I'm baaaaaack

I know you all missed me greatly. I'm such a wonderful, fabulous person that your lives have been NOTHING without me all week long ;) Obviously I'm joking here... or am I?

The conference was pretty good. I was up super late finishing my presentation on Monday night. I'm pretty happy with how the slides turned out, but I would have liked to have another couple of days to practice my talk (instead of oh, 8 hours (in which I actually had to sleep.

On Wednesday, burger and I went to downtown chicago, went up the sears tower and walked through the expensive stores area (The Magnificent Mile). We went into Nordstrom, Sephora, Ninewest, and Tiffany. The people in those stores were pretty nice and realized that we were just costumers, and treated us decently. We then went into Saks Fith Avenue. Totally different story, the sales lady was totally rude, I think she realized we were just there to gawk at the price tags. However, the trip did reaffirm my love fro Christian Leboutin (I think I butchered that spelling!) shoes even if I would never (ever) spend $790 US on a pair. And Burger also discovered Jimmy Choo's (I personally think she would have bought them if I hadn't been there to set her straight ;), just joking burger, they were beautiful shoes, but I know you were more sticker shocked than I was.)

Yesterday it was back to T-dot. Pretty uneventful flight. I got back just as QC (who was cat sitting) was coming back from the gym, so that was excellent timing.

Oh, and the pictures are up from the marathon. They got TONNES of me :)

http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=9148&PWD=&BIB=502 (And in case you are wondering, Yes, I passed that guy :))

I'm a marathoner :)

So my story starts while back. Back in first year LF (a friend of mine) entered the new york lottery and tried to convince me to enter with her. At the time I had never run more than 7 km, and the thought of a full marathon "No way, I could NEVER do that!". So the years went by, I discorvered I was more capable than I thought. So I sent the tentative goal that I wanted to do a marathon before the age of 25, realistically knowing that this fall would likely be when it happened. (My 25th birthday is next month!)

I started thinking about it about this time last year, and did a couple of half marathons and 1 tri in the spring and early summer. I ramped up my training for a month and a bit, but then it was off to africa to go and visit my sister. I didn't register for my race until I got back since I wanted to make sure I got in my long runs I needed. I had to adjust my training schedule, originally I wanted to have 3 runs of 20+ miles and to peak at 50 miles/week (mpw). But life and vacation got in the way and I only got in 1 20 miler and peaked at 48 mpw. (I got in 3 really long ones, a 28K at altitude on crazy hills in africa, and then a 30K and 32K run when I got back.)

So fast forward to the past few weeks, as you all know, I'm a grad student and preparing for a conference that is in oh, 24 hours, the incredible stress and long hours at work allowed the cold I had been fighting for 4 weeks finally took over last week, but surprisingly, I didn't notice it too much during the race though. I did adjust my goals this past week because of it though, I originally wanted 4:30, but I realized with the combination of my slacker training and my cold that I really didn't care about my finish time. At all.

Saturday morning I was up early and off to the expo (2 hours away). I met up with a woman I know from a running message board (AR), and we met Kathrine Switzer - first woman to do a marathon, and she signed my bib "To Laura who honours ME with her debut, Go Girl! - K. Switzer". So cool. And she really understands. She wrote of the front of my bib, upside down so that when I needed motivation during the race, just had to flip up my bib I went out for lunch with AR and her family to applebees. I got the "Two Cheese" Chicken Penne, Yum! (note: it was supposed to be 3 cheese, but I asked for light on the cheese ).

It was then back tracking 45 minutes to my Aunt's and Uncles house for dinner and the night (Also met up with my dad there). We had a nice little visit and I excused myself to go to bed, and actually slept pretty well. I woke up once at 4:30 and literally sat bolt upright, and had to check my watch to make sure I hadn't overslept.

I got up at 6:00, got dressed, ate, and tried my darndest to go to the bathroom (number 2) for a the next few hours, but wasn't able to go. Never a problem for me before a race! Ended up popping a couple of immodium and hoping for the best (I know, too much information ;)).

So the race started (after chilling out at this cool Art Gallery in Buffulo for a couple of hours), My dad and his girlfriend were back from breakfast and saw me in the shoots, and just on the other side of the start line.

