can't quit dc

When I was living in the DC metropolitan area, I signed myself up for a couple runs and events in the area.  Then I moved away. And these events in the "area" turned into multiple weekend long trips up to DC...not that I'm complaining. A couple weekends ago I went up to run the Rock 'n' Roll half marathon with my dad. It was a hot and humid and successful race. However, the next morning I woke up with a killer pain in my hip. 

Fast forward two weeks. I still have that nagging hip (flexor?) pain. I've only run twice since the half. And I have another DC weekend run coming up, this time it's the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler. Even with the pain I convinced myself I HAD to do it. It was a lottery entrance, others didn't get in, so yeah, I'm gonna do it even if I have to walk it. Plus a couple friends were running it too.  Luckily our pre-race dinner with multiple desserts (pictured above) boosted my confidence. 

And it was pretty great. Usually when I run a race, I hope and push for a good time (time meaning time it takes to complete the run).  But this race was different.  About 1.5 miles in I (literally) ran into Megan (one of my 3 great roommates) and we ended up running the rest of the race together. We kept a solid pace and chatted for most of it. And we finished strong, which is always a good thing.  When we finished, the last thing on my mind was the pain in my hip.  All I could think about was how great that run felt. And how I did have a good time (see what I did there!??!).

Might I add that there were hardly any cherry blossoms.  The blossoms hit their peak maybe a week before and there were just a few here and there behind the Jefferson Memorial. Some cherry blossom run..  To top off a spectacular weekend that also included a second viewing of Hunger Games and seeing many friends, I went to a Bruce Springsteen Concert. I saw Bruce Springsteen in DC. Bruce. It was a darn good concert. Okay it was amazing. I heard most of my favorites. There was so much power behind his music, as well as emotion since Clarence Clemons' nephew was there filling in the E Street Band. AHHH!!!

did i mention i saw bruce springsteen??

Vacayyy

I was fortunate enough to have a lengthy winter break.  I was finally able to head back to Charleston for some of the holiday.  I spent quality time with family and friends whom I had not seen in some time.  Luckily, I'll have the opportunity to spend more time with them in the near future, but more on that in another post! It was nice to also see some high school friends I had not seen in quite some time.

After a few days in Charleston I skedaddled on up to Ohio for a ski trip to Colorado with Yohn and her mother.  We woke up at the crack of dawn -- no, before that. waay before that -- to catch our plane. Did you know the tiny tiny Akron/Canton airport has direct flights to Denver?? Talk about convenient. After arriving in Denver, we had some time to kill before heading to the condo in Winterplace so we got to wander around Boulder.  It was nice to see once again, this time in the winter. I never thought I would be back there so soon.  It was also nice to see snow, something that usually happens in winter. Not that DC would know anything about that.  

We finally made it up to Winterplace and settled in for a couple of days of skiing and relaxing.  The skiing was incredible.  I grew up skiing on the appalachians where the skiing seemed pretty good and Snowshoe was the ultimate skiing destination.  But skiing in the rockies was something else.  All of the runs made the long chair lifts worth it.  The blues were as challenging as some of the black diamonds back east.  Sometimes we found ourselves skiing above the tree-line at elevations over 11,000 ft. And the view..oh the view.. sometimes the view was better than the skiing.  The rocky mountains are breathtaking. 

Yohn and I also got to see our friend Britt from Denison as she was kind of passing through on her way to Breckenridge.  Seeing Britt is a rare treat since she lives in Boulder while the rest of us live back east.  So Colorado was an all-around wonderful time.  After another early plane ride, I booked it over to Capon Bridge for the annual winter bird count.  At bird count, anyone who is interested (a large portion is made up of camp staff) heads over to West Virginia for a day of counting birds to contribute to Audubon's National Christmas Bird Count.  It's a fun combination of nature and hanging out with the people I spend my summers with. 

This year, bird count was on New Years Eve day, so after the count was over, I celebrated a low-key New Years Eve with a couple camp friends.  It was a nice way to wind down what felt like a hectic break. So now it's 2012 and so far, it's shaping up to be an exciting year for me! Which I will share in subsequent posts!! 

well shoot...

oh man oh man oh man. i've been bad at this. but a new year, a new me, a new opportunity to blog.

First things first, I missed my blog's first birthday. 

So happy belated birthday blog! I promise this year I'll be good to you. Second things second, I cannot tell you how many times I've gotten home from my internship and planned to eat dinner and then curl up with tea, a movie, and my computer and just blog away. Never happened. Clearly. I don't like "new years resolutions". I make the same every year...write more mail..take more pictures...run... but I shouldn't need a new year to promise to do those things. So I'm not going to resolve to blog more, but I will make every effort to do so. Luckily all my previous attempts to blog this new year have left me with lots of ideas for blog posts. so - here goes nothing...

HEY YOU! Yeah, you...

Nothing irks me more than waving or acknowledging fellow runners while I am running and not having the favor returned. This is something that has been building up inside me ever since I started running.  And it's not just other runners, it's the walkers and dog-walkers, too. Or anyone else who is out at the crack of dawn trying to squeeze in some exercise.  Whenever I pass by any of the aforementioned people, I almost always acknowledge them, be it a wave, a nod, a smile..sometimes I manage a "good morning".  I think it's curteous in the least.

