I’m currently reading the book Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich. In it she goes undercover to try to land a white-collar job, and it’s her follow-up to her hugely successful book Nickel and Dimed, in which she goes under cover to try to land a blue-collar job. Bait and Switch has received some criticism for not being as realistic as Nickel and Dimed, but there’s a lot that’s really entertaining in this book, and the author’s personality really shines through. I haven’t read Nickel and Dimed, but I’m pretty sure I’ll read it after I’m done with Bait and Switch. Also, I recently saw a German film called The Lives of Others. It had kind of a gloomy mood, but still it was interesting.

Tags: book, books, Bait and Switch, Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich, The Lives of Others

Today I ran twenty-two miles with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group. Then I went to LifeTime Fitness and tacked on a few more miles on the treadmill. Phew, am I ever tired! Now it’s time to taper and get my body ready for the Boston Marathon. One might think that after five marathons, things get easier, but they definitely don’t, at least not for me. Each time I train for a marathon, it’s at least equally as hard as the time before.

In fact, I think it gets harder each time, because it’s very easy to think, “I’ve done this five times before, so I don’t have to work as hard to do it again.” But I do have to work as hard, so for me, it’s very challenging mentally not to become complacent. Hopefully I got over that challenge and did the work necessary to finish the race successfully. I guess we’ll find out in just over three weeks.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Boston Marathon, running

This Saturday will be my last big training run with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group before the Boston Marathon. We’re scheduled to run twenty-four miles. The weather reports says that there’s a chance of rain, but the temperature looks good—upper forties to lower fifties. If I can get through this run in good shape, then I can begin to taper and give my body some time to totally heal. My hip still isn’t completely one hundred percent, but it’s much better than it was. Still, it would be great to get it to one hundred percent before Boston. I’m really starting to look forward to Boston—it’s less than four weeks away now. I think it will be a very memorable trip.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Boston Marathon, running

I had a little bit of a lull in writing mathematics problems, but the last couple weeks things have been picking up again. Recently I’ve written labs for high-school algebra students related to piecewise functions, quadratic equations, polynomials, sequences and series, and exponential functions. Also, tomorrow I’ll start working on creating questions related to geometry for a high-school test-prep book. Speaking of mathematics, today is Pi Day. For those of you who have forgotten, pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter and is the number 3.14…, so that’s why the date 3/14 was chosen to celebrate it. I don’t have anything special planned, but I did read this article, which was pretty interesting.

Tags: Math, Mathematics, Pi Day, pi

Yesterday I ran twenty-two miles with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group. My hip felt much better—pretty darn close to one hundred percent. I also ran today, and it felt good, so I’m very encouraged. Even though my hip felt better yesterday, it was still a tough run. I’m not quite in the shape I was in over last summer, but I think I’m still in good enough shape to run a sub-3:30 marathon in Boston if the weather is good and I don’t have any major problems. I can tell that yesterday really was tough, because today I’m sorer than I remember being after a training run in a long time. However, it’s a good kind of sore.

Also, on Friday night I saw the movie The Astronaut Farmer. The movie ends with Elton John’s song Rocket Man, and I couldn’t get that song out of my head for the whole twenty-two miles on Saturday morning. I guess there are worse songs to get stuck in your head, though. In addition, I picked up the book Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich from the bargain rack at Barnes & Noble.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Boston Marathon, running, The Astronaut Farmer, Bait and Switch, Barbara Ehrenreich, book, books

I got though my training run with the Premier Sports Marathoner in Training (MIT) group on Saturday. My hip wasn’t feeling too great, so this week I’m really going to scale back my training and take it easy in the hope that all it needs is some rest. The most important thing is that I get in the long runs on Saturdays, and this coming Saturday, I have a twenty-two mile run scheduled, so I want my hip feeling as good as possible for that. The Boston Marathon is six weeks from today, and I still very much hope to be ready to go. Also, this weekend I saw the movie Pan’s Labyrinth.

Tags: marathon, marathons, Boston Marathon, running, Pan’s Labyrinth