running down a dream

but i’m just puttin two up, chuckin up the deuce now

October 8, 2010 at 1:08 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

oh wow. i suck at blogging. hi. i’m alive.

you really haven’t missed much. i’ve been doing the whole student thing.

oh, except this.

 

i guess i ran a half-marathon. and by ran, well you can look at the clock and say, there was obviously some walking too. yes. a lot. because my achilles was just barely healed. so judging by what my garmin told me, i probably walked 2/3 of the race. so really, a sub-3-hour time is pretty impressive when you know that.

2:50:07. i’ll take it. easy PR to beat next time, right?

i decided near the end of the race that i wanted to shoot for under 2:50, but the ‘official’ time ended up being gun time, not chip time. and i was kind of disappointed. guess what.  it took me more than 7 seconds to cross the start line. i was near the back, so it was probably at least a minute or two. so there you go. mission accomplished.

i’m not exaggerating when i say this race was one of the most painful experiences in my life. first of all, i was seriously undertrained for it. started off great in my training – but then the achilles injury happened about 5 weeks before race day. longest training run to that point was 7 miles. and then i took 4 weeks completely off (no XT or anything) and got wayyy out of shape. managed to get in a few runs of a mile or two in the week before the race, but those only served to make me wonder if my achilles was healed, and to feel out of shape.

anyway, the first 5 or so miles of the race, i felt ok. the weather was sketchy that day (cool and a misty rain here and there, which is better than the steady rain i was expecting) so at least i wasn’t too hot. i felt slow and out of shape, but that was whatever. after 5 miles, the blisters started to set in – this is the less obvious problem with undertraining. ouch. once i got used to that, around mile 7, my achilles started hating me. and i figured, great, i’ve completely trashed it. around mile 10, it started to randomly feel better, and my hip flexor hurt like hell. mostly because i was doing a ton of walking at that point, and that tends to make it hurt. but by then, i really didn’t care, just wanted to finish the race. so i basically dragged myself around the streets of harrisburg. i was excited to see the ‘mile 11′ marker (might have even done a fist pump or something) because that represented a personal distance record, and the last 2 miles were just a mental battle because i was in so much pain.

anyway. managed to finish. my mom was standing right near the finish line (it was a small race) and i literally just fell into her arms and started bawling. neither of us are entirely sure why, but i’m pretty sure i was just completely drained emotionally and physically. i wasn’t upset or anything like that, just relieved to be done.

from there, we found bfast (i had pancakes, or waffles, i don’t remember, but they were good) and drove home. and as soon as i got home and tried to walk up the steps, my achilles decided it HATED me. so i figured that i completely destroyed it. turns out it was fine, but it was out of commission for the rest of the day. i was really sore the next two days (my back was the worst), but didn’t actually injure anything, so that’s good.

and i got a pretty medal. it’s now hanging right in front of my desk to remind me that i can do anything i put my mind to. and i already have plans for a bunch of half marathons next year. bring it onnnn.

oh, and when i say ‘desk’, i really mean…

yeah, that’s not a desk. but it’s what i have to work with.

but see? i was studying! school is going well. ended up with 4 classes – foundations of nutritional science, dietetic foundations, world literature 1, and abnormal psych. nutrition and dietetics are on tuesday nights, world lit on wednesdays, and psych is online, so it turns out i only have to commute 2 nights a week now. so i guess it’s a blessing in disguise that i got dropped from that chem class.

dietetics class is pretty good, basically it’s learning about our future career. which is kind of silly because i already have researched it enough that i know about it. but anyway. the prof is cool (she’s my advisor), but there are some annoying people in the class. you know the type. know-it-all’s, but community-college style. i just try to ignore them. and so does the prof.

nutrition class is… something. the prof is indian, so i can only half understand what she’s trying to say. but i don’t actually need to understand her, since she’s lecturing (by which i mean, reading) straight out of the book. so last week i finally realized that, since i take ridiculously good notes from the book, i should just bring those and add anything i might have missed, instead of trying to take notes from what she’s saying. yeah, works a lot better.

world lit is good, the prof is hilarious, i’m just not a big literature person. but i need that class for my ‘diversity’ elective, so i’ll roll with it. it’s not bad.

psych just started this week, but it’s completely self-paced, i just have to complete the 7 tests online by the end of the semester.

already made my schedule for next semester – registration is in about 2 weeks. looks like i’ll only have to be on campus on tuesdays and thursdays. and hopefully i’ll be living over there by then. just gotta save up some money. planning on taking english comp 2 (blah), chem (for real this time), food service management, and life cycle nutrition. might add another class in there if i think i can afford it, but we’ll see about that.

oh, and i have a job now. working at sports authority (again). good to know that i can still get the same job i had 4 years ago. bahahah. but it gets better. i’ll be cashiering until the end of the month, even though there aren’t a lot of hours to go around. then a position is opening up in receiving. full-time. weeeeeeee. only problem is that i have to figure out how to change my current sleep schedule (something like 2-11am) to one that involves me getting up around 5, because i’ll be working 6am-3pm. at least i have a few weeks to figure that out.

now i’ll leave you with this lovely picture of me from wednesday. running in the rain is sooo attractive. oh, and by the way, i’m officially running the MCM 10k (transferred my registration from the marathon… i’ll do it next year, i swear!) on halloween, so i’ve been making a half-assed attempt at getting back in running shape. so far so good. still slow, though.

ok byeeeeeee.