Bikerturnedrunner's Weblog

Update

bikerturnedrunner — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:27:52 +0000

Running’s not going well. Been skipping far too many days. However, I did manage to wake up at 5:15 this morning to go run. At the time, it didn’t seem bad at all. Now I’m barely managing to stay awake.

I’ve also decided I need to regroup my efforts to lose weight. Belly still is fat.

I need to go bra shopping. I never get really into panties, but I do enjoy all kinds of bras.

Got drunk with the roommates and some other friends on Thursday. It was a lot of fun until one of them started to get sick and I had to spend the next two hours taking care of her while one other roommate was asleep and the fourth was flirting with yet another one of my guy friends. She hooked up with another friend of mine a week ago, so we’ve decided that’s not allowed to happen again. Especially because that guy is asking me for advice on how to continue pursuing her and she’s asking for advice on how to turn him down. Meanwhile I’m still single. Where’s the justice in that?

Sweet Rewards

bikerturnedrunner — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:58:01 +0000

Went out on Friday and got my belly button pierced. By far the most rebellious thing I’d ever do to my body. I’m doing everything possible to make sure it doesn’t get infected. So far there do not seem to be any problems. I told my mom and she freaked just a little bit. I don’t plan on telling my dad since I know he would freak even more.

Went on a 12 mile run on Saturday. It was honestly really terrible. I averaged over 11 min/mile and almost died while doing it. The whole not-running-for-two-weeks-because-I-was-lazy thing was definitely stupid. I was supposed to do a 7 mile run yesterday, but I’m going to do it this evening instead. I’m hoping to do 9.25 min/mile, but we’ll see how that goes.

I had a great day tutoring yesterday. There are some days when I just want to shake my students because I can’t get through to them. However, yesterday was more of a day when I felt like they were all making real progress. It always feels good when it seems like I’m doing some good.

Slacking on Training but Planning Life

bikerturnedrunner — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:45:03 +0000

The past two weeks, I have majorly slacked off on my training. I don’t even want to think about how little I’ve done. Between working at my co-op from 8:30-5:30, tutoring about 2 hours a night after work, and spending way too much time with friends, I simply haven’t been able to force myself up and out the door. However, I finally got up this morning and ran a little over 5 miles. I have to admit, I’d kind of forgotten how good it felt to wake up in the morning and run, even when it is still dark out. I want to do 7 miles tomorrow morning and it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of route I can come up with that won’t take me anywhere to sketch in the pre-dawn hours of the morning.

The good news the past couple of weeks is that I have been planning out my future. For awhile now, I’ve merely been going through the paces without any real goals for the future. It was hard, because I spent the first 18 years of my life focusing on getting into the college of my choosing and studying something math related (seriously, the first job I ever wanted was to be a mathematician. And that was when I was five). However, I think I now finally have a better idea of what I want with my future. I really want to go into consulting and get my MBA after about two years of work. I know it’s not the world’s most unique ambition, but now that I have something to plan for, it’ll really help motivate me.

A Better Kind of Feminism

bikerturnedrunner — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:40:27 +0000

Politics are a passion of mine. What do I do when I’m bored? Get online and start searching for the latest political gossip. What’s my favorite topic of conversation? Definitely politics. I have no problem bringing up the latest election news and my opinions about it all on a first date. If you’re not conservative, we have no chance. Just for clarification, when asked, I never say I am a Republican. Yes, I almost always vote Republican. However, I am far more conservative than most Republicans in office.

Needless to say, the Palin story has been very interesting to me. When the choice was leaked on Friday, I spent the rest of the weekend grinning like a school girl with her first crush. She is everything a conservative girl could hope for: she shoots, she’s hot, she doesn’t think feminism equals pro-choice and pro-equal pay bills. The last thing is what I really like about her. I’m not anti-female; I just think that trying to pass legislation demanding equality is the wrong way to gain respect from men. The respect has to be gained through actions. I fully believe that if I work hard and am good at my job, I will be as successful as any man of equal worth. Some people might call this naive, but I think it is reality. Look at Palin. She was able to go from beauty pageants to the governor’s mansion.

One of the first things I did after hearing about the nomination was to look for pictures of the announcement. I was looking for the answer to one question: pants or skirt? I was thrilled with the answer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think women should have to wear skirts all the time. However, I see no reason someone should have to hide the fact she is female. Women in their so called “power suits” purposely project the image of manliness. Taking this thought just one step further, and she says she must be a man to be powerful. Doesn’t this logic ruin the whole point of feminism?

