I Live in Iowa: Week 88

I am still sick. Five days! It's hard to convey my coughing over writing. To you I might as well be 100% healthy. Interesting. I mean, I wonder how many old texts that we have read were written by people who were sick or in poor condition. Probably quite a few.

I spent most of the week at my parents house in Sheboygan Falls. Christmas was really good. I was sleeping 10 hours a night and taking a 90 minute nap every afternoon, but that was due to the emotional relaxing from work and the fact that I was having some good longer runs and workouts. My body just needed a rest.

In the United States Christmas has come to mean giving presents to each other, so I suppose I will mention that. I gave a couple gifts I could stand behind and I received some gifts I plan to really enjoy, like some shirts and ties. Not many people wear ties to work, but now that I am starting to have a bit of a collection, I might start wearing more ties. On the gift that I gave that I am most excited about, I wrote a sonnet for my parents. I thought for two months, what could I possibly give them? Growing up we did not have the thousands of dollars of iPods and flat screens and jewelry that some families have for Christmas. Now that my sister and I work full time, it is a bit of a cross roads, do we see who can spend the most money or pursue some other avenue for gifts? I say the other avenue, let us create things for others. So I wrote a poem. I'm not sure how I follow that up.

Running started out great, and disappeared. I ran 56 miles including my fastest tempo in months and I did strides once. That is only five days of running. The tempo was 6.6 km around the Petit Ice Center at a 5:34 pace average. My tempos have been around 5:40 recently so it was nice to be back down a little faster. I felt so strong. The next day I was sick in s still snowed in Dubuque. Typical.

Going back to family time, we had a Christmas with our extended family and that was nice. It is always nice to see the relatives especially as everyone grows and has new life situations. It's also nice to be around my immediate family because we all understand each other so well. I feel we also have a compassion for others and an understanding of the world that is lacking among many Americans. I say that because both of my parents are social workers and they are exposed to those in society that are much less fortunate than us. Furthermore, between my international experience and my family's international friends we sometimes think of things from a perspective different than the United-States-only or United-States-is-always-right. In short, we have good conversations, but I would be afraid for anyone who comes to our dinner table talks.

I am tired. I had so many blog articles lined up to work on over break. What happens? I get sick.