first week back

Classes started on Wednesday and so suddenly the university has been at full swing again. I'm pleased with how my class started out, but a lot of what I do these days is deal with students with questions about Science and Technology in Society (from "can I get into this course?" to "evaluate the course I took somewhere else for transfer" to "will my architecture independent study count for STS?").

My daugher and I shipped off four boxes of things she wanted to take to school in Massachusetts (two of them containing winter clothes). I fly up with her next Wednesday to deliver her to the school on Thursday. My son goes back to school tomorrow.

Yesterday the weather report said high of 90 on Sunday, today it says high of 94. So I'm not optimisitic about the weather for Sunday's race. And I'm very discouraged because I read carefully the schedule for race day and it says the course closes at noon. I don't think I can finish in 5 hours--I was expecting it might take me six. This isn't the race production company I usually race with, and I have no idea whether these people will be serious about their cutoff. There are 39 registered in my race and 37 in the shorter race held at the same time. So far no one else is registered in my age group so I have a chance to win my age group for the first time, but I'm afraid I won't get to be an official finisher because I won't make the cutoff. I was swimming yesterday at a pace that would say I could do the swim in 50 minutes, but I don't know that I can keep that up in open water. The bike at 37 miles is shorter than 3/8 ironman, but it will still take me between 2 and 2 1/2 hours. My goal time for the run would be two hours. I would have to have an awfully good day to finish in 5 hours, and it is instead going to be beastly hot.

Update: I got good news in reply to my email to the race organizers:

Actually we do not have an official cutoff for this race. The times listed in the timetable were based on our Clermont TriAmerica race which was held under much better weather conditions. You can concentrate on your race without having to worry about a cutoff time.