Category Archives: Running

I Am Buried in Grading…

Posted on 12 April 2010 | 5 comments

but I don’t want to do it, so I keep finding means of procrastination. I have all of the papers sorted, and I already know what their grades are for the most part. I simply have to write out grade sheets explaining their grades, what they did well, and what they could improve on for next time.

The problem that I am running into is that one of my classes is so fantastic that I think all of them deserve As or Bs. How do you explain to a faculty who is used to seeing multiple students fail this class that your particular mix of students is talented? There are at least ten students in my five o’clock class who could step into a classroom tomorrow with little or no difficulty. They’d, of course, have the usual getting used to teaching blips, but for the most part, if I had a child in school, I would want any one of them to be my kid’s teacher! My other class is just as smart, and just as talented, but in more subtle ways. However, I am still fairly certain that there will be mostly As and Bs in that class, too. Essentially, these two groups of students have done everything I have asked with excellence, and in most cases they have done more. Well, if anyone doubts their awesomeness, I can just show them their genre presentations or text-sets, and I have a feeling that their text-sets may be the deciding factor for several of their grades.

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Last Saturday, Bec and I completed the last training run for the Indy-Mini. The race was 9.3 miles long or 15K, and we both finished right at 2 hours. She walked and I ran. It must be nice to have such long legs that you can walk as fast as a short, fat kid can run! I don’t begrudge her the fantastic time. She was moving! And, I am so proud of her.

I am proud of myself, too. I learned that I can run a 10:30 for a mile. In fact, I can run that speed for two miles. What it ends up getting me, though, is a very slow last couple of miles, as in 13:30 slow. My goal for the 13.1 mile race is to keep my mile splits for the first half right at 12:30, then I can work a little harder for the last six miles, trying to get negative splits for them. We’ll see if it will work. I may end up walking! 🙂 Slowly. Not as fast as Rebecca.

I am still trying to decide about this marathon thing. I feel good running, but I was pretty sore after the run on Saturday. Can I do 26.2 miles, almost three times what I did Saturday? Both Sarah and Kathy have said they are considering running at the same time as I am. Kathy may run the half-marathon, and Sarah, I hope, is resigned for the whole shoot and match. I am still trying to decide between these two races: The Indianapolis Marathon, The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. The first one falls at a better time as far as long training runs go because of school, but the second one looks like a more fun course and would allow me an extra month of training. I am so torn between the two. Can anyone offer any words of wisdom or advice?

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Next weekend, I get to play disc golf with Ed. He ordered us some discs off of Ebay. We won a set of ten for something like $50. It’s a good thing they are on the way, because my dog decided to chew my purple disc yesterday afternoon. She shredded one edge of it, but it took her a bit longer than she shreds a regular Frisbee. I consider that a bonus. She now has a new toy, and I am getting new discs. It’s a win, win situation.

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I am thankful for outlets.

5 Comments

Posted in Disc golf, Running, School, Teaching

I Suppose I Can Say This

Posted on 7 April 2010 | 4 comments

I suppose I can say without any negative repercussions, except possibly admitting later that I didn’t get either  job, that I have applied for two jobs at Burris: a middle school language arts position and an elementary position. I am torn as I try to decide which one I want more.

I love small children because they are wide-eyed with wonder at the world. They haven’t had a chance to become cynical. They still rely on you to present information to them and then to challenge them to think critically about it, and they don’t approach everything you ask them to do with suspicion or incredulity. For the most part they are eager and interested in what’s going on around them. Also, when you teach elementary school, you have the option of teaching everything together. There is no distinct line drawn in the sand between English and Social Studies and Science; they all blend together and one subject supplements the other, like they do in real life.

However, I would also love the middle school job. Middle schoolers are in this amazing in-between place where they aren’t quite grown-ups and they aren’t quite children. Or they are clumsily trying to navigate between the two. I would love this job because there are so many fundamentals in language arts that happen in middle school. In fact, they have released a new study, which says that what students learn in middle school is more of a determinant of their future success than what they learn in high school. That makes sense. A good base is the key to any educational endeavor. Besides, even though they are sometimes snarky and hateful, middle schoolers need teachers who love them unconditionally, but who also enforce the rules and challenge their intellectual abilities. I think the early teenage years, more than most would like to admit, are THE most important years of human development. Children are either made or broken in grades six through eight.

