rebeccmeister | Running weekend

Well. I did a lot of running this weekend. It was quite crazy. On Friday morning, I got up after not getting enough sleep and went down to the boathouse to row. By the time I reached the far end of the lake, I decided that the flashes off to the west were in fact lightning, so I had to race back to shore relatively quickly. In a world of ambiguities, one thing is certain: Don't mess with Mother Nature.

Then I headed home again and got ready to head to the lab. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Friday was a holiday, but not for the Fewell lab. If anything, we were more busy than we are on a regular working day. First I collected leaves to feed my ants, and fed them. Then we all helped JW work on his dissertation defense talk--that took a good two hours. Then high-maintenance Eric defended his senior honors thesis. Afterwords, JF remarked that I had, in that moment, earned my RA funding. Hmm. Yep. That was but one small sliver of the enormous research pie that I have been feeding upon.

I was a bit peev'd by the honors system here at Ariz State U. Back at my esteemed undergraduate institution, honors theses were graded--one could earn thesis honors, high thesis honors, or highest thesis honors. ASU apparently believes in a lumping system--thesis honors are thesis honors. No distinguishing between polished academic gems and rough-hewn granite. For while HME did an adequate amount of work to earn thesis honors, he most definitely did NOT earn high or highest honors. I must be honest. And I must be happy to have less high-maintenance worries. Bleaugh. One thing is certain--I will never allow a student in my charge to complete a research program that rapidly. One summer and one semester are simply not enough time to teach research fundamentals to a person who walks through the door absolutely clueless about research.

Oh well.

Then I attended a lecture by a visiting German (on ant endosymbionts--cool critters living in ant guts) and learned about ant farts. Nifty. After that,

kihle and I headed out for a birthday camping celebration (I heart camping). So that was Friday through mid-Saturday.

I spent Saturday afternoon running. Three hours and twelve minutes of running, with a few short breaks for stoplights/etc. I ran about 16 miles. It was not pretty, but I did it. When I got home,

figment80 and

teague_o were making penne with vodka sauce--heavenly. I ate a lot of food and then went to sleep.

Sunday morning, I woke up and headed off to the Phoenix New Times 10k. I was convinced I'd be running ten-minute miles, but as it turns out, I ran 9:13 miles. Not bad.

So. 22 miles in a weekend. I'm beginning to feel a bit prepared for the marathon in January, although it's clear that I really slow down as the miles increase (10-minute miles=2:40 minutes for 16 miles, 32 minutes faster than my run). Not that it really matters, since my primary goal is just to finish the marathon. It just takes a lot of patience to put in that kind of mileage.