Your squat is Fantastic!

Sorry I just found this song and like all things- I’ve become obsessed. Anywhosers, yeah I had a guy at the gym tell me my squat was fantastic a week or so ago.  He was basically like there’s ass to grass and then there is you, literally if you were outside your ass would be legit touching the grass.  I got all flustered I admit and was terribly excited that he liked my squat.  I asked my friend Zak who I was working out with if it was sad that I got all excited about what the guy said about my squat and Zak replied; “nah man, if he said that about mine I’d be excited too”.

Then this past weekend, this guy I’ve been kinda seeing was dancing with me and after dropping it low at one point he said in my ear; “You can tell you squat” Again the nicest thing ever! Is it completely sad that I think that sort of compliment is better than anything.  Why thank you for acknowledging that I work out! I don’t know I guess I’m weird….

So yeah if guys want to flatter me- compliment my workout moves! Haha but seriously I am in love with lifting things up and putting them down it’s a great stress reliever. But on another note, I was working out with my friend Zak again like last week and he helped me to achieve a  new deadlift PR and I managed to bench more than just the bar for the first time in a very long time so those two things combined made me very happy for a few days.

So what else is going on? Oh I started my half-marathon training yesterday.  My coach Kris is helping me attempt to hit a PR of 1:45 for the half and so he has made up my training schedule, which I very much appreciate. 

So my body has basically been having to reacclimatize itself to running 5 miles a day again because I’ve been slacking and doing more like 3… but hey if I want the time I gotta train!

So those are my working out related things that I’ve got going on right now.  I can actually make it slightly further up when attempting a pull up then I could before so I think it is just a matter of time before I am able to do a full pull up! Which I will be super excited when that happens.
What else?…. hmm… well the semester is winding down I am currently in the middle of finals week so I keep stressing with studying and projects and such, but it is finally the last bit then I get a much needed mental break!  I just finally handed in all the paperwork for my internship for next semester- also super excited.      I am slowly checking all the things I need to do off of my list. 

What else, what else? I feel bad because I haven’t posted in a bit and now I feel obligated to update you on everything that’s going on in my life at one time….

The only thing that’s left is Christmas! Well Christmas presents, since I knit a lot of my presents I’m where I usually am this time of year- behind.  I usually end up still finishing off the presents I’m making late on Christmas Eve and I always tell myself that it won’t happen again to me the following year and then it somehow always does… well its the attempt to not let it happen again that counts.

So I think that’s all I have going right now, if I think of anything else a post will come! 

So until  later, TTFN. 

Mid-Mid Life Crisis

Ok so I’ve had moments where feel like I’m having a panic attack lately. I think it has to do with the fact that I’m a senior, I’m planning out my internship for the next semester, law school is after (hopefully) and with that comes how the hell do I pay for law school??? It’s just a combination of a lot of things.  What’s getting me through is doing what my bff Joe says and I am “taking it one day at a time“.  He’s very smart sometimes….. sometimes. 

So other than my mid-mid life crisis I just finished my last cross-country race of my collegiate career.  I’m not going to lie I started to choke up a bit giving my usual pump-up speech before the race.   It’s hard to imagine that freshman year I ran like 38-40 min 6k and this past weekend I got my personal best of 31:38 for a 6k. I think that’s a good way to end my senior year, if I may say so.

I was talking with my coach after and I was telling him how I remembered how I sucked Freshman year and his response? “Yeah, you were really bad.” Hahah gee thanks Pete! I love that guy, but he needs to work on tact sometimes.  I laughed because it was a Pete thing to say and its still funny because it was true.

Let’s see what is getting me through the end of my hectic semester? Training!  Even though my season is done I plan to do the Plattsburgh Half Marathon for my 4th and probably final year. My goal this year is to hit 1:45 for a time.  The first time I hit 2:14, the second time I hit 1:59, and last year I didn’t run it for time, but to finish with Kinga since it was her first time and I ran 2:16.   So I think that with some proper training I can definitely hit 1:45.  I asked Kris if he would make me a training schedule and he said that he will, so I am hoping that if I put in the work I’ll get the time I want.  
Other than that I am still lifting and doing W.O.D.s on an every other day type basis. I want to keep my training different, I don’t ever want to get too comfortable doing any one thing.  So that’s basically where I am right now.  Not much else to report.

So unti later, TTFN. 

Oh and I have to leave you with some McFly!

The Concept of Possible.

Well I can honestly say that my concept of possible has seriously changed since I did the marathon.  If you told me back in high school I would one day run a marathon, let alone one of the hilliest/toughest marathons for my 1st marathon, I probably would’ve believed you, if barely, and then would’ve REALLY questioned it. 

