Looking ahead to Cross

Well I know I haven't updated this in quite some time... I realized this sometime last week.. but I didn't really have time. Somehow it's the normal summer, of people demanding me almost every day of the week, but with an added twist of school and having to find time to read my textbook or work on homework problems. Whew.

I ran with my friend Kaley last Monday and I decided to help her train the rest of the summer for her cross country season at Northwestern. I can only see this as benefitting me, too, because I have never trained in the summer before in my life... the most I have run in a summer was last summer, when I trained through June to a mile race at the summer track series then I dropped off and ran like once a week, and I really didn't need much more because I still had a decent cross season with PRs all around lol.

So, I guess we will see what comes of it. I wish I had the guarantee of a cross country season in the first place but it doesn't seem like that will be all that set in stone. I requested two weekends for sure but those aren't going to be good races... I requested teh weekend of our home meet at Pope Farm (we are hosting Regionals.. I'll get to that), and I requested the weekend of NIRCA Nationals. I was told that Athletic training students are required to go to half of the home football games and one away game. I am really hoping my away-game assignment is for the Hawaii game in December because that would be AMAZING. I've never left this continent yet...

I want to ask for more days of big meets. I want to have parkside off because we are planning on camping again and I want to do that. I want to have Oshkosh off if we get to go to the huge Invite they put on.. and I want to have Griak off but I would be ok with not going to Griak just because I don't like that course. I would just make Brittany Farrell buy me a shirt there.. haha. I am afraid to ask for more than I already did, though, because I honestly feel awful about it.. Mike seems pretty nice, he's the one who schedules ATEP students and whatever, but I would feel bad making it about ME.. because first of all, I am new to the program I don't know how it even fully works yet obviously, and secondly.. I feel like its just rude to be so inflexible saying "I can't be there then, then and then, but any other time, including Hawaii, would be perfect!" lol. I have a feeling they wouldn't even want to take any of us to Hawaii though because of how the AD is being about money for anything right now.. Sticklers.. I guess we will see. The anticipation is killing me. I don't want to lose my racing life, I really just can't bear to see it go since I haven't started getting shitty at racing yet.. so I guess we'll see if I get lucky and things work out. Oh man.

This is the football schedule so far:

9/5/2009 6:00 PM Northern Illinoi @Madison WI

9/12/2009 11:00 AM Fresno State @Madison WI

9/19/2009 11:00 AM Wofford @Madison WI

9/26/2009 TBA Michigan State @Madison WI

10/3/2009 TBA Minnesota @Minneapolis MN

10/10/2009 TBA Ohio State @Columbus OH

10/17/2009 11:00 AM Iowa @Madison WI (Homecoming)

10/31/2009 TBA Purdue @Madison WI

11/7/2009 TBA Indiana @Bloomington IN

11/14/2009 TBA Michigan @Madison WI

11/21/2009 TBA Northwestern @Evanston IL

12/5/2009 TBA Hawaii @Manoa HI


Cross Country season (tentative i.e. I have to kick Jeremy in the ass to get this out to people for comments first!!):
9/4- Badger XC Opener [it's open to everyone I think we should put this on the schedule?] -???distance
9/12 - Carroll Invite [just an option] -???distance
9/19- Parkside (Midwest Collegiate Open) -5k
9/26- Griak Invite -6k
10/3- Loyola Invite [probably not going because of NIRCA's new rules against us] -5k
10/3- Beloit Olde English Classic (more likely) -5k
10/10- Ripon Invite [not really] -5k
10/17- Oshkosh Brooks Invite [if they let us] -6k?
10/17- LaX- Drews/Neubauer Invite -6k
10/24- NIRCA Midwest Regionals @ UW Madison -6k... oh god.. at that course?
11/14- NIRCA Nationals - 6k


So, comparing those schedules.. I could run the UW meet 9/4, might be able to get out for the parkside meet (i hope!).. griak is in the air, so is the weekend of 10/3. 10/10 I could probably go if I don't have to go to that away game haha.. and if I really want to run at the awful Ripon course again. 10/17 I reallllly wish I could go to either because I would PR.. I love LaX's course and I have heard good things about the Oshkosh course. the 24th is a football bye so I would hope I wouldn't have to do anything then.. and then the 11/14th is Nationals and I have already asked for that off. So it looks like right now I might have.. THREE races?

I think I might ask for Parkside, saying "its the first meet of the year.. and I'm in charge of meet registration.." and with the way things ARE, I might be in charge of the camping trip on the whole, too. Since Tali, our social events coordinator, is in Israel for a year.....

