A Whirlwind Week

The biggest news of the week this week, is I passed my Dissertation Prospectus meeting. What does that mean? Well it means that my doctoral committee members have approved the research investigation I want to do as the final requirement of the PhD. It has been a 7 month process of justifying why this research study is needed and laying out all of the details of how exactly I will do it. So that means another hurdle crossed and onto the next.

So...how were the runs this week. Well it felt like they were few and far between thanks to mother nature. I went out Monday morning before the "freezing ice" started and got in a good 4.5 miles around Zink lake. Then the ice came and came and came. Tuesday was a good day to just stay at home and not head out (unless you are the Trail Zombie of course). Wednesday was day 2 of staying in. Although once 10 AM hit, I went out to the fabric store to 1) test the roads and 2) give myself something to do. When I returned home, I got a wonderful message from Susan that some people were going to meet to do the Zink loop at 5:30. I figured what the heck. I was so ready to do something physical and get out of the house and meetin gup with people just made it more fun. There were 4 of us out there, Trail Zombie, My Group leader Michael, Bobby and myself. So, although a small "Bobby's Bunch" we were still there. I got some great photos while out and about. The temperature was great, and the east side of Riverside wasn't too bad. The west side...well they tried to treat it and well ...it was very slick.
If you listened closely you could hear one duck saying to another..."Hey guys we did it!! We swam all the way to Antarctica!" I can see how they could be confused with all of the floating icebergs out on the Arkansas River.
It was great to have the sun shining bright even at 5:30. TZ watches as Deb, I think that's her name, heads off to get her miles in early.


Bobby and TZ stroll across the 1th street bridge. It was like running in place. It was so slushy and took so much energy to even move in.

I took this picture just so everyone could see that there are indeed "White Sand Beaches" in Tulsa, Oklahoma...

If you look closely, you will see TZ, Bobby, and Michael as we finally made it to the 21st street Bridge. You can see that there was still some sun left, and a beautiful sunset at that, around 6:10 PM. It was not the best of conditions to run in, but really was kinda fun.

I missed the Thursday run because I had to drive to Lawrence, KS to meet with my committee on Friday. I was able to get in my 5 miles today while staying in Topeka, and did it in a decent time for myself 1:02:23. It was quite windy and I chose a fairly hilly route, but was so great to be in the sunshine and outdoors without 6 layers of running gear. I look forward to Bobby's Bunch on Monday. I will miss the Tuesday run, due to the class I teach in the evening, and then can't wait for the Thursday and Saturday group runs.