I lined myself up near the 4:30 pace bunny not really caring if I kept up or not, and for the first mile I ran with them, but the split had me in at 9:30, oops! I slowed it down a bit and got the next few splits

1mile 9:30
2 - 10:07/19:37
3 - 10:22/29:59
4 - 10:16/40:15
And that is where I stopped watching my splits , got a couple of them...

Was throught 10K around 63 minutes, 15K somewhere around 1:34-1:36, Through the half at 2:16:37 (Had to go potty - Finally! - right before the half point ) And just kept going. From the half point to the finish line, only 2 people passed me. I was picking off people the entire way. I probably passed 50 people along the course. as soon as I passed one, I'd find a new one to pick off.

I can't give you any splits for the rest of the race. I knew 4:30 wasn't happening, so I just ran my own race from this point in time. How many marathons or races, are you guarenteed a personal best for???

My legs started to get tired around the 18 mile mark, but I was fine until the 20 mile mark. Just after EK and Burger were on the side and that boosted me for a bit, definitely good placement girls!. A few minutes after that, AR showed up, she was doing her long run after her hubby finished the half (shes doing New York in 2 weeks and is so getting her 3:40 goal!) and was there to pace me in for the last 5 and a bit miles. She was amazing. I wasn't good company and very quiet, but I can honestly say, I never hit the wall, I never felt like I couldn't finish, she kept my mind occupied. At the water stations (which I was walking through - and had been planning to walk through), she would introduce me to the volunteers and get them to cheer me on, and she kept two steps in front of me to block the wind. I can't say the miles flew by, I was in pain, but I never felt like I couldn't finish.

(EK and Burger were there again about 1.5 miles from the finish. They were a hard pair to miss :)). At 5K out, my quads started to hurt, and with a mile to go, my calves started to cramp up and I needed to stop to stretch them. They still hurt to the finish, but I kept going. I even managed to pass "the guy in the blue jacket" in the finishing chute . Everytime I passed someone, AR would sing "another one bites the dust".

Finished with a huge grin on my face, and the most amazing feeling of accomplishment somewhere around 4:39:45?? In my excitement i forgot to press stop Am I disappoint? Heck no! I'm so proud of myself!!!!!

Conclusions:
1) I'm not doing another marathon for a few years. Not because of the race, but because next time I do want to go for time, I do want to train properly, and I do want to give it the effort it deserves. Not splitting time with triathlon and multisport.
2) for now my goals are to get my half marathon time down (much easier to train for with multisport) and get my tri distance up.
3) I'm a marathoner! Yipee! I CAN do it

And they're off and running

My models that is. 60 models, 30-90 minutes each. Roughly 15 hours. I've so far taken over 4 computers, but might take over more as it slows down in the afternoon. It is friday after all :) One set already crapped out because the time step was too big. I'll try to decrease that step, and run this one chemical (5 runs) on my computer overnight. Oh, I lead such an exciting life.

I did manage to get hom last night by shortly after 7, so that was a nice change. I actually got to sit down and relax for the first time since Monday. I'm still fighting this pesky cold, it still hasn't got the better of me. I was feeling better yesterday after having a booster juice on Wednesday (thanks for the tip c-dub!), but it seems to have taken a turn for the worse again. I'll get another one tonight, and probably another for the car ride to Niagara Falls tomorrow morning.

So yes, my marathon. 2 days from now, I'll be running it! Time certainly flies when you are dreading something ;). Seriously though, I'm pretty excited and nervous about it, but haven't had too much time to think about it this week. Probably better that way since I tend to obsess a bit :) Okay, off to work on this presentation, can't put the results in, but I can put some rough conclusions in (I know what the model is going to show), and get all my method and stuff set up. Good thing I'm okay at winging presentations :) I'll probably not post again until Sunday night, I won't keep you in suspense any longer than that :)

An Update you want

An Update you'll get, but I can't guarantee it'll be positive. Actually, quite the opposite.

