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May 30, 2005

Vermont City Marathon

I ran with the RehabGYM relay team in the Vermont City Marathon yesterday, bringing up the average pace for a total time of 3:54:08, which is 37 seconds slower than our time last year. However, given that we had a slightly different team this year, and that my mom's training for her 5.5 mile leg consisted of one mile the day before the marathon, I think that we did remarkably well. I ran my leg approximately 2 minutes faster than last year for a time of 41 minutes for 5.6 miles.

My dad and friend ran the whole marathon, along with a couple of co-workers and aquantainces, so it was fun to hang around and watch the crowd go by. I don't think a full marathon will be in the works for me for quite some time, but there has been some discussion of a potential half-marathon for next year. Unfortunately, I will be competitvely rowing in the spring, which will mean lots and lots of sprinting, so running 13 miles might prove almost unrealistically difficult. We'll see...

Posted by rgutwin at 12:35 PM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2005

Home Sweet Home

For all those of you who are wondering, I have arrived back home in Vermont safe and sound. Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been incredibly cooperative with my ideal. Still, it's nice to be home, despite the very rainy 60 degree climate. The forecast this week: tons and tons of rain, and lots of grey skies. Wonderful. Hopefully it won't get hot and sunny just in time for the marathon, though. I'm running the last leg again this year, and my dad and friend are running the whole thing! That'll be fun for them.

I'm back at work already, spending some quality time at the RehabGYM. Actually, the vast majority of my waking hours are spent at the gym, as I work out in the mornings and get paid to work in the afternoons / evenings. The people are fun and the work isn't bad, though, so I'm not complaining. Stop by sometime if you're in the area! And if you're not in the area, make sure you get in touch with me soon so I can tell you all about my semester in South Africa!

Posted by rgutwin at 07:14 PM | Comments (4)

May 11, 2005

53' Pyramid

I did a (rather difficult) 53' pyramid on the bike today, followed by lifting at the same percentage. I can't wait to integrate more machines into my workouts instead of only having the option to bike. And an outdoor bike would be great at this point, too. Can you tell that I'm tired of spending hours on one of the two stationery bikes in the really small weight room?

Posted by rgutwin at 05:37 AM | Comments (4)

Tired

I've been going to bed fairly late, and Frances has been getting up fairly early, which means that Becca has quite a large sleep deficit right now. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on some sleep in the next few days, because my body is kind of protesting this whole go-from-getting-eight-hours-of-sleep-a-night-to-five thing. The semester is almost over! I'm ready for it to be over. I've been ready for a month or so now.

On a different note, it's a gorgeous day outside. I don't get this South African weather thing...one day it'll be frigid and raining, and the next it'll be sunny and unbearably warm! I still don't think it's as bad as the weather in Geneva sometimes, though. Geneva weather is special.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:28 AM | Comments (7)

May 10, 2005

Captain!

I don't have much time, but I just wanted to notify everyone that I was voted as a co-captain for my crew team next year! I'm very excited that the team chose Susie and I to help lead them next year, because I think we're going to have some pretty amazing speed!

Posted by rgutwin at 11:44 AM | Comments (2)

Another One

Another rest day this morning... I'm really tired, and my shins really hurt, and it's in my best interest to step back from all my running for a week or so. I'll probably jump on the bike and the weights tomorrow, but no running for Becca on Thursday, either.

Posted by rgutwin at 08:01 AM | Comments (0)

Three More Papers!

The exam went well yesterday, and the paper that was initially due today has been pushed back to Wednesday. So I have nothing to do for the remainder of today and pretty much the whole of tomorrow until some people in my groups can get together to work on the papers. It doesn't feel particularly weird being here without much to do, though, because that's what it's felt like all semester. Except now I don't even have class...

Posted by rgutwin at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)

May 09, 2005

Hmm

My shins are really bothering me, so I'm not sure how running is going to go tomorrow. I might have to either take the day off again or spend it on the bike, because the pool isn't an option (little kids have invaded...). Today I spent 45 minutes on the bike and lifted at the same weight I've been lifting for two weeks or so.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:18 AM | Comments (4)

So Close, Yet So Far...

All I have left standing between me and the end of the semester is one exam (in two and a half hours) and three papers that are almost-but-not-quite done. The exam is today, one paper is due tomorrow, and the other two are due on Wednesday. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do by myself on any of the aforementioned papers, because they're all group stuff and I can't keep working on them without doing all the group work myself. This is kind of frustrating for Becca-who-likes-to-control-lots-of-stuff. I don't work well with others. That doesn't bode well for a potential career, does it?

Posted by rgutwin at 05:11 AM | Comments (9)

May 07, 2005

An Extra Day of Becca!

I'm on campus today, and since the library is open on Saturdays, Crystal let me use her computer to do some research online. Naturally, I procrastinated for a while and found some photos on her computer that I haven't seen before. This is a picture of Niki and I hiking near the Moodie farm over spring / fall break. That was a fun hike: one of the only South African hikes I've been on that didn't involve a moderate amount of stress!

It's somewhat bizarre to think that spring break was over a month ago: time just keeps flying by here. I'm posting every day partially to let everyone back home know what I'm up to, but it's also helpful to me to have such a detailed record of this semester!

Posted by rgutwin at 04:47 AM | Comments (7)

May 06, 2005

Betchya Can't Guess

45 minutes of biking followed by 20 minutes of lifting. Hey, I mixed it up a little on Wednesday, so what do you expect? I'm all out of creative juices and energy by Friday, I guess. Even with the rest day.

