Updates, Updates!

Having left my "loyal readership" (all maybe 10 of you) hanging since my last post, here's the skinny on what's been happening of late.

The track team, it turns out, wasn't the third-best team on paper--they were 4th (I hadn't even considered a team from GA, which, strangely, is in the SC league). But we overperformed and placed 3rd anyway, and only 7 points behind 2nd. Overall, one of the most satisfying seasons I have coached, and a great team top-to-bottom.

My own running is back on track (bad pun intended). After struggling with the early-AM resolution, the end of the team's season allowed me to shift my own running back to the afternoons, which is much better for me. And now we're in pre-season cross-country, which means for a few days I'll have the added benefit of a team to run with. The biggest help, though, is I have been using my brother-in-law as a "virtual training partner." I email him almost every day and check in, and the knowledge that he'll give me a load of crap that only a brother can makes it far more likely that I'll get out the door. He'll miss a few weeks soon with yet another surgery, but I'm hoping that he gets in good enough shape before-hand that his missed time will cancel out with mine at camp and Rome, allowing us to compete as we always have by summer's end. I'm certainly not "all the way back" yet, but I'm just starting to get enough back that every single run doesn't disgust me, which is a start!

Finally, a stab at all you folks out there with "real jobs." (I don't have a REAL job, I have an UNREAL job!) One of my favorite math teachers over 20 years ago used to keep a countdown on her chalk-board after spring break labeled WUM's (Wake-Up-Mornings). That's how many more days until summer vacation. The rules are that you can't count WUM's before spring break (it just hurts too bad), and you can't count today (because you're already up... therefore on the last day of school, the counter reads zero). I have appointed myself the keeper of the WUM's for a new generation. And today's magic number is.... drum roll.... 13!

I have high hopes of writing something serious (I'm developing my thoughts for a post on the issue of abortion) soon. But not yet. Watch this space for further coverage of what passes for original thought in my world.