I Live in Iowa: Week 99

What happened this week? I worked, I ran, I slept, and I ate. That about sums it up.

Work is going well. I am progressing on a flexible multibody analysis, which in English means a difficult project. It’s funny. I show results and on the one hand I’m thinking, ‘these results are almost insignificant.’ On the other hand I’m thinking, ‘this is good work, I am amazing at my job.’ HA! The truth is somewhere in between of course. The results aren’t worthless, but I’m not the best finite element analyzer in the world either. Although, if I keep talking and writing about it, I might get that reputation.

In other work news, I spent about six hours total learning Optistruct. I have wanted to learn it for two years, and the right mix of opportunity came along, and I basically learned in it four hours. I’m not very good at it, but I ran a successful optimization simulation. Optistruct is a Hyperworks optimization software, basically it tells you flat out where to make your product stronger and where it can be weaker by showing the density of material required in that area. Pretty cool stuff.

Coaching was a low week. Only a handful of practices. This is a nerve racking week for me. The week before spring break, try to get them to run a workout or two then hope that they run over spring break. The truth is some of them will and some of them won’t. I read recently that Bill Bowerman never gave much attention to those who needed to be motivated by him but to those he had to hold back. I like working with those I have to hold back (like myself) more than those that need to continually be motivated to do the work. In short, some people won’t run over spring break, come back in worse shape, not have good workouts, have mediocre races, and wonder why the other person is running so much better. YOU HAVE TO RUN (EITHER MORE OR FASTER OR BOTH) TO RUN RACES FASTER. I didn’t figure that out until I was 20, but it is so basic. 

My own running was not so pretty. Just over 80 miles, with a whopping 27 miles on Saturday. I did not run well all week until Saturday morning when I popped 22 miles at 6:38 pace on the rail trails that were 40% iced over. Quality wise it was harder than 6:38 effort, but effort wise I had to keep holding myself back because I wasn’t trying to run so fast. This gets to sleeping. Friday night I slept 10.5 hours and Thursday night I slept 10 hours, 7:30 PM to 5:30 AM. I think that I am still tired from the mile last week, more mentally than physically, but more physically than I would like to accept. Rest is good, I need to rest more. However, mileage is good too and I want to do more of that as well. 

That is about it. I wasn’t very social this week. Trying to lose weight something has happened to my evening. Instead of being 100 calories over my daily expenditure, and willing or able to expend more energy every evening staying up another hour or going to a friend’s house or going out, I’m exhausted at my 200 calories or so daily deficit. In response I go to bed as early as 7:30 some nights. That is actually a record. As I got ready for bed at 7:15 with the sun still out, I could not recall every willfully going to bed that early, barring some sort of mountaineering endeavor.