Testing? Hello?

IM ALIVE!

Ok i've been alive this whole time it's just been rough going. I have a test this morning. Clearly I'm not studying, I'm blogging.  

Anyway I am feeling better than before. It's later in the week, I've had a chance to bounce back, get back into a semi schedule. If only this gloomy rain/no-sun weather would go away. Atlanta as a city just seems depressed. It was clearly affecting my kids yesterday at our track practice because we had to be inside and just chat instead. They were so rowdy and fidgity and combined with my mood this week...well it was almost catastrophic. 

I'm gonna go study, I would be working out right now but alas I fell asleep sitting up reading last night and didn't get to study much last night. So here I am, at 7:30 am writing a blog post when I have a test in 2 hours.

Classic. 

I am too cool for school. (nerdy-cool, not normal-cool)

Rough Days

Sorry for the radio silence. 

I'm going to make this kind of brief to spare everyone my problems. 

The half marathon went great. 2:05.41, 12 minutes faster than my last half marathon on Thanksgiving. 

I can't wait for my next one, if only they were easier to find in summer months that aren't so far away...curse you southern heat. 

I'm dealing with a lot of stuff right now on top of a really busy schedule.  For the first time in over a year, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing with myself every day. I have chunks of time just...blank...where I could do anything productive but I'm so used to saving them for someone else. I've been going over my decisions of the past six months over and over and trying not to brood, because I am so good at it, so that I can be productive instead. It's been rough going.  I know I will be turning to training to help, I just hope it can keep me out of the funk/cloud that is ominously staring me down.

Anyway, I'll be in and out randomly on here for a bit. Hopefully when I cheer up some I will come back but as for now I'm honestly too confused to post much of anything that's useful to the running world. I just keep telling myself that everything happens for a reason. 

Right now is definitely a time when I need to run happy, and I hope everyone else is too.

Upswing

Yesterday it rained all day in atlanta. It was miserable and my roommate and I just sat around and baked all day. 

Really, we didn't do anything.

So today was long run day, my last true long run before the half in 2 weeks.  After a disasterous 8  miles last weekened I really wanted today to be special. To feel like I hadn't been training for nothing.  

I woke up at 9:30, ate a bagel and some yogurt and didn't leave until 11:30ish. I packed my normal gatorade mix and a Cliff gel that my friend told me to try and kept a positive attitude despite the horrible weather that is here. 

It's cold.

It's windy.

Oh and it's wet everywhere.

Did I mention windy? Seriously, Atlanta is like a wind tunnel on every street.

Anyway I decided to run my usual route backwards, tackling the dreaded North Avenue hills first.  Honestly I couldn't have asked for a better run. 

Well I could have, like not freezing, and not so windy I was being pushed sideways but eh!

I ate my little gel at mile 6 as I was leaving the Highland area and by the time I got home I'd run 11.06!

I felt good. I got home, iced my knees and feet (they were achey) and smiled knowing I had hit my goal half pace.  

Now I'm sitting down to finally do school work.  

Ugh Guess I gotta put work in at some point right?

14 days till the half. Taper starts in 4 and I'm so so so ready for that!!

Run Happy everyone!

I miss

Things I miss:

I miss trail running every weekend. It got me away from the smog of marta buses and SUVs.

I miss spontaneous weekend trips due to warm weather.  I love this city but damn I need to get out of it for a bit every once in a while.

I miss, pause and don't repeat, going to random baseball games.

I miss spending hours and hours on the couch watching sports. I don't have time for that anymore

I miss drinking on the DU porch on random warm Thursdays and Fridays when classes were over. 

I miss skirts. 

I miss being tan.

Get here faster summer.

Balancing Act

Who thinks they should add like 6 hours to every day? Just round it to 30 hours right?

I think I'd get a lot more done.  I could use the hours. 

I just painfully/excitedly applied for a research position doing something I would LOVE to do.  But from beginning to end of this process took like 3 hours. To fix my resume. To perfect the cover letter. Make sure my references were ok with me.

3 hours?! 

Where does time go? It's running away from me I think. 

