Happy weekend! It does not feel like October, but here we are. Marc is now just a month away from the Olympic Trials race in New York, so he ran the Carrboro 10K this morning and came in 2nd, running a 31:23 on the warm and humid morning. Shuwen also joined in, running the last 5K with her running/climbing partner Amy. Amy herself finished in about 51 minutes, which was a good first 10K time for her. The Carrboro Athletics Club has runners performing in a suite of meets across the country this weekend, including some of the major races in the fall seasons: Chicago Marathon, Army 10-miler (Washington D.C.), Twin Cities 10 miler (Minnesota). You may want to check the team blog - http://carrboroac.com/ - later this week for some results and details.

Running's been high on Marc's mind this week, because it was one of the final high-quality weeks he will have before the Trials. Plus, he discovered the New York Road Runner's website, which has a feature called "Chasing Glory" that profiles some of the favorites in the race and features a new entry each day and some short video clips about those amazing athletes:
http://www.nyrr.org/races/pro/mens_trials/glory/index.asp . There's a buzz surrounding the Trials this year, because people feel that American distance running is once again on the rise. Our best still are not at the level of Haile Gebreselassie (who set a new world record in the marathon in Berlin last Sunday by running a 2:04:20 or so) or most of the Kenyan runners. But they do stand a chance on any given day. Expect a strong running contingent from the US in Beijing.

This all is somewhat tarnished, however, by the continued scandals plaguing sports in this country. This week saw the final chapter in Marion Jones' downfall from glory. These events and realities are sad, but they actually are not really anything new in the overall history of humanity.

The nice thing about not standing much of a chance at that high level is that Marc can run for the same reason he always has, because he loves it. Even in the heat of Chapel Hill, it is always rewarding and refreshing to have that as a regular and dependable source of relaxation. Some people think there is nothing relaxed about running, but they are probably the same people who have never stuck with it long enough to have one of those great, loose runs.

In school, things are still moving along, the same as before. Marc is working on some papers and still in a holding pattern vis-a-vis the dissertation, and Shuwen is starting to move ahead with her work. We both expect to be away for part of the spring, together in Ethiopia, but the timing is totally up in the air at this point.

Last weekend was the Carrboro Music Festival http://www.carrboromusicfestival.com/, which has grown a ton since it started 10 years ago. We spent a few hours Sunday afternoon hopping from venue to venue to catch various bands and solo artistes perform while having a picnic lunch and working on a crossword puzzle. There were lots of people out and about the check out the music and a number of the venues were jammed packed. At Milltown, we ended up jumping over parked bicycles into a tight spot between the bicyle rack and Milltown's fence. There was an adorable puppy snoozing away on the other side of the fence, oblivious to all the ruckus around him.