Change of Pace

I know, I know...it's just been a crazy few weeks and I've hardly known which way is up, much less had time to sit down and formulate a coherent blog-thought. But here I am, and I'll try to start from the beginning as best I can.

So, I think I said that the insanity started with a 10K team points race, which actually turned out to be a somewhat more manageable 4 mile race. Since I have pretty much zero speed in my legs these days, I busted out a 6:13 first mile and then promptly died for the rest of the race. I ended up with a 6:35 pace overall, which is fine, but it's a far cry from where I was just a few months ago. Honestly, three weeks later, I don't even remember much about the race, except that I think it was warm out. It was July, that's a pretty safe bet.

After that, I finished up my last week of work for a company where I've been for nearly 13 years. It's remarkable how freakishly easy it was to just walk away. I mean, I've come by my bitterness honestly as far as my feelings towards the CBS Evening News and 90 percent of the people who work there, but I've been really happy at the network's website for the last year. Nonetheless, when it came time to walk out the door, I can't really say I felt even a faint sense of regret about it. The network, and the industry in general, are in such an uncertain sense of flux, it actually feels really natural to take a time-out to examine the business in an academic setting.

The process of getting ready to leave my friends was definitely tougher, but that really started back when my pals started gettin' married and havin' babies and I started working crazy overnight hours and jetting off to the midwest every few weeks.
Plus, I've developed quite a few friendships right here with the runner/blogger set and those folk are conveniently portable.

The day before the actual load up the truck and move date, I hauled myself out to the park one last time for the NYC Half, a race I originally intended to make my last racing hurrah, with a hardcore race plan and a shot at PR at the distance. One food poisoning incident, trip to Cuba and Summer head cold later, it was clear that a fast time wasn't even remotely in the cards.

Plan B of pacing my friend Connie to 7:30 miles in the race turned out to be much more sensible and fun anyway. It was still challenging enough to be a great workout, but sane enough not to wipe me out for the move and my plan to pace Meghan for the last part of her 100-miler not even a week later. THAT story will come next.

Alright, that's enough catch up for now. I'll tackle the next chapter in a bit.

Half marathon under my belt, the next big hurdle was the move. The goal was to be as helpful as possible getting stuff from apartment to truck, without doing any serious damage to my back that might interfere with pacing Meghan in Cleveland. Luckily my man has some serious muscles and my doorman was looking for a little extra cash for his help and know-how, so the boys took care of nearly all the heavy lifting and I dealt with the driving through NYC traffic in a 16-foot truck. It took pretty much the entire day, but we ended up at my cousin's in New Jersey that night well fed and ready to collapse.

We started part II of the trek not quite as bright and early as we'd planned, but still in time to make a stop at Jack's favorite hubcap dealer in West Virginia as well as my grandmother's in Columbus. That got us more than halfway through the drive and allowed us a much more refreshing break than we would have gotten in some random roadside motel.By this point we were firmly entrenched in the heartland of our great nation and I started to get a feel for my new life. From the highway, it looks like even with gas prices being what they are, my new life will have a heck of a lot of SUVs in it.

So after a relatively painless drive, we made it to St. Louis, crashed for the night and then hit the final stretch to Columbia, MO. Again, Jack did the lion's share of heavy lifting since by this point I was just two days out from Meghan's run. Somewhat worryingly, it is worth noting that by this point in the week, I had logged exactly zero miles. I suppose it might just be considered a really thorough taper?

Whew. Way to fall off the map yet again, huh? My introduction to graduate student life kicked off with a two-week journalism "bootcamp" class that was supposed to bring us all up to speed on the importance of the profession and the role of research in good reporting. Well duh, that's what I DID for the last decade of my life.

Nonetheless, it's been a good refresher for me and a quick way to get to know my fellow students as well as a chance to build some confidence and get in a little writing practice before classes start in earnest.

I do feel a little crotchety now and again, compared to my fresh-faced 22-year-old classmates, but for the most part I don't think I look all that much older than them (thank you, running).

Speaking of which....I haven't done a whole heck of a lot of that running thing since my long jog through Ohio with Meghan last week, but I think that's to be expected.

That experience, by the way, was well worth the time and effort I put into it. I wondered briefly if I wasn't trying a little too hard to be super-Chelle by tailgating my cross-country move right into the Burning River 100, but in the end I'm so very glad that I did.

In contrast to poor Meghan, I had an easy and uneventful flight up to Cleveland and was delighted to meet her when I got there, not even realizing at first what a tiring ordeal she'd been through already. I've spend nights stuck in the airport before, but never right before attempting to race four marathons in a row!

She napped as much as she could that afternoon while I marveled at the wonders of midwestern strip malls and ginormous grocery stores near the hotel and then we headed out for pizza and pasta with two other online runner pals who live in the area, Salty and E-Speed.Salty marveled a bit in her post about the oddness of it all, considering that we really only barely know each other in a virtual sort of way, but it's funny...at the time it never occurred to me. We have so much in common and so many shared experiences, it just felt like a bunch of old friends getting together for a big, exciting event -- a big exciting event that was beginning at 5 AM the next day!

So we gulped down our vittles, hugged our goodbyes and hustled to get Meghan's tired bod back into bed.

(to be continued...)