Day 167: 2/25/12 - "Furious Rose"

"Cause I'm barely balancing as it is

And I don't want to drown in my dreams..."

-"Furious Rose" by Lisa Loeb

Diploma Dash: Today was the Diploma Dash, my first race since the 2009 Race for the Cure in Raleigh.  I didn't do badly, I must say.  I finish in 35:30 and averaged a sub 12 minute mile.  I'm nowhere near my 31:00 time that I ran back in Knoxville in 2007, but now I at least have hope that I might be able to get back there.  I did much better running outside than I did on the treadmill.  For some reason when I try to do 5K on the treadmill (or any long distance) I just get tired easily and bored out of my mind!  Now I'll have to look out for other races that I can afford.  I definitely want to run them while the weather is good, because no way I'm running a race in Texas summer time weather.  Kudos to the rest of the JPL Joggers.  Our team of 4 all finished the race (and we all ran at our own pace).  I will say that I was both glad to see the number of women out running, but surprised at how many of the young women who looked fit, but could not run the whole race.  Most of them clearly started out running because they were far ahead of me, but I wound up passing them during the second mile.  It just goes to show that body type and size aren't always the best predictors of health or physical ability!

Working My Life Away: It felt that way today as I tried to tackle my e-mail and catch up on work (and get ready for Monday and the rest of the week).  I know I should take more time for myself but it is harder to do that when I worry that I won't be able to get everything done next week (and I know others are expecting me to produce things).  I hope that I'll have time to do everything that needs to be done and also the extra things that I think I need to be doing to continue to develop professionally.  I guess you can call it homework!