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...

Last week, I got a heck of a cold. If you recall, I had a cold back in September when I ran the Great Race 10K, so I was not at all happy to wake up to a scratchy sore throat and congestion again. I can remember when I was in high school and college, how I would be the last woman standing even as various plagues swept through my classmates, taking them down one by one. Ah, the immune system of my youth. Taking a day off scares--taking an entire week off feels like tempting fate, like asking to be a quitter all over again. But the after effects of running the Great Race 10K with a cold were fresh on my mind, and I knew my immune system needed rest. So I took off Monday. And when Wednesday found me feeling worse instead of better, I took that off, too. Finally, Friday rolled around and I still could barely breathe, so I decided to make it a round week off. Something like this would have derailed me a few years ago, and I still don't fully trust myself. When I went to bed last nig...

I've mentioned before that 2019 was originally supposed to be the year of my first half marathon. But ah, life--how often it has other plans for us instead. Now that my injury/ongoing issues with my hip/shoulder/back are (mostly) under control, I've been settling back into my fitness routine. This mainly includes doing yoga every (or almost every) morning and going for a run every other day. For the past year and a half, I've pretty much always been following a training plan for one race or another. But, since my half marathon plans fell through and my next race isn't until September, I'm in an in-between, a lull. It feels weird. I'm so much better about running consistently when I have a schedule, a plan, to stick to. Yet, I think it's important to take a little time to remember why I fell in love with running in the first place, let my body call the shots for a little while.  So, I've been running again, usually for about 30 minutes three t...