running down a dream

if you knew better, you’d do better

April 2, 2011 at 9:11 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

fell off the face of the earth for another 2 months. i swear i have a good reason.

the same day as the last time i blogged, i applied for a job. did a phone interview a few days later, a real interview a week after that, got a job offer the next day, put in my 2 weeks’ notice, found a place to live, and moved to central jersey. yeah. see? i’ve been busy.

been here for a little over a month now. the job is decent (basically i run the amazon.com operations of a sports collectibles/memorabilia company), but it’s not somewhere i want to stay forever. know what i mean? like it’s good. but i can’t see myself here for years and years and years.

…which is good, because it looks like i’m going to FSU in the fall!

still waiting to be absolutely sure, but i got my financial aid package about 2 weeks ago, and it should be enough. still waiting for them to decide if i’m a florida resident or not (technically, i still have a florida license and tags and all that, so i actually am – but i haven’t even been in florida for over 7 months… but they don’t know that). if they decide i’m a resident, i can definitely afford full-time tuition with the amount of money they offered. if not, i’d probably have to take less credits to start, but it could still work. just have to wait and see. also got into western carolina and college of st elizabeth, but ended up withdrawing my acceptance at WCU (not enough financial aid), and i haven’t heard about money from CSE yet.

haven’t told my boss about this yet. i’ll worry about that when it all becomes more definite. and much closer to the fall. i know in reality it’s not that big of a deal, but i kind of feel like they took a chance hiring me (i’m the only person they’ve ever hired that wasn’t an intern there first). but you know, i haven’t exactly been paid yet (allegedly that’s happening sometime next week), so i don’t owe him anything… yet. and yeah, i’ve worked 5 full weeks without being paid. that’s pretty lame. just waiting for my landlord to come bother me about the rent. she’ll get it when i get paid. sorry. the housing situation is pretty good (renting a room in a 5br house), but my landlord is kind of passive-aggressive and anal-retentive and antisocial. there, i said it. she likes to write notes on the white board in the kitchen telling people to do things that she could have done in the time it takes to write the note. and that drives me crazy.

it hasn’t been all work work work since i moved here though. you see, 2 weekends ago, i did this little thing i like to call the NYC HALF-MARATHON. seriously, best race of my life. both in terms of running and just enjoying it. SO much fun.

i mean, how often do you get to actually run down the streets of times square? how about never. didn’t stop smiling the whole race. it was sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. oh, and a new PR. 2:36:34… almost 14 minutes faster than my last half. my goal was 2:36 and well, that was pretty close. winning! (ps i ran 13.4 miles… i need to learn to run in a straight line)

started out in brooklyn. stayed overnight with a friend in park slope. got up a little after 5, grabbed some dunkin on the way to the subway, and hopped on the train. it was half runners, half people who hadn’t been to bed yet. interesting combo. switched trains at 86th, ended up in central park. guess what, it was cold out. like 30. and windy. since we had to check our bags by 6:45 and the race ended up starting around 7:45, that meant an hour of standing around freeeeeezing. just wanted to start already and get warmed up.

so eventually, we did. the first 7ish miles were in central park and they were kind of monotonous. probably because i knew what was coming next… and i was half awake at this point. first 2 or so miles i was frozen, hands were about to fall off (seriously considered picking up gloves off the ground and wearing them), nose wouldn’t stop running (actually, it ended up not stopping EVER), but after a while i got warmed up. headed out of the park eventually, around the 10k mark.

…and headed downtown! this part was so crazy. INSANE amount of crowd support. and a lot of tourists who were like, umm, what? it’s funny to run down the middle of a street you’ve only been down the sidewalks of. anyway, apparently i took a walk break right in front of the paparazzi. guess i didn’t see this one. haha.

it happens.

eventually, we turned and headed down the west side highway. at this point, my body started to yell at me. apparently this part of the race was on concrete (and the rest was on asphalt), which made it a lot harder. around mile 11 i was ready to drop, but i found the friend i had been staying with (she was cheering with the american cancer society group) and that helped a little. just running out of energy at this point. somewhere in mile 12, a group of random people (i think they were french) were handing out little cups of jellybeans. i told them i loved them. hahaha. omg, that is exactly what i needed. crossed the finish line and felt AWESOME.

i hate how the clock above the finish line makes me look slow. please note that it took me 16 min to cross the starting line

went out for brunch afterwards (pancakes and bacon!), took a bathroom break in the ritz-carlton (and stole napkins to prove it), then headed back to brooklyn, packed my stuff up, and drove back to jersey. a little sore the next 2 days, but NOTHING compared to my first half. i could barely move after that one.

seriously, awesome race. highly recommend it to anyone. i’ll probably put my name in the lottery next year, even if i’m living in FL. still on a runners high from it, and its been almost 2 weeks.

next major race is brooklyn half on may 21. i’ve been slacking on my training (only ran once since the half), so i need to get back on that. feeling pretty good about it though. also doing a few 5k’s between now and then (april 23 and may 7), but not racing those all-out, just for fun.

more to come later. i’ve rambled enough for now.