Thursday, August 30, 2007

Ms. _______


Well, I’ve started student teaching, and so far have been loving my class! I’m with first graders, and they are really sweet. It’s quite the new experience suddenly being “Ms. ___________,” I feel so grown up, though the name feels slightly awkward. It really felt like such a good fit though. I’m finally feeling confident that the multiple subject credential was the right choice and can definitely imagine being in the classroom! My school is great, really nice with a “life-lab” garden and plenty of outside space to play in. I’ll be going in for the full day tomorrow, which should be great. Teaching in first grade really seem like being back in the pre-school classroom, except that the students are orderly, sit at desks, and raise their hands when they want to talk! It’s amazing :)

My running this week has been a little spotty again, with finals and all, but I still managed to get in the mileage I planned. I accidently overslept my nap on Tuesday, and with an evening class, didn’t have time to get it in. After doing that the last few weeks, I knew that I couldn’t let that happen again, and just write off those miles. It is just a little over a month until the 50 miler is here! So, I set out Wednesday after class to do a run of some significance. I essentially did the same run as Sunday, with just a shorter turn around, to do 15 miles total, my longest midweek run ever!

I was definitely a bit tired from the 20 on Sunday, but I was able to keep a 10:44 pace, which is exciting. The trails were, obviously, a lot quieter on a weekday afternoon, which worried me a bit, but there will still bikes going my every so often, and I must have seen a good 30 or 40 people on the trails during my run, so it was never too isolated. My argument is that this firetrail is sort of like a nature highway, which I’m assuming would be unappealing and too busy for a mountain lion to hang around (or for any 2 legged animals to be around). Nevertheless, I did make sure my pepper spray was easily accessible J. It was funny, as I was getting high up, to my turn around point, a woman coming down the hill on her bike saw me and loudly exclaimed “Wow!!!” Now I’m not exactly sure what this referred to, but I’d like to think she was impressed that I was up there, as there doesn’t seem to be a lot of runners who go that high up the firetrail (it’s sort of a relentless uphill for a while). Then again, she could have just been shocked that I was on the firetrail and not one of the beautiful singletracks ;).

Another male biker commented to me while I was on my way down, “wow, you’re up here! Good for you!” I wanted to tell him that I had been considerably more “up here” than this, that I was about 2 miles down from the turn around, but It was still nice to be thought impressive J I suppose the only 2 other runners I’ve ever seen on these firetrails were super buff, scantily clad, men, so I didn’t exactly fit the image of runners that usually visit there.

Something I noticed though, is that the mountain biker community is much friendlier than the running community out there, at least on the weekday. All the bikers, almost, said hi and smiled when I went by, but when I said hi to the runners, they just sort of looked past me like I was weird. Ah, oh well.

Did 5 miles today which was good, but hot! Despite the fact that I didn’t go out until 6:30 at night! (addendum- okay, it was maybe in the high 70s which for most isn't hot, but it's hot for here!)

Celebrating this weekend with hopefully some good long runs (25 miler maybe?) as I’ve made it through the first section of classes (just one paper to write) and have no classes until Tuesday J

And hopefully, with the free time I’ll have, I can finally get up that 50k race report!

9 comments:

Rick Gaston said...

I'm going to call you Ms. Bonner-Lyon next time I see you. Hello Ms. Bonner-Lyon, sounds kind of slick. My mom made me buy pepper spray. I wrote one time how I thought I was being chased by a mountain lion (too much caffeine), I got calls not just from her but also from my grandmother half a world away.

Got tons of work for this weekend but I'll also try to put in my miles. Is it really only about a month or so before Firetrails?

Jamie Anderson said...

Congrats on the teaching. I absolutely love it and can't imagine myself doing anything else for a career.

Best wishes for the final prep work for the 50.

Anonymous said...

I saw your title and thought, "Oh, she wrote a post about me." Hehe. It's nice to have another Ms. Bonner-Lyon around. :)

Adelyn said...

Rick- slick indeed :) It's about 40 something days technically, so more like a month in a half, but it's still coming up fast! From you blog, it sounds like you're putting in more than enough work. I'm sure 50 seems short after your 100s, yes?

Jamie- Thanks! It is great how natural it feels just being in the classroom. Still lots to learn, obviously, but it's exciting :)

Ash- haha....well, there'll only be two of us for a few more years, right? ;) Then then name will be mine...all mine... :D

Josh said...

Wow, you’re a REAL teacher now! I remember having student teachers in grade school. It never occurred to me that they were normal people, lol. If you ever see me slouch down in my chair and avoid eye contact when you ask a question, I apologize, it's just a habit I have with you teachers :)

BTW, I just notice that picture in your previous post with the huge tree. Holy Cow! I have never seen anything like that!

Rick Gaston said...

My perspective on the 50k, 50-mile, and the 100k has changed since I started doing 100s but the respect for the distance has remained the same. 50-miles is long enough that if taken too lightly can land you on the DNF list.

I'm very excited about Firetrails cause of you guys, folks doing their first 50M, and also because runners I've raced against before are coming - runners in my time range. I am eager to race them again. Good friends, great competition. Lots of snarling and grunting during the race, lots of laughter and catching up afterwards.

Sarah said...

I sure sounds like you are getting in plenty of long and medium long runs. I don't think you have anything to worry about for the 50M.

I just love those redwoods! How nice to be able to run among them. : )

Adelyn said...

Josh- haha. I know, it's weird to be on the other side of the classroom now! And as for the tree, that's one of the many reasons you've got to come out to california :) We've got some awesome stuff! I think that tree is over 1000 years old!

Rick- So the 50miler is more like a social event to see cool people for you ;). That's nice that you'll have some fun 'competition' though! I really hope the race goes well :D

Sarah- I really hope so! I'm definitely nervous about the distance, but I think I am in better shape than I've ever been in, in terms of handling long runs, so hopefully I can make it work :)

Soapin' Cindy said...

I'm confused on the hyphenated name. Did you just get married? Am I clueless? Very cool about the garden lab thing. I can see you with first graders.