Anywho, now that I’ve run a marathon I’ve got my sights set even more.  My plan has always been to run an ultramarathon, in fact I’ve had my sights set on the 100 mile Western States Endurance Run.  But I know my parents and I need to “prove” my ability to run long distances before I can run an ultra.  So I’ve been slowly working my way up the steps; half-marathon whose course is super flat and fairly easy, to now a marathon that is super hilly with elevation change. 

People say that you don’t know what your body is capable of until you test it’s limits.  Well I think that’s more than true and I also think the saying what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is even more true.  This marathon didn’t kill me and the next marathon I run won’t either.  It’ll show me more of what my body is capable of.  And I think it’s capable of some pretty bad ass type things.  So while I am taking the week off because of my surgery you can bet that as soon as I’m cleared. It’s go time! 

Especially once I figure out whether or not I actually have a stress fracture.  I’ve been checking my foot every day and so far I don’t have any pain.  Even when I press down on the spot where it was painful on Sunday there isn’t any real pain.  Considering that fact makes me feel really positive, I’m hoping it was a muscle pain due to wrapping my foot too tightly.  But we will see for sure come Monday.  Until then its work, rest, and trying not to go stark raving mad from not running! 
That’s it for now, Until later, TTFN.

Then and Now.

You know, I  went for a run yesterday before work and I realized something: I’ve come a long way since I started in High School.  So to enjoy my revelation (that’s what I’m going to call it) I’m going to talk about it today.  Back in High School I started running as a way to keep in shape for soccer (this was my main sport) and when I got cut during try-outs my sophomore year my friend Tirzah spent the whole year convincing me to do cross-country the following fall.  And well she won the convincing.  I ran in High school, always finishing last or second to last for my team at races and usually at the back of the pack for the entire race.  I don’t believe I know my time never went below 27:56 for a 5k in high school and that was during senior year.  Despite the fact that I never ran any fast races, and let’s be honest didn’t really try that hard I had fun.   Me at my homecoming parade —>

It was a fun time and I quickly fell in love with running.  Then came my freshman year of college and boy was I in for an awakening.  Preseason was full of 2 a days and long miles.  I quickly realized this wasn’t the same as high school.  But I still wasn’t serious yet about my running, sure I loved it and I loved being on the team, but I wasn’t quite ready to go out and run 5 miles everyday.  Heck some days if I ran 12 minute miles that was perfectly fine with me.  Often I wouldn’t even run everyday, and that was perfectly fine with me.  Mind you, I didn’t like coming in last every race, but I didn’t have enough drive to really do anything.

Then something happened that woke me up…..Regionals.  At Regionals I wasn’t able to race due to the fact that we could only have 6 women run and I was the 7th with the slowest time.  Naturally, as he should, my coach let the 6 fastest girls run.  I didn’t run in Regionals. 

Me and the ladies on my team freshman year ———–>

Needless to say, I was very upset.  My mom had come to watch me run and I cried because of it.  Then one of the girls who ran faster times than I did dropped out before a mile into the race, for in my perspective, no real good reason.  It was after that race that I decided I was going to train my butt off and never not be able to run in a race again.

So I did, I started running everyday, even cross training.  I entered race after race and did my own workouts both on and off the track.  That year following the season I ran a 10k, my first half-marathon with Hollikins and Justin.

These races just added to my motivation.  Especially when I came home ran a 5k for the first time since season and had cut 4 minutes off my time. That just showed me that my hard work was paying off so I pushed myself harder.  I ran my first triathlon with my Uncle Danny towards the end of the summer.

And soon after, I learned I had a stress fracture.  Once the boot was on I went home and cried… it seems like I do a lot of that.  I’d been working my butt off all year in preparation for the cross-country season and it all went to waste in my eyes with my fracture.  I couldn’t believe it, 2x I would have running races taken away from me.

Luckily, I followed Dr.’s orders and kept the boot on and healed quickly.  And I came back into the season after missing only 2 meets.  And you know what? My times were where they were when I came home and ran the first 5k of the summer. 

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to drop more time, but being able to run was a the best thing.  Compared to the season before where I finished every race last on my team and last overall I was now 4th sometimes 3rd out of the women on my team to finish. I was in heaven, and this year I ran at Regionals.

I’ve come a long way since high school, just this past April I ran that same half-marathon again and PR’d by 15 minutes.  All with no long run over 5 miles.

