I Live in Iowa: Week 59

The week that was that will be no more. Never to be repeated. Let us start with the previous weekend. At my relatives in Minnesota, my sister and I tried to go to church, but had the wrong time and showed up half an hour after it ended. Typical miscommunication. Then we drove up to Mountain Lake because my sister had never seen our relatives graves or the old farm, which was sold in the 70s or something. It is as stereotypical as a farm in rural Minnesota comes. Except that they put out a bicycle path recently that goes from town past the farm to the nearby lake, pretty cool.

I spent some more time in the greenhouse getting dirty. The picture doesn't do the dirt justice. I already mentioned the story about the Japanese couple. Then my sister and I drove home, and enjoyed hours of talking of sometimes painful talking with each other. By the way, those awesome $70 Prana pants that I am wearing covered with dirt in this picture I wore up on the Diamond in 2010 and I wear to work and church all the time. Plus, they hem the pants for free at the Boulder store on Pearl Street.

Keepin' It Real

The work week was more or less uneventful, well not exactly. Actually we had a really good example of hesitation to change. One particular aspect of my job will be changing so that it takes perhaps 50-75 seconds to do a task versus the previous 20-30 seconds. However, that  increase in time is offset by a 40-65% decrease in time to do another task. In other words, instead of eight and a half minutes to do the other task now it takes around three minutes. That's huge, and the time savings for the second task scale depending on the size of the task. In other words, I feel the increase in time to do task one is more than offset by the time savings to do task two and thus not really a problem. However, there is some hesitation to change to the task that will increase in time. Also, the hesitation is not from people under 30. Hopefully this will work out so that both task one can remain 20-30 seconds and we retain the 40-65% time savings on task two. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

On the running side I ran 100.4 miles, as I said I would do over 100 so I did. Most of that was pretty slow but I did a workout on Saturday morning that was just humbling. My workout partner M could have been a sprinter. We did 4x200, 4x400, 4x200. We were running 31-32 for the 200s and I felt okay. Then we get to the 400s. We take off through something like 32 at the 200 and I fall way back and run a 67. That's still good in my book. M ran a 63. We get ready for the second one and in 40 meters he's out two steps ahead of me. I just run as well as I can and run a 69... to his 61. At that point I just did 200s and let him run the 400s. Still we were getting out in 30-31, and he is finishing at that pace. 

So I bring up the question, "Did you ever think about breaking four in the mile?"

M, "Yeah, I ran my 1500 PR, 3:51, on a windy day at Augustana pretty much alone. I ran the last lap in under 60. That was my senior year. I was just never in the right race." There is probably a lot of misquoting in there, but that's what was conveyed. I mean, the guy hasn't done any speed work in a month and he shows up at the track and runs 400s in 61s. Who does that?

Getting around to Saturday afternoon, I went rock climbing! For the second time this year! There were five of us. We went to the Palisades State Park just north of Savanna, IL. We climbed on Sentinel Rock, which is pretty cool. I had no idea that there were towers in this part of the country. Then we went to Galena for supper. It was great! I rarely get an hour of uninterrupted comedy when I'm out but between the five of us it was just joke after joke. For example, we ordered a plate of appetizers then two medium pan pizzas at Gobbies. Reasonable for five guys in their middle 20s? Ha! We each only ate one piece of pizza! The slices were seriously two inches high with dense dough! We each took home two pieces of pizza. Seriously, when would five guys in their 20s tired from a day of rock climbing order one medium pan pizza? Nevah happ'n!

There is a lot to organize this week, the next couple weekends I think I will be traveling. Plus, there is demand for more climbing, we might organize some more stuff in advance. It is going to be good. In case anyone is in Dubuque Saturday morning June 9th, come to the Grandview Gallop! It is the highlight of the Dubuque summer racing season and I know that the top competition is in better shape than last year so it should be a good race.