As of yesterday my after school responsibilities have ended with the final performance of our UIL OAP for the year. I didn’t really expect anything in terms of placing this year, I gave up on that as a mark of achievement a couple years ago when I took a banger of a show to contest and didn’t even place. After that, shows I didn’t think would place did but the past couple years have been a dry spell in the podium department. I always get the “you were fourth” conversation from people who have direct access to the judge’s deliberations and I get that they are trying to be nice about not placing but at the same time it doesn’t really help.

I work with my students to create thoughtful, unique and challenging work and that isn’t what wins at contest. If you’ve never done OAP in Texas we run with a single judge who makes deliberations but we also get a rating from the judge and my ratings are always at the top/excellent. I share that with my students because they get down on themselves when we don’t place but ultimately the placements aren’t a reflection of the best show or most effective piece, it is about what the judge prefers. It could be as simple as a show the judge just loves because they directed it years ago and have fond memories of their own process or that they liked the costumes or accents rather than a marker of overall excellence. Yes, hardware is nice but it isn’t the end all be all of the process.

My foot took about a week to heal before it felt normal to walk again, the new tissue growing where I removed the blister took some baby-ing to get back to supple and it is still getting toughened up as my training comes back online. Because I have more time now, I anticipate my training increasing significantly during the week with more climbing and running because my timing schedule is starting to pick up after the holiday season. I’m looking forward to having the time to dedicate to really setting the physical changes in that I’ve seen in myself the past 8 months. I’m also starting to run with some new people, changing up some routines and building some new friendships and getting new perspectives.

I’ve started having my kids overnight at least one night a week on off weeks and that is really a positive change for me. Dinner only on Thursday made things more rushed than necessary and I think they will enjoy having more time at home with me.

I am going to start doing some more personal work here this week as well. I’ve gotten access to some self-healing writing prompts and while I won’t post everything here, I definitely recognize that I haven’t kept up with the work I started as things have gotten busier with work and life. There isn’t as much baggage to clear out and the work now is about where to go from here. I’m also getting ready to work on a project with my cousin Russ from Detroit that will happen the first weekend in May that will be very exciting. I anticipate adding more collaborators in the coming weeks and finalizing some plans about how that will go.

I’ll be headed down to Burnet at the end of the month to take on the Spider Mountain Trail Run 12 hour event with a goal of at least 40 miles up and down the mountain (10 loops) as a buildup to my 100 mile race in April. Big things coming!