Triathlon

So for the longest time I have been wanting to run a half marathon. I planned to do one in Austin that took place during this semester but I didn't. My dad is a big fan of running like I am. I think he was a big influence on me when I was little, and because my dad really liked sports and running, I wanted to really like sports and run. So I started running with him since I was in Elementary and ever since. He told me he wanted to run a half marathon a couple of years ago, and we have been wanting to do that but it just never happened. Now, he is signed up and training to do a triathlon! Which is awesome, but not my cup of tea. I'm a decent runner, but terrible at swimming and biking. On the other hand, my father is pretty good at all three, and so I'm excited that hes doing this. I plan to get a date of a half marathon soon, and sign up early. That way I know I have to train and just do it.

Final.

With graduation coming up and this being my last semester as an undergraduate student, you would think that the semester was going to be easy. There's this term known as "senioritis", and I never really related to it my first semester a senior. I have different opinions now. It's crazy how busy I am with the organizations I co-founded; which did really well this semester, not to toot my own horn. And now with finals week coming close, a lot of my professors decided to team up against the student body and make a bunch of projects and assignments due at the same time. I;m dying and more than ever want to run. But if I want to finish the semester strong, I have to dedicate all my time to school. At least for the past two weeks I have. I'm incredibly stressed and I guess that just goes to show that it's hard to manage your time as a college student to find time to do the things you want to do. Hopefully during the summer I have a lot more time to work out and get back in shape like I've been trying to do this whole semester! And hopefully I don't have to just keep saying that I want to make time and actually find the time. As for now, time to keep writing for my 10 page research paper due at 11:59 P.M. tonight! D:

How do they do it?!

Sometimes I get sad when i hear about how much people are able to run. I think about when I was in high school and had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted to, without a worry of any other responsibilities. Yeah, you could say school was one of them. But it was never something that I had to invest a lot of time into. Therefore, I had all the time I wanted to work out and play sports. Working out two to three times a day was a regular thing. Run four miles, go to soccer practice and then head to the weight room to pump some iron! Like nothing. Sports were a huge part of my life. Now I can barely handle to run a couple of days out of the week. I can hardly find the time! And honestly, when I do have some time to relax, I would rather take a nap or watch a little bit of T.V because of how tired I am all the time from work and school and the organization.
Today when I woke up, my dad came home after a six mile run. This got me thinking about how I don't have the time or the condition to run six miles anymore. Maybe when I'm older, have a steady job, and have more time on my hands I'll be able to run a lot more. One can only hope.

Stress week

I have to be honest and say that this week I didn't run at all! With school and work and all of the other responsibilities we have, sometimes its hard to balance and make the time to work out. I really miss it though. Sometimes I need to work out in times of stress in order to feel okay. 

It has been proven to be a necessity of mine when I am stressed out. In the earlier years of college when I took 18 hours and I wasn't so used to a heavy load, running was a must to get away from everything for a little bit and just clear my head. One afternoon, coming home from school, I was determined to go for a run before anything else. As I was about to walk through my front door, my father came rushing out and said he needed my help with some things. I knew that if I helped him, I would probably loose the little free time I was gonna use to go for a run and told him I wanted to run. Sternly, he told me he really needed my help and that my run could wait. In desperation that I wasn't going to get to run and had so much to do after anyway, I started crying. When my father saw my reaction, he asked why I was crying with a worried look on his face. I explained to him that I had the most stressful week and still had a ton to do. I also told him that I had carefully planned out my day to just have enough time to afford to run for 40 minutes and still get all my work done, but by helping him I knew I wouldn't be able to run anymore. He then let me off the hook and I was able to complete my run. I was astonished to see the difference it made and how much more relaxed I felt after running. For people like me, running is vital and everyone has their different ways of relaxing. From experience, I highly recommend to make time for those certain activities every once in a while.  

high intensity intervals

When running at one pace gets easy, I try to switch it up and do high intensity intervals. You can do this on a treadmill or running outside. 

When I am on the treadmill, I usually just warm up for five minutes on not such a high speed, like five. Then, I go up to six for one minute and then up again to eight or nine for 30 seconds. I keep this rhythm until I reach 15 or 20 minutes, depending on how in shape I am. After that i go down to seven and keep that speed for the rest of my run. 

