Friday, May 12, 2006

Lasers, Hamsters, Hammys, Drowned Rats, and Texas

So right now I am working in the lab on some experiments that pretty much just require me to babysit the laser. I am not sure what the laser might do, jump up and start burning people's eyes out? But anyways, pretty much I fiddle around with stuff then sit around and do nothing for 15 minutes while the experiment runs. So I thought I would post here.

Last night I had to run five miles (10:18 pace) and I was so unmotivated. To top it off, the weather was gross and really windy, so I went to the gym and did it on the hamster wheel. Why does the treadmill suck SOOOOO much?! I think running outside in the gross windy weather would have been less painful.

Tomorrow morning is our first 20 miler. I think mentally I am ready for this, but my left hamstring has been really tight lately and I worry about it. I can feel it when I am out walking around. On the plus side, rigorous stretching and self-inflicted torture with the styrofoam cylinder of death have paid off - I haven't felt my IT band in over a week. Tomorrow morning is also supposed to be gross out, so this isn't going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

One of the guys I run with managed to find the picture of me from the Drake relays. I had a jacket on over my number, so I never even bothered looking, but Bill apparently wanted to find the pictures of himself in the "Lost and Found" section. So here we go:

Me looking like a drowned rat at about Mile 11

I am amazed I managed to smile. I think I was probably delirious (this was actually about mile 14 for me). I also love how I think I am not swinging my arms across my body, but every photo of myself running always proves me wrong. I apparently love wasting energy.

Lastly, in my goofing off while experiments are running, I was looking at the stats for the blog. I can see the cities of the people who read the blog and expectedly Ames, DC, and Toronto are the most popular (that being where we hail from), but there are several hits from Plano TX. Anyways, Plano, you should say hi some time :-)

4 comments:

ButterPeanut said...

awww, look at you go! You are totally my sensei now.

Anonymous said...

Plano Texas says Hi. I have enjoyed your page and as you can tell I visit it quite often. Look forward to seeing "yall" at the wild west relay.

Danielle in Iowa in Ireland said...

Well John, we say hi back! Did you do the relay last year? If so, any training tips for fellow Flatlanders would be appreciated!

Anonymous said...

This is a first for our team too. I was looking for info when I came across "yall" page. We are a 6x6 team if we all get healthy and find enough people. There is some training info for hood to coast realy on this site that would seem to fit for a 12 person team. Lots of other running info there too. http://www.teamoregon.com/publications/