So my model was running, yay, got my runs done and then I met with my supervisor to discuss the results. He saw my "Fit" curve from last week and decided that it wasn't good enough, so I have to spend all this extra time now getting a better fit and re-running my model to get better results to present at the conference. Sounds like fun right? Well, I'm not even started. So this all comes about yesterday at 4:00, we make a few minor changes, and voila, my model no longer runs. I spend the next hour and a half in a total panic, and finally realize my program is running, just not out of the fortran window. Weird, I know. So I have swimming in under an hour, I still have to eat, etc. so I grab a sandwich and head home, for like 15 minutes. Go to swimming (that was nice, I can be positive about that), and then back to school from 8 to 11:45 pm, I leave a bunch of models running on my school computer, and bring a bunch more home with me to run from there.

I get about 7 hours of Jenny interrupted sleep, she missed me and wanted to cuddle. Cute, but not good when you are fighting a cold and halve a marathon in 4 days.

I get back into school shortly after 8 to realize what I should have known would happen, my models aren't done running. After about 15 minutes (my computer was super slow), I decided to stop a couple and bring them to run from home. Finished running at 12:15, back to school by 12:25, looks at my breakthrough curves, and tada! No break through. All the work I got done is a complete waste of time, and I'm in the exact same position as I was last wednesday. Only this time I have only 6 days (minus saturday and sunday because of marathon) to get results, make a presentation, practice it, and present. Sound like fun yet?

I'm a little stressed out if you can't tell. I'm planning on taking over the computer lab every night this week (and weekend). I have a feeling that Sunday night will be my first (and hopefully only) all nighter in grad school.

Balance this!

Okay, so finally, my equations are balaced. Wahoo! Just realized though that my coefficients in the ones I ran yesterday were wrong, so all that work is essentially down the drain. Hopefully my runs don't take that long to do. I'm finally ready to set them up to run. 12 chemicals, 5 runs each = 60 runs. Each run takes about 10 minutes right now, so that'd be 10 hours. Ugh. If I get a bunch going on my computer before I leave today, I may have results tomorrow morning.

And for those of you with your kind words, thanks. I was in tears last night over this, and have spent over 5.5 hours this morning trying to balance these stupid equations. (Note: I just finished, and I've been here since like 7:45 this morning!!!)

My weekend was good. C-dub, nej, and Margo came down on Saturday afternoon to go to Oktoberfest, it was fun catching up with those girls :) The highlight of my night was when burger's boyf said that quite a few people had said I looked "sexy". Definitely an upper, especially since I tend to have pretty low self-esteem when it comes to my looks. (I tend to blame that on the reason why I don't get any boys, but the truth is, it is probably the way I feel I look and not the way I look that is the problem). Anywho, thanks to burger's Boyf, for making my week :)

I guess that is pretty much it. I haven't run since thursday - taking this taper thing a I little too serious. I plan on doing 13K this afternoon, first 7 by myself, last 6 with the triathlon club, which means, fingers crossed, IB will be there, and with my new found self-esteem, who knows ;)

Do you ever feel like you are stupid

Like really dumb? That is how I feel right now. I've spent the hour and a bit trying to balance some stupid equations, stuff I should have been able to do back in highschool. Can I? Nope, not at all. I'm never going to make it through this week, or my master's degree. I should just quit now.

I feel so defeated. After a thomson was gone all last week, I was supposed to get so much done, but I didn't. He is going to be so disappointed and I don't know what I'm going to do.

Very Tired

More vivid dreams last night led to another side effect of Larium - insomnia. I felt like I was up half the night. After one particularly horrible nightmare (like, absolutely horrible, the kind I used to get when I was a kid) I actually had to sit up for a bit and read to take my mind off of the dream. I have a feeling today is going to be a mucho caffine day.

Yesterday was the Triathlon club again. Didn't really find anything new out about IB, but I did talk to him quite a bit on the run. I have a feeling that he might be a really strong athlete, he was talking about some of his friends that are pros. Craziness. There weren't very many people there last night, only 6, probably due to the crappy weather (looked like it was going to rain). Then it was off to Yoga. I got a bit better at a couple of the poses, so I felt pretty good about that :)

CSI last night was a weird episode, not one of the better ones. Now I'm back at work trying to sort out my input files (my goal for the day), but I still am waiting to hear back from my supervisor about some problems that I noticed late yesterday.

Wahoooo!

