Garages

I have discovered this phenomenon in my life called 'flights of stairs that kill me'. I can run for a while and not even break a sweat, but after climbing 2 flights of stairs (less than a minute later) I am totally out of breath. what is that about? i also decided this is kind of embarrassing when other people are around. i just want to scream, "Yes, I am out of breath! I don't know! i don't get it! I can run a 5k! Stop starring at me!" Luckily i have more tact than that, but i really do hate it, so i was telling this unfortunate occurrence in my life to my good friend Sarah F. She suggested that we run up and down the stairs for a break from the normal running we do. we were on campus at the time and so she suggested we go to one of the parking garages and run up and down the stairs. then she thought it would be even better to run up the stairs and down the slope of the garage. i suggested that we could run up the slope too if we got bored. so today i ran my first "Parking Garage." it was rough. Indiana humidity doesn't help. you would think that running up the slope of the parking garage would be the hardest, but no. not for me. the stairs continued to kill me. i think i ran (i use the term "ran" loosly)the stairs 4 times, up the garage 4 times and down it 6 or 7 times. my body is already yelling at me. i am going to be in some serious pain tomorrow. good pain though. I will do it again. i need a little spice in my life, even though the people driving in their cars in the parking garage looked at us like we were crazy. who does that?

5K!!!

I did it! I ran in a 5K. The Jay Cooperider Memorial 5K was almost two weeks ago. Sarah, Amy, and I ran in it. I had a goal of 50 minutes to finish it under. I know it is not that fast, but you got to start somewhere right? But the good news is i finished 2 minutes under my goal. I was pretty happy about that. Sarah finished way ahead of us. Amy pushed me the entire way. I needed her there. (Thanks Ames! You rock!) Here are some photos. The beginning of the race. Notice Sarah is already no where to be seen. She was way ahead.Check out Sarah busting it out! Nice!
And this is my finish. I was a little more relaxed about crossing the finish line. :)

my hair

i am not sure why i love to dye my hair so much, but i just do. i hadn't dyed it in a long time (8 months...which is a long time for me). i had no intention of dying it either.....buuuuuuuuut i did. i was hanging out with Sarah and she wanted me to re-dye her hair purple. to make a long story short i got sucked into the idea. I work at a bank which makes it hard to do anything crazy with my hair, but she put the purple on a small part toward the back, on the bottom layer. i love it!!! i wish i could put more of it in. the purple is really dark. (Muncie Central Bearcat purple, for those of you who know what that means) so far i am not in trouble. my manager says she can barely see it, and it looks fine. haha! i am so excited. Thanks Sarah! You rock!

the great outdoors

Running outside is a whole different beast than running on a treadmill. i thought my lungs were going to explode. That was pretty fun. i think i was not used to an uncontrolled environment. It was like 55 degrees outside when i was running. I wondered how long it would take someone to notice me collapsed and dying on the ground. I am freaking out a little about running this 5k. i may not survive. Does it seem like all i do is complain about running?

running

so this 5k is coming up in less than 5 weeks. i am pretty frustrated with my progress, but i am pushing on. i am running/walking on the treadmill at pace to get me done with the 5k in under an hour. not much under an hour though. my newest goal is to improve my time every time i go. i have finally resolved that i am just not going to be able to run the whole thing unless some running miracle happens. i have good days and bad days with my running. sometimes i feel like i am giving it everything i got after like 5 minutes. other days i can run for a while before i have to start pushing myself. i feel like that is probably pretty normal. oh well. i am excited just to do it no matter my ending time.

sleep

I remember the days when i could sleep at night. they are long gone for me. I think i am averaging about 4 hours of sleep a night (for the past 3 weeks). it has been taking me almost 2 hours to fall asleep and i wake up at about 5 every morning. i just lay there and pretend like i am sleeping with no success. i don't really get it. i am not napping. i work out most days, and do other physical activities like playing volleyball and going out dancing on a regular basis. you would think my body would give out and fall asleep. i am tired in the afternoon, but that is about the only time. on the bright side of things i get to see the sun rise and set everyday, and i have all kinds of spare time on my hands. my apartment is cleaner than it has been in a long time. my laundry is all done, folded and put away (something that rarely happens). i feel like this can only last so long before i just collapse somewhere and stay asleep for like 27 hours. hopefully it is in my bed and not somewhere embarrassing. :)

rainy days and mondays...

...always get me down. Friday and today (Monday) were not good days at work for me. I think i yelled at two customers on Friday (i use the word "yell" loosely). I got told on two different occasions that i looked about 40 years old. That was fun. They weren't joking either. One customer wouldn't let it go. When my face turned red because she had embarrassed me, she told me that it is okay to have hot flashes during Menopause. she is one of the ones that i got a little feisty with. Today i got in trouble for having .1 hours of overtime last week and counting the vault wrong on Friday (not by a lot). Work is beginning to stress me out. Uuuuuugggggh!