But when they do not wave or nod or smile back, well that just makes Jessie ANGRY! Why do you refuse to acknowledge me or, for all I know, anyone else you pass by? I know for a fact that running with an iPod does not decrease vision. I know that I can still see all around me, including You, the runner or the walker dead ahead. What, are you in the zone and didn't see me? Fat chance buddy, we've been running towards each other for the past minute at least. Focused on listening to your power song? I might be too. But you know what else powers me through? You, waving..or nodding, acknowledging that hey, we're both in this together and yeah, it sucked dragging our butts out of warm beds to run or walk on this cold morning, but look at us go!

Sometimes it's the small things that make or break my runs. Acknowledging fellow runners is, I think, the smallest of small things. It's the easiest thing and possibly the kindest thing to do, yet so many people don't. And frankly I just don't get it. However, there is something to be said for energy I unleash am able to channel into my runs when frustration builds up inside me as I pass one runner after another and they run blankly by.

[Runner's World had a nice article about this recently]

This Thanksgiving

I'm very excited for Thanksgiving this year. Instead of traveling home to Charleston or somewhere else to meet up with family, my family is coming here to DC! My mom and I are splitting the cooking so I've been busy making rolls and pie crusts and soup. Not to mention also studying for the LSAT (which I take a week from Saturday AHHH!). But I don't hate being completely consumed by cooking and studying. 

It makes time pass quickly, which is great when I'm home alone, not wanting to go out into this hurricane-like weather, and looking forward to the holiday. Thanksgiving is one of my favorites. You get to spend time with family, eat good food, and don't have to worry about giving/receiving gifts. Tomorrow my dad, brother, and I are running in the Alexandria Turkey Trot before our meal and then Friday is the Backyard Brawl (WVU vs Pitt), so this Thanksgiving is shaping up well.  I hope your holiday is as enjoyable as mine is sure to be!

Squashes wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving.

lessons learned

For the past 5 days, Yohn has been in DC and staying with me.  I hadn't seen her since the spring and missed her so. She was in town for a neuroscience convention and I was taking an LSAT prep course over the weekend, so we spent a lot of time not hanging out together. However, over the course of her stay I learned a few things. Or rather, things I knew to be true were reinforced.

1. Chalkboard walls are very useful.

(on the left, a friendly reminder; on the right, directions to the metro!)

2. Take caution when handling pepper-spray.

This one comes with a story. Yohn's pepper-spray somehow opened in her purse without her knowing. She was made aware of this when she touched her face after retrieving something from her bag and her face started burning. When we finally went through her bag to see the extent of the damage, we found the pepper-spray bottle kind of leaking (it was orange and oily. weird). So I, being the nice, helpful friend that I am, grabbed a paper towel and started wiping it off to see if it was salvagable; only as I was cleaning the top, pepper-spray SHOT into the air. This became an issue as the pepper-spray cloud began disseminating around the room. Becky was the first victim. She started coughing/gagging and bounded upstairs. Yohn starting coughing. I started sneezing. Have you ever been pepper-sprayed? The stuff is AWFUL! I can't imagine being sprayed directly. We were all coughing or blowing our noses or gagging for the rest of the night. awesome. 

3. If you don't have photographic proof, it never really happened. (true story)

So we remedied that this morning before she left.

My overly-dramatic post about a breakthrough run

[warning: no pictures. good luck]

After my incompletion of the Pittsburgh marathon, I have had my sights set on another marathon. Hopefully with my dad. Hopefully one I'm able to complete. And hopefully one in which I qualify for the Boston Marathon (NY too! did you know it's harder for me to qualify for the NY marathon than Boston? isn't that weird?).

Getting back into the swing of hard, rewarding running was a difficult for me. Why should I be pushing my body to do something that it clearly told me it was not happy with me doing? (of course, the supplement I started taking was going to help with this...) And I've always viewed running as half physical/half mental, so rewarding runs where I pushed myself seemed hard to come by. My first runs were easy, not fast, but I was sustaining 40 minute runs without passing out, or getting a similar feeling. I could feel myself getting stronger and building back to where I was around the this time last year. I was fortunate enough to be doing this running at camp, which I've always thought leads to magically awesome runs (see? mental.).

Enter yesterday's daily 5 mile run. It was faster, I could feel that. But sometimes when I think I'm running fast, i'm not actually...or I end up slowing a lot towards the end...BUT, to my surprise, I calculated my pace to be one that would qualify me for both marathons! And then some! I was ecstatic when I realized this but MAN! it hurt! How does anyone sustain that pace for 26.2 miles!? Hell, it's still inconceivable to me that elite runners can run a marathon at a pace faster than I can even run one mile.

Regardless, I feel like this was the breakthrough I've needed. All the pills I've taken, the extra strengthening exercises I've done, the mental focus I've tried to employ on every run, got me to here. I know my next couple runs will not measure up to the mental and physical success of that run, but it's all about baby steps. I know that I can, and right now that's going to help me more than anything.