Brrr, It's Cold Out There...

Today was a double-first. My first run measured in miles, not minutes. And my first run in the snow! Both accomplishments to be proud of. At least, in theory.

Since the start of finals, running has been pushed to the back burner. And by back burner, I mean toaster oven. Or maybe even microwave. In fact, let's just say I put running back in the fridge for a little while. Basically the whole month of December, minus a couple of OMGIHAVETOSTOPSTUDYING runs. And then I was home, and realized I forgot my ipod in St Louis. Whoops. Luckily, I got a new ipod nano for Christmas! Along with some excellent gift certificates, which allowed me to stock up on winter running gear. So, today was my first day out! I ran (slash walked) two miles. TWO. WHOLE. MILES.

It doesn't sound like a lot. This is true. Technically speaking, it's NOT a whole lot of miles. Just a couple. Two little miles. But for me they felt like Two Miles. Capitalized. For effect.

Two miles is the farthest I have ever ran (slash walked). In my entire life. I'm pretty sure. No joke. Ever. See, I have always (read: alwayssss) been a terrible, unenthusiastic runner. Even when I was a tiny child, a raging ball of pure energy, running was pretty much my least favorite activity in the entire world. I did every sport/activity known to girl: ballet! tap! jazz! t-ball! gymnastics! horseback riding! soccer! tennis! cheerleading! lots and lots of cheerleading! rowing! I hit my running peak right around t-ball time, when I was too little to hit the ball off the tee. So either someone would get in (really, really) close and underhand it to me, or my friend D would hit, and I would run. (He was a good hitter and slow. I was a tiny hitter, and fast.) Even in my soccer days I loathed running. When I discovered sports that did not involve running, I was ecstatic.

The point is, I have probably never run (slash walked) two full miles before. I have never even remotely thought about maybe WANTING to run two miles. So the fact that I couldn't wait to put on my new gear and hit the snowy road and struggle and walk and stretch and get inspired and run and dodge cars and call myself crazy for thinking I was going to run 13.1 miles when two little miles was so freaking hard...is amazing to me.

And tomorrow I'm going to do it again. And it will be, I think, a little easier than today because I will already have done it. And I'll run a little more, and walk a little less. And so on and so forth.

I'm going to be heading down to Long Island (or Lawn Guyland) tomorrow for a birthday party/new years celebration/college reunion for five-ish days. My friend K will be there, so I'm not worried about losing motivation to run. Wooo! Time for a hot shower.

Oh Yeah, Still Here!

Ok so when I said law school = time sink, i didn't even know how right I was. It's finals time now...first one tomorrow, then Monday, then Thursday is the last and then DONE!! Wooo!! Followed by some hopefully epic parties, a fabulous road trip home with my original DAB, an equally fabulous christmas (!!!) with the fam, new years with the gypsy clan, nyc day with friends from everywhere, and road trip back to stl with my favorite person. There aren't enough exclamation points to express how I feel about these next few weeks.

Unfortunately, I've been slacking in my running ALMOST as much as I've been slacking in my blogging. The past three-ish weeks I've only been getting in one or two runs per week - lame sauce. BUT I have been upping my minutes, so that's something! I went on a run this morning and it felt great to be moving, pushing myself, and not thinking about the elements of adverse possession (property), mutuality of obligation (contracts) or superseding causes (torts). Oh my.

A couple days ago I took a study break and went to the mall to buy some outdoor running gear because it is officially winter. (Side note - apparently I like snow. And apparently, Albany is rare in that it snows for 5 months of the year. St Louis...not so much. Wah.) Anyway, I got a snazzy black racerback top and an equally snazzy pink long sleeved mock turtleneck with monkey holes (for thumbs). Along with blue microfleece gloves and headband. Needless to say, I felt real profesh. UNTIL I got home and found that the store clerk forgot to take off the security tags. UGHHHH. In a fit of rage, I pried one off of the black shirt, but I'm afraid to do the same with the pink one. And I honestly just do.not.have.the.time. to go back to the mall and have them take it off. Le sigh. Any ideas??

On the bright side, I was warm on my run this morning! Although I do think I should invest in a jacket, since my boathouse rowing jacket was ok, but not as good as it could have been. I smell a Christmas present for myself...ESPECIALLY now that I'm incapable of running on a treadmill. I don't know how I'm going to survive running in NY! But I will. And I'm excited about it. The only thing I'm worried about is that when I run outside, I think I'm wayyyyyy slower than on the treadmill. Maybe I should mix it up a bit. We shall see. For now, just know that a) I'm alive! b) I'm still dedicated to the half-marathon! and c) law school is really effing hard. This is actually the hardest I have ever worked/prepared/studied...but I'm not freaking out (too much). Because what's the point? I'm gonna do what I do. And we'll see what needs to change next semester. Sounds great on paper, just have to keep it in my head. And now, off to the library!