I do know that I grow tired of the drama surrounding the selection process for the jobs. I have an incredibly low tolerance for drama, and my threshold has been reached. I appreciate it when people are honest. For the most part, when people find they have to manipulate others, their desire to do so comes from their own insecurities. I know this, but sometimes it doesn’t make it any better. I will never get why we can’t just be honest with each other and why people need to play games. I simply will never understand it.

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My training for the Indy-Mini, which is coming up one month from tomorrow, is going better than I had anticipated. Last week was the best training week so far. I ran 28 miles, and felt amazing at the end of the week. This week is a “rest” week in which I will only run 17 miles. It should have been 21, but I took today off. I woke up late and have just been exhausted. I have probably been exhausted because I haven’t been eating well, and I am overwhelmed with life right now. Teaching, working on my dissertation proposal, and worrying about all the job stuff wears on my body and it comes out in my physical exhaustion and inability to run hard. I have also started playing racquetball, which contributes to my body’s weariness.

Maybe that’s the best word for my state of being right now: I am weary.Weary.

On a more exciting note, I have almost committed to training for my first marathon. I think I have chosen the 15th Annual Indianapolis Marathon. I am looking for volunteers to run this race at the same time I run it. I say run at the same time because I am so slow (I move at about a 12:30 to 13:00 mile); I would hate to inflict anyone with the burden of actually running with me. Running with me as opposed to running at the same time implies that we would have to stay together while running. We would not. Any takers? The race takes place on Saturday, October 16 and it only costs $50 until July 31.

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I am thankful for rest.

Exercise: racquetball for an hour, walking around campus a bit, walking the dogs

Food: banana, orange juice, tall dark cherry mocha frappucino, Puerto vegetarian D and chips and salsa, two pretzels, seven mini Cadbury eggs, medium cherry/grape Artic Rush

4 Comments

Posted in Just Random Stuff, Politics, Running, School, Teaching

Another Spring Break is Gone

Posted on 14 March 2010 | 3 comments

One of these years, I am going to actually take a Spring Break, one where I go somewhere and do something different than what I have been doing for the other 51 weeks of the year. If BSU’s spring break came a little later, I’d go on a motorcycle trip, but I am afraid I will leave and then it will snow. Then I wouldn’t be able to come home, because I am not riding in the snow. As it is, I never accomplish everything I wish to accomplish in the week anyway, so why don’t I learn to take a break. This year, for example, I had a list a mile long, but I did not complete the most important thing on that list. Because I had been putting off grading and my teaching related concerns to put out other little forest fires, I spent the entire break grading and planning for the rest of the school year and not working on my dissertation proposal.

I had every good intention of sitting down for a long spell with the thing and really hashing through it. That will have to happen in the evenings of this week. I have to get this thing finished and turned in as soon as possible. I am tired of looking at it. The part that sucks about having to do it this week is that Bec is leaving for Minnesota on Saturday, so I won’t be able to spend any quality time with her before she goes. I hate that. At least she’ll be back on Wednesday (?), and I should have everything finished by then.

However, I will have my lifeguarding class all weekend next weekend, so I won’t get to spend any time with her then either. When I say all weekend, I am not exaggerating. It meets on Friday from 6pm to 10pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8am to 2pm. I guess I will be running in the evenings for the next two weekends. And, they are long runs, too. Eight and nine miles for the next two Saturdays.

Yesterday I ran seven miles at a 12:30 to 12:45 minute per mile pace, but I still had difficulty sleeping last night. I think it was a combination of all the life-stress I am experiencing right now, the stupid daylight savings time change, and the fact that I drank a tall regular bold coffee. I haven’t had that much caffeine in a long while. At least I didn’t get heart palpitations this time. I did it because Starbucks is doing a bold coffee promotion in which you get a little card that has all their bold coffees listed. If you drink a tall of all eight of them, you get your choice of a free pound of bold coffee. In the end, you pay as much for the eight tall coffees as you would for the pound of coffee, but since you end up with both in your belly, it sounds like a deal to me.

