I Live in Iowa: Week 232

This was a good week! For starters I was sleep deprived and caffeinated in Germany most of the week. While not exactly an easy trip, it was fun. Of course, I describe trips to Louisiana and Atlanta as fun too, really there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of difference to me. The language barrier certainly matters, but I am 12% fluent in German, so you'd better worry that I start blogging in German soon. (Haha!)

Seriously though, the two and a half days of meetings in Germany went really well. I was dubious that we would get the value out of this trip that sending five engineers to Germany for a week is worth. I was pleasantly surprised, we made significant progress on a wide range of issues. We even discussed issues that were not on the agenda, that were unexpected.

We didn't have any time to really be tourists, so Friday morning I woke up at 5 AM and took the first ferry to Switzerland for a 6.5 mile run, and then returned on the ferry back to Germany. I did not realize that Lake Constance is on the border of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, quite the border. Here is a little 23 second video of the ferry from Switzerland arriving in the Friedrichshafen, Germany harbor.

Despite not sleeping at all Monday night, I managed to sleep the other nights enough to recover, stay healthy, and still run about 63 miles, about half a mile farther than last week. That includes two long runs, including a strenuous 20 miler with 4.3 miles of 6 minute pace intervals in there, and 11 of those miles with a little white dog named Coco that lives on a farm near Durango, Iowa. The crazy part, that dog ran 20 miles with a bicyclist on Friday!

Saturday was the company Christmas party, which was fun, but I was so tired from Germany and my 20 mile run I left at about 8:30 pm. Overall, quite the good week, but I'm still tired, and writing this from a hotel in Milwaukee, on a business trip, again.