Saturday, March 23, 2013

hibernation

Remember when I used to update this blog like all the time?!
I apologize I have slacked majorly on it since Scotland.
I don't even know what to write about because it's been so long. SINCE NOVEMBER. and before that was September. Whoops.
Obviously, my life at school has escalated to very little free time. I work on campus now so during times where I'd normally be at home doing homework or fiddling my thumbs avoiding homework, I could blog, but I don't have that time anymore. I have turned into a person who doesn't do homework until after dinner almost every day and I don't like it that way, but I have no other options. Sadness.
I actually thought I'd blog today because I blogged about this same event 2 years ago. It seemed fitting to compare experiences. So read this blogpost, then finish this one.
Alright. Today was the Bearathon. I wasn't nearly as excited about it as I thought I'd be. Especially since I trained wayyy better for it this year. The longest run I did was 9 miles instead of maybe 5. Ha. I ran more than 3 miles every day. Well I didn't actually run every day and usually it wasn't more than 3 miles during the week, but my Saturdays were long run days, the shortest being 5. So really, with those real training runs, I felt better prepared and in some shape. Haha. I didn't have my high school running background to back me up for a lack of training.
This year I also didn't have a running partner, which I really missed. It's so much better to actually have someone you know running at your side when the miles get rough. I met up with some people in my section beforehand and we took a picture [sadly not on my camera so I don't know when I'll get to see it]. Then we prepped and I stuck with the 2 girls doing the Bearathon..mostly because we lost the guys. Haha I knew one of the girls was going to be faster than me because she used to run for Baylor, I think. Regardless, I knew she was faster. The other girl I'd never run with so I had no idea. I figured we'd run together for at least the first part, but boom, the gun goes off and they took off and I wasn't going to kill myself trying to stay with them. Unfortunately, because we were closer to the front and they took off fast, I took off faster than I should have and it came back to bite me at the end. I also used my phone for music and its nike+ app, which is different than the one on my ipod, so I couldn't figure out how to get it to tell me my pace; it only told me every mile, so I knew I went out too fast, but had trouble gauging how much to slow down because I didn't want to slow down too much. Needless to say, my mile times decreased from that point on and by mile 8, I just wanted it to be over. I had to walk way more than I wanted to and my calves got really tight so I had to stretch them out several times. My hips also started aching a lot around mile 8, too. So nice. I don't want to be negative or get pity, because I really do like running. This experience just wasn't my favorite one. The only positive was that I still managed to beat my last time by 6 minutes. I was disappointed I wasn't able to beat it by more because I knew I could, but shame on me for not pacing myself well. Probs won't run with my iphone anymore...or if anyone knows how you can get it to tell you your pace more...because I couldn't just click the home button to get it to speak to me. Lame. Technically, I should've been able to tell intuitively that my pace was too fast, and I could...so I don't really know what was going on because I was dragging by the end. It was bad, y'all. I walked part of the last freakin' mile. I don't think I ran a straight mile after the first time I walked around mile 6. It was rather ridiculous. But enough of that. You all now know that this Bearathon experience was pretty much the complete opposite of the first one. Unfortunate, but it's not going to stop me from probably doing it again next year. I really want to train for a 5k, so might try to find some 5k race to do in the future..I think there's one in May in Waco that because I ran the Bearathon, I get $10 off registration so that's cool. If I'm still here...high possibility I'll try to run it. Because let's be real, 5ks are perfect race distance. Long enough to make you train for it, short enough that you're not dying at the end.
To end...just because I can and I don't feel like writing about everything else..here are some random pictures of stuff that's happened since I last blogged...

Went to Chicago to visit my friend, Elizabeth whom I met while abroad.

Got lots of snow over Christmas Break, so I loved my life.

Ate a tofu "chicken" sandwich in Bloomington, visiting Dianne at IU.

Went on a SB trip with tons of people I didn't know, but can now call friends!

The video is from a Ben Rector concert I went to last week at Common Grounds. Soo good!