I Haven’t Updated in a While, I Guess.

I’m on Winter Break now, hanging out in Aurora with my folks.  They flew in all the way from Switzerland to spend the holidays at home with us!  Yaay!  I am also getting a chance to see all of our family friends (well, Mom’s friends and their small babies/children) and see friends from U of I who live in the suburbs!  Yaay again!

 I have come to the conclusion that what I really want to do with my life is help people learn.  I seem to be very good at explaining things, and understanding how people are thinking.  This is why I am really enjoying the work I’m doing in instructional design, and if that doesn’t work out I could definitely see myself as a teacher down the road.  The content doesn’t really matter so much to me–I have a lot of interests, including music, computers, math, science, triathlon, other sports, etc, that I could teach–but I really feel at my best when I’m teaching, explaining or designing instruction.

I have also figured out exactly why I am always hesitant to play music (especially impromptu performances) in public.  Lana has been chiding me forever because I don’t play piano enough for her (or for other family members when there are family gatherings), and I think it’s because when I perform music, it’s such a personal, emotional, revealing experience for me.  Performing music is (for me) like revealing myself to the audience totally and fully, like being onstage naked but more personal.  To get over this, I find that I need a lot of time to prepare myself mentally, to make a mental plan for how things are going to go in my head.

So, the moral of that story is that I really just need to harden the F up and get over it, because I am an awesome super bad-ass piano player (at least Lana thinks so) and will be playing piano at every family function in the near and far future.

On another subject, training is going well right now.  It’s the off-season, so that means more swimming, biking on my trainer, and running in the cold or on the treadmill.  Due to ramping up my running mileage too quickly, I’m now battling Plantar Fasciitis in my left foot, so running mileage and pace is currently limited.  However, I’ve gotten in some good weeks in all three sports and this week I intend to have a swim focus this week–gonna try and hit 15,000 meters of swimming in five workout days, inspired by the wonderful Xmas gift of a sweet new bathing suit and swim paddles.

My pace in all three is low (it’s the “prep” phase of my training), volume is low (12 hours last week was probably a bit too much, but only about 2 running hours), and lately the days have included lots of rest.  I’m about 10-15lbs overweight (hitting the scales at 152-153 these days), but hopefully I will lose some weight when it gets warmer and I can cycle and run for real.  My next race is most likely the Illinois half marathon in early April.

One of my YouTube videos is on Laura Wilkinson’s website!

Laura Wilkinson is one of the most accomplished American divers of all time.  Representing the U.S. Olympic team in Athens, Sydney and Beijing, Laura won platform gold in 2000, the only Gold medal for the U.S. Olympic diving team in the three Olympics.

On her website, http://www.laurawilkinson.com, she has featured a video I took of her during the 2008 Olympic Diving Trials in Indianapolis this summer.  In the video, Laura performs a 307c (reverse 3.5 somersaults tuck), one of the hardest dives done by women (or men) off the platform, with SPECTACULAR  results.  Scroll down to the bottom of the main page on Laura’s site to find my video, or click this link to see my video directly on YouTube.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you are), this video is a Cynthia Potter-Free Zone.

My Thanksgiving Break.

Cliffs Notes:

• Lana and I spent two days in Washington D.C.
• The rest of the time was spent relaxing at my aunt/uncle’s house in Frederick, MD.
• I spent a lot of time with my cousins and brother Alex
• I ran a 5k on Thanksgiving morning in 21:30, over 3 minutes better than my last open 5k one year ago.
• I went duckpin bowling.  Duckpin bowling is hard.
• I met up with Kankan for the first time in ages!

Lana and I were both fortunate enough to be able to take the entire Thanksgiving week off!  We drove to Frederick, MD on Saturday, which took about 11 hours.  We took Lana’s car, because even though my car gets better mileage the cost of Diesel fuel is so high compared to gas right now that it was more cost effective to take her car!

Sunday and Monday we spent commuting into Washington D.C. for some sightseeing.  We drove about halfway to D.C. and then took the Metro into the downtown area.  We saw most of the major tourist attractions, including the mall area, the White House, the Monument, the Capitol, and the Lincoln, Vietnam and WW2 memorials.  We also paid visits to the Air and Space museum and the Museum of Natural History.  All in all, it was a bit chilly, but the attractions were beautiful in the fall weather and the museums were very cool.

After our excursions to D.C. we got a chance to spend good time with my extended family and my brother Alex.  My great aunt Irma also visited, and she is hanging in there.  The delicious Thanksgiving meal was spent with my aunt’s family as well, whom I hadn’t met before.

I also had the chance to run a running race on Thanksgiving morning.  Alex and my little 9 year old cute cousin joined me as well.  The “Turkey Trot” was a success for all, with my cousin running the 1k “Fun Run” version and having a good (albeit cold) time, and Alex and I running the 5k version.  I was glad they came along, I hope they had as good of a time as I had with them!

To top it off, I ran my race in 21:30, for a 6:54 mile pace, which was a significantly faster pace than I’ve ever run in a race before.  Hopefully I can carry this speed through the offseason and into next year!

After Thanksgiving, we had a chance to relax and catch up on some sleep.  We decided to make an excursion out to the local bowling establishment, which was not your normal ten-pin variety.  Rather, this bowling alley was a duckpin bowling alley.  Duckpin bowling uses pins that are significantly smaller, and smaller balls as well (about the size of bocce balls).  Duckpin is a very challenging game–the highest score ever bowled at duckpin is 279!  After bowling two games of duckpin, we all agreed.  I got a grand total of two strikes, two spares, a few tens (you get three throws per frame in duckpin, and knocking all ten down in three throws is called a “ten”), and the rest were wide open frames.  So, that was fun.

All in all, we had a great Thanksgiving.  I’m counting the days until Winter Break!