Returning to the Blogosphere...Again

After another extended absence, let me say, first of all, that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I've always wanted to use that line. Anyway, the last couple weeks have been a blur with little time for blogging. So here's a brief synopsis of all the things I wanted to blog about but didn't get to...

School's out
Finished up another semester at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary last week and moved a bit closer to earning my Master's of Divinity degree. This was one of the most demanding semesters that I've ever had...LOTS of reading and writing assignments and very detailed exams. Add seminary to my full-time job and marathon training, and that pretty much fills the bulk of my calendar. So I plan to relax a bit and enjoy some down time before classes resume on Jan. 26.

Running Scared
Speaking of marathon training, I suffered a slight setback in my training about two weeks ago, but seem to have recovered. About two weeks ago, at the peak of my marathon training plan, I began experiencing some calf soreness and severe shin splints.

I had two options....push through and risk further injury or rest and try to recover. I was torn between wanting and feeling like I needed to get my runs in and fearing that if I did continue running I might not be able to run in race I had trained so long and hard for. Reluctantly, I chose the latter, and I'm glad I did.

After talking to friends and marathon vets Sam and Scott, I stopped running for two weeks trained on an elliptical machine to keep my fitness level up. While using the machine, I tried to mimic the time and distance that I would have been running, and the efforts apparently paid dividends.

I was able to pick back up where I would have been in my training schedule with no ill-effects from the calf and shin. This past Saturday, I put in a 20 miler -- my longest run ever and the longest run in my training plan. Now I'm gradually decreasing my mileage in the weeks leading up to the big race.

I lost on Jeopardy!, baby
Not me, but a former co-worker of mine did. I learned from Yuan-Kwan that James Quintong, fantasy sports producer and a former colleague of ours during our tenure at SI.com in Atlanta, was appearing on Jeopardy! so I tuned in to watch "JQ" in action.

Actually, the night I watched JQ rallied to score a victory and become a Jeopardy! champion before bowing out the next night. It was pretty interesting watching someone you know personally play the game and interact with Alex Trebek. To read JQ's reflections on his performance, here are links to Part I and Part II.

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully, I can be a little more frequent in my posts from now on.