Saturday, September 22, 2007

Record Breaking Run


Congratulations to John Batchelder who broke the school cross country record last week! John smashed the previous record (15:59) by completing the course in just 15 minutes and 38 seconds. Several other members of the cross country team also ran personal best times in the race. Congratulations John – I’m proud of you!

I did head out today to watch the guys and girls cross country teams running through the hills of Lancaster. I’d suspect most of you have never attended a cross country meet and I hadn’t either until last year, but there are LOTS of people in my part of the alphabet that are runners so, of course, I realized that I needed to see them run. It is a demanding sport and the athletes push themselves. It is entertaining to stand back and observe the parents who run the course to watch their kids. (It really is sweet that they are so supportive and encouraging to their children!) One thing that I had expected when I went to my first cross country meet was that you would just watch them run past you at the start and wait around until they ran past you again at the finish, but on most courses with just a short walk you can see the athletes run past you several different times. The cross country teams are running at Thomas Worthington on October 6th and it is a fast course and easy to watch the athletes pass you on multiple occasions.

pro·cras·ti·nate / [proh-kras-tuh-neyt]–verb 1. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost. 2. to put off until another day or time; defer; delay.
pro·cras·ti·na·tion, noun —Synonyms prolong, postpone.


While I can justify (also read as rationalize/ make excuses) why I *had* to go all the way down to Lancaster to watch the cross country teams today – such as that on October 6th there might be bad weather and I will be hanging out with my 4 year old niece and 1 year old nephew and if it is raining or cold they won’t want me to drag them out to stand around to watch other people run, etc. But, the reality is… there was a tad bit of procrastination on my part. I NEED to be working on recommendation letters and I have started brainstorming and outlining for a few of the letters already, but I have completed ZERO letters. So instead of sitting here at my computer writing letters I drove to Lancaster to watch the kids run. I have also completed several loads of laundry. I am presently watching my UK wildcats blow their lead against Arkansas (recall that I previously mentioned the ugly Razorback pig creature…) while still being impressed that UK is ranked in football – that hasn’t happened since before you were born. And now here I am updating my blog, but still no letters. That is one of the problems with being both a perfectionist and a procrastinator.
(Update: Just in case you were curious, UK ended up pulling off the win and moved to 4-0 and 2nd in the SEC East Division... I am so happy for them! Remember, the years that I was at UK I watched the football team work incredibly hard without being able to win... we were 1-10 my freshman year... so this is very exciting.)

I guess I should go write some letters… at least 1 letter… or maybe I need to dust or run the vacuum or something??? :-)

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