Fall Race Plans + Alabama Orientation Recap

My running has been pretty boring this week.  Easy paced miles with low heart rate, and striders thrown in at the end.  My allergies are attempting to wreak havoc on my system, and after 3 nights of sleep, my insomnia reared it's ugly head the last two nights.  Meh.  I figured it was high time to provide you with my Alabama orientation recap.

But first, I wanted to share that I had made a decision regarding a fall marathon.  But wait?  You think to yourself.  Didn't you already make this decision?  Like...twice or so?  Yes yes I did.  School is going awesome, and it's a ton of work, reading, writing, etc.  Much like I imagined it to be.  Surprisingly, I am adjusting better than I expected.  However, the more research I do about marathon training and specifically heart rate training, I realize that my endurance is not where I want it to be for a go at 26.2 miles.  I'm sure the race would go fine, and probably better than my last two injury fests, but I want to really knock it out of the park, and I don't think a quick 5 week schedule crammed in to heavy study sessions is going to do the trick.

Instead, I'm taking on my back up plan race of the Fargo FM half on October 8th.  The course is super flat, and should be nice and chilly.  I love the half marathon distance, sand that's what I'm most prepared to run, so that's what I'll do.  And then because halfs don't destroy your body like fulls do, I can still run some fun local races in October before the blizzards arrive.  :)

And shockingly, I plan to employ a standard length of marathon training for my spring race:  my 2nd go at the Green Bay Marathon!  And during the frigid winter months leading up to that training program, I will be working my tushy off with heart rate training to get my endurance where it needs to be.  #yaycloud

Ok, on to the bama recap. :)

I arrived in Birmingham, AL on August 17th, and met some of my cohortians at the airport.  (There are 43 of us in my incoming class).  A shuttle took us to our hotels in Tuscaloosa, and we got to see some of the horrific tornado damage.  Interesting fun fact:  I got my acceptance email an hour before the tornado hit, so I was glued to my tv as if it was "my" home being undertaken by storms.  Yikes.  We went to the nearby restaurant/bar to meet some of the other students and professors.

Thursday morning orientation started bright and early and it was go go go for about 12 hours.  There was a ton of information to cram in to our nerdy brains.  I kept finding myself analyzing the group, particularly in terms of introvert tendencies.  Typically in the librarian profession, you see a high number of introverted individuals, and orientation was true to form.  It was interesting to see people need to take breaks from interacting with people to "recharge" and people that would need to move on from group conversations when the group became too large, and thus unmanageble for them. :)

I guess the next two days were fairly similar to the first two, with lots of information thrown at us.  We did get to have a night out on "the strip" where we all felt like old farts compared to the little 21 year olds.  I managed to take a sweet photo ID pic, and then the worst photo of all time for our cohort "directory."  I'll have to share that on a day that someone needs a major laugh. :)

So enjoy the random pictures from the weekend.  I left my camera batter charger at home, so I had my cell to take pictures with.  I whined about this 1200x.

running + tuscaloosa..... yayzies

Gorgas Library. Pretty, right?

Denny Chimes.

Cool tinman sculpture.

roll tide!

Denny Chimes from the Gorgas Library steps.

Sweet library/harry potter shirt?  check!

Librarian cardigan?  check!

Bama pride?  check!

Sweet ID pic.  aka I WIN AT LIFE.

Surrounding the Denny chimes are the captains names, hand prints, and cleat prints.