New Blog for a New Stage of Life

I think I might start writing about my experience in nursing school. I am starting nursing school in 5 days! In 15 months, I'll have another Bachelor's degree. This time it will be a BSN. So, find my new blog in the blogosphere. Hm, what name can I come up with for it?

Leash and Collar

After a full year of being a hard core student and a year before that being a first-year teacher, my inner athlete has become dormant. I've done very little adventure sporting in the past year. A little XC skiing, but there wasn't much snow. Around-town biking, a run here and there, one white-water rafting trip. I can count it on my hand. Reading through my previous posts awakens my inner athlete's spirit and I wonder if that is still a part of me. I just got an amazing new companion--a dog. It doesn't seem so adventurous to me, but we walk her three times a day and so I walk about 3-6 miles a day with her. I see the world through completely different eyes. Sometimes my heart rate goes up a little, but mostly I am protecting her and looking out for puddles and people. She has brought so much laughter and energy into my life. I never thought of myself as a dog person, but I totally get it now. So I'm into gardening and owning a dog. I suppose I've become more of a domestic adventurist. (Is that an oxymoron?) That's who I am now. But an adventurous spirit never dies. My inner athlete will always be one of my greatest strengths whenever I choose to call upon her. For now, I'm really happy with my domestic adventures :-)

Rubber boot

It's a new year. And where I live, it's cloudy season. I love snow. But it doesn't snow here. I love the beach. But our beach is called "the coast." It's cold and rainy. I recently bought some rubber waterproof boots that go up to my knees and have pink and black polka dots on them. That way, I can dip my feet in the ocean without freezing off my legs from the knee down. But I went too far. Oops. And a fish got in my boot. Ha ha.

Surfing

I went surfing. I've waited my whole life to be able to say that. It's quite a difficult pastime to get into. Opposed to say, running, the surfing crowd doesn't seem too eager to get more people to join them on the waves. It's expensive, mildly dangerous, and rather exotic. We walked onto the beach looking like batman and batwoman, covered head-to-toe in black neoprene suits. Our rental boards were brand new and we doubted anyone noticed the surf shop logo painted on the corner. So, yeah, we looked like we knew what we were doing. And passersby had no way of knowing that it was our first time, so we got lots of admiring stares from beachcombers. A few of them were brave enough to ask us how the surfing was. We responded shyly, aware that we had no idea what to say. Eager to march into the freezing waves, we stretched out a bit and entered the water. It was surprisingly warm and we were able to stay out for an hour without feeling too cold. 7 hours later, we emerged one last time from the Pacific Ocean. The tide was coming in and we were so sore we could barely hold our boards enough to make the 500m hike back to the parking lot. As we peeled the dripping wetsuits from our aching bodies, we smiled at each other with these endorphin-induced drunken grins. It was stellar. I can't wait to go again!

Rubbing elbows

I am now a wildflower enthusiast. There are all kinds of activities that running gets a person in shape for. Conversely, there is one type of running that a variety of activities motivate you to do. And that is just plain running. My jutting musculoskeletal system is sore because it spent around 24 hours attached to a rather uncomfortable (it was a rental) 20-or-so pound backpack this past weekend. How does that motivate me to run more? I don't know but I think I will. And if I run at a rate of 6mph, I will still be able to spot wildflowers along the way. In search of the perfect trail...

Running in a New Country

Since the last time I wrote, I've moved to a new country. This is a country where it's not weird if you run around town in jogging clothes. In fact, it's considered normal. I've discovered a better way to get my heart rate up, though. Every weekend, I take my skis, boots, and poles in the back of the car up to the top of this local mountain. It's actually the highest mountain in the state where I live. I go to a trailhead and then it's like entering a completely new and different world. Everything is covered in white and the weather could change at any second. When it snows, my mascara runs, but I love the thrill of the chill in the air and the silence of the ancient forest all around me. This new country is strange, but I love skiing in it.

Summer time

In the summer. Well, this summer. There is so much daylight and as long as the temperatures agree, I can go running every night towards the sunset. I've found that I prefer running with my boyfriend. It feels so great when we come home sweaty, and chop up vegetables for dinner and shower. But, the best thing this summer has been finding swimming pools and lakes and seas. So far we've swam in the public pool in Sarajevo, in the Adriatic, the Aegean, and about 5 lakes throughout this small little country. Not to mention every single day in my town pool. People gather around the pool and stare as I swim, but... I don't care. Soon, we're going down to an island in the Aegean for a week and renting windsurf equipment. I just want to give it a shot. Not promising anything. I'm most excited about returning to the U.S. this winter. ADIDAS (All day I dream about snow!) We signed up for a dog sledding course, and first thing I'm buying is new cross country skis. Last year there was hardly any snow here, so I really really missed it. My greatest hope is that I'll find my one special sport that I can really dedicate my free time to. I like trying new things, but I want to find my passion...

