Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Growing up sucks

Hi everyone! I'm sorry I keep on periodically disappearing. It's hard to make blogging a priority with all the end of the year shenanigans. With everything that's been happening the past week, I've officially decided that growing up sucks.

During the week, I've been forced to wear high heels and make up. Gone are the days when all I wanted to do was parade around in heels and mom's make up. Due to presentations and such, I had to forgo my usual go to shoes (retired running shoes) and wear uncomfortable shoes.

Also gone are the days when I could run long miles with no prep, not stretch afterwards, and still be fine. I'm still struggling with my left side waging a war against the rest of my body. I'm fine for about 4 to 5 miles, but after that, I could really feel the hip. Marathon training, good bye for now! (I'm still hoping for a miracle and that I can manage to run/walk/crawl to the finish line on the 20th.)
At least I don't have to crawl the entire thing!
Did I tell you that now I seem to require a healthy diet to function better? Shocker! I once ran a 5K after just having eaten a greasy, delicious grilled cheese sandwich. It didn't feel awesome, but it was mildly uncomfortable. Now, few greasy chips, (okay, half a jumbo bag of chips) and I have to bolt for the nearest building on campus. Running on campus can be quite convenient on weekdays.

I really dislike being all responsible and putting a limit on my spending. I've imposed a self ban on all unnecessary spendings (i.e. - compression socks, races, laptop that can play videos without dying, etc) until I get a job. I need the motivation to kick this job search thing into high gear.

Despite all this, I guess to be completely honest, growing up isn't all THAT bad. Life is not all gloom and doom now that college is over. . . Right?
This tree makes me want to pretend that it's Grandma Willow and sing "Colors of the Wind."
Thankfully, design project is almost done. We've finalized the reactions, reactor materials, costs, etc. We've even done a safety analysis and are reasonably sure that nothing will blow up and that our plant personnel will be in as much danger  in the refinery as they would be driving to work. None of the chemicals in our process is particularly toxic, except for benzene. That thing will definitely give you cancer.

Now that I'm all adult like and stuff, I can drink as much coffee as I want. Growing up, coffee in my family was an "adult" drink. Now, I can go crazy. Did I mention that I have a Starbucks gold card? I'm probably never going to be the gold member of a credit card or a bank, but gold membership at Starbucks is pretty sweet. (Seriously, best thing ever. Go try their french vanilla latte, right now. It's half pump vanilla and half pump hazelnut, AKA heaven on earth).
My best friend. J.K. My best inanimate friend.

In conclusion, french vanilla latte>responsibility. And I guess I should go foam rolling now, since I'm no longer injury free. I'm just going to go to Starbucks first. :P


Oh and notice how I bolded all the important information in the post. If you're short on time, just read the bolds. "Growing up sucks, miracle, THAT bad, nothing will blow up, gold membership at Starbucks." 

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Skunk Cabbage Photos

I've been able to keep the crazy away for another day by stepping out to run. I really wanted to get in nice six miles, but I decided to be smart and stopped at 4 since I was mildly uncomfortable by the end.
Blah grey weather, but great temperature for running. 
I was even an extra good girl and foam rolled and did planks! I feel that I should get extra presents from Santa this year. I really could use more compression socks. (Hint, hint)

The good news is that I probably could have run 6 miles aerobically, I just didn't feel that I should push it. But I think I'm on the upward trend, thankfully.

In another news, photos from the Skunk Cabbage is up. I'm definitely not the next ridiculously photogenic guy. Too bad, it would have been fun to get memed.
My personal favorite
I actually did not see the camera man. It probably has something to do with the fact that I was holding my glasses instead of wearing them, because the sudden rain made the glasses as useful as a single sock. (I hate how my socks go to the washing machine in pairs and comes back as one. It's like Hunger Games all up in my washer.)
Oh the joys of end of a race captured right on my face. 
Stefan on the other hand, came out like he's winning the entire thing. His stupid 20/20 vision helped him spot the photographer in time. (Just kidding, it's not really stupid. In fact, I'm insanely jealous of the no glasses thing)
Well, I fist pumped at the finish line , which did not have any photographers to capture it. 
One of these days, I'm going to be so fit that I'm going to look as awesome as the ridiculously photogenic guy at the end of the marathon. Who's with me?