This post is extremely long but oh well I guess. In the middle of this past week we found out that the NIRCA Council accepted our bid for hosting the NIRCA Midwest Regional. I didn't know if I could talk about it at first but NIRCA officially announced it on their webpage on Friday. I wish Jeremy would send something to the club to tell everyone about it but he hasn't been doing much on that front lately?? Either way he suggested we have a meeting to go over things ASAP, since the review committee made some suggested alterations of our Bid/Proposal and we need to deal with them... As of the other day we were thinking of meeting today. As of today, I have not heard from either of the boys involved (Jeremy and then Ben H. is going to be the "NIRCA Contact" or something to that effect).

So I guess we'll see where that goes. I have a sinking feeling I'm going to be dealt a heavy hand but we'll see. I don't mind being in charge of things I just know that this fall I'm going to have a hugely stacked plate as it is. But, I know that as VP I need to (and, well, I want to, too) be involved in putting this on. It's a big opportunity for our club, and I'm sure Oregon might even fly out to race us haha.

In other news, this week is week 4 of 8 of my physics class. After this week, I am halfway through the course. I had an exam last Wednesday and I have another one next Wednesday. The next five weeks are going to be a fucking BEAST.

Summer Track Series has been going on, still, too. We haven't been able to get more than like 5 people to come volunteer though.. A usual core of Jim, Jeremy, Gavin and myself usually set up and we see people like Audrey, Ben H., Dallas and Nicole pop in. Pat came the first one and Claire came this past one to #3. I am head timer which I shared with Jeremy at #3 while I was warming up for, and then racing, the 3200 for the first time since high school. That was interesting. I like being head timer because its a constant adrenaline thing kind of, to make sure you start the timer when the gun goes off. I like doing that.

Otherwise I've been working.. I hate working.. It's getting so insanely pointless that I can hardly stand it and I skipped out a little early Tuesday to study for my physics exam I had the next day. I don't know. I got a B on the physics exam, I scored 5% above the class average. This is a good sign.. I need to do as well or better, though, on the next three exams in order to get a B. I don't think an AB would be possible but I could dream if I wanted, right? This is the approx. grade distribution they gave us the first week:

A - 15%
AB - 20%
B- 20%
BC- 20%
C- 15%
D- 10%

There are currently 44 people enrolled in my class... 20% is 8.8 people. That seems way too dangerous of a line lol.. So approx. 30 people will get a BC or better. I can't afford another BC. I haveeeee to get a B or better. So that's 24 people get a B or better. Just over half. We'll have to see what happens but it makes me nervous and it's summer so I have time to think about and worry about all these things for hours on end :P

Last item up for chat right now, I think, before I get back to physics homework, is that Public Enemies came out on July 1 (Wednesday) and I went and saw it that night with Janna. I was extremely microscopic about the film, though, and from the sounds of it, most people from around here were, too. I was too busy looking at all the little details and all the different things that I might know myself that I just missed the bigger picture and I need to see it again to decide if I really liked it. I didn't like really that the whole first part was elongating the parts from the preview. It grated on me for some reason that all of those spots were clustered at the beginning of the film.

I was amped, though, because of the number of scenes I watched them film. The first to appear was one of the scenes at the Capitol where they are doing a press conference with J. Edgar Hoover and Christian Bale's character Melvin Purvis. You can see the lights that are there on the Capitol and in the sweeping background the buildings that line that side of the Square.

Second was, I guess, the house on the hill, or the Posey House, in Columbus (also Sam K.'s grandma's house, he's in my club!), they used this house for a lot of kitchen scenes I think, and then towards the end of the film there's a scene shot out back with a ton of snow on the ground which I watched them make and arrange just so all over the backyard.

Third was a scene down the street in Columbus with a stoplight that wouldn't turn the proper color. It wouldn't do it right when they were filming so we waited a long time. Turns out it was Dillinger driving a police car to escape jail or something lol. I watched that for a couple hours in Columbus!!

Towards the end was another scene at the Capitol where Purvis and Hoover walked out and there was a line of boys just standing there and I had seen this part and had been like, what the fuck.. Because it was this long drawn out line of boys and I had no idea what they were possibly doing. But in the movie of course it was explained and it made sense. I loved what they did with this scene, too. They filmed it in color and then it, all of a sudden, drastically fades to greyscale and zooms out and you find that you are watching a film within a film, this being an educational film on the merits of stopping crime. I think I have to say, from my microscopic view of the movie the first time, that this is one of my favorite scenes. It was so artfully done!

Well, I think this post is long enough!