Exhausting Trip

Yesterday's Total Calorie Intake:  ????

I made my flight yesterday morning in plenty of time.  I pretty much tossed and turned all night - anxious I was going to oversleep and miss the flight - so I rolled out of bed at 3:25am (my thought was "what's the use of trying to sleep for another 40 min?") and made it to the airport by 4:30am.  Surprisingly, there were lines at the baggage check / ticketing counters and at security at that time.  Wow!  Luckily, I only had a carry-on bag so I only had to deal with the security lines.

On the flight I caught up on some pleasure reading.  I don't read often enough (OK...my schedule is a bit manic, so I don't make much time for it).  So far this year I read Hal Higdon's Marathon book and I had started the Alan Sillitoe classic The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.  I had been a few months behind on reading my Runner's World subscription and had started to catch up over the past two weeks.

When I originally picked up The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, I thought it was a novel and not a collection of vignettes.  So I was a bit surprised when I finished up what I thought was the first "chapter" of the book and in the next "chapter" an entirely different character and situation was being described.  So far, I'm finding the book enjoyable - but not riveting, so after a while I put it down and read some of the RW magazine.  I found the style of the first vignette - about a teen delinquent who is sent to a reform school - similar to the writing style of Catcher in the Rye (at least what I remember of Catcher...I mean, I read it almost 20 years ago!)  When the main character arrives at the reform school, they force upon him the sport of long distance running.  At first he resists it, but then he realizes how free he feels while running those long distances each morning that he starts to long for those runs.  Needless to say, I was able to relate to much of the narrative about those frosty, morning runs.

I am happy to say I am now on the current month's edition of Runner's World - hooray!  The feature article is on Kara and Adam Goucher.  If I would have looked at the cover weeks ago and saw Kara Goucher there I'm sure I would have dropped everything and read it on the spot - she is awesome!  She bronzed in the 10K at the Osaka World Championships, came in first at a big HM in England - beating Paula Radcliffe, and won the mile at this year's indoor Millrose Games...oh, and she's extremely attractive to boot.  I'm crossing my fingers that she'll do well at the Olympic Track Trials next month, because I'd love to see her at the Olympics this summer.

The article got me thinking about this summer's Olympics.  In the past, the only Olympic track and field personalities that I had heard of were sprinters - Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson, Michael Johnson, Marion Jones, etc. (I'm a little young to have cheered on Steve Prefontaine...).  I guess I had heard of Joan Benoit Samuelson before the '84 Olympics, but that was most likely due to the Women's Marathon being new that year and she was the favorite to win the first one.  This year, I really don't know who the sprinters are, but I am familiar with - and somewhat following during the past year - the middle and long distance runners.  I believe this is the first year since I was a youngster that I'm psyched to watch Track and Field at the Olympics.

As for the rest of my trip, the course was useful for the networking and face time with my Director, however, I felt the material was a bit of a review for me.  A lot of Stephen Covey ideas and strategies on how to influence others and budget time.

And I always eat horribly while traveling - food with higher fat content and larger portions than necessary - so I'm glad I'm back home and ready to get back in the "eating right" routine.