April 12: Blisters & Beauty

It was a beautiful day for a run; until I got a blister.

October 26: Running

I've been trying to run more recently.  In part because I know it's good for me, and in part because I want to like running.  Really, lots of people love it, why can't I?!  Anyway, the last few times I've ran, I haven't hated it; that's progress, right.

Moreover, the Athens Half (or the AthHalf) was last weekend and I know a bunch of people who ran it...I've really only ever wanted to do the Nike Women's half marathon to say I did it, AND for the hot firefighters who give you a Tiffany's necklace at the end.  Yes, external motivation.  But I've been thinking if others can do it, maybe I can too.  

Today, I woke up with a headache, but I wanted to get a workout or run in.  About 1.5 miles in, I felt awful, head pounding, lungs aching...so I walked for half a mile before running the last mile ish.  Here's to the next run feeling better than this one.

All Around Athens

Athens offers lots and lots of free and almost free things to do...almost every weekend.  Here are some of the highlights from the last few months.

Gym Dawgs Meet with Mallory (and others not listed & free t-shirts) 

During the Gym Dawgs meet, we create our own score sheet and attempt to guess the score for each of the gymnastics events.  If you guess closest, you win that round.  I smoked the competition!  Call it beginners luck, but I had about 11 wins and each of the rest of the group had about 4 each. :) 

Another Gym Dawgs Meet: Mallory & Jeremy (and another free t-shirt)

 Danny & me (Danny is a 2nd year in my program)

Megan (another cohortee) & me at a baseball game.  Georgia almost won, but it was a good game!  Oh, and they gave out free t-shirts too (the best of the bunch thus far!)

Intercultural affairs (ICA) sponsored an Indian cultural extravaganza (food, fashion, music...).  It was a wonderful experience and the Indian food was amazing!  Below is me, Tiffany, and Ashley.  Ashley works for ICA and Tiffany is in my cohort.

So there is a much longer story associated with the next two pictures, but I'll try to keep it succinct.  Ginny (below) is training for a 1/2 marathon in the fall.  Thinking that I may be training for one in October as well (another long story) I thought I'd start by running a 5k.  Having trained and feeling comfortable running 3-4 miles, I decided to give it a go.  This run was through the junkyard.  It was actually beautiful, but more like trail running.  I was more concerned about my feet and tripping than focusing on running and breathing.  Speaking of, that's been hard for me recently, breathing.  I'm not sure if it's the pollen or asthma.  Anyway, I didn't run it in the time I had hoped, but I did get a wonderful opportunity to run/talk with a woman for about a mile.

Additionally, my friend Suzie does geocaching (sp?). And her most recent trinket was this tortoise.  Apparently it's in a race with a hare, and it runs races.  You take a picture with your bib, she enters the miles and it attempts to beat the hare.  Kind of a fun idea, maybe something to try in the future. 

ICA hosted an international street festival where five thousand people line the streets of downtown Athens to visit the various booths and stations...and all free to anyone and everyone.

Zoe and I work together and I thoroughly enjoy her company.  We roamed the festival, got snow cones, she got a Germany flag on her cheek, and participated in other international street festival activities.

Zoe was born and raised in Germany.  Apparently, this toy brought back found memories.  

She made me try.  I at least got it off the ground, but failed in comparison to her skills!

And who doesn't love icecream, not free, but from Dryers.  We couldn't resist, it was on the same street as the street fesitival.  Yummmy coffee chocolate chunk!

This last weekend was Twilight Criterion (sp?).  Basically, it's a big bike race and it's a qualifying race for the Tour de France.  Lance Armstrong has apparently competed in this race in previous years.  Downtown shuts down, and the streets are roped off for these hundreds of bikers.  Tons of people come out to watch.  It was a very interesting experience.  I was cheering for #14.  He took 5th.  

The women go first, then the men.  It's crazy fast and when you're watching from a corner, such as we were, things can get a little harry (not for us of course)...notice the hay bails?!

The pace car.  The man in the passengers seat was hilarious.  Every time, I mean every time he went around it looked as though he was holding on for dear life!

 

Pour number 104, his chain came off with one lap to go.

So there are some long awaited updates on my happenings.  Obviously, I've been studying and doing other school sorts of things, but these were some of the things that were fun all around Athens!

Triathlon Training

A few years ago I began training for a triathlon. Unfortunately, two months before race day I had surgery to remove half my thyroid. Needless to say, the triathlon was put on hold.

I enjoy working out. I enjoy sweating (when you're suppose to be sweating ie. working out; not ie. b/c it's 103 and humid outside and you're simply walking 20 feet at a leisurely pace). I enjoy the feeling after a good work out, when you're tired but energized. AND I do much better about motivating myself when I'm working toward a goal.

Recently, I decided to look up triathlons in Texas with hope for some motivation. With triathlon season coming to an end, I'm pushed to find times/days/places that would work with my transition from here to Georgia. I found one the weekend before I leave. That may be pushing it. So I started looking for some in Georgia. There IS one at the end of August. After getting super excited and mentally preparing for training, I realized that's the day of our doctoral retreat. Bummer.

All this to say, I've begun training anyway. I'm following some sort of schedule from beginnertriathlete.com. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find a race this season or not, but if not, I'll just be ubber prepared for next season (if I keep it up). ;)

I'm going to do a sprint... someday. Although distances varying, the general milage is as follows (usually no more than):

800 meters (.5 miles) swim

18 mile bike

10k (6.2 mile) run

For me, the sports get progressively harder. Swimming is my most comfortable, then biking, and then...running. I want to be a runner. But I don't love it. Anyway, I swam a couple of days ago (I'm out of swimming routine/shape), ran 5 miles yesterday (I didn't know I could run that long), and biked 12 miles today. I think I can do all three individually just fine. It would be a matter of putting the three together, yikes.

Anyone who has ever done a triathlon, any tips? Or anyone who wants to train for one, feel free to join in the fun! :)