If I'm running outside, I do something very similar. Usually I'll run about half a mile, and begin the intervals. However, instead of doing it by minutes, I sprint to a designated section of the trail and that makes it a little more fun because I'm not waiting for the 30 seconds to be up. 

These intervals help me improve my endurance and also give muscle tone. It's good to change the routine once in a while so your body doesn't get used to one thing and you stop seeing improvements.    

Changing it up

The scenery as you run, I think is a crucial factor to whether you tire easily and faster. I think we can all agree that with a good view, running is way more pleasurable. There are even inventions now a days to make running on a treadmill more entertaining. Of course you can listen to music and that helps, but if you run for 40 minutes staring at a wall, its not very fun. Some fancy treadmills have a screen that plays a variety of videos with amazingly beautiful scenery. I once chose to run through some city in Italy. As cool as that sounds, its fun the first few times you use all the videos and then it gets boring again. 

For these reasons and many more, I have always preferred to run outside. Wether it be a park or sidewalk trails, running outside is way better. You never see the exact same thing; as weather fluctuates you get to improve and change your stamina; there is the opportunity to take pets with you; breathing fresh air is always a plus too. 

The valley is luckily a place with a lot of parks. This gives you a wide variety to pick where you want to run. The parks vary everywhere from size to difficulty of trails. One of my favorite ones to run in is Bill Schupp park in McAllen. It is pretty big, and the trail isn't concrete. It is made out of loose rock gravel, and dirt. That's the best way I can describe it. I like this because it's not as rough on the knees for me. Running on concrete trails will hurt my knees after a while, and the rocks relieve the tension and change the pressure points on every step. I ran in this park this past Friday with my boyfriend and it was really enjoyable. We like to change up the places where we run and this week we ran here. 

My only complaint about running outside is that the weather can be hard to run in. However, like I mentioned, this can improve your stamina. It was really hard to run only three miles because if how hot it was! With time, you start getting more in shape and it becomes normal to run in different weathers. I can't wait to get used to the heat, because it's about to get a lot hotter. 

Me time

Today I ran four miles again. I love how the first mile is the hardest, and when I get to the two mile mark I basically forget that I am running. My breathing and pace settle, and my mind wanders with thoughts about responsibilities, emotions, and life in general. A little after getting two miles in my run, I always look at the tons of Political propaganda posters located in the stretch from Dove to Nolana. I noticed a man putting up a banner for one of the Congressman that are running in he election. I just ran by him, smiled, and waved as I usually do when I pass someone as I'm running. 

On my way back to Dove, I passed by the poster again and he was still there. I noticed that he said something, so I slowed down and removed my headphones. He started talking about some high school coach, assuming I was still in high school (he mentioned I looked really young, and it didn't help that I was wearing one of my old high school shirts). When I told him I went to college, he was really surprised, laughed, and wished me a good run. Running for me has always been something that I do to de-stress and is just the time where I have a lot of time to think. I call it "me time".

The man talking to me about high school made me think back to high school, and my coaches, and soccer, and track, and volleyball. I love sports and have so much fun doing them. A lot of times I wish that I would've taken them seriously in high school, so I could've had the opportunity to play something in college and maybe even professionally. I think of all the opportunities I had, and if I could go back I would do a lot of things differently. However, I realized I really did learn a lot from playing sports in high school. Now, I am able to do things more efficiently. I know little tricks that help me run faster, longer, and not get as tired. I also really enjoy playing volleyball and soccer, even if it is not at a very competitive level. I am grateful that my coaches stressed form, and technique. I remembered, my summer track coach made me sit in front of a mirror holding dumbbells in each hand to improve my running form. I never had the best form for anything really. My running start was always off, but I still managed to get qualifying times in varsity track. My overhand serve in volleyball was a little funky, but I was still able to get it over the net in 6th grade. My swing in tennis made the ball go really high, but I still managed to win the games. My point with all this, is that I feel like I had potential in many sports and if I worked on little things like bettering these details and I put more time into practicing, I could've gotten somewhere in these things. 

It makes me kind of sad and disappointed sometimes, but it helps me work hard and keep my head straight in the things I do today. So in some way, playing sports in high school taught me a lot of things. And that man, that happened to think I was in high school helped me remember and value the lessons life has taught me. This is what usually happens when I run. I take time to just evaluate my life. I take some me time.