The Math

OMFG...so Marcy, (who's pretending that she's gonna retire from blogging on June 4, 2009), has recognized me with her Blogger of the Week (BOTW) designation.

Wow. I mean. Wow. Lil' ole me?

And in an even GREATER HONOR, I also got to share some of that web-space recognition with Jessica Alba's ass-tattoo*...

Now how often in my life will I get to say THAT?

Soooo...here's me

In my office...wearing my "Seriously?" look

Here's JA's ass (thanks Marcy, borrowed from your blog)

Leave your comments regarding the tat on Marcy's blog :-)

So it's finally Thursday afternoon, and that means I'm done teaching for the week, and that also means that like Carly, I have about a gazillion blogs to catch up on because this is the first time all week I've had a moment to sit down and read/write/think about my or anyone else's blog...(I just wrote "sit down" and looked up at JA's bow simultaneously...quite. disturbing. moment. really.)

So, when I read Marcy's blog about being BOTW, I had an initial moment of PANIC, because my last blog entry was posted all the way back on Saturday, and although it does include a picture of a dead whale, and a great insult, AND it references after-run mimosa drinking, to be honest, it's not one of my finer attempts at blogging...so the pressure for today is GI-FUCKING-NORMOUS

And, I was gonna post today anyway, and the post today is about MATH**.

In the heffer-sphere, the email conversation this week has been about the upcoming Race for Literacy. It's a little 8K run around Balboa Park on May 3. It's not chip timed, but you do get to run down the 163 freeway (downhill - toward downtown San Diego - the opposite of the uphill route of the Rock and Roll Marathon). In fact, it's mostly a downhill race. I had one of my fastest mid-distance pace times EVER when I ran last year. AND the proceeds go toward improving literacy improvement in the county, and we bloggers LOVE literacy, right?

I've run this race every year for the past four years with a group of teachers from the high school where I used to teach.

This year, some of the math teachers in our group (BBJ and Santiago for example) are balking at a running a race for literacy. BBJ said in an email that he was holding out for a race for numeracy.

WTF?

Betty's email response to BBJ about how we all do mental math while running got me to thinking about how much math I do when I run.

• How many races should I run in a season?
• How many miles have I run so far?
• How many miles to the next water station?
• How fast am I running right now?
• How slow am I running right now?
• How much longer until I'm done?
  
• How many calories have I burned?
• How many more calories do I have to burn in order to share pancakes with Betty at breakfast?
  
• If I run my current pace, for x more miles, how many more mimosas can I consume that will be equal to the number of carbohydrates in a Gu? (I think that's an algebra problem)

So...since every run is a numeracy run, I think all the math teachers ought join in... Edith already is (I haven't written about Edith in awhile and she HATES it when I forget about her.), but Edith is a chick...maybe it's just the dude math teachers that are being lame...(yeah, I'm callin' you out boys...)

Finally, today's TiART at the Runner's Lounge is about runners who blog -- how and why. Today's post is a bit of a snapshot which really sorta captures my how and why. I started this blog a little over a year ago, mostly to ramble on about stupid shiz like this as my friends and I were training for our first marathon. Mostly I've recounted the random things I think about and see on long runs and races. I post silly pictures of us before, during and after running. I rant about rotten roads, dead creatures, how I hate running in the heat, how I started to enjoy running up hills, my aches and pains (plenty this year), OH, and I retell stories that my friends (who are all waaaaaaaaay funnier than I am) tell me after we run...oh yeah, and I write about the mimosas we drink afterward

Since then, I've written about a bunch of other shiz as well...sometimes I write about my kids, my husband (who is running the Race for Literacy with me...so not not a dude thing; just a math-dude thing) my family, teaching...but usually in light of how these things interact (or sometimes interfere) with my running.

I started this blog for a small group of friends and because of it, I've made lots more. The runner-blogger community is just THE BEST. I can't wait for Thursday and I'm done teaching, and I finally get to sit down with my computer friends...and find out how their weeks went, who's doing what race this coming weekend, who's kids are bugging them, and who is making a great comeback after being hurt. We cheer each other on and make each other laugh...that's important to me. Lots of others have said it already, but I run, blog, run, blog, race, blog, repeat...I can't imagine doing one without the other now.

Oh, and for those of you who came here from Marcy's blog looking for the dead whale...here it is again

I wonder who will find my blog today because they Googled "Jessica Alba," "ass" and "whale?"

*I'll assume that ya'all read Marcy's blog...since she's got about a gazillion readers, and is one of the most popular chicas in the internets, at least according to Facebook, she is.

** Nice freeking transition, don't ya think?