Tuesday & Wednesday

Tuesdays are busy: 3.00-4.00 Distinguished Lecture (attendance by PhD students strongly encouraged), 4.30-6.00 Optimizing Compilers, and 6.30-8.30 Abstract Algebra Lab. I went to Pottruck after it was all over--it was too dark out to run on the river--but there was no way I was getting 9mi in on a treadmill, watching every 1/100th of a mile tick by. My body wasn't too tired for it, but my head was. Too tired to blog even. So I did 4.5, and saved the 9miler. Today I started at Pottruck and did a loop up W River Dr, over the Strawberry Mansion bridge, and back down Kelly Dr. I then returned to Pottruck and did a short upper body circuit (bench, press, bicep curls).

Running outside is so much better than the treadmill. Today was especially beautiful--one of those early fall days that are made for being out-of-doors, and Iron & Wine's 'My Lady's House' provided a surprisingly good song to run with. The even tempo, emphasized by the guitar strum and a soft drum, match up perfectly with that of my footstrikes. I listened to it 3X in a row for the stretch from Columbia Bridge up to Strawberry Mansion. It put me into a nice groove where I was keeping up with some (ok, slow) cyclists. This song might be enough to make a skeptic believe in love again:

There is light in my lady’s house
And there’s none but some falling rain
This like a spoken word
She is more than her thousand names

No hands are half as gentle
Or firm as they like to be
Thank God you see me the way you do
Strange as you are to me

It is good in my lady's house
Every shape that her body makes
Love is a fragile word
In the air on the length we lay

No hands are half as gentle
Or firm as they like to be
Thank God you see me the way you do
Strange as you are to me

But enough rambling... back to running: the rain and early sunsets have put me in the gym more often than I've wanted the past month. Recovery runs and weights are great for Pottruck, but I must get outdoors more, especially for long runs.