Up next. :)

My next 5k is Bank of American Fork Women of Steel Triathlon and 5k. Clearly, I am only doing the 5k portion. I don't own a bicycle, let alone a road/racing bike, and I couldn't tell you the last time I went swimming. Probably 4 years ago. Seriously. Anyways, according to the race website, over 1000 women will be participating in the event. I hope it goes in waves, as I'm not great with crowds. But I have Xanax in case of any issues. Although, I'm not sure I'd like to try to run a race while on Xanax. Hmmmm. Could be fun, but I probably wouldn't do all that well.

Meh. We'll see how it goes.

I had a great run this morning. Well, most of it was great. I ran 4.25 miles, and I'll be the first to tell you that for the last 1/2 mile, I was definitely sluggish and sad. Still, for most of it I was feeling good. The program I'm using tracks my total mileage, duration, etc, and it's so nice to see those number steadily ticking upwards.

My dear college friend, Chris, crashed at my place Saturday night on her way back to college. Her Cali roommate, Dacia, was also here, as she's helping Chris make the long drive to the east coast. They got here pretty late, so I heated up some homemade (and delicious) French onion soup and packed them off to bed. We visited in the morning, Chris tactfully asked me if there was any coffee in the house, and then they were on their way by 11am, off to their next stop. It was good to see her. It's been 8 years, which kinda blows my mind. I made the point that we don't really look older. At least not THAT much older. I pulled out an old picture of myself from freshman year, 10 whole years ago. The only differences I can really discern are the obvious: I had really, really long hair. There is no visible grey in said hair. It looks darker, but that could be the lighting, or it could be that all of the white hair I have now is having the effect of making my hair in general appear to be lighter in colour. Not sure. Also, I am somewhat slimmer.

In the picture, I am reading one of the first books that utterly changed my life. It must have been Winter (Spring) semester, as I know I bought this book for SOAN 101: Human Societies (I think). The book is Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. A decade later, it still tops my list of most influential books I've read in my lifetime. I even checked out the book on CD from the BYU library, just so I could rip it to my computer and listen to it whenever I wanted! I still reference the book in conversations, and if you haven't read it, I'm telling you that you should. I believe that I have excellent taste in books (always disregarding my affinity for Austen fan fiction, but everyone needs some escapist garbage, right? Alright, I admit it. I also love Napoleonic-era historical fiction. ::shame::) So other than those topics which shall remain nameless, I read mostly nonfiction and I love it. Other authors I highly recommend are Bill Bryson (travel books and English-language books) and A.J. Jacobs (social-experiment-hijinks).

Alrighty, I am now done with my post-run breakfast of whole wheat bagel thin with natural peanut butter, banana, 1/2C chocolate milk, 1C white milk, and a mug of warm tea. I am ready to commence with productivity. And the drinking of more fluids, as I am pretty dehydrated from my run. Also, one of my favorite things about running? A legitimate excuse to purchase and consume chocolate milk. :)

It's been awhile...

Hey Y'all!

Update-i-ness:

-Still running. In fact, I just got back from a smooth and fabulous 3.5 miles. :) I have been running for 4 whole months and I LOVE IT! This morning was my longest run to date, and it even included a hill. Now that I've been finished with C25k, I went looking for another training program. I found a beginner's 10k 9-week plan on Active.com. They email me my workout 4 days a week, then I log it when I'm done. It keeps track of happy things like total time, total miles, and total calories. Yay!

-One of my college besties is coming into town this weekend. :D For personal reasons, she ended up not completing her senior year. But now, 8 years later, she has re-applied, been re-accepted, and is going back to finish school! I am so happy and proud of her! She's been living in California since 2003 (which was the last time I saw her), and is embarking on a cross-country trek to get back to school in Virginia. Guess where she's crashing one night? MY HOUSE!!! Yay!

-Much of my family is getting together in DC next weekend. I was supposed to go, but alas, circumstances and thesis made the trip impractical. Boo. However, while they're together, we're going to skype! I will see my beautiful nephew for the first time in almost 2.5 years! Yay!

-I am on a thesis roll! I love working with my informant and I had a great meeting with my advisor on Tuesday. He's excited about my research! Yay! He also wants me to learn and utilize praat for analyzing my data. Boo and Yay. Boo, because that will mean there's no way I'm gonna make August graduation. But... my thesis will be WAY stronger with praat backing me up. Yay!

-I found out from census records yesterday that my great-great-grandmother was a milliner. How cool is that? It certainly explains our family obsession with hats. :)

-I have the house to myself all week. Don't come over. I might be enjoying nakey time. ;) Yay!