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I am thankful for time well-spent and weird Lily Tomlin movies.

Food:
Breakfast: banana, juice, pop tart, chocolate milk
Running: shortbread
Lunch: almonds, Pure bar, coffee with honey and soy milk
Dinner: onion rings, Scotty’s French Quarter Quesadilla, 23 oz. Guinness
Snack: small bag of Cadbury eggs

Exercise: walked the dogs two miles, ran 7 miles

3 Comments

Posted in Beer, Coffee, Dissertation, Food, Insomnia, Running, School, Teaching

Fat Assery and Some Random Rants

Posted on 10 March 2010 | 3 comments

There is nothing quite like spring to bring out the weirdos and the not-nice. Do you remember the old song “The Freaks Come Out At Night”? The lyricist, I am sure was on to something, but I think he missed a more apropos song, one I like to call “The Jack Asses Come Out in the Spring.” What, you may be asking yourself, brought on this little tirade?

I was not even one mile into a 4.5 mile run today—one that went quite well, I might add—when some jerk yelled, “Fat ass,” out his window at me. Man, I get so sick and tired of that. Had it not been for the fact that I just read a Runner’s World column about the disadvantage runners have against motorists, I would have yelled something back at him. As I ran—possibly one reason the run went well—I milled over in my mind what I would have yelled back at him. Here are my top ten responses:

  1. F*** you, Melon Farmer.
  2. Oh, yeah, you, you, jerk face.
  3. I might be fat, but I am running, Idiot.
  4. Wow, I hadn’t realized that my ass is fat. How fat would you say it is in comparison to other asses you’ve perused?
  5. Would you say that my ass is fatter than the rest of me, or is that just the part of my body you decided to ridicule today?
  6. When was the last time you ran farther than from your house to the car/McDonald’s/donut shop/or whatever location you choose?
  7. Jesus loves you.
  8. Astute observation.
  9. Some people find this fat ass attractive.
  10. F*** you, Melon Farmer.

Or I could also use the old reliable: “I may be fat, but you’re ugly. I can lose weight.” I wouldn’t use that one, though, because I apparently can’t lose weight. If you follow this blog, you know what I eat and how much I run. I have been the same weight for over a month now, and it’s starting to make me angry. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not doing this to lose weight, but I am doing it to feel better and to get healthier. On both of those fronts, I feel successful, so I guess I shouldn’t be discouraged. And, I can run six miles in a little over an hour, which is way better than the 18 minute miles I started out walking. I hadn’t intended for this post, the first one in more than a week, to be so negative, but some events just rattle us. I couldn’t not post about getting called fat-ass yet again.

I haven’t posted for a while for multiple reasons. I didn’t think I had anything nice to say about some people, and I was afraid I would be incredibly hateful. I just took my mother’s advice and didn’t say anything at all. I think I am mostly over being angry at this particular person, but she is definitely someone I will not waste time being friendly with anymore.

I also have been insanely busy with school work, which is exhausting, but not as exhausting as socializing with people. I have such a hard time making small talk. It wears me out to be with people I don’t know very well, and sometimes it wears me out to be with people I know well and love. Sometimes I just want to move to Montana and build a commune for just a few select people to live on. I get in these moods where I want to buy an RV and just drive from place to place, doing odd jobs, trying to make a living, and seeing the sites. I think that would be the life for me. Sometimes I think I am not a putting down roots kind of girl, but I have put down roots. It’s spring. I get antsy.

I have done some great cooking in the past week. I made this recipe and this recipe but without the shrimp. They were both delicious. Yesterday Abbie and I spent two hours making homemade tortillas (frying some of them into salad bowls), banana cream pie, whipped cream, raisin pie, and all the stuff for burritos and taco salads. We pretty much rocked it. Tortillas are a blast to make, but I am confused about how some people make them so round. Ours were shaped like squares, fish, triangles, and oddities. We need to work on presentation, but taste we pretty much have wrapped up!