I am excited to have a female role model who can be powerful while not hiding the fact she is female. However, I also don’t want her to use her gender as a crutch. I am amazed by the rapid reversal of those shouting out, “sexism!” and those suddenly defending their actions. A woman’s role as a parent has always been different from a man’s role and until men start giving birth and breast-feeding babies, it always will be different. With that logic, I can understand some people attacking her for working so hard while her children are young. It’s reality, not sexism. If the Republicans keep shouting about sexism, they’ll all be called hypocrites. However, if the Democrats continue their line of attack, real questions of sexism will have to be answered.

I look forward to Palin’s speech tonight and am already curious about the media’s reaction. I am sure I will have much more to say in the coming days.

The Challenge

bikerturnedrunner — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:48:26 +0000

While I was sleeping last night, my roommates came up with a competition. Basically, they decided it would be fun to compete to see who’s the biggest whore. While the rules have not yet been officially hammered out, the idea is that you will get points for how far you get with guys. The really sad thing: I’m the only one in the apartment who has actually had sex, but I’m also losing (they decided it is retroactive to the beginning of the semester. My one night fling missed out by a couple of weeks). So yeah, even my roommate who has only ever kissed one guy has points while I have none. However, my roomies don’t know me that well. They don’t realize that I am incredibly competitive and I will make sure I win. And now I don’t have to worry about coming up with any new pick-ups lines, it’s simply, “want to help me win a competition?”

More details to come once I actually learn the rules.

Long Run

bikerturnedrunner — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:49:48 +0000

You know those days where you start running and you just get in a groove a feel like you could continue forever? Yesterday was one of those days for me. I did my long run of the week, which was 11 miles. There’s a loop around campus that’s a little over 3 miles and it was late enough that I didn’t want to go off campus, so I just did the loop about three and a half times. The first loop I did with my roommate who’s not much of a runner. It took us about 33 minutes to do about 3 miles. I ended up enjoying starting out at a slower pace, because it meant I was warmed up and ready to go for the last 8 miles. It was drizzling when I started the run, but it was hardly anything noticeable. However, around mile 6 it started pouring down rain. I think that encouraged me to pick up my pace a bit. In the end, I finished in 1 hour 50 minutes, so I really picked up the pace from where I started. My back and feet were sore when I finished, but I felt fine this morning.

Wondering

bikerturnedrunner — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:37:18 +0000

I realized my blog posts are always really really scattered and cover a wide range of topics. So this post is only going to be about one things. Boys. Actually, one boy in particular. We’ll call him MT (not his initials, but part of the initials of a nickname).

I met early on in my freshman year of college when we were in a club together. We lived in dorms really close to each other, so we frequently walked to and from meetings together. Around this time, the Cardinals were in the playoffs, so he would frequently invite himself over (okay, I also invited him a few times, but usually he invited himself) to watch the games with me.

It quickly became very obvious that MT was attracted to me. However, he had terrible timing as I was just starting to date Eric. Nothing happened between MT and I my freshman year, but we became very close friends. I can honestly say that he is one of my closest friends at Tech. In fact, when I went home a few weeks ago, he met me in St. Louis (where he was interning), and drove me to Columbia where he stayed with my family for the weekend. I’m not sure whether or not he still likes me. He hasn’t done anything recently to indicate he is interested in more than friendship. However, as my lovely roomie enjoys pointing out, those types of crushes never really go away.

So the logical question is, how do I feel about MT? The honest answer is that I’m not sure. He really is a great guy, one of the smartest people I have ever met. However, and I know this is a bit cliche, he’s just not my type. More than anything, it really frustrates me that he always just seems to be going through the motions in life. I don’t think I’ve ever sensed any real passion from him. He really just doesn’t seem to care enough about anything. I need a guy who will get excited about something, ANYTHING! My lovely roomie, who is also friends with him, said that if MT and I ever dated, she would give him all kinds of wonderful ideas of things he should do for me and we both know he would do it all. However, that’s really the problem. I need a guy who will think for himself and have his own ideas about excitement.

Eric and I always joked/were kind of talked seriously about how Eric had no emotions. And yeah, I am kind of convinced that he has no heart. However, he at least had incredible passion for what he wanted to do with his life. Until MT can show a little bit of that, I’m afraid that we will really have to stay friends.

