Big Kid Science Fair

Okay, so today I'm presenting my undergrad thesis at OU's Student Creativity Expo (aka the big kid science fair). See? This is me with my super sweet set-up:

Instead of eating the pizza they're providing for lunch I packed myself the usual: turkey/mustard sandwich (on an arnold, of course), carrots, yogurt, an orange, and one of those little jello mousse things for dessert. Total: 5.5 points. Much more food than 1 slice of 6 point pizza (and who can ever stop at one slice, I mean really?).

Today starts a new week and I'm debating about going to weigh-in tonight since Megan can't... I might just go Saturday morning before going to the Farmer's Market. I know I said I was getting back on the wagon, but well... this week wasn't as bad as last week, but I'm still going to gain.

That said, Liz (one of Jons co-workers) is going to let us borrow her P90X, so we'll have that tonight and I've packed my gym bag so that I can go for a run after class. After a week and a half of no running, I'm guessing tonight is going to be pretty rough, but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rain holds off till then!

Edit: Didn't win the Science Fair (well in the Arts & Humanities division), but did get to talk to some fun people. My friend Jaime got second place and also snapped this fun photo of me talking to two prospective undergrads in French (it was high school scholars day too).

Week 6, Day 1

Whew. What a busy (and productive) day. I went and installed myself at the best coffee shop on campus (the Donkey) at 7 o'clock this morning in order to crank out all ten pages of my English final (due tmw at 4) and the last page of my 10-page French final (due tmw at noon). Getting there while it was still dark outside was an interesting experience, since Donkey stays open 24/7 (literally) during finals week, there were some interesting characters this at 7am. My favorites were the two people crashed on the couches upstairs 100% sleeping. Not "I dozed off" sleeping, but really sleeping. One guy even had an alarm set that went off at 8am. He promptly turned it off and went back to sleep. Long story short, today was a long and tedious day, but I finished the work and spent all day looking forward to tonight's run after sitting on my bum for 12 hours. See? On the left is a picture of my little study nook @ the coffee shop. It looks like I moved in. On the right, you have a little close up of all the essentials to get through the morning: the adorable feet lamp on my table (It has on blue nailpolish), a WW 1-pt bar, and my coffee.

Anyways, by the time Jon picked me up and we got changed (I substituted a zip up hoodie for the evil jacket), it was after 8 by the time we got running and I have to say the first 5 minute jog was actually pretty rough. My knees were hurting and I was feeling pretty bad about feeling so bad since I'd done so well yesterday. At one point during the run, the back of my right shoulder started to hurt, perhaps I was keeping my arms too tight? But, thankfully that too went away. After doing some blog catch up today, I paid closer attention to my stride tonight. I noticed that if I run on the balls (ish) of my feet or at least focus on hitting up front, my knees seem to hurt a bit less, but I find that stride kind of difficult to maintain, especially as I get tired.

Thankfully, I managed to make it through the podcast, and, as always, spent the rest of my time listening to my own music. One of the biggest benefits with running with Jon (well, at the same time as Jon anyways) is that he always runs for at least an hour, so I push myself to keep going/doing stuff as long as he's working out as well. Tonight, since we were forced to go up and back a few times since only 1.5 miles of the bikepath is lit up at night, we kept passing each other, which was fun. More importantly, I decided to try for another 20-minute jog. At about 18 minutes, Jon said he was going to stop when he got back to the bridge, so I turned around. So as to not keep him waiting too long, I thought I'd try to run at least until 25 minutes... then 30... and then the end. By the time I reached him, I'd jogged for 32 minutes (slowly) and finished a little under 6 miles total. I'm feeling really good about it and I stretched out a lot, but now, I'm off to finish my edits and massage my so-tight-they're-painful calves and go to bed. Night!

Back on track

Okay, I apologize, I fell off the face of the earth these past two weeks... The end of this quarter is really taking all of my writing time in front of the computer/in general. Due to doctor's appointments/interviews for our Paris program this summer, I haven't made it to WW this week, so no weigh-in stats (but I'm going Tuesday, so we'll have them then). I'm afraid I'll be up a few pounds, but it's okay. I'll live.

That being said, I haven't dropped the ball on my workouts at all (so I might just be okay). Although Jon has taken 2 weeks off of gym going in order to try and let his ankle get back to normal, I've kept up with going 5x/week, which makes me feel good since I no longer have him as a motivator.

This past week we had some beautiful weather in this part of Ohio, so I've taken to doing my runs outside. We're so lucky here in Athens to have the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway right on campus. It's less than half a mile from my apartment in Athens and less than half a mile from Jon's in Nelsonville, so it's easily accessible, safe, and, what's more, gorgeous. Oh, and it has mile markers that help you guestimate how far you've run. I've taken to using Map My Run to either plan my routes or check out what I've done, since I tend to stray from the path a bit and don't have an iPhone to use a GPS app like Run Keeper. If you have an iPhone, I recommend DLing it. Jon and some of his co-workers use it and it seems to work really well. We took an hour and a half walk the other day to enjoy the pretty weather and help him get back into working out and Run Tracker not only maps your route on a google map, but also tells you your pace, calories burned, distance, etc. Also, for you C25Kers, it lets you use it and listen to music (or your C25k Podcast) at the same time. Anyways, I'm done plugging the app, I'm content with the more tedious Map My Run in all my iPhoneless glory.

Anyways, I'm enjoying getting outdoors more after this epic winter. On one of my off days I took a chill 12-mile bike ride on the bikepath just to get a feel for where it goes and the scenery and all that and I can't wait to start seeing it get green and ready for spring. Also, I was so happy to finally get my bike out of storage. This means I can stop taking the bus and start biking to campus again. The only damper on the plan is that I can't figure out a) where I stored by bike lock and b) since I accidentally changed the code to unlock it last quarter, I think I've probably forgotten it... I might just have to buy a new one. Ulgh. Anyways, for now, I had to carry Mr. Bike down 2 flights of stairs from my apt to use him and then back up to store him in my bedroom. I love him, but he does take up quite a bit of space.

Today I'm going to do the Week 5, Day 2 Run and start at Jon's and head towards the bike path, so it'll be all new territory there too. Someday I'd love to leave my car in Athens and ride the whole way from Athens-Nelsonville (14.3 miles from my door to Jon's).

Let's see what haven't I updated about... Oh! I went and saw the PT for my knee last week, but I had taken the weekend off so when I got there it didn't hurt at all, so I kind of felt like the PT thought I was making it up. This week I'm supposed to run before I go see him so that he can see the difference and hopefully get a better idea. We'll see what happens! I just want to make sure this gets worked out so I can do the 5k in May.

Funny anecdote: I've told all the professors/people I work with I'm training for this 5k and yesterday I ran into one of them in Krogers. She looked in my cart and congratulated me on my tons of produce by saying "Gotta keep it healthy for that training!" It'll be fun to finish the 5k and show them photos in the end. :) Also, does anyone else surreptitiously check out the items in other people's carts? I tend to look at them and think "Oh, you could totally replace X with Y and it'd be so much better!" or "Wow, my cart really does look healthy (smile)." It's the little things I guess. Plus, if I don't bring it home, I can't eat it. Win!

Okay, well, sorry this post is so long and ramble-y. I'll try to be better this week about keeping you guys up to date. I really appreciate that you read/comment (this post is for you, Dave), it keeps me motivated. Actually, if the weather stays like it is, I think I'll take my camera with me and get some photos of my run to show you all. This week and next should be interesting for my runs since I'll be in Alabama this weekend and then back in Cincinnati for a few days for Spring Break. Hopefully I can find some fun places to run! More soon! :)