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I am thankful for the beautiful scenery on my run today: the river, the new trail, the people feeding the ducks, and the bright, warm sunshine.

Food: banana, orange juice, pop tart, chocolate milk, almonds and M&Ms, piece of banana creme pie, pop corn, lentils and rice, beer

Exercise: walked the dogs, ran 4.5 miles, bike to village and back

3 Comments

Posted in Food, Running

Things Have Kind of Fallen Apart This Week

Posted on 1 March 2010 | 2 comments

Over the weekend, it was my intention to get all of my grading finished for the students at both Burris and BSU, but it didn’t happen because of my stupid computer. I am about to get a really big flash drive, so I don’t have to depend upon my computer anymore. It’s beginning to act like it might crash again soon.

On Saturday, I spent the morning editing some student work, making all sorts of great comments on their papers, and typing up some professional documents (letters of recommendation and the like). When I sent my students’ work to them (supposedly with my comments), they both wrote back and said that they couldn’t see the comments. My lovely computer decided not to save any of the changes I had made and instead only re-saved their original documents. Awesome. I decided to check on the other documents I had spent the morning writing to see if they were safe and sound. No dice. Everything I did on Saturday had to be re-done on Sunday, so I lost my grading day. Boo.

Other than the loss of some documents, the weekend was great. It was Abbie’s birthday weekend and we went to Ivanhoe’s and gorged ourselves on ice cream. I had a vanilla malt with chocolate chip cookie dough in it, and I ate a delicious grilled cheese sandwich and some cheesy fries as well.

On our way to Ivanhoe’s we went geocaching, which is a whole new experience for me. We found a couple of caches in two of my favorite cemeteries, but the one that was supposedly by Matthew’s Covered Bridge was nowhere to be found. Either it was buried in the snow, or someone had stolen it. We had a great time romping through the snow to try to find them, though!

On Sunday afternoon, after I had rewritten all the work I had done on Saturday, we went to Welliver’s which is a smorgasbord in Hagerstown. We go there every year for Abs’ birthday, and we always end up eating way too much. I had more food than I thought I could possibly eat, and as a result I got pretty uncomfortable last night. At least I didn’t get diarrhea or throw up as a result. I did however sleep for about twelve hours. I am just not used to eating that much food, but I suppose I felt like I should because it is so expensive, and I definitely don’t want to do it again any time soon.

I felt like I could eat that much food because I ran nine miles this weekend: six on Saturday and three on Sunday. It felt pretty good, but my “recovery run” on Sunday felt harder than the six miles on Saturday. I guess it was because my legs were already so tired from the long run that I exhausted them on Sunday. I am looking forward to next weekend when we get to go to Indy on Saturday morning for the practice run, but I am looking more forward to it because it signals the beginning of Spring Break.

Of course, Spring Break is an oxymoron. Spring Break should be called Spring Catch Up on Everything. I have to finish out the schedule for my Burris students, do the taxes, work on my dissertation proposal, grade everything under the sun, and a couple of other things during the “break.” I am sure I will succeed in getting it all accomplished, though, because I always do.

On a sad note, my cat Mojo died last night. He has been sick for a long time, and the vet couldn’t even figure out what was wrong with him. When we went downstairs this morning he was just lying there in the middle of the floor. Dead. At least he is no longer suffering, and he got to eat like a king last night. We got some extra special food for the cats yesterday, and he ate most of the can. Of course, he threw all of it up, undigested, half an hour after he ate it, but he still got to have one delightful last meal. Now, sadly, he is in the freezer in a garbage bag, waiting for the ground to thaw so I can bury him by Mushi or with the other pets at my parents’ house.

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I haven’t done much in the way of memorizing, nor can I think of something new to be thankful for today.

I do not want to list my food consumption or my exercise.

Peace.

2 Comments

Posted in Food, Relationships, Running, Winter Weather