Linden's Pensieve

Last week, my Composition I students had to write a blog post responding to Stephen King’s short piece called “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” The prompt asked them to persuade their audience that their method of “keeping the insanity at bay” is acceptable. Here’s my own response.
King hit it right on the nose: We are [...]

Head on over to Ozarks Bazaar, where you’ll find my “Where to Run in Springfield” guest post. You’ll get to hear about my favorite place to run in Springfield and why I like it so much. Bonus: you’ll get to check out an up-and-coming local Springfield/Ozarks blog. If you’re interested in writing for it, just [...]

I am not pretty when I run. My face turns bright red, I get salty deposits on my cheeks, and I stink! But ProWash laundry detergent helps my running clothes smell fresh and clean. Hear all about it in this video blog.

I’m pooped! But I have enough left in me for a post filled mostly with photos. :) But before we get to the pictures, let me report on our times.

The 10 km Champions Run, associated with the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, is tomorrow at 3:45—that’s 8:45 CST, Springfield/Neosho people!—but I am sad to report that we did not train like we wanted to.

We set out to do speed training and regular runs. But we only did a couple speed sessions back in May, and our training was hardly what you’d call regular. Nevertheless, we decided to run thus race. It will, at the very least, be a nice jog through a beautiful and historic city center.

Last week, a long-time friend of mine asked me some questions about running because she wants to start moving to get healthy. I’ll keep her identity a secret for now, but I really wanted to share my answers to her questions because I know there are people out there wondering the same things.

Two weeks ago today, I became a marathoner, but what’s next? I was pretty sure that I would like running this type of race, but now I know that I do. However, I have a different type of marathon that I have to run right now, The Dissertation marathon (“The Diss”). Once I’ve crossed that finish line, I’ll be returning to the 26.2-mile variety. Maybe in the meantime, I can do some relays: Who’s with me?!

Let me first start by saying that I do not expect you to lose a night of sleep just so you can wait for Twitter posts or watch the live feed hoping for a glimpse of yours truly. But if you want to, well, I hope you can either sleep in on Sunday or Monday, or like long Sunday afternoon naps. (I sure do!) The marathon starts at

Today is September 15, and I am two weeks away from the starting line. Before I started running, I had always heard that runners are really friendly people, and I have found that that is more than true. The runners I have met both in person and online are always more than willing to help out,

Thanks to Nitmos and Non-runner Nancy, I just found out about Life Strides’ upcoming 1-mile virtual race. It takes place next week, September 1 through 7, and while Life Strides is hoping all the momentum of a virtual race will help him break the 5-minute mile, but thankfully he says that “all you have to do is run 1 mile as fast or as slow as you want.” Good!