Progress! So on Friday afternoon I was supposed to get some number to add into my model, easy numbers that were supposed to just fit in all nice and then I could do my model runs this week. Well, turns out these numbers didn't exist and I had to find them by myself. Finally after 2.5 days of hard work, I have my model calibrated and am almost ready to finally start my model runs. Problem: Model runs are supposed to be done and graphed by the time the captain gets back next monday. NOT going to happen at this rate.

So my goal is to get my working from input files today, and then tomorrow spend the day setting up my input files: 1 file for each run, and at least 50 runs total (probably more like 100 since I have to vary two parameters). And then I can set them up so that they run over the weekend (either at home on my computer there, or here at school - If I have 20 going at a time, that will mean I *only* have to come in 5 times to restart the next set of model runs. That leaves me monday morning to assemble my data into presentable graphs.

Only hitch is that I was supposed to do all of this twice (once for column, once for "inject and leave"). I've never even tested the inject and leave model so I have no clue how or if it works, have no clue what kind of numbers we would want for flow rates, well diameter, etc. Basically, I'm screwed. Argh! oh well, I guess I can only do what I can do, and hopefully getting the second set up and running next week will be easy enough.

Thanks for letting me vent. I feel better now :)

things that make you go hmmm

Last night I went to see "In her shoes" it was pretty good, I'm glad I went. After the movie QC commented that she has yet to go to a movie with me where I don't cry. Oops! :)

So I woke up this morning in an utter panic. I just finished taking my anti-malaria pills last week, and one of the side effects is vivid dreams. Well, I think I just had one...

I wake up one morning and realize it is the day of my marathon and I completely missed the expo (where you pick up your race kit). Since the race starts in the US we HAVE to clear customs on Saturday at the expo, so I'm in an utter panic trying to figure out what I'm going to do, who I'm going to contact, how I can make this right. Next thing I'm at the mall searching for something, not sure what, and then I can't find my car, but I NEED to get to buffulo! I keep thinking, 'This is a nightmare, I'll wake up, and it'll all be okay', but I don't, and I realize this is actually happening to me. I swear when I actually woke up this morning I was almost in tears about missing it. It took me a couple of minutes to realize I still had 10 days.

Current Forecast: Rain and 11C (52F), I want 8 and sun. Still has 10 days to change...

Today is running with the triathlon club (and of course IB).

Edit 10:04 am Good lord

A woman obsessed

So I keep on checking the extended forcast for Niagara, I'm finding it hard to concentrate on my work :O Oops :) Still have 10 more days of obsessing to go. I'm going to be a nervous wreck next week!

Skipped the swimming last night, my throat was starting to get worse so decided I needed rest. I got up for my run this morning, but cancelled out of spinning for tomorrow morning. I figure that my running is more important than cross training right now, and since I'm not 100%, I need to cut one back so cross training it is.

Oh, I also started to clean my apartment last night. Shocking I know. Hopefully by the time the weekend comes around it will be semi-decent looking and relatively cat hair free for Margo. I actually washed all my glassware last night, so no dusty glasses at Laura's :D

Have a great Hump day everyone!

*sniff*

As in I have a runny nose :( I hope I don't get too sick seeing as my marathon is in 11 days! I decided to take off this morning when I woke up feeling completely drained. Hopefully I'll get a good night sleep tonight and feel 100 times better, but I have a feeling this cold is going to get worse before it gets better. Maybe I should go off the echinacha and vit. c and just let it hit my like a tonne of bricks.

My weekend was pretty good. Action packed. Friday night my cousin Z was in Town for Oktoberfest so we went out for dinner (Maharaja, I love that place!!!), Then is was back to b-ville and I didn't get in till around midnight. ugh. Saturday morning was breakie with D&M, and up to Ottawa. Saturday afternoon got together with e, we went to gatineau and MEC. Lots of fun :) Then off to dinner at my aunts house.

Sunday was my last longish run. 21.5 km, felt pretty good and pretty strong, so that is always a nice feeling :) ran the last 2 miles at the same pace as the first two, so that is a good sign :) then I hung out with my Granny, dad, sis, and bro-in-law for the afternoon and went to my uncles for t-giving dinner.

