Gonna Keep on Runnin'

In helping my boyfriend, Joe, create a facebook I became more attuned to what was actually contained within my own profile. One of the things I noticed was that this blog is linked as one of my websites. That makes my lack of updating pretty unfortunate.

I start out almost every single post on this blog talking about how it's been so long since my last, I have so much on which to update, and how I hope to blog more frequently in the future.

Let's skip straight to the good stuff. If anyone is out there reading and actually cares about all of the update stuff (and can't follow based on what I am going to include), feel free to message me for a more complete version.

I'm currently training for an 8K in June to take place the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill Day Parade in Charlestown. I ran my first 5K back in September (which was my first ever race period) so an 8K shouldn't be that big of a jump. Unfortunately, I didn't actually continue to train between September and March (I think I maybe ran three times during that period), so training has been kind of slow going.

The good thing is that I'm doing better than I anticipated. When I ran the 5K, it was all I could do to get to the 3 mile mark. I was huffing and puffing and generally just pretty exhausted. Yesterday at the gym I ran just over 4 miles, followed by walking an additional mile. The 8K is 4.97 miles, so having done 5 miles at the gym yesterday (even if I walked one of them) tells me that I'll be fine in the 8K as long as I keep up my training. The difference is that the race takes place at Bunker Hill so that's a bit unfortunate. Most of my training has been flat, but I'm planning to integrate incline next week. I figure that adrenaline will probably carry me through a lot of it. The day of my 5K race was my best time so I'm pretty confident that even if I'm not 100% up to snuff in my training, I'll be able to finish the 8K (even if I am really slow at it).

After the 8K, my plan is to not stop training this time. Either this October or next October (depending how all of my training progresses) I'm going to run the Boston Half Marathon. It will certainly be a challenge, but I'm up for it. I'll use running to keep myself low stress during grad school, if nothing else.

My first class toward my master's degree begins in late June. I'm only doing one summer course for both the sake of my sanity (I'll still be working at JBCC) and for financial reasons. It will be good to have a course under my belt before I start full-time in the fall.

In the meantime I have plenty on my plate to keep me occupied. Between obligations (jury duty, my civic responsibility--yay...), necessary evils (I'm moving to Brighton in a couple of weeks), and all of the fun stuff I have planned (bowling this weekend, Love in Stockholm show on the 27th, Red Sox game on the 30th and Nigel-sitting May 29-June 3), I have a full schedule. That's just how I like it. Granted, most of what fills my plate is the packing that precedes the moving (and that's not exactly fun), but I have a lot to look forward to, and about which I can be genuinely excited.

Just gotta keep on runnin'!