So, what's been up you might ask.  Well, I have had a busy weekend/week thus far!  This weekend was great - I had a race I've been training for - my biggest race of the year - the NYRR Women's "Mini" a 10k. 

 I have sort of a love for the Mini because I think it's a great little nugget of women's running history.  The Mini was the very first women's-only road race and was started in 1978.  Can you believe the first women's road race was run in 1978!!  That wasn't that long ago!  The very first one was sponsored by L'eggs pantyhose.  Cute.   This year's race was sponsored by Oakley - women's athletic performance gear.  We've come a long way.  :-)

They had a woman there who was 83 and had run EVERY SINGLE Mini since the very first one.  She brought her L'egg's T shirt that she still had from '78.  Her advice to the 5,500 women that were waiting to hear her speak was: "You want to run for life?  Take care of your body and keep joy in your heart."  Solid advice.  She finished the 6.2 mile loop of Central Park with about an 11:30 minute mile average - she was bested in her age group only by 2 other women - one 86 and one 94.  The 94 year old won the 80-100 age group with a pace of 11:20 min/miles.  UNBELIEVABLE. 

Because of the Mini's history, it draws a lot of elite runners.  There were 10 Olympians this year and the winner - 29 year old Mamitu Daska of Ethiopia ran it at a pace of 5:09 minute miles. 

That was my 5th race towards my 9+1 to qualify for the NYC marathon in 2014!  I only have 4 races to go!  I ran it in 46:20 - 7:26 min/miles and got 299th overall and 83rd in my age group.  All of that is fine and good but what makes me really happy is that I took 11 seconds off my pace and improved by a solid minute from last year's race. 

I won't go on and on about the cBio retreat because, quite frankly, it was a bit boring this year.  The science on the first day was great - but it DOWNPOURED almost the entire weekend keeping us stuck inside.  The second day was really heavy in hard-core computer science and something that's called "Machine Learning" and after about 4 hours of it I was just struggling to stay awake.  The food was outstanding - I definitely gorged myself and had a food hangover - and a booze hangover.  The nerdy thing about science meetings is that you get drunk at the poster session's instead of networking.  Poster sessions are sort of our equivalent to networking.  You make a big "poster" which isn't like a 7th grade science fair poster - it's like a fancy one with all of your work on it.  People get pretty "in" to making the coolest poster.  Then you explain your poster to people wandering around and wander around to look at other people's posters.  There is usually an open bar during this time & drinking is encouraged by the organizers (non-scientists) - we need more social lubricant than the rest of you folks.  The poster session didn't end until 11:30, at which point the party moved outside with a lot of fancy scotch - computer scientists often like scotch... and rye.  I had about 2 fingers worth of scotch before I was on fire and needed to be in bed.  I got up the next morning in time to make breakfast (2 words: OMELET BAR) (2 more words: FRESH WAFFLES).

Then I listened to science, played outside for the brief period it was not raining, and went home.  I roomed with my 2 girlfriends Carly & Karen.  We had a sleepover about 6th grade style.  Gabbing until someone fell asleep mid-sentence. 

That's all for today...I've certainly bored you enough and Brian is fighting a bee in the kitchen & it's hilarious. 

Carpe diem,

J