Inspiration

It would be so easy to freak out about how much there is to do right now. Class, 3-4 hours per day. Homework, 5-6 hours per day. Extra work, like a memo, that will take as many hours as you are willing to give. Outlines! Finals! Information/academic skills/whatareyoudoingwithyourlifewhatdoyoumeanyoudon'tknowyet sessions. An apartment to keep clean (ha!), laundry, dishes, taking out the trash...paying bills! getting the car checked out. Also, friends to keep in touch with! Exercise! Potlucks!

Time out.

Breathe.

Ok.

Anyway, like I was saying before I got carried away - there's a lot going on right now. But honestly, there's never going to NOT be a lot going on (if that makes sense). Sure, right now there's more than usual. But everything is going to be ok. I'll get through it. Eventually it will be a faded memory.

So here's a list of things I'm happy about, right now:
1. Gchat
2. Peanut butter bread, especially toasted with butter
3. Irish Breakfast tea
4. Blogs - mine and my friends, and those of people I don't know but that are fascinating and inspirational
5. Library study parties. Because if you HAVE to be at the library on Saturday night, a table full of friends is necessary
6. Running outside!! More on this later
7. The weather in St. Louis right now as compared to Albany
8. Other New York license plates on the road
9. Any activity (within reason) that makes me feel like I'm living out a scene from SATC
10. MIDNIGHT SHOWING OF HARRY POTTER!!

Ok, about this run -
I got out of class at 12 today instead of 3 (a.maz.ing.) so after lunch I headed home to get my run in before heading back to school to spend the rest of my day/night/life in the library. Lo and behold, the gym is CLOSED. Waugh! I text my friend K. What should I do? I know I should and could run outside. After all, its 70-ish degrees. Breezy. Perfect. BUT. My first and only outdoor run was last week, when my shin splints acted up and I had to finish the run on the treadmill. I'm nervous. K says, RUN OUTSIDE!! YOU'LL LOVE IT! So I do. And I do.

I started from my front door and made a 7-minute loop, which I did 3 times. Instead of restricting myself to 3 minutes of rest in between loops, I took however long I needed to stretch out my legs - no use having a shin splint attack. Honestly though, it felt so free and easy and perfect. And I'm sure I was going waaaaaaay slower than I would have if I were on the treadmill, but it doesn't matter. It felt good. Really good.

Friday Fun

Yesterday was a good day.

I went out on Thursday night, briefly, to celebrate a friend's 25th birthday. It was a lot of fun, just a small bunch of law students. We ended up staying an hour later than planned because the bar had a dance area on the 2nd floor and obviously, we had to stay and dance. Still, I was in bed by 1am. Also, it was super fun without alcohol (on my part at least, since I was driving).
Yesterday I had my normal 10:30 class and then a make-up of the same class at 1. Not as awful as anticipated, it actually seemed to fly by. I think it was because we were in a different classroom and that changed the atmosphere. Plus we weren't in our assigned seats. Hurray for small changes making the hour and twenty minutes fly by!

After class I headed home and vegged out for a couple hours to catch up on The Office, Bones, and Grey's Anatomy. Then I got my butt out of bed and went for my 3rd run of the week (5 mins running/2.5 mins walking, for 30 minutes). It was cold outside, so I did it on the treadmill.

When I walked into the gym, it was the beginning of a cardio kickboxing class and who did I run into but a girl I went to undergrad with! There are about 5 of us from our small college in upstate NY, class of 09, who made it out to St. Louis - 2 of us in law school, 2 in grad school, and one doing Teach for America. Anyway, she was there for the kickboxing class and invited me to join - it was tempting, but I had had had to get the run in. Maybe next Friday I'll run in the morning and kickbox in the afternoon. Too much?? We'll see.

It was fun to run with the class in the background though because I could watch them in the reflection (the treadmills face a wall of windows, and since the sun had set I could see the class in the reflection on the glass) and take my mind off what I was doing - definitely helpful. Almost as good as running outside, but not quite. I wish it was still warm out!

The run itself went pretty well, probably because of the built-in distraction of the kickboxing class. The first two five-minute intervals felt good. Breathing was great, my body didn't hurt, definitely improvement. The second one was a little harder as I developed a little side stitch. The last one was hard but I always get inspired when I know its the last interval - telling myself there are only 5, 4, 3, 2, minutes, 1 minute left of the WHOLE workout, and I've already DONE 5 minutes three times is really motivating.

After running I headed back out to a potluck dinner! And by potluck I mean, the host cooked and we brought chips and beer. That was super super fun. The friend who hosted it made AMAZINGGGG just-spicy-enough chili and two kinds of cornbread (one with cheese and one without). It was delicious. I had seconds. Totally worth it. I pitched in with a 6-pack of Sam Adams, the brewmaster's mix or whatever, and apparently impressed a couple of people with my good taste in beer. Funny!

