Bunnies!

Our friends Andy and Michelle recently aquired a family of Holland Lop rabbits. Ben and I went to visit them last night, and they are SO INCREDIBLY CUTE! Here are a few pics from Andy and Michelle's website.

A happy bunny family-Mom with her babies.

A closeup of Mom

A closeup of a baby. How can you resist that face????!!!!!!

Training-Week 2 summary

Half-marathon: Unfortunately I didn't meet my weekly mileage quota; I woke up too late this morning to get my 9-mile long run done, so I just did a 5-mile easy run. I also realized that I was doing my easy runs too fast; I should be doing them 60-90 seconds slower than my race pace and I was doing them about 30 seconds slower than my race pace. However, I did have a really good tempo run on Thursday.

2 weeks down, 14 to go.

Comps: This has been a good week for studying. I practiced a couple metabolism questions and started studying muscle, cardiovascular, and respiratory physiology. After I finish respiration, I'll practice some more questions. I also made a change of scenery and took my books to a coffee shop to study this week. I am generally feeling at peace.

2 weeks down, 7 to go.

Subconsciously anxious?

Although I've told my conscious self that I'm not going to get stressed out by comps, apparently my subconscious isn't listening. Here are two dreams I've had so far about comps.

1. I took comps, but I only passed 4 of the 6 questions. The answer to one of the questions didn't even have anything to do with exercise physiology; instead, it was some physics equation, which incidentally, I actually did get right. However, I couldn't really be that upset about failing 2 questions because I hadn't studied at all.

2. I was in the middle of taking comps, but this time the test had 9 or 10 questions on it. I was near the end, with like 2 questions to go, and I realized that I had not provided enough information on any of the previous questions. To make matters worse, I only had about 20 minutes left to finish. I didn't know whether I should just finish the test or go back and fix the questions I'd already done. Either way, I was screwed.

If any of you out there have had/are currently having similar anxiety dreams, please feel free to leave your comments. We can all share a good laugh.

Training-Week 1 summary

As I wrote in a prior post, I am currently training for both a half-marathon and my masters comprehensive exams. I've now completed 1 week for each. Here's how everything is going.

Half-marathon: Everything is good so far. I did all the assigned runs for last week, including a 9-mile long run yesterday morning. It felt great. Today is a rest day, so instead of running this morning, I went out and bought myself a new pair of running shoes (my other ones were about 7 months old, so it was time for the switch). I'm looking forward to hitting the pavement with them tomorrow.

One week down, 15 to go.

Comps: I feel like it's slow-going, but maybe that's just because there's so much material to cover. I started out with metabolism, macronutrients, and vitamins/minerals because they're all sort of inter-related. I had intended to start a new set of topics today, but I'm not finished with proteins, and I really want to try to start working on answering some of the prior years' comp questions. And having said that, time to hit the books.

One weeekd down, 8 to go.

The date is set

My masters comprehensive exams are set for Friday, September 14th.

At least it's not a Friday the 13th.

In training

Today, I begin two training periods of sorts. The first is for a half marathon on Sunday, November 4th, about 16 weeks away. This will be my first half marathon (the longest race I've done so far is a 10K). To prepare, I went to Runnersworld.com and used the Smart Coach tool to create a training plan so that I know exactly how many miles to cover each week and what pace I should be aiming for. The nice thing is that the initial weekly mileages are the same as what I've been doing so far this summer, so it's not going to be a huge shock to my body. Of course, I may feel a bit dfferently a couple months from now!

The second training period is a shorter one, but much more serious, time-intensive, and a lot more difficult, and that is the preparation for my masters comprehensive exams. I don't yet know the exact date for comps, but I do know that they are sometime in the first part of September, so that's roughly 8-9 weeks away. I took a look at my syllabi from this past year's classes to see what topics I need to study, and I've grouped them so that I'm studying similar topics together. This week, I will begin with metabolism, macronutrients, and vitamins/minerals.

Well, I've already done my run for today, so now I guess I need to hit the books!

Victory!

In tonight's Scrabble game, I finally found victory! It was a close one: 260 to 257, and my score of 260 was a personal best for me. One of my good plays was the word "quite" on a triple-word score for 36 points (I used a blank for the "i"). However, I have yet to play a "bingo" which is when you use all 7 of your tiles to get a 50-point bonus. Now that would be a sweet day indeed!

