just breathe

I made it through my presentation to the faculty yesterday. It went over well - at least it seemed to. At the reception after the meeting, many people came up to me (that I didn't know) and thanked me for it.

When I was waiting for the meeting to start I told a colleague that I was really nervous. She said she was surprised, because I perform violin all the time. I rarely get nervous before orchestra concerts - a few little butterflies right before is about it unless there are some extraordinary circumstances. But for this, I was nervous. When I told a friend about this, she said she totally understood, because this talk was sharing my own ideas in front of all my peers at work. It's just different than performing with a group of people. At any rate, I made it through and now I'm done.

I was thinking, as I drove to campus that morning, that up until now, I've been pretty anonymous on campus. A few people know me, but I haven't really had a ton of opportunities to meet lots of people. But that all changed. Now, for better or worse, lots more people will know me. And that probably means I'll get asked to do more. Such is life, right?

rah-rah

Every all-faculty meeting at St. Kate's starts with an opening reflection. Most of the time, these are sappy poems and cheesy quotes designed to inspire. Sometimes it works, but most of the time, I have forgotten all about it 30 seconds later.

I was asked to lead the opening reflection for our workshop-week faculty meeting tomorrow. In front of 300 people. Eeek! I wanted to do something different, and immediately knew what I wanted to plan. But now that it is getting closer, I'm worried it isn't as uplifting as folks might be looking at it to be.

So I looked to the Olympics as inspiration since, after all, this was the "Olympics of Women," as reported throughout the Games. So I share all the great firsts and bests that indicate what a triumph of Title IX these Games were.

And then I share some of the sexist moments.

Like Holley Mangold, US weightlifter, who was mocked by Conan O'Brien, other talk show hosts, and in news and magazine articles for her size and weight, and in response, succumbed to interviews about her hair and makeup regimen and girly fashion sense.

And then there was the whole Gabby Douglas hair thing, which absolutely happens at the intersection of race and gender, but would not have happened if she were male (or white).

And it drove me crazy that the (male) commentators of the 29k road race continually referred to the female athletes as 'girls.' The gold medalist, US cyclist Kristen Armstrong, is 39 in her 3rd Olympics. She's not 12. Never were male athletes referred to as 'boys.'

And then there's beach volleyball. I was so grossed out by London mayor's editorial saying that the popularity of the sport was due to 'semi-naked women' who 'glistened like wet otters.' Yup. Gross.

Anyway, I finish by saying that the mission and vision of St. Kate's is absolutely as important today as ever. That we work really hard, and do the work well, to educate women to lead and influence. And that the work we do for and with women today will lead to change for all in the future.

I could end with a quote, but no one would remember it anyway. I think I'm going to leave it as-is. If no one claps at the end, I'll start looking for another job.

More tomorrow...

fightin' weight

Operation 12 in 12 begins tomorrow.

I am usually sure I can do things I set my mind to, but this is one that I do have doubt about, since losing weight has not been easy the last couple years. I'm at a fine weight, but I think if I really want to give it all at Virginia Beach in March, I'd like to be a few pounds lighter. Like 12, to be exact. I know that my weight was not a contributing factor in my stress fracture, but it wouldn't hurt to have a little less of me pounding the pavement.

If I stick to this plan, I'll be at my goal weight the week of Thanksgiving. And by that time, I should be putting in good mileage each week, so I'll feel ok about heading into the holidays without putting much back on. I really want to do this.

a wine a day

I've never been all that much of a drinker. I mean, I have a glass of wine when I go out to dinner, and have been known to over-imbibe at times (grad school was a particular highlight - or lowlight, as the case may be). I can still put it back if I need to (i.e. when going dancing or drowning sorrows for my own or others' breakups).

But when I moved into my house and made some comment to a couple friends about how one night I made dinner and opened a bottle of wine, I felt shamed when they made comments about me drinking by myself. And heck if I don't think about that every time I open a bottle of wine for dinner. So I almost never have a drink when I'm home alone (which is, let's face it, most of the time).

But there have been a number of studies recently that show that drinking a glass of wine every day is, in fact, good for your health. And I enjoy wine. So I've decided that they can shove it, and I'm going to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.

Salute!

good night sweetheart

I am very happy to be saying goodbye to the 'ol orthopedic boot. It has made for a frustrating and pretty depressing summer. Sunday was my last day (hopefully), as the doc gave me the go-ahead last week to be done. It was a good thing for its purpose, but I'm glad to have it off.

This Fri & Sat is the Ragnar relay, which I'm super disappointed to be missing out on, and it kick starts the fall racing season, which I'll be missing out on too. But the leg seems to be getting better, so I'll take solace in that. The swimming and biking has been good exercise, even if I didn't really love it. At least I stayed active. As of now, I haven't put on much weight, so I'm taking that as a win too. I'm volunteering for the race this weekend, which will likely make me even more sad not to be participating, but the teams needed help, so I stepped up. The team I was supposed to be on, The Fuster Clucks, is putting my name on the van so I can run with them in spirit. Very sweet.

I don't know how long until I'll be well enough to run again, but I'm hoping it is soon. If I can get back to it in a few weeks, I might try my first triathlon in mid-September just to see what it's like. I definitely will not kill it out there, as at best I'll be doing a 30-seconds-on, minute-off running, and most likely, I'll walk the entire 5k. But I can get a chance to try a tri, and see if I want to really do one in the future. When I map out my next few big races (and if I BQ next March), I don't think I'll have the motivation to do a Fall 2013 marathon, so maybe I'll try a half-Ironman if I like this tri thing. Who knows.