Since high school I’ve grown as a runner, not just cutting my times down from before but I’ve also learned how to listen to my body and how to train.  Running isn’t just a sport a I love, it’s my sanctuary.  And now in a week and a half I will be running my first marathon.  (Family issues might cause this to be a no go).  Who would’ve thought that the slow ass girl who always finished last in High School would turn her running around and progress to run half-marathons and marathons?  Certainly not me.

I’d be lying if I said I was happy where I am now and didn’t have higher goals for myself.  But I think every runner does so I’m not too worried.  I’ve learned a lot over the past few years and I hope to keep learning with my running. 

So that’s all for now, Until later TTFN.

Getting back in the swing….

Ok I’m getting back in the saddle, er.. shoes? So my break ended up being longer than I wanted it to be, but honestlyI’m ok with it.  I’d rather take a little over 2 weeks off and have my foot be 100% than try to start running too early and screw it up more.  Especially since my marathon is coming up in a month.  Which, I also know that taking that long off has affected my stamina and endurance when it comes to my training, but I still think I made the right move.

In my opinion, if I can run my half, 15 minutes faster than the year before without doing a long run over 5 miles I can definitely do my marathon.  And yes I know that I definitely need a long run in the double digits.  However, I do know my body pretty well so I think that if I train like I planned, and work my butt off there isn’t a reason why I can’t finish my marathon.  I don’t need to set some sort of record for myself I just need to finish, it is my first marathon after all.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I get mad when people tell me how to train for things.  Especially my marathon, I mean if you’ve run one before and you want to give me advice, I’m all for it.  But if you haven’t run one before and you try to tell me how to train and discourage me I don’t particularly enjoy it.  Especially since I know my body better than anyone else.

That’s right, I said it.  Ok, maybe doctor’s know what’s wrong with my body better than I do sometimes, but I mean overall……….well, you know what I meant.  I don’t know that’s just my thought process.  Sorry for the rant-y type post but I just felt like it needed to be stated.  Plus, I just went on my 2nd run since my foot, and I felt good.  I mean yesterday I felt good, but died a little.  Today I didn’t even die a little so I’m considering that good.  I mean hey; My muscles know what to do.

So that’s it for now, Until later. TTFN.

Plattsburgh Half Marathon- Oh what a Racing Weekend!

Okey dokey people.  This weekend….er well… Sunday, I ran the Plattsburgh Half-Marathon in Plattsburgh (obviously).  So prepare for a photobomb type post because I took a lot of pictures! Let’s start at the beginning shall we? Me in the car, all excited for the upcoming car ride and race.   I like to take pictures of everyone and everything, but Justin was driven so I just took a creepy eye shot that he didn’t even know about.

We stopped for coffee and snacks (I’m a firm believer in snacks) at a gas station.  Mind you the car ride is only 2 hours, but hey us runners have to refuel!

So here is my snack:

Not the healthiest thing in the world I agree, but I do love me my slim jims soooooooo……….. I don’t care.  Then I have Johnny sitting next to me looking at me like; ‘What are you doing?”

We decided to eat dinner, then go to the mall in Plattsburgh (we don’t have one in Potsdam) then go check into our hotel so that we could just crash.  We ended up going to UNO! Next to Panera, this is like my other favorite restaurant.  Sorry about the pictures, but I forgot to take pictures of my food before I already starting eating it…………

Anywho, I started off with a walnut and goat cheese salad…. DELICIOUS!  I mean it was seriously delicious, it had like a spicy dressing and then the walnuts were glazed and the goat cheese was creamy, it was just amazing.  Then for dinner I had steak, broccoli, and steamed vegetables.  I’m explaining this now because by the time I had remembered to take a picture I had eaten most of it.

  As you can see, it’s almost completely gone.  That’s because it was also quite delicious, but I’ll eat almost anything so I’m not sure if you should take my word.  But it really was awesome!  After we went to the mall, got a little shopping done.  (I don’t have any pictures here).  Then we went to the hotel.  Where I continued to take obnoxious photos of everyone.  As seen here:

Because I photobomb like that.  🙂 Onto the day of the race.  Because nothing really happened at the hotel except for a lovely night of sleep.  Which was glorious, I do believe I slept for like 7 hours.  Lovely.

I ran in my vibrams………. obviously.  And I only found 1! other person who ran it in vibrams also.  It was this guy and we sorta bonded because we sat next to each other after the race in the food area.  Plus, I creepily took a picture of his vibrams.  So here they are:

So yeah, basically I don’t have any pictures during the actual race.  But I have a ton from after.  I’ll start at the finish.  By mile 11 I started to hurt, which in comparison to last year when I started to die at mile 6 I was pretty happy.  And I had written the splits I wanted to get on my arm:

Which helped a lot because once the miles start getting up there I’m not good at doing splits on the run <— I made a joke haaha.

