Conference, Fire...and A Little More Running

The view in Boulder now looks something like this:

A lightning strike today sparked the blaze they're calling the Flagstaff Fire. I first saw it driving down to Boulder to pick my kids up from preschool. The school is right on the side of the ridge just north of the one where the fire is. You can imagine my good driving manners went out the window a little. Please pray for the firefighters and the people whose homes are near there. My family is safe, but we know a lot of people who are probably facing evacuation.

It was a dramatic way to come home. I spent the weekend at a different kind of marathon, the American Library Association Annual Conference. This year it was in Anaheim, CA, right next to Disneyland, but alas there was no Magic Kingdom time for me. The days were packed with programs on topics like "Social Media in Libraries" and "Serving Underprivileged Library Customers," as well as discussions of ebooks and other hot topics. There was also a giant expo with publishers and other vendors who sell to us. Famous authors visit (George R.R. Martin spoke about the fantasy and science fiction genre), and other famous people who have written books turn up to sign copies (I saw Molly Ringwald of 80s movie fame; apparently she's written a book of short stories; the line was far too long for me to stand in).

Each night I retired to my cool, quiet hotel room and crashed. Other librarians partied far into the night. Yes, it's true! Librarians unleashed love to dance and cut loose.

I, of course, couldn't do that. Too much alcohol and too many late hours aren't compatible with my exercise addiction. I rose every morning of the four days I was there at 5:30 a.m. for my workouts, which included my second return-to-running session, this time on the hotel treadmill. While it wasn't as fun as running outdoors with Cynthia, it was still much more fun than the recumbent bike, and a definite confidence booster. Not such a confidence booster was the ALA-sponsored yoga class I attended on Sunday morning. My back was not pleased with all the forward folds or the quick flow of the sun salutations. No more yoga for me for a while.

This morning I went to Pilates with Patty (MUCH better than yoga) and followed it up with another treadmill run, this time increasing the running time to 35 minutes. I felt great, throwing in eight 30-second pickups and stretching well afterwards. My back is doing fine now, away from sitting in conference sessions and on airplanes and shuttle buses.

It was the first of THREE runs on my schedule for the week. I'm starting to add in a little running time on Saturdays, though it will continue to be supplemented by low-impact machines for at least a little while. Saturday will also be on the treadmill, but I will try to up the fun quotient by doing Friday's run outside (unless smoke moves into town, in which case...treadmill).

I apologize that I've been such a bad commentator on everyone's blogs. I'm going to play a little catch-up.

Stay tuned for a review of Scott Jurek's Eat & Run (amazing how much reading I get done on planes when the kids aren't around and there's no wi-fi to tempt me onto the Internet). Will Terzah go vegan? Doubtful....but Scott was more persuasive than I expected.....