Day off

Life has been simple today. I had the whole day off and had nothing planned. The kids were here this morning, while the Girl was working. We went to the pool, which was fun. The Bois is such a well-known characted at the YMCA day care that they all, it seems, celebrate his arrival. No one knows me, of course. I think they thought the Girl was some unreal single woman before I brought him in today. This is our life in a nutshell:Well, at least the Girl's life. Biking with the Bois in the back; jogging with him in the jogging stroller. We have a system where the car seat straps into the jogger so his head is ok. The Girl has not changed into someone else, and yet she has become a wonderful, devoted mother. Her days are as full of exercise as they always were but now the Bois is along with her in various capacities. Soon, hopefully, I'll have more time to join in on their days. Today, since I was the one who go the day off, I spoiled myself with a bike ride up in the hills. My leg needs just a little more babying before I set out on a run. Job-wise, it's been a pretty interesting couple of weeks. In a strange twist, I am doing a rural pediatrics rotation in the same location I have signed on to do a locum tenens position later this year. I even got to work in the ER a few times, making some okay money in the process. It's such a small hospital in a small town. My "expertise" is so appreciated. Everything I do, every piee of advice I dish out, comes with a little bit of secret apprehension. There were a few times in the ER when I wasn't sure whether I was doing the right thing. Generally, I could tell the nurses were comfortable with all my decisions, though, so that's a good sign. They have been without an internist for a while now up there, so they are really looking forward to me coming up. Problem is, I would much rather work in the ER than do clinic. Honestly, internal medicine clinic is just so much harder than the ER and the ER is so much more fun. In any case, it's going to be wild, suddenly being on my own. I will make tons of mistakes but the learning curve will be super steep. This week after the 50K, I have been more tired than I expected. I remember being sore for many days after my marathons years ago but this time I was out doing bike intervals on day 3 and running on day 5. I have torn my left calf a little but it should be okay with a little more rest. The Girl and I have both been excited about finding our next ultra. I fared so poorly last Saturday that the easy thing to do would be to stick with shorter races. But yet I have a sense that I could do ok over long distances. Without the snow, I think my chances would have been better. We'll see next time. Meanwhile, we have a half marahton coming up in a few weeks. Here's my report from last yearlast year. It was a great race and the PR took me somewhat by surprise. I don't think I can run a 5:39 minute mile 13 times in a row this year but we'll see. The Girl ran a 1:34 last year and will be looking to improve that. We always talk about "chicking", the term used about women beating men in races. We wouldn't be us if we weren't a little competitive, even with each other. The Girl feels that she chicked me by finishing higher among the women then I did among the men. I, on the other hand, maintain that one should take into account that there were more men. Our arguments always get very heated and usually end with a little nudity. Anyway, the Girl will probably finish much higher than last year, when she opened up too fast. As always, my place will be decided more by which other runners show up than by my own time. Then the following week we are going to a race where we will do a two-person 50K relay. That should be fun. The Girl gets to do 20K on some very technical terrain and I get to run 30K on some wider trails. Oh well, talk about some scattered thoughts. Time to perform some "poop surgery", as we call it: