Running Into Joy

Happy Monday, all!  On Saturday, July 4th, I woke up at my usual workday time of 5am so I could get ready and out the door to run the Sports Bra Squad Day 5K before it got too hot here in Pittsburgh, where we're experiencing what I'm told is likely a record-breaking heatwave.  I have been training for this 5K since May, and the journey has been unlike any other. For starters, I've never really followed any sort of strict training plan for a 5K before. 3.1 miles is, in this body, a distance I can manage in one way or another without much conditioning.  But, like so many of us, I've struggled with the stay-at-home nature of most of 2020. Not because I crave people--no, my introverted socially anxious being is a little too comfortable not seeing many humans face to face. Rather, what I needed was a goal,  a sense of forward momentum, something I usually find in working with and helping the students I serve in my dual roles of Student Affairs professional and adjunct fac...

Happy Monday, internet friends!  I recently wrote about my mixed feelings regarding the postponement of the 2020 Flying Pig Half Marathon. As much as that particular goal has begun to loom menacingly in the ever-distant future, I do miss races.  That race day crowd spirit and enthusiasm is what made me fall in love with running, and even as the sport has become something larger for me, I always try to get back to that energy at least a few times a year. Usually, I run a couple of 5Ks, which is a nice, fun, manageable distance for me personally. The last race I participated in was the 2019 Turkey Trot here in Pittsburgh, and it was a lovely redemption race after a really difficult time at the Great Race 10K.  My Turkey Trot 5K getup I'm always my most motivated, my most excited to lace up my shoes, when I'm training for a race. I love the way it feels to come home from a run, particularly one of those rare blue moon runs that feels amazing  during  as well, but...

Hello, internet people! Yesterday, we here in Pittsburgh got our first big snow of the season, which means the ground this morning was coated in little patches of ice. Being of the clumsy variety, I've fallen down enough times just trying to exist in the world, so I don't take chances when it comes to running outside in icy conditions. I love running outside, so the shift to the indoor months is always a bit of a struggle. I woke up this morning, check the temperature and took a peek outside, and almost immediately started trying to talk myself out of my morning run. "You can go after work," my brain said. I didn't want to go the extra mile of driving myself to Planet Fitness, didn't want the monotony of the treadmill. I almost gave in, but then I remembered--I'm 5 weeks into this training plan, and I promised I wouldn't quit on myself. I shrugged into gym clothes, grumbling in my head the whole time, and drove myself the exactly 5 minutes it tak...

-cue Eminem's "Without Me"- Guess who's back, back again? After running the Great Race 10K proved that my body can, in fact, still do the whole running thing, I decided to work my way slowly back into a routine before starting to train in earnest for the Flying Pig Half-Marathon in 2020. I put my deferral code to good use and registered for the 2020 race. Friends, it was not easy. I felt fearful and futile and small as I filled out the form, not fully believing my body would let me be ready next May. Fearing that I would have to defer again, an endless loop until I finally let the race fees go to race and the dream die. But I did it anyway. Because that's fear talking. That's the old voice that whispers "You're a quitter. You give up. That's what you DO." Didn't we fight this battle back in 2018 with the whole "become a runner" thing? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. But so it goes--the same old cycle, our patterns ...