Monday, April 9, 2012

Running is awesome!

I always knew that running was awesome (Okay, to be honest the only reason that I kept at running was because I can't swim and I hate cycling). But once I got started with the whole running consistently few times a week, I grew to love it. 

Unfortunately, despite the fact that I'm in "marathon training," (in quotes because what I'm doing now isn't really marathon training, it won't even amount to 5K training), there has been very little running going on for the past month. Some of it my fault, and some of it not. Err, I guess if you count injuries as not my fault. But let's not play the blame game here especially since I'm pretty sure I'd lose. 

Even though, when I run, I'm all, "I'm going to run ultra marathons and be awesome at life because running's awesome," once I stop, it takes about two days for me to forget the awesome endorphin high, no rehab necessary. 
How could I have ever thought that running could be more fun than a nap?
Recently, I had forgotten entirely why I even started running in the first place, and definitely couldn't understand why I thought running 26.2 miles consecutively was a good idea. It was nice to sit around, eat Easter chocolates, and take naps to prepare for late nights of school work. 

I don't think I would have laced up my Asics at all for the rest of the semester except for the Seneca 7 relay. (Don't worry Jamie, I didn't forget!) Until I realized that during this past week, almost every night, I'd get stressed and crazy. The venti coffees at 9PM clearly couldn't be the cause. 
That's me. That's what I look like, except less cuter and fuzzier. 
Normally, my crazy is maintainable although if you ask my bf, Stefan, he'd disagree. But this was like off the walls freaking out. After many hysterical nights, I thought maybe this not running thing's contributing to this excess freak out energy.

So today, I stepped out for some easy two miler to easy back into things and to test out my hip. AND IT FELT AWESOME! Once I got over the restricting myself to run for only two miles thing, it was great! I felt normal again. And that was enough endorphin and energy usage to prevent myself from crossing over to the stressed and unproductive. 

Today's lesson: A run a day keeps the therapist away. 
Or this works too. I guess. But a run is so much better. 
Do your runs affect your moods/outlook on life? 

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Skunk Cabbage Recap

Hi! I'm still alive. I just didn't post anything, because well I didn't run since the Skunk Cabbage, and I was busy getting my video together for Nuun's Hood to Coast Relay Team! That's right, I decided to send in my application for HTC, and actually managed to shoot and edit a video for it.

But yeah, so here's my very late race recap for the Skunk Cabbage in a nutshell.

The Awesome:

I met two bloggers, Jenny and Jamie, and their husbands P and Mike, respectively. (This was actually my third time meeting Jamie). They were everything that I expected from reading their blog and more. The meet up was fun!
Because it didn't happen unless there's a picture to prove it. Courtesy of Jamie. 

I felt great during the entire run except for my hip pain came back again. But other than the fact that my whole left side of my body was going to hell, I felt fantastic. Surprisingly, not having a Garmin made the run go by so much faster.

The Bad:

After mile 1, my hip started hurting. I seriously considered dropping out, but I just lowered my speed and kept on going. (Probably a bad idea). The whole time, I was thinking about how good compression shorts would feel on my hip. At one point, I really wanted to punch a fellow runner out so that I could steal her shorts. I know, I am a terrible person when I'm not feeling well. But let's just focus on how I didn't do that and just ran in my own pants. 

The result:
I finished in 2:04:13, which was a lot better than I expected. 
Stefan (bf) finished his first ever half in 2:24:55, and didn't walk once. 
Everyone else, Jamie, Mike, and Jenny PR'd! I'm not sure about P. I think he usually runs faster. 

Even though my marathon is rapidly approaching, I decided to take a complete break this week from running. I figured better under-trained than majorly injured. The only form of exercise I got was running to class.

Sorry for this somewhat of a boring post. I just didn't feel right writing no recap at all. So here's a short one, and tomorrow it's back to regular posting! I hope you guys's week have been great! Now I'm off to catch up on blog reading! Oh and feel free to tell me what you think about my application video!


Here's more T-Rex Problem.
My marathon training is derailed, but at least I can hug other dinosaurs or humans.