Business Trip

*Note: I apologize if this post is vague. I’m intentionally leaving out important names/details.

This week, I’ll be traveling to the Midwest to participate in a seminar for graduate students in my field at a major corporation’s headquarters. I applied for this opportunity in early August, and after a phone interview, I was lucky enough to land a spot. The seminar has me working with five other graduate students from across the country on an applied project that the company’s working on at the moment. After two and a half days of working on this project, we’ll get the chance to present our suggestions to HR big-wigs, who will hopefully use some of our suggestions in their decisions. While there, I’ll also be interviewing for a 3-6 month internship with this company (*fingers crossed!*).

This week will be full of early mornings, late nights, stress, competition, pressure, and teamwork. And hopefully, at the end of it, I’ll have a great experience to look back on. 

As if this wasn’t wonderful enough, the location I’m off to is close enough to home that I’ll even get a chance to see my family and the BF. How lucky! 

I am not quite badass enough to do a full marathon, so I’m training for a half marathon. The race is towards the end of October (just under five weeks away—as if I’m counting!). I’d love to do a full someday, but for right now, it’s just not in the cards. Thank you so much! I’m actually starting to feel a lot better compared to a few days ago—I just have a stuffy nose to get rid of! 

Guess Who!!! Tumblr buddies have finally been assigned and I’m your lucky someone :) I hope you’re ready for a funtastic year full of bad-ass gifts! (And way to be allergic to penicillin – that eliminates so many gift possibilities, haha)

Yay! Oh, this message just made me so excited for this upcoming year! Yippeeee! Thank you!

The Road to Recovery

Unfortunately, there were no runs in store for me this past weekend. 11-miles or otherwise. I even had to bow out of a hike with friends yesterday afternoon because all I wanted to do was crawl back into bed. Thankfully, a good weekend full of rest (and lots of medicine and Vitamin C) has me feeling quite a bit better. I’m still not at 100%, but I’m hoping by Tuesday morning, I’ll be feeling a million times better than I was at the same time last week. 

As much as it killed me, I recognized that my body was asking me (not so kindly) to give it a break and just rest. And I think it will be all the better for my mental state as I go into a pretty huge week (more on that later). In addition, I don’t think the week off of running is going to be the worst thing in the world for my training schedule. I’m going to do the most I can to run this week while I’m traveling, and I know that I still have it in me to crush this half marathon. (Crush by my standards = finish without dying.) 

In other news, I actually bought Gu on Friday, and borrowed a Camelbak from a friend yesterday. I’m well on my way to being a crazy hardcore runner.

Thank You.

Jodi, thank you. This seriously made my night. You still don’t have your ask box enabled on your blog, so I figured I’d just dedicate an entire post to you. 🙂 

And I am sending tons and tons of motivation your way! It’s possible, and you are totally capable of doing it! Find a race that’s 3-4 months away, and just sign up for it! You’ll be a lot more motivated to stick to a training plan. And you will amaze yourself. I just know it. (And you’ll be crossing it off your bucket list before you know it.)

And I’m sure I’m just as beautiful as you remember me, ha! 🙂 Thank you, though! I miss you, and I hope you are doing well! 

How I Know Running Has Taken Over My Life:

(In no particular order)

1. On a recent “pick-up-all-the-medicine-you-can” (in an attempt to fight off my cold, just so no one gets the wrong idea) trip to the grocery store, I almost bought a water bottle backpack. So I could stay properly hydrated on my long runs. And look like a lunatic hardcore runner. 

2. I plan on making a special trip to the “running store” tomorrow to pick up Gu, or sports beans, or something of the like. I’ve had mixed opinions from friends on whether or not I should be doing any of this nonsense on my long runs, but I figure it couldn’t hurt to try and see how it works out. I’d at least like to try them before I inevitably snag some free ones on race day.

3. When the majority of my responses to the innocent-enough question from the BF of “How was your day?” involve something running (or hot yoga) related. 

4. I’m officially in the best shape of my life. Hands down, even including my high school days of cross-country and track. 

5. I just got ridiculously excited when I realized I’d be getting a medal just for finishing my upcoming half marathon. Score!

6. I’m already contemplating future races I can sign up for. 

7. When my blog, designed to capture the essence of my time in grad school, has started to resemble something of a fitness journal. (I’m sorry, I swear I’ll get back to ‘normal’ posts here soon enough.) 

It’s official. I’m a running freak. 

31 days until the half marathon!

Time Out!

These past five weeks, in training for my half marathon, I have been diligent in making my runs, and while I may not have hit my mileage goals each and every week, I have been damn close. This week, though, my schedule’s wreaked havoc on my training plan. In addition to school really getting into full swing this week (classes don’t start until Monday, but the amount of meetings on my agenda this week has me fooled), my body decided now (now, the worst possible times of all bad times) would be a good time to get sick (i.e., sore throat, stuffy nose, the works). 

Oh woe is me. (This is my sarcastic acknowledgement of the first-world problems plaguing this post.)

Today marks the first time since my 10-mile run last Saturday that I was able to lace up my tennis shoes and go for a 4-mile jog. I have, however, made it to two hot yoga classes in the past two days, in addition to doing some decent biking. A few hours ago, I mapped out the 11-mile run I have planned for this weekend. I’m hoping that my body holds up for it. And that it does more good for my sinuses than harm. And that a 2+ hour run will be a good mental break from all of the work I’ve had my head in this week. 

Thoughts On My 10 Mile Run:

Before I left the house:

What are you thinking? What, what, what are you thinking?

It looks cold out.

Did I drink enough water?

Whhyyyy?

During the run:

It’s cold. Wait. This is okay.

Rain?! What the hell. Why is it raining?

Oh wait, I like the rain.

Squirrels!

After the run:

I am the queen of bad-assery. Now let me sleep for the rest of the day.

I cannot get enough frozen goods on my knees and ankles.

It rained for about 85% of the run. Since I was dressed decently, it wasn’t terrible. I actually remembered how much I like running in the rain. I still haven’t come up with more things to think about while running, so most of my thoughts were centered on the upcoming week, and jamming out to the tunes I was listening to. And whether or not I should spend money on more running gear. 

I’ll end this with my weekly fitness round up:

-Ran 21 miles.

-Biked 8 miles.

-Went to one hot yoga class. (I’ve got one more week on my pass—I’ll do a wrap-up once it’s over!)

Thank you legs (and feet!) for being awesome this week and always. 

Dear Coffee,

Thank you for making me think a five mile run might be possible this afternoon. Even though I’ve felt like death all day. 

I want to quit you, I do. But I just can’t pull myself away.

Love,

A Hopelessly Addicted Grad Student

Late Night

I think I’ve finally realized that I can’t stay up until 1:00 in the morning anymore. 

My 22-year old body is rebelling on me. I suppose that’s what happens when you start going to bed at 10:30 every night and waking up at 7:00. 

That being said, I have finally dug myself out of the hole that was my conference submissions. I almost had a breakdown when one of the submission sites went down last night, but thankfully things were back to smooth-sailing this morning. 

I need to sleep.

But I’ll probably settle for coffee instead.