Where's Waldo...Thursday? GoPro Photo-a-day 1/1/14-1/16/14

Wow.  Where did the first half of January go?  To date, I have run 28 miles in the month of January.  A stark contrast to the mileage I was putting in during the second-half of December.  My low mileage is partly due to fact that I took the first week of January off.  A much needed recovery.  During the last week of December, I logged the most miles I have ever done in a week - 65.  Tough to swallow that I will do thirty-five more than that in a single day (hopefully) at the beginning of April.  During the peak mileage week and for the entirety of December, and for all of 2013 for that matter, I ran pain free **knock on wood** but toward the end of the month I began to notice a slight amount of "discomfort" in my right foot.  I decided a week off from running would be a nice way to begin 2014.  I was surprised to discover that during the during the first week of January when I was taking time off from running, I had the worst quality sleep that I can remember and I began noticing pain, specifically in my right knee, that wasn't present prior to taking time off.  What gives???  The good news is that my knee only gives me trouble when I'm sleeping, and not when I'm running, so perhaps I'm doing something to agitate it while I'm sleeping?  Anyways, that's kind of the state-of-my-state.

In bigger news, I passed **tentatively** my Praxis II exam on Tuesday morning!!!  I'm ecstatic (if the three exclamation points didn't give that away).  I say **tentatively** because while you receive your score at the end of the exam, you do not receive your official score until 10-15 days after taking the test.  I believe this is because they normalize the scores - hopefully my score doesn't go down and stays above the required passing score. I was really really stressing about this exam because it could have prevented me from student teaching in the spring and consequently pushed back my graduation.  I dedicated a decent amount of time studying for the exam and it was nice to see that my hard work paid off.  What I find interesting is that the state of Virginia raised the passing score from a 147 to a 160 beginning January 1st of this year.  The ETS considers a score of 165 excellent and even provides a certificate for earning such a score, aptly named the Recognition of Excellence Award.  This means that individuals in my program, who will graduate with the same degree and at the same time as me, are not required to earn the same score that I was required to earn.  Pretty silly but a Pass is a Pass and I'm glad it's behind me!

When Michelle and I were home for the holidays, we received our first wedding gift - a GoPro Black Camera!  IT. IS. AWESOME!  We decided that because we're getting married this year and because we received this awesome and incredibly generous gift, we wanted to take a photo-a-day with the camera.  Below are the first 16 days of January!

1/1/2014 - Playing with the GoPole in the car!

1/2/2014 - Michelle and I studying in the Graduate study room :-(

1/3/2014 - Grocery shopping.

1/4/2014 - Evening walk with Gillie.

1/5/2014 - "Dad!  I told you I don't like having my photo taken!"

1/6/2014 - Nothing too exciting here.

1/7/2014 - Virginia Tech vs. Syracuse at Cassell Coliseum 

1/8/2014 - My first run of the year - Running in Jefferson National Forest.

1/9/2014 - Making pizzas is a standard thing around here - 

Buffalo chicken was the first of the night.

1/10/2014 - Out on a dreary afternoon walk with Gillie.

1/11/2014 - First photo Michelle took with the GoPro...studying???

1/12/2014 - The moment before impact.  

Michelle took a nasty spill off the slackline right after this photo was taken.  

I was taking a time-lapse. 

1/13/2014 - College Avenue promenade after grabbing dinner at Moe's on Monday.

1/14/2013 - Whoopsie!  This photo came out a little blurry...there's a bit of a learning curve!

1/15/2013 - A night walk with Gillie!

1/16/2013 - Dinner this evening!  (Eat Fresh!)

So that's what we've been up to!  Michelle takes her Praxis tomorrow morning (send her some love!) and then I've got the VCLA Saturday morning - sad panda.  Sad panda because I was planning on running a local fat ass (a free or cheap organized ultra event) right at Jefferson national park but my VCLA is now Saturday morning.  Silly school getting in the way of running!  Yesterday was exactly one month from Holiday Lake 50k, which will be my first race of the year!  Aside from that, I begin teaching at a middle school during the first week of February and I'm totally pumped!  Oh yeah - last thing, we got a slackline and it's awesome and incredibly difficult!  I foresee lots of fun this spring with it!