More training and a new semester

bikerturnedrunner — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:17:00 +0000

First, my training has been going fairly well this week. On my Wednesday run I did 5 miles instead of 6, but otherwise I have been on track. It’s a lot better than last week when I was at the beach and did almost no running. The days I did run, I kept getting really confused on the paths around the island so I did a lot of little loops and other not so fun stuff. For my 9 mile run (I knew that would be a bad one to skip), I actually ran on the beach. It did make the run a bit more interesting, but I really hate sand, and of course I got some in my shoes. Yuck.

This week I’ve been doing a lot of working out with other people. One of the groups of guys I hang out with workout every night at 9, so when I can, I join them. We did abs last night, and I’m not too sore yet, but I can tell I will be soon. The workout was:

30 sit-ups

30 flutter kicks (a count of 4 counts as one, so it’s really 120 kicks)

30 knee-ins (no idea whether or not that’s the real name)

30 crunches

30 side crunches (one set on each side)

30 leg lifts

repeat everything for 3 sets

I really need to keep up with doing a good abs workout like that because I’m stilling aiming to get my belly button pierced sometime soonish.

The worst part of working out with the guys is that we do it so late so I don’t get to sleep until midnight or later. Then I wake up at 6 or 7 (depending on whether or not I’m running in the morning), so I’ve been averaging about 6 hours of sleep a night. It’s not nearly enough. I was looking forward to sleeping in sometime this weekend, but between tutoring (I tutor the ACT and SAT) and running, I know it’s not going to happen. It is kind of sad how the first thing that gets kicked out of my schedule when I’m busy is sleep. Oh well, that’s the life of a Tech student. And I’m glad I’m doing a lot of tutoring because I definitely enjoy the money. I just bought a TiVo and I’m super excited about it. Definitely not something I would splurge on if I weren’t making all kinds of crazy money from the tutoring.

I have to say that I am super excited about this semester. I have two fantastic new roommates and one absolutely amazing old roommate. Three of us (the other had not yet moved in) got trashed together last Saturday, along with few other friends. One of the new roommates just transfered to Tech, so we’ve been introducing her to the intricacies of Tech. One thing that she didn’t believe us about and how to experience for herself was how overwhelming the guy to girl ratio can be. She told us she sat and counted during her math class. There were 6 girls and 34 guys. We told her that’s really not at all unusual. Even with the people we hang out with, she’s been shocked by the ratio. Saturday (with the way too much drinking) actually had a 1:1 ratio since it was us girls and 3 guys. That was probably the last time she’ll be in that situation again.

Anyway, I’m at work (my co-op, obviously not blogging while tutoring), so I need to go find something else to pretend to keep busy with. Oh, and super super excited because Adam Wainwright is pitching tonight!!! If he weren’t married, I would totally find a way to go after him. I might anyway

Woot! Running!

bikerturnedrunner — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:53:14 +0000

So my running for the week has been:

Saturday: 4.7 miles in 43 minutes 44 sec

Sunday: 8 miles in 85 minutes 9 seconds

Monday: rest

Tuesday: 2.7 miles in 26 minutes 33 sec

Wednesday: 3 miles forgot the time before I recorded it

Thursday: 5 miles in 52 minutes 2 seconds

I would have liked to do almost all of the runs a minute or two faster, but I did everything except Wednesday’s run outside and it has been incredibly hot and humid. I went to the Cardinals game on Friday at Busch Stadium and there were some Philly fans sitting in front of us. The entire time they were complaining about how hot and humid it was. It really is just as bad here as it has been in Atlanta.

Back to running, like I said, it was an incredibly hot and humid week. I’m guessing I lost 2-3 pounds of water weight during my long run. I really need to stay better hydrated during the day and get something to carry water with me for the long runs. The good thing is that next week I’ll be at the beach so it’ll be cooler. Then the week after that, I’ll be back to working so I’ll be running at about 6 am rather than 10-11 am. I love sleeping in, but wow it sucks for running.

Let’s go Cardinals!

bikerturnedrunner — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 22:16:12 +0000

So I am super super stoked. I’m about to go to the Cardinals game! I absolutely love the Cardinals and tonight’s game should be pretty spectacular since Carp is making his return from Tommy John surgery. Though I would be even more exciting if Wainwright were returning. I know Carp is supposed to be better, but I still love how Adam stepped up and became our closer right into time for the 2006 playoffs.

Running update: Did 4.9 miles today in 48 minutes and 53 seconds. I would have prefer to be a couple minutes faster, but I went too late (around 10 am), so it was hella humid.