Signatures

Do not congratulate me yet--I haven't gotten the official lollipop of approval from the lady in Sproul Hall yet, but I uploaded my dissertation to ProQuest, and I have submitted the form with the signatures of final approval from my adviser and other committee members.

In other news, I have a cold. I also thought I had a cavity, but the dentist said that too was also just my cold. I am hoping I'll be better in time for the PCT 50 outside San Diego this Saturday, but I can't guarantee it.

ADZPCTKO was awesome as usual. Mattress and Heinz were sorely missed this year, but Ducky, Nano, Nitro, and I were keeping hope alive.

Thanks to the high precipitation winter, the wildflowers are crazy this year.

I used the day on Saturday to go scout out some of the San Diego 100 course in Anza Borrego and Cuyamaca Rancho State Parks. Gorgeous.

Representing.

I rode the train home on Monday from San Diego to Emeryville. I didn't think it's as pretty as other routes I've taken. Maybe that's because I'm a mountains guy and not an ocean guy, but that's also partly due to the fact that I felt I was going to die from the common cold the whole 15-hour ride.


I also went to DC again last week, then spent the weekend at one of my best friend from high school's wedding in NYC. Unfortunately I was sick and just slept for a lot of the weekend, but I saw a matinee of the musical The Book of Mormon, which if you know anything about the plot and my life, is pretty much perfect for me. It was quite funny, but I thought it lagged in the middle and I didn't really like Josh Gad. Andrew Rannells is quite good as the other main missionary though. The wedding was cool in a specifically NYC sort of way: the ceremony on a public peer in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, a random young Hasid coming up to congratulate the bride's grandfather the instant the glass was smashed, and taking the subway en masse from the ceremony to the reception.

I'll post on the secret blog again today too.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adze Picket Co. (I Love the PCT)

Image
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S...
Read more

Hardrock 34:42

Image
It's Tuesday, I'm back in Berkeley, and I just ran my first Hardrock last Friday/Saturday in 34:42. I wanted to record thoughts immediately after the experience, because it was hard , and now that it's been a few days, I'm already forgetting the pain. [I don't want kids, so you'll have to insert your own reference to childbearing here if you so desire.] Start The race started at 6AM. I slept reasonably well the night before in my truck just behind the school gym where the race starts--Silverton is very low key, so it's easy to dirtbag inside the city limits. I did, however, have a bit of GI non-normality, but it didn't seem like a big deal. I started in shorts, T-shirt, and a windshirt. As expected, the windshirt soon became too warm, likely because of the clouds that were obviously going to bring rain sooner rather than later. First Climb I started maybe 30-40 deep in the field, going faster than I'd ever climbed in training, but not feel...
Read more

Should I run UTMB?

That's it, the title is the post. No, of course that's not the post, but I am wondering. My schedule has filled in a bit for the year. I'm now signed up for: Orcas 100 (Feb), Paiute Meadows 50K (May), Scout Mountain 100 (June), TRT 100 (July), and hope to run the fun runs Lupine Loopfest (Feb), Desolate Peaks (August), and Euchre Bar Massacre (October). But the big news is that I got selected in the UTMB lottery. I have until the 29th of January to confirm my registration. For the non-runners: UTMB is a 106-mile loop around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy, starting and ending in Chamonix. By all accounts it is spectacularly beautiful and very difficult, with about 33,000 feet of climbing. For most of my running life I haven't really cared about European races or followed European runners, but I got swept up in the spectacle of it last year. It was the race's 20th year, an American man finally won (Jim), and also finished second (Zack), and Courtney...
Read more