Indoor Fin

There's something magnificent about developing an addiction to the hormones the body produces when it exercises. And along with this addiction comes increased endurance, concentration ability, and strength. I can just hop out the door and be gone for nearly an hour. Thanks to a care package containing 40 high quality AAA batteries, I have the neurological stimulation from the Black Eyed Peas. I can't wait to see how far I can go on my long days, and I feel short-changed if I have to take a rest day for some reason. Running has become more and more what I had hoped it would become for me: easy yet challenging. I'm officially signed up for a half-marathon in a few weeks (and a Nike Dri-fit shirt!).

Chocolate and ice cream

Today, for some reason, I didn't want to go out of my apartment. I stayed in looking up GRE words and looking out the window at the nice weather. I should have gone for a walk or cross trained today according to my training plan for the half-marathon I plan to run in September. I ate some chocolate today. I LOVE chocolate. It is soo... palatable (GRE word). My day feels incomplete without exercising. I feel like my inner ball of energy is still wound up. Ahhh!

My quiet mind

Inside of my mind, when I start running, there's a beat going. Today it is our recent Eurovision song. It gets me on a great pace. Eventually, it fades away, and I'm left with my pulse, my breathing, my feet beating against the ground, my arms pumping. The children playing football in the background become pleasant strums of positive energy. My endorphins increase, the time I've been running adds up, I start running faster, and I forget to swerve around the huge puddle of water. As I near the end of my run, I can't wait to stop. I walk home, careless. But then my mind fills up again and I wish I were still running.

Cross training

As far as I know, cross training is a very good thing. Right now, my knees hurt from biking today. That's great. Biking uses my muscles in ways that running can't, and when I bike, I don't stress out my joints like when I run. Today I biked way up into the mountains, and then sped down extremely fast. It's a good thing the previous owner of my bike put a bell on it. I almost hit a car. But the rest of the time, I felt great. I hate how the people stare at me and my helmet. Can't a girl go for a bike ride? Apparently not. The weather was beautiful and the air was so clean up there. But, once I got down to where the houses were, it stank. Like pigsties, smoke, and exhaust.
I felt victorious when I arrived home.
And then I ate a bowl of peas for dinner.

Where I run

I may live in a 2nd world country, but when I'm running, I'm in a THIRD world country. The people in the town where I live make me feel so angry sometimes. And good batteries are hard to find and too expensive. The rare times when I have batteries for my mp3 player, running is fun.

Most development scales are based on socio-economic factors. But, if there were a fitness scale, this country would be well near the bottom of the scale. Just look at the number of people marching in the Olympic parade and you can tell whether a country has organized sports programs (which is an indicator of whether sports, i.e. fitness is important to them).

When I go running, I try to look at the ground or the scenery. If I look at the people I am passing, their eyes bore holes into my jiggling legs and their jaws drop open at the sight of my ponytail flapping. A girl! Running! WHY? I hate it when cars slow down just to stare at me. I hate it even more when they honk their horns. Why do they do this? And I hate it the most when passing tractor trailers on their way to the nearby border wail their horns as they pass by. I'm on the sidewalk. There's no other flat place to run. I live in the middle of two high mountains.

Running is a great stress relief for me. As soon as I get away from public roads and out of the town, I start breathing. The endorphins rush in to replace the adrenaline. I feel my face flushing and can hear my legs whooshing. I head into the forest, along the valley, ducking beneath the wild brush and ignoring the trash. I feel lucky because I'm the only person who saw that blue jay pecking around in the middle of the path. He flutters away as I come storming into his shattered serenity. I wish I had the endurance to stay in the forest for hours, but my legs are out of shape, and I soon become fatigued and out of breath.

Eventually, to get home, I have to re-enter society. The same people are still sitting on their porches. They glance at their watches, noting how long I've been running. The same people are strutting on the sidewalks, shooting the breeze, following my movements. But now, I don't care. I've seen and done things they haven't today. I look right back at them saying,
"I am a female athlete, and I am strong."

Beginner's advice

I seem to have been getting caught in the rain almost every time I've gone running lately. This makes me feel like a warrior.

I read in Runner's World that "it's difficult when you first begin running. it doesn't feel good, and most of the time you feel like a failure." This is true for me. But reading this helped me realize that I am a beginner runner. I may have been a state champion (ha) swimmer in high school, but I am 23 now. I am FIVE years out of high school. I'm pathetic. And so when I stopped 10 minutes into what was supposed to be a 35 minute run, bending over in chest pain, I decided to keep going.
And I decided to go again tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I'll make it 11 minutes.

Even though I'm a beginner, I have some advice for female runners. And I will dispense that advice now: Before going on a run, check to see if there is a chance of rain. If the skies are heavily overcast and it's been raining sporadically for the past 24 hours, there is a good chance that you'll get rained on. Wipe off your mascara before you go running. Because the only thing people want to see running is YOU.