I live in Iowa: Week 52

A year here! That's crazy! I have been living in Iowa for a year! You know what, life is good. Better than I expected it would be.

I don't feel like blogging at the moment, sorry if I come across even more abrupt than usual.

I worked like 54-55 hours this week. Yeah. I am not made to sit for 11 or 12 hours a day. The reason I worked so much is that we are getting ready to go to physical build for some of our machines and we are a little behind schedule so we are being offered the chance to work overtime (and make time and a half).  Having not had that chance in the engineering world before I took it, to see what it would be like. In summary, it's nice making more money, and I did get quite a bit done, but my usual post-work happiness was not there. Those few extra hours took the energy out of me. Perhaps I can adjust to it, and I will probably work overtime a few more times in the coming weeks and months. However, if sitting at my desk 11 consecutive hours a day and coming in on Saturday was the standard, I would have to make big choices about my life, that I really would not like to make.

Who knows? Perhaps I could get a laptop and work offsite or go into the office late, but come back after supper and work on the weekends and take longer breaks, like every college student does. I was so productive the fall of 2009 that even working 55 hours a week and running 59 miles I don't feel as accomplished as I did then.

Segueing into running, 59 miles and couple of moderate to hard workouts. One of those workouts was a 20 minute tempo with my training parter M on the roads. The kind of tempo you have no idea after if you averaged 5:40 or 5:25, which is what an athlete needs sometimes. Saturday I had a great day! I woke up at 6:30, which counts as late, and went to the track for a 7k mixed tempo. It was 1k at 3:35-3:50 then 1k at 3:15 for a total of four medium pace ks and three hard ks. It was a really good workout for me. Then I went into work for just a little bit to see how some simulations finished, I changed some material properties and they are probably still running Sunday afternoon. Then I got a white chocolate dream coffee at Java Dreams and went to the UW Platteville track meet. I had a great day! From a coaching and team performance and athletes being independent standpoint it was not a good meet for our team. However, from the point of view of a couple of our athletes having good days and a number of athletes from other schools having great days, it was an exciting meet. People were running and jumping great performances! For example, 31 men ran under 2:00 in the 800 meters. The women's 5k, amazing! The long jump, 24 feet! The women's 400, won in 54! I had a great time and talked to a lot of people!