Monday was up again and back to b-ville where I spent a few hours before carrying on to W/loo. Took me 3.5 hours to get to Missisauga where I met NQ for dinner (that was nice, I hadn't seen her since her wedding in June 04!) and back to home. Jenny was very happy to see me. I was going to take her with me, but I decided last minute on friday that she'd probably prefer to stay put. It was a good trial run for our conference in a few weeks.

That is it. I'm back at school now after a long busy weekend. I can't do much though until one of the other grad students sends me his lab data. If he doesn't send it to me, I may go home and sleep and do some errands. I guess we'll see.

*Yawn*

Another day, another fully tired self. I will be glad when I'm done my book and it doesn't keep me up at night anymore! Oh yeah, and when my marathon is over so I don't have to get up at 5:30 in the morning anymore!!! Definitely glad it is friday, I plan on sleeping a lot this weekend :)

Okay, so yesterday afternoon was the triathlon club meeting and run. It went pretty good, however lasted about an hour, so I was pretty late getting to yoga last night.

New things found out about IB
1) He has VERY nice legs to match his nice torso that burger mentioned last week.
2) He is in the first year of his masters (applied math), so he is a year younger.
3) He has done tris for 3 years now, first year try-a-tri, second sprints, third olys and long courses, however, he registered for IM Wisconsin the day after the race so didn't have to qualify for it.
4) He has a very outgoing personality
5) He looks oddly familiar without his glasses on. I'm thinking I know him from somewhere, but am having troubles placing it.

Still no info on his "attached status".

The run was pretty good, I was actually one of the "fast people" so that was a huge ego boost. I'm by no means a fast runner, or actually any of the three disciplines, but all together I do decent since I'm okay at each. I joked part way through the run that it wasn't a comon site for me not running behind others :) Mind you the girl I was running with was a 16-17 minute 5Ker (ie. insanely fast for those of you who don't run), so what felt like a tough but doable pace for me was probably way too easy for her.

Edit 10:30. Oh. my. lord. I just don't know what to say. click here

Almost all the good Canadian Teams won :)

Well, except for Calgary, and that has me sad. Yes, that means I'm cheering for Ottawa *Ducks quickly*. I've cheered for them since the word go. I've always loved the city and when they got back their NHL team, I started cheering for them. Even though for many years they were a joke, stationed at the bottom of the league year in and year out. Go Ottawa!!! (But that isn't to say that I won't cheer for the leafs as well, just don't expect me to chear for the leafs if they are playing the Sens :))

Okay so other news? Not much, but I found todays MSN horoscope intriguing this morning...

A potential new love partner could appear on the scene, Laura, perhaps someone from a distant state or foreign country, or in a field such as law or education. You could have a lot of interests in common with this person, and some intriguing discussions could result. Whether or not you pursue this attraction, of course, depends on your situation, but today at least you could enjoy this person's company. Tomorrow - well, who knows?

A potential new love partner - IB
Field such as law or education - He's a grad student
A lot of interests in common - How bout the old swim bike run?

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the UW triathlon club is having a group run today, so there could definitely be the opportunity for "intriguing discussion".

Man, I'm tired, I want to go back to bed. I'm reading Angels and Deamons right now, I couldn't put it down last night, so I stayed up about an hour later than I intended. Oops :O

More Complaining

I should change the name of my blog to "Laura's Venting Forum" since really, that seem to be all I'm doing lately.

So all day today I'm been coughing. not a lot, just a little, but now my throat is getting sore :( I think I'm getting sick, so I better get over this before my marathon or I'm not going to have fun :( Not happy right now.

Oh, and for anyone whos interested my training swim went well last night. 2650 yds altogether

300 choice
4x50 pull
200 choice
2x50 kick
100 choice

300 choice practicing flip turns
100 kick
4 x 200 on the 3:30 (supposed to be 3:20, but the girl I shared and lane with and I decided we'd prefer the extra 10 seconds of rest)
100 kick
4 x 50 on the 1:00s. Easy shmeasy
150 cool down

I started doing dolphin kicks off the flip turns, and man does it ever make it easier!!!!

Oh, and Amazing race, amazing? Not really, not sure if I'm going to watch this season.