When we were all sated with delicious chili (not to mention the absolutely perfect musical selection) we decided to walk to the Loop and check out one of the (pseudo-hood) bars. I had never been there before so it was definitely an experience. Apparently there is usually a DJ but unfortunately, there was not one last night. Instead there was a Street Fighter tournament, but instead of a TV they just projected it against a (whole) wall. Interestingly enough it was pretty entertaining. A couple of the guys in our group ended up playing and the entertainment value was sky-high as they alternately whooped and got whooped by the (pseudo-hood) drunk girls in the bar.

Since we're all law students (read: stressed out and overachieving), we broke it up at 10:30 and everyone headed home. Except for the boys...who went and got food. As they explained: eat, drink, play video games, drink, eat. Which I guess is fair.

So far this morning I've eaten breakfast...trawled facebook...blogged...and added two or three new blogs to my Google Reader (which I am now obsessed with). Any minute now I'm going to get up, go running, shower, take out the trash, sweep the floor, do the dishes, and go to the library. Aaaany minute now.

Running Outside, Cross Training, and The Big Picture

I did part of my run outside yesterday and I LOVED IT! I meant to do the whole thing, but after the first 5 minute segment I was having some highly unfortunate shin splints. So, I did the next two segments at the gym. After being outdoors, banging away at the treadmill was...super boring. But necessary, because it helped the shin splints. Then I got too bored, and did the last 5 minutes outside on my way back to my apartment.

On my way inside, I met one of my neighbors! Exciting because he's the first one I've actually interacted with. He was very nice and had a beautiful black furry dog named Lexis. We chatted about running and I told him I had done my first outdoor run. He told me he runs with his dog every day - that would be so so nice to do. If only I had a dog, instead of a cat who has never been outside. (I would love to let her outside, but we live on the 4th floor. Awkward.) I also kind of feel like a dog is too much responsibility for me to handle without someone else, but that's a tangent. Anywayyyy...

Running outside was great. I'm going to try and see if I can increase the time I spend outside throughout every week without aggravating my shin splints. I've been icing after runs, and stretching before/after (which is harder to do when running outside but MUST BE DONE), and I read that maybe taking ibuprofin before running could help. Neighbor Guy told me that there's some kind of band you wrap around your leg under the knee. We'll see.

On to part 2: Cross Training! I've been doing yoga since early September and I don't know, I thought running and yoga would be completely counter-productive. But now I see that the intense stretching keeps me limber when running tightens me up. And this morning I did kingfisher pose, something I definitely could not do last month (it involves grabbing your foot in a quad stretch, raising the opposite arm, and bending forward). I don't know if the running specifically helped me get better, or if it was just the yoga, or a combination of the two. But I like where things are going.

Spinning off of part 2 comes part 3: The Big Picture. I'm registered to run a half marathon. In addition to running, I need to eat as if I'm in training, and add some cross training in addition to the yoga. I found some good ab work to do, so I will report back on that later. As for food - last night I made broccoli, mashed potatoes (instant I admit) and grilled salmon, with enough leftovers for lunch today. Cooking! I love it. Now I just have to get rid of the vanilla latte's and leftover Halloween candy and everything will be ok. More later!

It's Offish!

Just a quick post to say - I registered for the GO! St. Louis half-marathon in April 2011!! Woo!! Let the games begin. Shit is real.

Minute by Minute

Happy November! I hope everyone had an excellent Halloween and that all the law students out there are ready to sacrifice all the hours of their day on the altar of productivity. I also hope everyone remembered to say 'rabbit, rabbit' first thing this morning for good luck. (Don't give me that look, its a real thing.)

Today's run was 5 minutes running, 2.5 minutes walking. It was harddd. Mostly because it was tacking on 2 minutes and decreasing my rest time. Obvi. Anyway, the first two segments were ok, I got through them feeling pretty good. The third segment was the tough one - my shins started hurting a LOT and I had to pause to rest and stretch them out. Then the motivation was sapped and I was feeling all "can I even do this?" and I even considered just stopping.

BUT.

I stuck it out for another minute, rested again, and then convinced myself that even if I had to take a break every single minute, not finishing was not an option. So I finished the third segment. Then I took my 2.5 minute walk, and was feeling much better by the time the last 5 minutes rolled around. I completed that all in one go - I coxed myself through the last minute by counting out an imaginary power 20 in my head.

And now I feel good! I'm at home, icing my shins with a bag of frozen peas. It's not even 6pm so I've got plenty of time to have dinner and then head back to put some hours in at the library. Eggggsellent.