Mayor's Cup on very little sleep

On Sunday morning, after nights and nights of very little sleep, I sleepily rolled out of bed and into the car for our annual Mayor's Cup race. Mayor's Cup is one of the most significant cross country races in Boston. The men run an 8K and the women run a 5K. Brad's goal was to set a personal record, and, in typical superstar fashion, he set a personal record by about 30 seconds. He ran amazingly. I ran a little less amazingly but better than my last performance so I can't really complain. I am really excited for indoor track so my ego can stop taking a beating. Here is a picture making me look much faster than I actual am!

Kraziness in Kentucky!

I spent the latter part of last week at the Association for Applied Sport Psychology annual conference in Louisville, Kentucky. It was absolutely overwhelming in a great way! Imagine 10-14 hours each day of information overload of so much good junk in the world that is important to you... that is what I experienced from Thursday to Saturday. I attended lectures, workshops, colloquiums, and poster sessions on everything from coaching to athlete preparedness to meditation to neuropsychological effects of sport on relationships to mindfulness to race and ethnicity in sport... I can go on and on! The point is..I had a great time learning, networking, seeing old friends, making new friends, etc...

I took my camera on my runs to try to document some of the Louisville beauty but I couldn't really find much to capture - not to say that it wasn't unique - I just didn't feel too inspired when I was running there. I ran past the Muhammad Ali Center, along the Ohio river, past the Slugger Museum, through neighborhoods, across bridges...

I also met a man who works with team athletes at the Olympic training center in Colorado. His job sounded so awesome... there is so much to learn and so many cool ways to apply Sport Psychology to the world!

Assortment of goodies...

These are just a couple of pictures from one of our most recent cross country races...

In other news, there is a giant spider camped out in one of our windows. She has been there for 3 weeks. At first, I didn't want to bother her because, well, she looked like just a harmless little gal. Now, she has woven a web that covers our entire window (which is pretty big) AND I think she is pregnant. I definitely do not want a bunch of city spiders crawling around my home. Brad thinks I'm being illogical: "How can a spider get from OUTSIDE our window to INSIDE our home?" I think he is being naive. I found a spider crawling on my printer today when I was picking up a document. So, what do I do: I throw the document and kick the printer off the stand. The cats freak out and take cover under the coffee table. Meanwhile, my toe is throbbing, I spill my cup of tea, AND the spider is still crawling around our study. This happened at about 9 am. I still haven't gone into the study - it is now 11:40 pm. I'm fully aware, however, that the spider can indeed crawl from the study to any other room in our condo. In fact, if it just stretched its legs, it could probably touch two opposite ends of our little home. I know, I know...my brilliance and logic is dazzling. Plato, watch out buddy!

Saturday night was a hoot. A bunch of us went to a local bar to watch the Red Sox and get our dancing fix. The game lasted so long, though, that we ended up leaving at the bottom of the 9th and didn't dance a step. Well, Brad and I didn't dance...Rod, however, didn't let a room full of Red Sox fans watching big screen TVs stop him. He cleared a space in the bar (standing room only at this point) and busted out with some Jackson/JT/Busta moves interspersed with some Hemingway originals. I'll post a couple of pictures once I upload them to the computer. Sadly, I don't have any of The Rod Exhibit but if any readers have any, please let me know.

Racing weekend...as usual!

So, as usual, our weekend was dominated by races! Brad ran a cross country race yesterday and raced incredibly well! He was first for our team, ran sub-17 on an XC 5K course (significantly more difficult than doing this on a track), and beat most of the runners with whom he usually competes. Kudos to Brad.

I, on the other hand, had a very average race. No need to relive it - but you can find the juicy details on our Boston Running Gals blogspot site which you can access on the bottom right of this blog page. My entry is titled "What a weekend!" I've attached a picture from the event (photo by Alison Wade at www.eliterunning.com). It is of the first seconds of the 7000 women race! Impressive! Thats not all...this is also the USA National 10K road race championships so it is comprised of almost all of America's fastest 10K road racers. Deena Kastor, the bronze medalist in the Athen's Olympic Marathon, won the race today...followed by an old U of M teammate of mine, Katie McGregor.

Besides the races, we have had a pretty low-key weekend. We had a date night on Friday. I took Brad to a great Tapas restaurant downtown and got him a little drunk. He would have been fine but I kept on giving him my drinks to finish!

That is about it for now...I'm making Spotted Dick and the water just boiled...

Honey Crisp Apples

These apples are the best! Katie, Mike, Brad, and I went to a farm last weekend where we picked up a pumpkin, some delicious apples, and a few other goodies. Now, I'm very loyal to my granny smiths, unyieldingly loyal, one might say. When I tried the farm's honey crisp apples, I almost (almost) elevated them to #1 apple status in my eyes. It was a moment to remember. Since then, I've had my usual amount of apples (about 2 granny smiths per day) and, upsettingly, I've yet to eat one that is better than Sunday's honey crisp. For all you granny smiths reading our blog, "you've got to get on the ball. You're tasty, sure, but you need that added freshness and crispness of the honey apples." Perhaps I'm blaming the victim in this case - perhaps its not the fault of the granny smiths as much as it is the fault of the stores selling the apples. Maybe I'll hit up a farm this weekend and look for my beloved grannys there.

Brad helped organize the Topsfield XC race this past Sunday. Coach Tom played his harmonica. The picture of Brad is from this race (photo by Bruce Davie). I didn't race it because the course was so rocky that my very wise coach told me to stay off it lest I choose to have another sprained ankle. Smart advice - I jogged the course with Josh a few times at the beginning of the day and I had to stop my ankle from rolling a few times. So, instead of racing, I locked myself up in Brad's car with a laptop, printer, and a bunch of cords. Brad had rigged the car into a portable office so that I (with a couple others) could compile the race results, figure out the team scoring, and print it all off from inside the car in the parking lot of a gigantic park. Pretty incredible.

I'm working with a researcher who is very well known in psychology for her work on multiple intelligences. Her work stems from Gardner's 9 types of intelligence theory and she is knocking my socks off. I'm really excited to be working with her since I am learning incredible psychology every day I'm with her, but I'm also realizing how much there is to know and how little of this knowledge I really have. It is very humbling.