Thursday, September 30, 2010

struggling today.

I don't know why I struggle so much. It's not that I'm lazy per se. I'm doing a million different things, which exhausts me. Maybe it's priorities.

I've heard about having an accountability partner, especially when talking to some of my more religious friends. Many have someone that can be there to support them and keep them going in their spiritual journey. I probably need a spiritual accountability partner, too, but I'm really focusing on exercising right now.

When I'm running, I don't push myself as hard as I could... I don't work to my potential. That's the reality of it. Only once or twice have I actually pushed myself AS HARD as I could possibly push myself. That's sad. I do push myself when I'm lifting weights, sometimes beyond what is neccessary, but I don't lift as often as I have in the past. I've never pushed myself as hard as I could. I guess that is something that I should work on, but I don't trust myself to do it on my own. I set goals for myself and I don't always follow through with them. When I am running, I do combine it with walking. Sometimes, I walk more than I need to. I know that I can push myself further and run harder than I normally do. Maybe I'm lazy. Maybe I'm just struggling. I don't know what the problem is.

I also don't know an easy solution.

I worked out really hard tonight on the Wii... using Wii Active. I pushed myself harder than I have in a long time... I was getting REALLY mad at the game, though. Really mad. I'm exhausted and I smell horrible. My legs feel like jello. I wasn't even going to work out at all today, but I started watching Biggest Loser online, because I don't have cable and didn't watch yesterday. Something about watching clicked something in me, though. Those people are far worse off than I am, but they push themselves a hundred times harder. I guess that's something that I want to work toward.

I do want this. I want to be a runner. I want to push myself. HARD. I want to be able to give it my all without giving up. I want to stop being frustrated with my times, with my weight, with my eating habits. Obviously that takes some changes that I have to make within myself.

I just wish it could be that easy.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Finding inspiration within.

Today was a fairly short run, as I didn't sleep well last night. Since I didn't sleep well, I ended up sleeping later than I anticipated this morning. My sleep habits are really screwed up right now. It needs to change, because my sleep affects my feelings, emotions, stress, motivation.... and on and on.

A few years ago, when I was working at Bob Evans and going to school, I talked to a manager about how I was struggling with my work schedule and my school schedule together. She wasn't too receptive and didn't cut my hours, because I was, apparently, a great worker. Blah blah blah. It got me thinking, though. To your boss, work comes first, to your profs, school comes first. Where is the happy medium? I believe that I've found my happy medium... in a mix of school and work, among other things. School is constantly at the forefront of my mind. Being a grad student, I'm SO concerned about school, about studying, about my grades... it's the most important thing to me at this point in my life. However, work is important, too. I've got to have money in order to pay my bills, to go to school, to exist fully. I didn't move 900 miles to run out of money and move back. This is a huge deal.

Coming between school and work in my "list of important things in my life" is running. I never thought that running would become such a large part of my life. It did. I do struggle with it from time to time. I struggle with motivation. Running helps me to have a release. I often run with Katherine, which is nice. We don't have a lot of free time together and running helps us to have some time to talk and spend time together in a busy existance. Running by myself helps me to clear my head, much like writing has for years and years. Obviously it also has other positives too... like health, exercise, endorphins...

It's inspiring to be able to write about my running. I've always fancied myself a writer... since I was 11 or 12 when I started writing poetry. Before that, I wrote some stories and wanted to grow up to be a writer, but the middle school angsty poetry was what really made me feel like I had gotten to that point. Now I'm blogging, I've taken a ton of creative writing classes, I love to write and I want to do something with my writing to live off of forever. I feel like this blog is the beginning of that. I CAN write about running... no two runs are the same. Obviously, some runs have more interesting information and can make for more readable entries than others, but there is an abundant amount of information to share about running. One of my hopes is that, through my writing, I'm able to inspire both MYSELF and other people. I'm mostly hoping to inspire myself, because that is clearly a more feasible dream at this point.

Anyways, I'm kind of going on and on. I've found two runs that I'm interestedin running in November. Both are in Florida. I'm hoping to meet other Florida ...Orlando specifically... runners and to build some sort of a running support group. I've been briefly looking at different running clubs. I'd just really like to meet other runners down here.

Anyways, my run today was short, as I previously mentioned. I ran a little over 2 miles with Kath, which was great, because, honestly, I didn't feel like running at all. I'm so glad that we went. Tomorrow, I have a huge test that I'm really nervous about. After that, I'm hoping to run 5 or 6 miles. I need to get my mileage up if I want to run a half marathon in two months!

So far: 554.19 miles
To go: 445.81

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Back at it.

I don't even know if I remember how to blog. haha. It has been a really long time.

I haven't written since I moved to Florida. My life has changed drastically since I moved. On the move down, my best friend/roommate got in a pretty terrifying wreck with a semi truck, which I watched in my rearview mirror. She is okay, her car got totalled, and I had some pretty high anxiety from it for a few weeks.

I had trouble finding a job. Grad school started. Then I found a job. Now, I just feel so busy. When I'm not in class, I'm working. When I'm not in class OR working, I'm studying. My sleeping has been slightly compromised. It's a life change. Graduate school is nothing like undergrad.

Once I stopped updating, I sort of didn't feel like updating anymore. I'm going to change that though. I'm really proud of this blog.

I have been running, however. Not nearly as often as I should be, particularly because I should be in the midst of some serious training. I'm working on that, though. I've run several times in the last week, as opposed to a few times over a midst of a few weeks. I'm going to try to make a serious schedule of my working/running/training/class/studying, so that I'm able to make a plan and stick to it.

I guess that I'm wondering about motivation. A huge motivator for me has been weight loss & upcoming races. However, right now, I'm kind of at a stagnant place in my weight. I have more to lose, but I'm just stuck. Also, my next race isn't until January, which feels far off right now. I'm trying to find a race in the next month or two to kick start my motivation. I just need to find new ways to motivate myself, I guess.

So far: 551.62 miles
To go: 448.38 miles