Anywho, I managed to keep on my goal for the first 6  miles, fell behind by a minute and then fell behind by 2 minutes. 

Sidenote: Last year I ran the half in 2:14:.. (I forgot the seconds), this year I ran it in 1:59:26.  I went sub 2 and broke my last time, which are both goals I had for myself.  Let me tell you I practically cried when I finished because I was so happy. 

Getting back to the rest of the story.  Last year I didn’t do as well or feel that great during the run, but this year I felt amazing.  I had been training differently, I didn’t have one training run over 5 miles, which surprised 1 guy.  But I feel like I know my body well enough at this point to make those kinds of decisions.  But I digress..

As I said before I was hurting.  So once I got done I got myself some food and then signed up for a massage in the massage corner.  It was brought to us by:

And can I tell you? It felt AMAZING!  And I also got mad swag from this race.  Not the same things as last year, but I’m cool with it.  This year I got, a shirt:

On the back it says Finisher with a list of sponsors.

 I also got a glass, a nice one too, but I forgot to take a picture of it so…. sorry but you are just going to have to deal.

And I got a medal and a nice drawstring bag:

And me being all super happy with my medal:

I got a medal last year too, but this one was nicer/bigger.  Everyone of my non runner friends who’ve seen it have been impressed. It makes me feel cool. 

I want to take a second and make a shout out to my girl Hollie, who is pretty much a champion in every way because she came in 1st female overall with a time of 1:27…. She even got a trophy!

I asked for her autograph, but unfortunately she was super busy being a champion.  I’m sure she has more on how she thought about the race on her blog here. 

Moving along, it was our friend Johnny’s first half and he did amazing! Coming in around 1:47.  I was super happy for him, and in my happiness I made him take pictures:

Well that’s kinda a lie.  I made everyone take pictures with me………..

It’s not my fault though because they all knew it was going up on the good ‘ol blog.  So here is a picture of Justin and I.  I was sitting down hence why he had to bend over awkwardly. 

And then of course I took a picture with the super champ!
Well, actually we took a lot of pictures, but I won’t put all of them up because I do believe I’m already blowing your mind with all these amazing photos of me and my friends all sexy like in our sweaty/tiredness after our race.

Yes, that’s right.  We make super cool peace signs in pictures…. no big deal.

Anywho, that was pretty much it. After Hollie got her trophy we got in the car and headed back to school.  I can honestly say sitting down at that point was the most blessed thing that could ever happen.  It was a fairly unexciting car ride, but I had a great time with these 3 wonderful people and I’m hoping we will be able to do it again next year. 

Especially since the year before I swore I would never do this again, but now I’ve done it again and I’m doing a marathon in June! Oh boy, what messes I get myself into.  So that’s it for now.  Until later, TTFN.

And then sometimes things like this happen.

So the best thing happened yesterday.  I had planned on a long run for my Sunday morning, but when I woke up I was kinda like; “I don’t really feel like it, I’ll just do an easy 2.” Well, I got outside and it was so warm and nice that I ended up running a little over 5 miles.  I felt great-I took it really easy, and I actually managed to pay attention to when I started and stopped and I averaged around 9 minute miles without trying. That’s pretty much the slowest time I can average during the Plattsburgh Half Marathon this weekend and still break 2 hours, which is my goal.  So I have a positive feeling about this weekend’s upcoming race.

I’m really excited to do it again because of the new time goal I have for myself.  Last year it was my first half marathon and the first time I’d ever run this particular race so I didn’t really know what time to get.  This year I have a better idea, I’m doing it with 3 of my friends, and I get lots of free stuff! (Hopefully the same stuff as last year because it was awesome!)

Anywho, that’s it about that.  And I went for a run this morning.   Once again it was beautiful outside! It was sunny and super warm.  I planned on doing around  2 miles and ended up doing an extra .8 (almost mile).  I just didn’t want to have to come back inside because of how nice it is.  So that’s it for now.  I must go get ready, eat, and all that jazz then it will be off to the office time.  So I hope everyone has a lovely day and that it’s nice wherever you are.  So until later, TTFN.

My life is super duper exciting….. HAHAHA

True Life Fact- My life is super exciting. Haha I’m just joking it’s totally not.  It’s an average amount of exciting like everyone else’s.  In fact I’ve even been semi-productive this weekend thus far.