I'll quit feeling sorry for myself soon. Just in time for me to head back to school.

ten years later

Yesterday marked my tenth anniversary owning my home. It is hard to believe I've been in this house for that long. I walked down to the coffee shop yesterday to treat myself to an ice cream to celebrate. I might not always love doing home repairs, mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow, but I love my home. I love my neighborhood. It is probably the biggest decision I've made, and one of the best.

Happy tenth anniversary, home!

slow progress

My leg is starting to feel a lot better. The last few days have been the first days since May that I haven't felt some level of pain in my leg. Most of the pain I've been feeling is referred pain, feeling it in my ankle, calf, and Achilles, rather than in the shin which is the actual site of the fracture. But al that pain is gone, and I know I'm healing.

This is making me really antsy to get back to running. Up till now, though I've missed running, the pain I was feeling made it clear I couldn't get back out there. I was going a bit crazy this weekend, cheering for a half marathon on Sat and riding my bike around the path with the team on Sunday. Don't worry, I won't do anything stupid. But I'm anxious.

My body is really showing the effects of this injury. I've lost an inch of muscle off my calf and 3/4 inch off my quad in my right leg. When I flex that leg, I can't feel any tone in my calf. It will be a long recovery, but coach assured me I'll come back stronger than when I left. That I'm doing everything right, and come March, I'll be ready to really kill a marathon. In the mean time, I got to try out an Alter G treadmill, which is strange and super cool. I'm (mostly unrealistically) hoping that I get to run a bit on it this week in PT, but I'll just have to see what the doc says. I'll be fine with a walk too. Whatever it takes to get back to form.

Keeping busy swimming and biking. Swimming and biking. Making the best of the cross-training (even though I'm not crossing it with anything right now). I'm going to try to swim 2 miles tomorrow. I'm slow as molasses, but at least I'm keeping active.

an acquired taste

You'd think I'd have this dating thing figured out. Well, I guess if I had it figured out, I wouldn't have to still be dating. But that aside, I struggle with the so-so date. If you have a not-great-but-not-awful first date, and then a not-great-but-not-awful second date, do you go on the third date? The answer is no with the latest guy.

This is a long one. No worries if you don't care to read my blah blah blah about a blah date.

So the first date with this set-up was just meh. We met for dinner (food was good - Al Vento in Minneapolis). Conversation was not easy, and there were some decidedly weird moments. Like when he spent a good amount of time talking about his sixth grade IQ test and standardized test scores that proved he was really smart. There was also the time he spent sharing what good friends he is with all his exes. You all know how I prefer to think that my exes are dead once we break up. I know he was telling me this to show that he's a good guy. But he went on and on about the emails he sends out and checks in with his exes every few months (!?!) to see how they are doing. Weird. When we were looking over the wine list, he asked (perhaps rhetorically, not really looking for an answer) what the different names listed indicated. I said I was pretty sure they named the grape, vineyard, and region, but he disagreed with me. And then he asked the waiter to explain and the waiter told him what I had said (grape, vineyard, region). His response was, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Thanks." Then he wanted to walk around the Falls, which is nice normally, but I have a boot on and it was raining. So we sat in the rain and talked for a while before he took me home. He asked if I wanted to go out again (I hate it when they do that before the date is even over), and I said yes, so we made plans to kayak, which I wasn't so sure about because of my leg, but figured I'd see how it went. And then he sent me a text at 6 am the next morning to tell me he had a good time. 6 am?? I know, I know, it was nice. But I don't want to be woken up by a "Had a great time ;-o" text. Frankly, I hate emoticons, and what is that face anyway? A winking surprise? How does that relate to our awkward date with strained conversation? But it wasn't awful, so we went out again.

I wouldn't have chosen to go kayaking. Remember - in a boot. But he said I didn't need to wear it all the time and could take it off for the kayak (um, thanks doc). In theory, I do like to kayak and it is a good date idea, just maybe not right now for me. But we met to kayak the lakes on Tuesday evening. It was a gorgeous evening, and the lakes were calm and beautiful. We were in a tandem kayak, so he stared at the back of my head the entire night. More weird conversations where he would sort of argue with me or shoot down something I said. He talked a great deal about his dog - a pitbull - which I just can't seem to get over. I get it that a lot of their behavior is dependent on training, but they are scary dogs. I know of several people/dogs who have had run-ins with pitbulls and lost. And I got another 6 am text.

The woman who set us up said he's a little weird, (she thought he was pretty creepy when they met) and a bit of an acquired taste though he's quirky and nice. That may be, but I just don't feel any chemistry at all. None at all. I didn't have any fluttery excitement when I saw him when we met to kayak. I didn't get excited when we hugged at the end. I didn't feel anything at the end of the date when I was driving away. I called my sister and almost forgot to tell her that I had been on the date. He once again asked at the end of the kayak date if I wanted to see him again and I said sure. He said I should plan this date. And for the last 48 hours, I spent 0 minutes thinking about when and what I'd want to do with him. I figured this is a pretty strong signal that though he may be an acquired taste, I don't really want to spend that time to figure out in the end I still don't want to see him any more. I sent him an email that I didn't want to plan another date. I only felt relief when I sent it.

I know I'm probably being really picky. But even though I go back and forth with being really happy and really wanting a partner, I'm mostly really happy with my life. And I think that at this point, it would need to be something pretty extraordinary. And I just don't think this was it.