Spring 2013

Sometimes when I should be studying for finals, I watch episodes on episodes on episodes of One Tree Hill. Problem? I think not. But really, I cannot even believe that I am wrapping up my JUNIOR YEAR. I cannot even fathom that I am going to be a SENIOR in COLLEGE in just FOUR months (I also can't believe that my baby sister is going to be a freshman here next year, too. I cannot be more thrilled!) When did this happen? Thank the Lord I have another 2 years thanks to the education program. 

I can't help but think about where I will be in those 2 years. I start to think about where I was two years ago and what has happened in those two years. The past two years have been quite the mix of heaven and hell. I think about the relationships, the injuries, the breakups, the broken friendships, the new friendships, the different music phases, the change in tastes (like food), becoming gluten free, getting a triathlon bike, living with my best friend, being half a world apart from my best friend, living in an apartment, having three different jobs in totally different fields, changing my major four different times. I could name so many more things, but I think that would be a little excessive (as if this list isn't already).

Just thinking about where I have been in the past makes me wonder about where I will go in the next two years. I am looking forward to it though. Anyway, that wasn't the point of this post. I wanted to do a bit of a recap of this semester.

Where to begin?

Starting this semester was pretty rough. I hadn't run in a month and a half thanks to the mono and hip flexor strain that was actually a stress fracture. I thought I would be healed pretty soon and I thought I would be fine to go to Collegiate Nationals. Nope. We were so wrong. Another month and a half later, I was getting a giant shot jabbed into my hip and in the MRI machine again. Only to find out that my stress fracture was barely healed. I think this was about the lowest I had felt. I worked so hard to get healed. I listened to the doctors, I rested, I really tried to keep the stress off that hip, I did my physical therapy, I flew through milk (record was a gallon in 4 days), took my calcium supplement. It just wasn't enough for the stubborn fracture. It sort of felt like failing a test I actually studied for. 

I also dropped the sorority that I was so happy to be a sister of only 2 months prior. I realized that being the best student, triathlete, friend, sister (biologically), and daughter was not enhanced by the sorority.  I dreaded Chapter on Sunday because I just wanted to be out on my bike or doing something else. Nothing wrong with sorority, I think it is really awesome, but it was not an organization for me. And that is A-OKAY. 

I got obsessed with One Tree Hill. Like what else am I supposed to do if I can't workout? I got all my homework done, all my studying in. So what else was there? Watch Netflix and sleep. It worked out well. Thank goodness I got that Netflix account.

 

I helped out in a middle school with the math classes. OHMYGOSH. I want every.single.person to find something that makes them as happy as being in the school makes me. I have walked out of the middle school after helping out in tears on more than one occasion. There was one specific day when I talked to a student and helped him with scientific notation for the entire class period. I learned so much about him and learned about how much he had been through. I walked out of the school in tears, but I also got the feeling I got after a race. Any of my athlete friends KNOW that feeling. I can't describe it in words, its just a feeling. An incredible one at that. 

After tutoring in Harrisonburg, I decided that this is where I want to be for a while. I really love it here. Yeah, I hate not having a Clinique makeup counter, or an Ulta, or J. Crew, or my family. I am going to stay in Harrisonburg this summer and see how it feels. I just love the downtown scene. I love riding and running here too. My friends are here.  I have met some pretty incredible people here. We'll see what happens, but I love me some Harrisonburg. I think I can do big things here. But, I will definitely miss my third floor suite, free rent, and free food.

And since this is a blog I tailor to triathlon stuff, I have gotten a lot stronger this spring. Since I was off running and had scaled back my cycling, I was able to focus more on my swim stroke and lifting. I can't believe the gains I have made in the weight room. It is actually pretty incredible how much stronger I have gotten.  I am proud of myself for sticking with it and not getting myself into too much of a slump. Always look for the positive when things start getting crappy. 

Despite the beginning of this semester being pretty bad, I am pretty happy with how it is ending. I had an awesome weekend healing friendships and enhancing others. Though I am a little sad the semester is wrapping up and I won't see some of my friends all summer, I am glad to see this semester behind me and look forward to starting up again in the fall. I have a good feeling about it. 

Thoughts on a Tuesday

Wow! Where has the time gone. Apparently there are only 4 and a half weeks left of this semester?! What in the world. Also, we had a snow day yesterday and classes were actually cancelled for the entire day. Probably the best text I have ever woken up to. I had such a wonderful weekend, though I clocked few hours of sleep. I woke up at 6 for swim practice, saw the text, and went right back to sleep until 9:30. Score!

This semester has been the most stressful thus far. I didn't think it would be too difficult, I mean I LOVE math and science, so taking 2 math classes and a science class won't be bad. Wrong. The education math classes are much different than any other math class I have taken. I am actually in the last of the 3 required classes this semester, so as long as I get a C-... which should happen, I will be able to start taking the upper level math courses! Score. I also am in trig, I defiintely forgot how much I hated that class in high school. Most of the time I am just sitting in class, thinking, "What the hell?" But, it will all help me in the end, just a bit of a struggle right now.

On the training side of things, I AM RUNNING AGAIN. PRAISE THE LORD. I started running last Saturday, and by running, I mean walking with a few little short jogs thrown in. I smiled the biggest i have smiled in a long time during that first 1 minute segment of jogging. Man, did I miss that feeling. I actually had been running on the treadmill so I could control my pace and not push anything too hard. Today I got to run outside though for the first time. It was such an amazing feeling. I forgot that I was running a few times and looked down at my watch and the three minute segments  were over in what felt like 30 seconds. [Let's just hope it continues to feel that way for the rest of the season, especially track work and long runs.... somebody please remind me that I said this...]

