trainers are nearing their end (this is really because I don't like them that much not becuase I have actually put too many miles on them, they aren't even at the 200 mark yet :-) ). I have really been wanting to try the Brooks Adrenaline 6's on, but they didn't have them in my size and said that they would call when they came in.

Well ladies and gents. That day was today.

I have heard that they are a bit more narrow than the 5's but when I tried them on I knew that my feet had found their home. I have been running in the Asics 2100 and although they have carried me far, I just knew that they weren't the ones for me.

Yes I realize that I haven't run in my new shoesies yet, but I did test them out on the sidewalk and they really did feel wonderful. I'm looking forward to getting them out on the road and putting some miles on them. And I know you all want a picture....

I'm Running Too!

Leah has been doing such a tremendous job of getting this site up and running ("running", get it?) again that I have been pretty happy to just read her stuff and nod along. Well, my names on this site too, so what do I have to say?

Well, um, first off I have to agree with everything Leah has written below (I mean, I don't literally "have to", I just choose to). It is great to be back into running and I'm feeling better already. I had taken a break from writing on either this site or my other site because I was feeling very uninspired. I was a little concerned that I was losing my sense of humor (correction: my razor sharp sense of humor). However, with a couple weeks of running/working out under my belt, I'm starting to feel like my old self again. The lethargy has lifted and so has my spirit.

It's amazing what a little exercise can do.

The Weather is Here...wish Running is Beautiful

(get the Jimmy Buffett reference? Anyone? Anyone?)

Jason and I got another 3 mile run in this morning.

I know I know!!! That's 2 days IN A ROW

Yesterday I started updating the graphs I like to make and wow we were so awesome back in November running something like 30 miles/week. It's hard to look at the weeks and month after that where we were lucky to get in a couple miles a week. The holidays overtook us, and I do think that we were overdoing it with those highish milage weeks because at least my shins were absolutly killing me.

Getting back into the groove though is really spectacular. Something about the first of the year coming and detoxing after the holidays maybe. Today's run was nice. Nothing fancy, just runnin' :-) (and no shin pain!)

So the weather here in Chicago for January is not so bad. I checked the 10 day weather forcast yesterday and it looks like it will be in the upper 30's lower 40's. Wow! This is Chicago people, I was expecting 10's and maybe 20's with some snow. But it looks good for now. Still have to get through February though....

Shuffle

Well as we won't be doing the Superbowl Shuffle.....by the way the Bears allowed Steve Smith a GAME HIGH of 218 yards. That's what I would call the "best" defense in the league.

But we will be doing the Shamrock Shuffle 8K that will be on April 2nd in Chicago. This was a fun race last year and we are looking forward to running it again. Last year we somehow had some speed finishing with a pace of 7:40 or so, we are going to try and beat that by a little and finish in around 36:30 which would roughly be 7:20 pace or so...we'll see if that can happen. Who knows what the Welty-Rieger clan can do with speedwork added into our repertoire

Up and On it

This week starts the second week of....let's get on that running train. Last week I thought it would be no problem to get all the runs/workouts in without being too tired. I was totally wrong about that. However I am feeling much better so far this week. Yesterday we got to work around 10am and went to a Volleyball clinic from 5:30-7:15. After that we drove back to the city and stopped by the local YMCA to get our muscles big and strong :-)

I mentioned yesterday that I was going to try and do these ab exercises that were in Runner's World magazine. Yeah. I apparently have a few weak stomach, which I never would have thought as I am in pretty good shape. One of the exercises was to lay on your back with your legs straight up in the air and then twist your trunk so that your legs were about 12 inches off the ground and then pull them back up to vertical. hahaha, once my feet were 12 inches off the floor they kept right on going to the ground. I do think that these are good exercises because the article mentioned that they were good workouts for running, so hopefully they will help the ole's abs and also benefit my running a bit.

Today we got up at 7 and went for an easy 3 mile run, and felt pretty good. Tomorrow we'll try that again and see how much our bodies like getting up earlish to run.

Bears Lose!

What the......

The Chicago Bears were labeled as having the BEST defense by far in the NFL. Before yesterday that was true. They allowed 29 points yesterday at Soldiers Field. During the regular season they only allowed 61 TOTAL points at home. Man.

I do have to give kudos to little Rex Grossman who was able to guide the offense to 21 points...which is A LOT more than we have been seeing from the Bears this season.

But alas football season is over for me and dear Jason who is a huge Colts fan.....can't even talk about what happened there. So for us it's GO DENVER and GO SEATTLE!