Scrabblin'

For the past few nights, Ben and I have gotten into the groove of playing Scrabble together. It has been slightly mind-fatiguing but highly enjoyable, even if Ben is currently undefeated, grrrr!!! Our scores have been fairly decent I suppose, with Ben consistently scoring around 270-280 and me around 200-210. However, last night, we both recorded personal best scores of around 350 (Ben) and 250 (me). Ben's sky-high score was due to one extremely fortuitous play of the word "underdog" which spanned 2 triple word scores, a double letter score (I think), and he used all 7 tiles (the "n" was already on the board) giving him a 50-point bonus, to earn 104 points on that single play. Afterwards we talked of buying a Scrabble dictionary so that we could learn some more esoteric and potentially high-scoring words. Who knows, maybe we'll enter some Scrabble tournaments one day! Okay, I'm really kidding about the latter; the nerdiness has to stop somewhere :)

But Scrabble is more that just a crossword board game, it's also a word with several meanings. Here's what Dictionary.com has to say about the word "scrabble."

1.	to scratch or scrape, as with the claws or hands.

2.	to grapple or struggle with or as if with the claws or hands.

3.	to scrawl; scribble.

4.	to scratch or dig frantically with the hands; claw (often fol. by at): scrabbling at a locked door to escape the flames.

5.	to jostle or struggle for possession of something; grab or collect something in a disorderly way; scramble.

6.	a scratching or scraping, as with the claws or hands.

7.	a scrawled or scribbled writing.

8.	a disorderly struggle for possession of something; scramble

Quite an action-packed word for such a quiet game!

Early mornings the in the lab

Since 2nd summer session classes started a couple weeks ago, I've been TA-ing the lab portion of the undergraduate exercise physiology class. My thesis advisor is the professor for the class, and I've been having a lot of fun helping him out. For the past two lab days, I've had to get to school at 7am to set up eqipment and turn on the metabolic system, which is incredibly early, but I really don't mind it at all. I am also really really glad that I took Dr. Hackney's Assessment of Physiological Function class because now I feel way more comfortable in the lab than I did a few months ago, and I'm not so afraid of breaking equipment anymore :) Okay, I've never actually broken any equipment in the exercise physiology lab, but I have messed up data outputs on a couple things, including the metabolic system.

Anyway, back to the undergrad lab. We've been teaching the students how to run submaximal exercise tests to predict VO2max (i.e. aerobic fitness). We did the Modified Bruce Protocol on the treadmill, the YMCA test on the cycle ergometer, and the Queen's College 3-minute step test. Next, we're going to start practicing measuring body composition. Tomorrow we're going to start off with underwater weighing, and then next week we'll teach the students how to use skinfold calipers and the BIA machine.

In other school news, I have given a copy of my thesis proposal to my committee for review. We'll see how badly they bleed on it!

The Pachelbel Rant

This is a really funny piece by comedian/musician Rob Paravonian. He talks about how the chord structure of Pachelbel's Canon in D shows up in a lot of modern popular music. I'm sure his list is not exhaustive either! Anyway, this clip is REALLY funny, especially if you're a musician. Click the link below to check it out!

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

My favorite animals

In today's post, I am highlighting my four favorite animals: dogs, horses, lop-eared rabbits, and sheep. Of these four, the only one that I have any substantial personal experience with are dogs. I grew up with a dog, and Ben and I used to foster for the Neuse River Golden Retriever Rescue (see link on the right). Dogs are great family companions, they display perfect unconditional love, and they can make excellent running partners. Ben's family has owned horses for quite a few years, and Ben used to ride. I like horses because they are really pretty, and they can be pets as well as used for work. As for lop-eared rabbits and sheep, well, they are both just so darn cute and cuddly! Okay, I've never actually tried to cuddle with a sheep, and maybe they aren't actually into being cuddled, but still, they look really sweet. Maybe one day, we can buy a place with some land and we can own a couple dogs, horses, lop-eared rabbits, and sheep. To the mix, I'd also add some cows, goats, cats, ducks, and geese.

Below are pics of my favorites of my 4 favorite animals: A Golden Retriever pup, a Clydesdale horse, a French lop rabbit, and a flock of fluffy white sheep.