Hello Confidence! I am strong.

I ran today for 6 miles. I left out the big hill that comes at the end of the run, but I knew ahead of time that was my plan. I went quickly, faster than I expected. And I felt good at the end of the run. I think I'm going to do some more work tomorrow and take Friday off so I'm nice and fresh for the 5k on Saturday. I'm going to try to go fast for that one.

Speaking of going fast, did you know that Amanda is like the fastest runner I've ever met. It's amazing because there is not a single fast twitch muscle in my whole body. It shames me when Amanda says "oh, I haven't run in like three months" and she's still going faster than my normal pace. Amazing.

The run today felt good. It's nice to get some confidence back before next weeks race.

In other news, I'm getting to the point in my head where I can see myself training for a marathon. I feel like the biggest barriers are finding running paths that are long enough for me to go 10 or 12 or (oh lord) 20 miles to train. Minneapolis seems big until you try to run in a straight line. I wont start that training until I get back from South Africa.

I'd also like to share the insane wonderful things I found on the internet lately.

The scientific related:

• This is like the chicken and the egg question almost, how do you give a placebo for parachutes? Heh heh.


• Red Bull makes your body think it has heart disease. That's just another reason for me not to drink it. It seems like athletes in particular would want an energy drink to do the opposite (like, make my body more healthy) but that's just me.


• If you care about the environment, stop eating meat. I'd actually read similar information more than once in the past. Every week I try to make at least one dish I cook be completely vegan. That equals about 5 meals a week which is more than the one day (three meals) they recommend. Really, if we thought about it, it'd be pretty easy to cut meat out of three meals per week.

The hilarious and not related to anything:

• I'm linking to this story for use of the word "harbinger". Good job.


• Visual aid for the whole soda-pop-coke-"soft drink" debate. I wont even tell you what it was where I grew up and here.


• For some reason I always think of Eric when I hear the "gotta have more cowbell" thing. I don't know why, I think he was looking for a shirt that said that at some point... Anyways, Enjoy.


• I'm linking to this site for the coolest domain name I've ever seen: hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com. Hee hee

And finally, for the "current events" minded (although not about politics right now)

• So exactly how much does the US consume compared to others? Come find out with this interactive map.


• Something that's on a lot of people's minds (and if it's not it should be because you'll be one of them), Should Nursing Home residents get to have sex?. Seriously, I'm not even going to get on the soap box this time.