I Live in Iowa: Week 153

I was super excited to get through this week. I mean, I'm still recovering from Everest, adjusting to work, getting back into running, plus I went to my 10 year high school class reunion and I was totally nervous about it. It was a good week. I am so blessed.

Work is great! I mean, we are figuring things out and making the product better. While we see all of the issues and imperfections, problems are being fixed and the reliability is going up. I am quite a bit more positive about where we are now than I was a few months ago. The upside of all the hard work I did before I left and coming back early is that my workload is actually light. That being said, after working 6-7 days a week for two months putting in evenings as well as early morning, not doing that extra work feels so much easier. One semester I took seven classes at college, something like 20 credits, plus being on the track team. After that, just taking 5-6 classes a semester seemed so much easier. It's the same at work, after putting in overtime and weekends, not putting in overtime and weekends feels so easy.

Running was great, with 49.8 miles for the week! All slower recovery pace, my average for the week like like 8:17 per mile. Still, it's close to double my mileage from last week and it includes a 2, 3 and 4 mile day.

We went rock climbing Sunday and somehow or other I managed to get up at least one 5.10. So I guess I'm in better shape than I thought. I would like to take a climbing trip later this year. A weekend at Red River Gorge for sure. I would like like to get out west to either the Tetons or Moab. Both places I have been before and have not gotten to the top of anything in either place. We'll see how my climbing partners are doing, because Moab, you need to have 5.9 crack trad climbing dialed to do anything interesting, and the Tetons you need to be fit enough to hike for hours at altitude then do 5.6 in pants and a jacket. Neither place is easy, that's why I haven't gotten to the top of anything.

I had a big article in the Telegraph Herald Monday. Sorry, it's the mobile site. I knew, before going to Everest that in the event of a big tragedy there would be a lot of media attention, but it's still strange to me, and quite sad really, how people only talk about Everest when it involves tragedy. Into Thin Air was such a successful book because so many people died. Life is good.

Saturday I woke up at 4:30 and drove to Sabetha, Kansas for my 10 year high school reunion. Oh, I'm definitely writing up a summary of the weekend...