The fact of the matter is I'm having a hard time balancing everything.  I have school, I have training, I have a job, I have a boyfriend...and I'm supposed to find another job? and think about graduating? 

I spend every 24 hours surviving those 24 hours and don't have enough time to think of the 24 hours 3 months from now that could be vital in my life.

It really blows my mind. How are kids (I'm saying I'm a kid because I haven't graduated) supposed to worry about doing everything perfect, having the perfect resume, the perfect jobs, the perfect grades AND focus on everything in the future? It's painful! 

Anyway It's done I'm applied and all whatever blah blah.

I'm so excited to start taper in 6 days. (10 day taper) I'm trying to get a good amount of real good workouts in this week and then rest rest rest.

PS I'm losing a toenail. Fantastic. 

I'll update later. Workout at 2. Back to work at 4.

Gotta love Fridays!

Run Happy everybody!

The Bad Times

Today's Running World Quote was:

"It takes faith and the courage to risk failure in order to realize one's destiny. Having had my share of failures throughout my career I know that it is well worth the risk." - Ryan Hall, American long distance runner and winner of the 2008 United States Olympic Marathon Trials

I love this quote. It really hit home after the past few weeks I have had. 

This explains a lot of my lack of posting. 

"Drama" is exactly how I'd characterize what's been going on. I'd love to divulge everything (not) but it involves tears, yelling, alcohol and honestly a little loss of dignity on my part every once in a while.  

Don't worry, you can just go watch an ABC-no-so-Family show and it will be about the same. 

Anyway the drama has caused some sidetrackedness in my focus on training. I'm still doing it but it's been more of a mind numbing get-away-from-everything thing, causing me to not want to post about it. 

On top of my 'drama' I had one of the worst runs of life on Sunday.  I had skipped my long run last weekend due to, surprise, drama and drinking, and so I was excited to get back to a 10 miler on Sunday.  I had eaten breakfast with some friends early in the morning and headed out around 2pm so I could have plenty of time to digest my food.  I felt perfectly fine when I left. Excited to run, had on new clothes, it was a beautiful day in Atlanta at a high 60's low 70's temp with some wind. 

Well I got to about mile 2.5 and realized something wasn't quite right. My legs weren't shaking that dead feeling. I chalked it up to a few days of not running and they were just stiff but I couldn't get rid of it. By mile 4.5 I was in the Virginia Highlands and had stopped. I was sitting on a bench with absolutely dead legs and a stomach ache just to add to it. My lungs were on fire and everything felt like it was falling apart.  I knew I wasn't going to make 10 miles that day, I was praying just for 8 at the rate I was going. I texted my roommate with a warning text of "this isn't going so hot" just in cased I needed her to come get me.

Yeah, I felt THAT bad. 

So I kept going, forced myself at least, slowly, and told myself that if I could just keep going and walk some/rest I'd make it through. 

The next 3.5 miles were the worst miles ever. 

I've never thrown up from working out but I was pretty damn close, and I actually WANTED to. I wanted to throw up so bad thinking it would make me feel better. Anything to make me feel better. I kept waiting for a second wind but no. And of course when you're in the middle of Atlanta you're smack in the middle of a MILLION and one hills. Steep, long hills. 

I somehow made it back to campus and when my Garmin watch hit 8 miles I just stopped. And I walked home. Walked. I've never done that in my life. It was miserable. I was miserable. I felt like such a  failure. And the half is only 3 weeks away! I was supposed to be throwin out 8 miles like nothin. 

My legs just did not want it. And I had to listen on Sunday. 

Maybe it's been the alcohol, which honestly hasn't been much because if any of y'all knew me you knew I can get a hangover from 2 beers and be hammered in 1. Maybe it's all this drama, or school, or the stress I've been putting on myself lately but it's just been a rough few weeks of training. My Monday run was sucky as well. Legs hadn't recovered yet but I knew I needed to get the miles in. 

Anyway back to the applicable quote for the day. I guess this is all of my failures right now. I keep fighting the failure feeling. I have to shake it because I start taper in 8 days and then it's race time. I've been working way too hard to let this feeling take me down.

So it's time to push the personal shit out of my mind and get it all done and get back to running happy instead of this moody gloomy running.