How about running? We ran 3 times last week. That's right we are total badasses.

We ran 3 miles on Tuesday morning, ~3.75 on Thursday afternoon at Fermi Lab and then 3 again on Friday. The weather on Thursday afternoon was unbelievable for Chicago in January. I think it was 50-something degrees. Hence quite the shock for our Friday run when it was "snowing" I put snowing in quotes because it was some weird combination of snow, rain with a hammering wind accompanying it. We were going to run on Sunday but as we strapped in at our local pub for what would have been the greatest day in sports ever we didn't quite make it.

This week's plan will be to add a 4th day of running, and then next week a 5th day. This gets us into gear for the half marathon training and hopefully our shins will not be crying as much as they were back in November.

We are also trying to frequent the gym more than we did last year. We will hopefully go Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays/Saturdays. In this month's Runner's World magazine there was an article about some ab exercises that should help benefit the running, so I am going to try this routine tonight and see how it goes.

A question for you readers:

Have any of you tried the new Brooks Adrenalines? I loved the 5's but have heard not such good things about the Brooks Adrenaline 6's. Thanks!

Are we back?

I hope so!

After a crazy end to 2005 Jason and I have laced up our running shoes and are back on the running trails again. We are running the Indianapolis Mini Marathon along with a few Teyemas and need to get into shape for that. After looking through several different running programs it looks like we will be trying to stick to Hal Higdon's Intermediate Half Marathon program. This program is 5 days a week and includes speed work which should work well with our busy schedule. Other races that we are looking into are the Shamrock Shuffle right here in Chicago and then there is a 12K in Fort Wayne, IN where Jason is from that we thought might be fun as it would be quite a bit smaller than all the races that we have run in the past. What about a marathon? That question is still up in the air as our busy schedule is almost over taking us.

Why so busy all of a sudden? We are still graduate students and were able to get in a marathon last year, so what happened in the last few months? Well we went to visit NYC and got an itch :-) We are both hoping to find jobs there and move by the end of the year. Alright not the end of the year, actually by the beginning of October as that is when our lease here in Chicago is up. So in the next 8 months Jason and I have to finish up a full analysis and write up our thesis and get this party called life started.

Do we know what we want to be when we grow up. Well no.....but we do know that we are ready to move along and see what else this great big world holds.

So stay tuned, and let's see if Crazy Leah can design a work/workout/running matrix that allows for all the stuff to get done!

Embrace the snowyness

Jason and i just got back from running. That's right. 2 times this week....well 2 times this week if you start the week at sunday. I usually don't so, ok ok 1 time this week.

But anyways, it went awesome! For the first time in a long time I can say that. We started off pretty slow and after the first half mile or so I just tried to keep everything steady...no sprinting if a fast song came on, or slowing way down if I didn't feel perfect. We ran 4.7 miles and it didn't feel that far at all. I thought maybe it was 4 miles, but to my surprise it was a bit farther.

The weather here in chicago has been ridiculous so far. We have way more snow than we did all of last winter, I think. It's windy, it's nasty, I am super busy at work....but keeping running on this type of schudule doesn't take so much time and I feel so much better after a good run.

We are going to florida sometime in the near future for the holidays and so will be able to run in the sun down there, so that will be good also to get back on track for a new year.

Where did the running go?

My god have Jason and I gotten busy these last few weeks. not that this is an excuse for not running as there is no excuse for that kind of behavior. However things have gotten a bit crazy over here. To make a rather long story short, we need to accelerate our graduation aside from the fact that we want to figure out what we want to be when we grow up, but we could have some job possibilites in New York City. So we are going to attempt a graduation around October 1st. Yowza....that's only like 9 months away!!! This had not been the plan a couple weeks ago but as with everything in life, things change. So Jason and I will be moving away from cushy grad student lifestyle to oh shit my ass is on fire life style. Back to the long hours at the lab and working on the weekends. But it's ok because there is perhaps a tiny light bulb at the end of the tunnel.

So what does that mean for running? I just need to do a much better job of time management, the train is still a big possibility, and running at work will have to become a bigger event. Hopefully we'll be able to get our act together and work from home one day a week and then could run in the neighborhood.

We had not been running lately though but was able to trek through the snow this afternoon for an easy three miler. Will stick with these type of runs for awhile until I can wrap all parts of this new life into 24 hours. We are planning a trip to Florida for the holidays....um right i think that would be next week or so.... also so it will be fun to run in the sun for a few days.