-I was put on a different medication, and I'm (mostly) remembering to take it! Yay!

-I'm going to see WICKED! Next weekend! With my fake family! Yay!

-My AMAZING sister MB got me a KitcheAid Stand Mixer for my 29th birthday! And it's in green apple, so it matches my whole life! Yay!

-My OTHER AMAZING sister, CA, got me a totally sweet silicon baking sheet! It's awesome!

-My AMAZING mother got me mexican vanilla and high-fat cocoa!

-My Totally Awesome friends, who shall be called Beckseph, got me a new knife set! Do I sense a theme emerging??? Yay!

-My roommate/sister-from-another-mister and her bf threw me an awesome bday party with cake that I actually liked! Yay!

-I found statements about my thesis topics that are totally wrong and I can eloquently refute them in my long-ass paper! Yay! I LOVE being right!

I think that's enough of that for now. Sorry! It's been a good month, I guess. :) Yay!

Done and done. :)

Okay, y'all. Here I am, approaching the finish line, after running through snow and dodging puddles and ice. It's not a flattering picture, but that's okay. :) I don't know what my time was, and they haven't posted the times on the race website yet. Oh well.

The day before....

It's my birthday today. 29. Woah. Today was pretty good. My family members all called me, in what turned out to be an amusing domino pattern. I spent most of the day in jammies alternately napping and watching Bones. :)

This evening, my Roomie, her boyfriend, and another friend from church took me out to dinner at my favorite BBQ place: The Smoking Apple. I had pulled pork and sweet potato fries. In honour of my birthday, they also gave me a piece of cheesecake, but it kinda tasted like long-life milk. The rest of the meal, however, was bliss. Afterwards, they took me for my favorite dessert: a twisty cone. :) I'm such a child sometimes.

Tomorrow morning I will go run my first-ever 5k. I am excited about it, although the weather is worsening even as I type this. It's snowing. For real. Ick. They're actually re-routing the race in order to keep the runners on asphalt and pavement. Apparently the original route went through the woods or something. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have signed up for this particular 5k... Still, I'm looking forward to it. I'll just have to be sure to bundle up really well.

Still going strong.

No, I haven't fallen off the horse. I am still running 3 or 4 times per week, and it's still the best part of each day. I have started "tapering" in preparation for my very first 5k, which is where you run fewer miles in order to give your body rest, etc before the race day. My race day will be the day after my 29th birthday. I'm really excited about it. :) The 5k. Not the birthday.

Woah. 29. When the heck did that happen? For as much sticker shock as that number incites, I'm in a good place in my life. I can run longer and faster and farther than I've ever been able to run in my life. I'm making progress on a thesis I'm really excited about. And I'm beginning to gain perspective into the many trials I had last year. Last year, life felt like a matter of survival. Bad crap kept happening and I was depressed and it was not good. This year, though, feels good and I feel hopeful. I feel like I'm back to being me. I still have stresses and I still worry too much, but there are also things to hope for and look forward to.

And I have running. I love running. Every day I want to run when I wake up, and I have to talk myself into resting. While it may not be changing my body much, it is certainly changing my life, and that's way more important. I also have amazing friends who make me laugh and make me feel loved and appreciated. AND my bestie from college will be driving through in about 2 weeks, and is going to crash here. I can't wait to see her. :)

Oh yeah!

I graduated from the Couch-to-5k running plan today.

That is all. :D

Ups and Downs.

Week 8 went really well. For the most part. All of my runs felt really good. I was comfortable, not wheezing... I even think I could chat while I do it. Unfortunately on Day 3 (Saturday), I had eaten before I ran. I waited over an hour after eating to go out, but I kept getting waves of nausea. And...then I decorated a gutter. Oh well. Lesson learned. I also missed my footing and fell down, twisting my ankle. :( I got up, took a few tentative steps, and then finished my run. I've been wearing a brace and icing it and stuff.

I gave my ankle an extra day off, so today was the first day back on the schedule. Week 9. 30 minute runs. :) 2 more runs and I'm done with the program! At which point I will start over and work on increasing my speed. The goal is to do a 5k in the 30 minutes. I'm not. I'm not jogging at 6 mph. I'm jogging at about 5 mph. I would like to complete the 5k in under 30 minutes. 27 would be awesome... So I'm going to start over and build up speed. My race is about a week after I will finish the program the second time, so it's perfect. I think I'll keep running 30 minutes 3x/week, and do the C25k Speed Version another 3 days per week.

I mean, the goal isn't to be able to finish the race. The goal is to do it well and comfortably.

2.5 miles today. :)