Posted by rgutwin at 03:57 AM | Comments (0)

Rainy and Cold

Today is another typical fall day in Cape Town: the clouds are drizzling, the sky is dark, the wind is blowing, and the temperature is fairly chilly. I didn't know that the leaves turned color and fell off the trees in South Africa! You learn something new every semester, I guess.

Nothing too exciting is planned for this weekend. Lots of work, lots of movies, lots of procrastinating with Crystal. The UWC campus doesn't offer much in the way of entertainment on weekends. That's okay, though, because I need to learn how to entertain myself anyway. And I have lots of stuff to get done. I just don't want to do it all...

Posted by rgutwin at 03:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2005

Okay, Another Rest Day

This morning I woke up at 7:00 to a decidedly not-yet-risen sun. Naturally, I rolled over and proceeded to sleep until 8:00, when the sun had reached a reasonable height in the sky. Knowing that I would probably come to some such conclusion this morning, I decided last night that today would be a self-dictated rest day...the second this semester! It's a new record. I'm starting to learn how to listen to my body when it says, "Hey Becca, I'm really tired. Let's not go out and try to kill me today."

Posted by rgutwin at 05:13 AM | Comments (2)

More Work, Work, Work

I officially only have one paper and one final exam standing between me and the end of the semester. I'm working on the final paper with Crystal, and we have to walk around campus and interview South Africans about the future of the new South Africa. The problem is that neither one of us knows a large variety of students, so it might come down to stopping random people and asking about their thoughts on where the country is going. This will be interesting. Our plan is to finish the paper this weekend. Let's see how that goes.

My final exam doesn't sound too bad, except that it involves me having to re-read an entire novel because I didn't understand it the first time. So that's the other thing that I have planned for this weekend. I'm not so much looking forward to lots of quality time with David's Story. Perhaps I'll have to break it up with the remainder of Anna Karenina. We'll see how that goes.

Oh, and on a completely different note, as Crystal and I were walking to one of our interviews this morning, we saw a bird being attacked by some of the campus cats. I walked over to chase the cats away and prevent them from torturing the bird, because they were definitely playing with it much more than necessary before it died. Of course, it was just as scared of us as it was of the cats, but I moved it to a different place so that it could die in peace without cats making the remainder of its life even more miserable. Then I had to find a sink to wash off the bird blood that was all over my fingers, which was not as hygenic as possible because the bathrooms at UWC don't have any soap. But we stopped by the bird on the way back from the interview about half an hour later, and it had died peacefully right where we left it.

Posted by rgutwin at 05:06 AM | Comments (3)

May 04, 2005

More Biking

This morning, I decided to do a 53' pyramid of interval work on the bike before my lifting of 3 x 8 reps. For some reason, my hip flexor is giving me a little bit of trouble, but hopefully it will fix itself and not turn into any sort of serious injury. My lower legs are really bothering me, so I'll either take tomorrow off (knowing me, the likelihood of that happening is slim to none) or I'll spend it on the bike or in the pool. Ah, the pool...how I despise you so.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:57 AM | Comments (5)

Last Class

Today is officially my last day of classes for this semester, even though I'm technically supposed to have two more classes tomorrow. But I'm having lunch at one of my professor's houses instead of a final class, and my other class is going into Cape Town to hear the author of one of our class books speak about the new South Africa. I'm not really complaining about the end of the semester, because I think I speak for all my classmates and I when I say that we're all feeling a little burned out at this point. We've done a lot of work, and learned a lot in the process, but we're ready for a break.

Posted by rgutwin at 04:51 AM | Comments (1)

May 03, 2005

(Semi-slow) Intervals!

My coach has allowed me to begin some longer interval work, since I've been building my aerobic base pretty much for the whole semester. Yesterday I warmed up and then ran 3 x 8:00 (it would have been 4, except my shins were really bothering me). This morning I put on my running shoes again and ran around for 45 minutes. My shins really aren't loving me right now...

Posted by rgutwin at 02:51 AM | Comments (3)

Out and About

Sorry about that, folks. I forgot to mention on Friday that Monday was another South African national holiday, so all the computer labs and the library and such were shut down. You know, all these national holidays are really interfering with my life. I think that if I actually had class on Mondays and Fridays, I might feel slightly differently.

I had an excellent three-day weekend, as (shockingly) all my plans went through. On Saturday morning, Shaun picked Niki and I up for the South African Cheese and Wine Festival, which was definitely quite enjoyable. Despite several health ailments for Niki, we laughed a lot and tasted lots of yummy cheese and good wine. We even saw feta cheese being made! Even though I'm neither a cheese nor a wine fanatic, I had a great time. Shaun dropped me off on campus in the evening, and I had a work-filled few hours before I went to bed.

Sunday was like almost every other Sunday I've had at UWC: lots and lots of reading, and not so much walking around (or even getting off my bed, for that matter). On Monday, my professors took a group of us to a nearby township called Langa, which was most interesting. We watched two plays, were filmed in the audience of a gospel music video, stopped at an Ethiopian Episcopalian church (that conducted all its services in Xhosa), and visited a really creepy herbalist that had lots of things hanging from the ceiling that really freaked Becca out. I'm glad that we finally got to go through a township in a vehicle that was slightly less identifiably touristy!

I have lots of work lined up for this week, and no concrete plans yet for next weekend. But today I'm going to Tyger Valley, which is always an interesting experience. Crystal and I are planning on a Mugg and Bean breakfast, which will be extraordinarily yummy. The egg and french toast thing is starting to get a little...monotonous.

Posted by rgutwin at 02:38 AM | Comments (13)