Sunday, March 4, 2012

Sunday, March 4

I should warn you all, this post is once again about running. Although it's also about the rest of my life, so if you don't want to read about my runs, I recommend skipping to the second paragraph. :) I just finished the first month (and four days) of my half-marathon training and I am so proud of myself!!! I've already run farther and more than I would have thought I was capable and I still have so many miles to go! Today marked my longest run ever. It was 6.12 miles and I did it in 1:07:32 and I couldn't be happier!!! My goal was 11 minute miles and I did it!! I also had fun the whole time! I was with my good friend Heather and we were busy talking about life, so that certainly helped, but there was never a time today when I was miserable. Plus, when we finished, I FELT AWESOME!! It has put me in such a good mood for the rest of the day and has me excited for this next 48 days of training until The Garmin Marathon in the Land of Oz comes around! I also am happily working through this second (and last) semester of grad school. This Wednesday I will head off to a job placement conference where I will interview with lots of different schools and hopefully impress some of them enough to get another interview and then hopefully impress at least one of them enough to get a job! :) It has been a really fun adventure so far and I am loving all the opportunities that are popping up. It has also been great to talk with the other members in my cohort and hear all about the opportunities that they have as well. I guess we're all finally growing up! Two weeks from now will find me in the great state of Minnesota for spring break and I couldn't be more excited for it! Seeing my family, sleeping, relaxing, running familiar roads and eating so many homemade delicious meals is pretty much my idea of heaven! I CAN'T WAIT!! These next two weeks are bound to be crazy (hello job interviews, scholarship selections and 25 page paper) but I've got to say, overall I am one lucky girl!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Thursday, Feb. 2

Well, blame week one of 1/2 marathon training starting, but I've been spending lots of time reading running blogs and came upon these two quotes by John "The Penguin" Bingham. I read his book No Need For Speed last semester and it helped me out so much! I'm not a particularly fast runner and I'm working on learning to appreciate running just for the sake of running, not for doing it fast. Bingham focuses (in case you hadn't guessed it from his nickname) on running for the enjoyment of it, not the speed. He talks a lot about how to make sure you feel good and take care of yourself while running. He stresses how you should run a race because you want to be running, not because you want to beat everyone else (although if some PR's happen, that's awesome too). Reading almost anything he says always makes me feel really encouraged and proud of myself for starting to run. I leave you with two of my favorites from him. "If you run, you are a runner. It doesn't matter how fast or how far. It doesn't matter if today is your first day or if you've been running for twenty years. There is no test to pass, no license to earn, no membership card to get. You just run." "Our running shoes are really erasers. Every step erases some past failure. Every mile brings us closer to a clean slate. Each foot strike rubs away a word, a look, or an event which led us to believe that sucess was beyond our grasp."

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Tuesday, Jan. 31

Well, I restarted this blog just in time! Tuesday was A GREAT DAY!! Lots of little things just kept going right throughout the day! 1) It was day 3 of Week 1 of training for the 1/2 marathon I'm doing in April and since it was only 2 miles, I wanted to push myself extra hard and I sure did! I did my two miles in a little over 18 minutes! The last quarter mile was a little rough, but knowing that I had more than met my goal (under 10 minutes) made it super worth it! 2) My future is slowly, but surely starting to take shape and I found one heck of an awesome school that has a hall director opening. I heard about the school having an opening a few weeks ago, but for the first time yesterday I sat down and really took a look at everything it had to offer and I just about fell in love! The school is in Oregon (beautiful!) and is smaller (something I like) and lets you work in other offices (hello Disability Services)! Plus, they have a pet policy and as anyone who knows me is aware, adopting a dog is a big goal of mine for the near future! 3) The Law of Higher Education class that I'm taking is getting better and better each class and yesterday was no exception. We had great discussion and luckily the professor is happy to let class go in almost any direction, so they tend to be helpful and fun. The class is very different than any other higher education class I've taken and I think law is an area that sparks my interest, so it makes class pretty great. Hope you've found a reason that makes today great!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Monday, Jan. 30

Friends, I owe you all a great big apology! I started this blog with high hopes and good intentions of posting everyday and always finding something positive in each day. I have done well with the latter, I still am always finding a positive in each of the days, but I certainly have not been posting. Here's what I figured out during break; what made the day great, each day of break, was knowing that there really was nothing that I had to do. In general, I enjoyed posting to this blog, but I always liked doing what I wanted to do and not doing what I didn't want to do. With that reasoning in mind, I stopped posting and went through the rest of break. Then I came back to KU and started housing training and then classes started and while life hasn't exactly slowed down at all, I really do want to get back to this blog. So here's the new plan: I will absolutely still be keeping track of what makes each day great, but I won't be posting every day. With the semester being busy and job searching starting, I don't want to make a promise that I'll be to busy to keep in a few weeks. So I will post when I can and hopefully that will be enough for you all. For now, I leave you with a list, in no particular order, of why my days were great over the past few weeks. *Finalizing registration for a job conference in March. *Buying tickets and a hotel room for said conference. (The money part was not great, but making progress sure was.) *Receiving my first (hopefully of many) e-mail from a school interested in hiring me for next year. *Returning to KU and catching up with great friends. *Spending ridiculous amounts of time with family. *Starting my final semester of classes and enjoying them. *Running 4 miles with Trina. *Swimming LOTS after returning to KU. (I'm slowly, but surely getting better and faster!) *Having a wall in my bedroom that no longer leaks whenever it rains. *Being home for the installment of a new kitchen floor. *Seeing an old friend from undergrad and recognizing that some friendships really will make it through anything. *Starting my half marathon training! With that, receiving tremendous support from a good friend here at KU who helped me realize that I'm fully capable of running one! *Great conversations with friends about their futures and all the adventures that are soon to start. *Learning new recipes and introducing them to other people. What can I say, there are so many reasons that make today great! :)