This is what I have yet to accomplish: Homework.  I’ll probably start it today and finish it up tomorrow.  On the plus side it’s really not that much and compared to last weekend’s it’s nothing!

However, I have managed to clean my room, my bathroom, the kitchen, AND I vacuumed th whole house-WIN! So that felt pretty damn productive.

Other than that though I’ve mostly been doing little things that I haven’t gotten to get to.  For instance, my nails:

I always do 1 finger nail out of the 10 a different color than the rest.  It’s like a superstitious thing.  Especially before races, I always make sure I repaint my nails and that one is a different color, I like to believe it brings me luck or something.  Plus my nails are usually pink because it’s my favorite color.

I even managed to paint my toe nails too!

Usually I stick to dark colors so as to not draw attention to my grimey feet, but I decided to do nice bright colors today to jazz things up.

Also, my sorority dorm stormed in order to raise more money for Relay for Life.  We raised a total of around $285 dollars just by going door to door asking for loose change.  I was really excited/happy/proud of everyone for doing such a great job.  Unfortunately since I am in charge of this operation I had to count all the coins.  This is what it looked like last night before I sorted it all and counted it:

It might not look like a lot, but believe me it was. Anywho, it took a few hours for me to sort it all and then count it.  I thought my eyes were going to fall out from all the coins, but hey what can you do?

So yeah, basically it was very successful.  Also, I ran yesterday before I had to dorm storm and I’ve started increasing my runs on Saturdays so that by the time my half marathon rolls around in April I’m ready.  I did a total of 4 miles this Saturday and it took me around 35 minutes, which wasn’t the time that I wanted at all. I wanted to be around 32-33 minutes, but I’m just going to have to keep working at it so that I can hopefully beat my time from last year.  Last years, half marathon I got; 2:14:35.  I’m hoping to beat that by at least 14 minutes this year, I’m trying to get it under 2 hours, which I think I have a good chance of doing.  So yeah that’s basically all of the excitement that’s happened thus far this weekend. 

After my meeting today I’ll probably try to go swimming and do some homework.  And I think I even want to try to go to the Stitch and Bitch on my campus because I haven’t knitted in forever.  So yeah, that’s basically it. I’ll fill you in if anything super exciting happens with the rest of my day today.  But until later, TTFN.

It’s a long road to recovery, but it’s a road.

Well my friends, going on daily mile shows me just how far I’ve fallen with this injury from my previous mileage.  While friends of mine are up to 60 miles a week I’m at around 4.  Looking at it discouraged me a bit I won’t lie, but then I remembered; It’s a long road to recovery, but it’s a road.  In that yeah it’s going to take me a while to get back to where I was, but I will get there.  And I have no choice, I’ve set some high goals for myself this coming running season.  Things like bettering my half-marathon time at Plattsburgh, running my first marathon in Lake Placid in the beginning of the summer.   Which, I’m very excited for because my mom will be with me for this race, hopefully cheering me on. 🙂  I want to better my sprint triathlon time by at least 10 minutes.  And then I want to try a longer distance triathlon.  All these things are goals I have for myself this year.  Along with having a better cross-country season next fall.

Truth time:  I’m not going to lie.  This injury although not as serious as my stress fracture this past summer/fall, has really thrown me in a rut.  I think it mostly had to do with the pain I was in.  I’ve never been in that kind of pain before and honestly it scared me to death.  I saw my whole running career down in the drain.  And it honestly put me into a bought of slight depression.  I’d kinda given up on my running and honestly I’m not gonna lie, instead of finding other ways to stay in shape, I slacked off.  Which pushed me farther down because I started to gain some weight, which made me feel worse.  Honestly, until now the only person who knew about how I felt was my good friend Ben.  And there’s only so much talking that’ll help. 

But, I’ve come to realize that how this injury affects me comes entirely from the attitude I deal with it.  And I’ve finally decided that enough is enough.  I’m not going to feel  sorry for myself anymore, I have Way too many goals for myself to sit around and mope.  I’ve started running again (Thank God!) and I’m doing my Insanity Abs with more fervour, and my physical therapy starts tomorrow. 

The Path to Recovery; although it doesn’t seem like much, I’ve bought more running books and training books to help me prepare for the upcoming season.  And I’ve started to get my life back into shape.  I’ve got a schedule planned out to keep my workouts on track and my school.  Also, I’m keeping track of my workouts, eating healthier again and just getting myself back on track.

So, once again; It’s a long road to recovery, but it’s a road.  So until later, TTFN.