Lots to Catch Up On

Well this maybe the first time in a very long time that I have completely forgotten about my little corner of the universe. But with a helpful nudge from Sadie (erhm, I believe the text was "Did you forget that you have a blog?" or something along those lines) I decided to sit down and write today in the Union. I am in fact alive, contrary to popular belief, and I am functioning at a very high level here at Bowdoin. We have lots to catch up on, so sit down with a beverage of your choice and if you have a few minutes to kill, I'll provide some commentary on the month of October.

Hm, where to begin. Well we could start with some highlights. We had our first team time trial a few weeks back. We had a skate 5k on the bike path here in Brunswick, which actually was pretty awesome considering that is pretty much my kind of race (rolling/flat skate 5k's are just so appealing to me as of late, but that may be because I had my first 15k this past weekend and I wanted to drop dead. More on that later.) ANYWHO, I think I did pretty well, I was our top girl finisher with a 11:55 which I thought was a very solid performance. Other highlights of the past few weeks have included some gnarly 6:30am workouts with our new assistant coach -Zach Stegeman- like the one we had this morning. Which included watching a sunrise through the dark and mysterious fog as we did 4x9 minute running intervals around the athletic fields with weights around our waists. Oh happy day. We've also had some lovely OD workouts out and about on the roads around Brunswick, this weekend being my favorite so far. It was just such a perfect fall day, with amazing sunshine, a crisp breeze, and gorgeous foliage along the road. All and all, I can say that sure, we may not have a TON of hills right on campus, but just a few minutes out we have amazing terrain and some of the best pavement and skiing roads I've been on in a long time.

Oh and I also ran in the Dempsey Challenge about two weeks back. It was my first 10k in a while and I took it like a nice threshold workout (7:40 minute miles). And I got to creep on Mr. Dempsey himself which is always a great thing, he is McDreamy after all....

Oh Mr. Dempsey

It's a hazard to wear a Bowdoin shirt in Bates territory as I learned.

That day we also happened to travel to New York for a family friend's birthday and we wandered around for a little while in the Big City. While New York is kinda cool for shows and food and shopping, it's not exactly my favorite city. I've never felt so engulfed by so many people. Although the lights in Times Square were pretty awesome.

Ahem, so what else what else.... We also had the Lobster Roll out on North Haven last weekend, which I must say was probably one of my worst feeling races to date. The day before we had done speeds and I had tweaked my hip a little bit. I rolled it out that night and stretched and thought to myself "bring on the 15k!" Unfortunately my hip did not agree with what my brain was saying and I forced myself to slow down because I was kind of afraid that I was going to hurt myself more. I came across the line feeling a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand I was thinking "okay, first 15k EVER, you don't know how to pace yourself and in reality, this doesn't even matter. It's only October." But the little demon on my other shoulder kept whispering in my ear "It's October. Racing starts in two months and that was not a good note to start on. Get it together." So I cooled down with a nice chat with Coach and things started to look up especially when I really figured out that I have plenty of time to get together by racing season. And it really wasn't something that mattered. All things which I kind of already knew but I had to hear from someone else.

Gosh, I dunno what else to talk about. Well classes are going pretty well, everything is such a whirlwind, half the time I don't know what to do BESIDES homework. Archeology is going swimmingly as I have officially decided to write my term paper about nineteenth century brothels in Washington D.C. and compare them to those found in Boston and New York City (bundles joy!) My Russian is also a superb class with one of my favorite professors I have encountered so far. History is okay, although I'm not sure if I really want to take another history class anytime soon. Although last night we read and AMAZING letter from Pico della Mirandola about the purpose of man in the universe. Seriously. It kind of blew my mind (On the Dignity of Man). AND finally psychology which is something I have really taken a liking to. So much so that it has the potential to be my major, but I don't want to jinx that now do I?

Well I have to run and get some food at some point today and then go to my archeology class and Russian hour. Then practice. Again. But I think we're playing speedball which is perfectly fine with me.
Cheers!