I am still continuing to enjoy every minute (sort of) of every workout. It is such a wonderful gift to have legs that can kick, bike and run and arms to pull and lift.  Just remembering to go slow and listen to my body, I want to do this for a very long time.

A Little Rant...

Clearly I have not been posting frequently this past month or so. Partly because this semester has been kicking my butt and also that I have been trying to find other things to occupy my time than training and obsessing over triathlon.

As I mentioned before, I have been struggling with an injury, and this injury is a little more serious than we had originally thought. I have a compression side femoral neck stress fracture. I have been really down about it lately. I don't want to drag out the details of said injury, but let's just say this injury isn't quite doing what we expected of it and has caused more nights of tears than I can count. We had a little potential surgery scare, but we are officially out of the woods on that one.

So, now that that's out of the way... a little positivity for your Sunday morning reading pleasure.

As an athlete with an injury, no matter what sport, being injured sucks. It just sucks. There is no other way to put it. I don't know about you, but when I am injured the last thing that I want to do is associate myself with other people that are doing what I want to be doing so badly, purely out of jealousy. For me, this is running and training for the upcoming season. However, for the majority of us, many of our friends are athletes who are going to continue to live their life (train) even while you are injured.

So now you're stuck, you don't really want to talk about triathlon (or sport that applies) and then you realize that this is like a HUGE commonality between you and friends. Of course you have those friends who are in your classes, coworkers, etc., but the people you've spent the majority of your time with are your training buddies and your training buddies are off training while you hobble around campus on crutches or cry in your room or lay on your bed watching hours of One Tree Hill on Netflix<< yes that happens!

You suddenly have all this free time on the weekends when you are used to going out for long rides/runs. Though you are only actually outside training for a few hours, you realize how large of a chunk of time it is. You have to wake up early, find something to eat and time it perfectly so you aren't sick when you are training but you have enough energy to make it through the session, get home cool down/get warm, stretch, do some 10 minute core, shower, eat, and by the time all is said and done, your  2 hour bike ride has essentially become a 4-5 hour event.

To battle this issue I have been facing with "too much free time" I have discovered that I enjoy a few other things outside of triathlon. For one, I have time to clean my room on the weekends. Like actually clean it, that is so nice. I also have found myself really enjoying music. Not just listening, but like looking online and finding music and bands, old or new. I often just scroll through iTunes "Top 100" so I can find a few new beats to throw on my iPod that I can listen to while I run. Now I actually go through and take the time to search new music. I enjoy it so much and it is something else to put time and energy into while healing up that nasty hip of mine. I also really enjoy sleep a lot. I have been trying to bank 8 hours of sleep a night and am doing a pretty good job with it. I feel lazy for laying around and actually sleeping, but I know my body needs this rest.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that injuries suck, but we have all been there. Even the best athletes in our sports have suffered potentially career threatening injuries. It is all about the mindset and what you choose to do with this "layoff". I fully believe that there is a period of mourning that coincides with injuries, but it's important to get yourself up and moving. Find something else you like to do that doesn't involve much moving around so you don't reinjure yourself. But find something to pass the time, I am sure I will be up and running before I know it.

Let's go get some shoes

Hey there friends! It has been awhile since I last posted, but here I am. I am back at school and ready for a new semester. I can't believe that this is already the second semester of my junior year. What the heck? This semester will definitely be hard, but I actually have a really good feeling about it :)

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When it comes to running shoes, I am pretty much a Brooks girl.  I usually wear the Ghost model but I really like the PureProject shoes during the race season because they feel a lot lighter than most other running shoes. I have gone through 2 pairs of Brooks PureFlow shoes and absolutely love them, they are almost in between a regular trainer and a race flat. Part of the reason I switched to PureFlow from Ghost is because I wanted to start moving toward minimalist running. Some of you may know that I seem to be prone to stupid injuries [mostly due to muscle imbalances]. I dealt with shin splints throughout high school, some knee issues, suffered a femoral shaft stress fracture last year, and have iffy hips. I know that the idea of this "minimalist running" is a controversial subject; some people seem to believe it is the way to run, while others think that it causes injury.

The reason I bring this up is because I received an awesome pair of shoes in the mail a few days ago.

These shoes are from a company called SKORA Running. These are the Women's Base model. Now, I am not dumb enough to go out for a run in them because it takes time to transition to a truly minimalist type shoe. However, I have been wearing these shoes to the gym to lift and while running errands. I am pleasantly surprised by these shoes. They are super comfortable and light, almost like wearing a sock, but they are grippy! Holy cow, you know how your feet get kind of slippery when you do wall sits on hardwood floors, I did a one legged wall sit with no slippage. It was awesome. I also really love the straps. I think they would be great shoes to eventually race in. No lace tying and they slip on really easily. The other major difference I have found between this shoe and the running shoes I have worn in the past is that I haven't gotten any hot spots. Sometimes I get hot spots even while just walking around, not while I am running. I have not had any hot spots while walking around. And of course, I got the blue because ADPi's colors are blue and white :)

I would definitely recommend trying these shoes out if you are interested in making the switch (or if you already have)! Email me at cgirltri92@gmail.com and I will help you get all set up with these awesome shoes and company. The people at SKORA will definitely take care of you!