In the Meantime

I am a terrible person, I know. One of my big beefs with blogs is someone not updating. But, here I am, doing the same terrible thing.

Currently I am at home in Horsham, PA. Yesterday was Thanksgiving - I went to the HH - UM football game, had dinner with the fam, and then saw a movie (No Country for Old Men) with James, Danny, mom, and dad. Wednesday morning I drove out to Hershey, PA to spend the day with Brittany. It was nice to be doing things that seemed so normal to me. Teaching is still so foreign and I haven't quite gotten used to it as being part of my life.

In the last week I've flown to Atlanta three times, to Minneapolis once, to Memphis once, and to Philadelphia once. This almost equals the total number of flights I've taken in my entire flying life (which started in March of 2005). As I become more experienced, I've gotten better at getting some rest on planes. It's still a struggle - what with the small spaces and large legs - but I managed to get intermittent sleep from Memphis to Minneapolis, Memphis to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Philadelphia.

Last weekend I journeyed to St. Olaf College and watched the the Goats get second at XC nationals. After starting out slow (15th at mile 1), the team rolled on people throughout the race and had the top 5 in the first 60 overall. The atmosphere was incredible (as always). I adopted Karl's 'bouncing' method as an outlet to my nervous energy before the race started. During the race, I had adrenaline carrying me across the course as I sprinted like I hadn't sprinted since XC nats 2006. There's nothing like all out 1/4 mile sprints when you've run 30 miles in the previous 3 months. After the race, we waited anxiously to hear the team scores. I chatted with the guys who ran and took some pictures. Boyce came running up to the group with two fingers raised high and everyone started hugging and high fiving people. The team got second, and everyone was ecstatic.

Before awards, I had the brilliant idea of going for a run with a group of frosh, DJ Trouble, Boyce, Hildner, and MJablin. It was painful to say the least. Olaf is on a big hill that we ran up a couple of times and I hung off the back of the group complaining about Boyce pounding up front. The normalcy of being at an XC meet was short lived and I hopped on a plane back to Memphis via Atlanta. Luckily, I was on the same flight to ATL as the guys that ran (+ Nathan Patton and MJablin) and got to hang out a bit more.

A couple of weeks prior to that, Brittany flew down from Philadelphia to Nashville. I drove out to pick her up and then we drove back to Memphis late late Friday night. After getting 6 or so hours of sleep, and getting up before Brian and Karl, Brittany and I ventured over to the Memphis Zoo. The weather was fantastic and the Zoo was not too crowded. My favorite part of the Zoo trip was watching the monkeys and orangutans be ridiculous. Brittany flew out of Nashville Sunday afternoon, so it was a quick turnaround with lots of driving. It was well worth it, though, and helped me realize (along with talking to Boyce at nationals) that I need to work less - especially on Saturdays.

I'll post some pictures when I clear up space on my Picasa web page (see link from my Facebook account).