Why me?

Why is it that everytime I fix one problem I'm faced with a new one??? I was able to figure out why my model wasn't sensitive to three major things it should be. Stuff was in the wrong order, I wasn't updated my mass term at thre right location. Fine, I fixed that. Now my decay curves have some super messed up, inexplainable bend in them. :(

One problem fixed

So I rearranged some stuff, and voila, the mass transfer is now making sense. Unfortunately other stuff isn't. Ah, you gotta love the world of modelling. Why did I chose this for my masters? Can anyone remember? I could be in arizona right now basking in the sunlight :)

Not much going on. I got my pictures developed from my trip to africa. They turned out really well. I got 8x10s of three of the pictures, they were expensive ($9 each), but they turned out beautifully and will be added to my collection of 8x10s :)

Oh, and I also had to rearrange my furniture a bit this morning. When I got home last night there was a notice on my door saying that the maintenance guys were coming and needed access to my AC, so I had to move my dresser this morning. Jenny couldn't figure out what was going on and was thoroughly confused. I might keep it this way, I might move it back, who knows. I think I'll wait a few days and see if I like it. All this reminds me, I MUST remember to pay my rent!!!

Later dude(ette)s

Bad posture?

Man that running guy never listened to the string tied to your head advice eh? Running like that all day like he has, I'm surprised he hasn't stopped because his neck/balk hurts. It's going to be one long haul of a month if he doesn't sort that out soon ;)

I'm feeling a little better, I've decided to leave my mass transfer problem for now and sort out other things. The new stuff isn't going any better, but hopefully when I sort it out the mass transfer will be magically fixed. Or at least make more sense.

Edit: 4:46 - yes, I'm still at school, shocking I know. I just remembered something from yesterday, so I'm at home watching the Subaru Ironman Canada. Lots of fun. They were at the finish of the swim and one of the commentators (the typical TSN guy who doesn't know what he is talking about) starts talking about how a number of the athletes are switching to butterfly at the end of the swim. WTF??? They are NOT doing butter fly, they are doing dolphin dives, which is faster than front crawl or running in about chest deep water. Very typical for high level triathletes to do this. No triathlete in their right mind would do butterfly during a race, let alone as the end of a triathlon swim let alone an ironman swim, it is inefficient, and horrible on the heart rate. We like to stick with easier strokes. All the top level people would know this. It irked me. Learn something about the sport before you start commentating. Oh and for what it is worth, the other commentator was Lisa Bently who is an ironman champion.

Gar

Have you ever been so frustrated you just want to cry? All day today I've been working on my model, trying to figure out why it is doing this one thing wrong, and I'm no further now than I was at 8:30 this morning.

When I INCREASE the mass transfer coefficient, I'm getting DECREASED mass transfer. I can't figure it out, and I just want to curl up into a ball and make it all go away :(

Nice weekend

Pretty relaxing, didn't do too much. Friday I read and watched some tv, saturday read most of the day, also dropped off some pictures to be developed then forgot to go back to pick them up!!! Rented Sahara on Saturday night - It was okay, but the movie is about an "Environmental Disaster", and it kind of annoyed me because the science and hydrogeology were pretty off. I hate it when people write stuff and don't research it properly. Mind you the average person wouldn't realize there was anything wrong with it.

Sunday morning was my long run, all 32K of it. I finished, and that is about as much positive as I can say about it. The first 18 K were great, the next 6 it started getting hot, and my legs started feeling heavy. Tried to pick it up to marathon pace for the last 6 km, the first 3 were great, the 4th not so great, 5 and 6 were miserable and WAY off pace (conciously so though). I'm pretty sure that I "bonked" which is the figurative wall. It has been a while since that has happened to me, and it is never pleasent. I think my problem was with hydration. I had my 2L pack on and was practicing drinking at the intervals that stations would be at during the race, but I don't think I was drinking enough each time. I had about half a litre left at the end of the run which means in the course of 3:45 I only drank about a litre and a half. Not enough, especially given the heat for the last 10 or so km.

I guess I just have to shrug it off as a learning experiance and hope that the same thing doesn't happen on race day. I made it through the last 2km, but I'm not sure I could have made it 12.