I Live in Iowa: Week 26

If you look at this week by itself, it looks like a wash, but if you look at the week before, or the day after, or the impact that I am having on the UD kids, or the work I am doing at John Deere, this all fits into the picture rather well. It is all progression.

I worked 39 hours. I took part of Friday off to go to LaCrosse for the Tim Jerews cross country meet. That is beside the point. Right now at work the new forestry machines are near the beginning of their promotion to virtual build, which is the process of making sure that everything can be built and work. After this we begin physical build, which involves building several dozen prototype machines. The point is, it is a time when a lot of work is to be completed and the volume or pace of finite element model simulations that I am producing is the best that I ever have.

My running involved a small 64 miles and one workout. The workout was a 10k progression run that I ended after 6k because I was struggling. But a minute later I felt good so I finished it with 2x2k after a few minutes of rest. It was a good workout. Basically as awesome as my week was last week I really really suffered from it this week. I mean I was extremely tired and had very heavy legs. Plus, Tuesday night I remember being half awake clenching my feet and pulling my feet into the bed, effectively stretching my shins, and cramping up the bottom of my feet (plantar fascia) and calves. I woke up Wednesday with plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I was so tired besides that that I took the day off. Anyway, I fixed the plantar fasciitis, and I should write an article and make a video because that injury is kind of my specialty. I'm getting so I can fix it in a week.

Friday and Saturday the UD team traveled to LaCrosse, Wisconsin for a cross country meet. It was our first overnight team trip. The team did well with several personal records despite two very hard weeks of training the last two weeks. Some of the runners also had really good aggressive learning experience style races. Sometimes you need to go out over your head so see what it's like. You also learn what it feels like to hit the wall and what it feels like at the beginning of the race when you hit the wall. When you watch the very best  they generally feel the pace and know at the beginning of the race if the pace will be manageable. They have gone out too fast, and just right, in the past and they know what it feels like.

I have such a great life mixture right now.  A great job, great running situation, a great second job, some cool friends. Life is good.