Half Marathon Eve

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone has very fun plans to dress up and go trick or treating, or hand out candy and get to see all of the adorable/scary/creative costumes. I was very excited to get to hand out candy this year, since we finally moved into a house in a neighborhood, rather than a normal college campus apartment complex (which kids don't really come trick or treating too). Unfortunately, because our half marathon is tomorrow, the expo is tonight, and we need to drive down to Indy to get checked in. Here is the schedule for tomorrow morning:

And here is the weather forecast for tomorrow morning:

It has been so beautiful here in Indiana lately--great running temps in the morning and evening (~50 degrees). This cold is moving in this evening--I haven't run in 30 degree weather since February or March! I know that I'll be ok, but it does throw off my outfit I was planning. And D doesn't even have any cold weather running gear, so I have no idea what he will wear! No big deal though, we'll get it all figured out and tackle this half marathon. Next time I update it will be a race report. :)

Pumpkin Bread!

Oh my gosh, I just made pumpkin bread, which I have never made before, and it. is. delicious. I was making it to send to my friend for her birthday, but I decided to make two loaves...thank goodness I did because it smelled amazing while it was cooking and I don't think I could have possibly resisted eating it. Here is a picture of the two loaves:

The smaller one I will send to my friend, and the larger one I am going to devour. I hope I can manage to save some of it for D. :) I also have a cinnamon candle burning, and I put new potpourri out, so our house smells like a Fall Explosion. I am so happy right now.

Studying for a grad level vibrations class doesn't seem so bad when you can do it with delicious bread and coffee. I think I should make a habit of this. :) Also I figured everyone would want to see a picture of Nova--she has to be in whatever room I'm in, so here she is laying on the kitchen floor while I was making the bread.

Resting After Injuries and a Crazy Doggie

Hello everyone!

After my last post, I was feeling very good about running, but my foot was hurting. It started to feel better a few days later, but (stupidly!) I went rock climbing and then it was so painful I could barely walk! It basically hurt right where this picture shows, specifically under my second toe:

This was very concerning considering I was only 2 weeks out from my half, and because...well, I walk a lot, and walking was hurting me a lot. I am very proud of myself though, because I have not run in over a week, and now it doesn't hurt at all! I hate taking time off from running, especially with a race coming up, but I knew I would regret it in the long run (hehe, no pun intended) if I didn't let it heal properly.

In other news, we have been training our dog to do different tricks and she learns so fast. I am super impressed with her, and I'm happy that we decided to add her to our family. :) Sometimes she does things that make me a little crazy...

Nova looking at me as if she'd done nothing wrong...after tearing up her whole bed

BUT overall, she is a great dog, and I love having her around. Even when she does stuff like tear up her bed, she still manages to look so cute that I can't be mad for long. :) Hope everyone has a great Tuesday!

Running to Achieve Balance

The past few weeks have been incredibly overwhelming for some reason. I have been very busy with research, and the class I'm taking is a lot of work--which I am able to accomplish after feeling dumb for about 10 hours of working on it. Plus our doggie has had a lot of energy which is hard to deal with when we get home around 9 pm, and makes me feel bad that we haven't been devoting more time to her. Overall I have just been left feeling very overwhelmed. I have been trying to figure out how to deal with it in a constructive way, but everything I tried (yoga, taking a break to watch some Netflix, taking time to think through everything on my to-do list) just left me feeling more behind. We even put off our long run on Sunday, due to a combination of being busy and the constant rain we have been having. I felt a lot like this:

Yesterday, we finally got to the long run, and somewhere in those 9 miles I started to feel better. The run took a long time because it started raining and was getting dark, so we went into the university rec center to finish it up. Once we were done, we had to walk back to campus to get our stuff, then walk home, so the whole event took almost 3 hours. Even with that amount of time spent not working on school stuff, I felt so much better!

It's interesting how your mood can change due to random things. I'm trying to remember how great I felt after the run, so I can keep feeling that all day. :) It's easier said than done. At least it's already Thursday, woo!

Long Weekend

This weekend was our Fall Break, which doesn't mean too much for graduate students, since we are still expected to make progress on our work, but I did have a fun weekend and took most of Monday off. I was supposed to get a long run in (9 miles), but it never stopped raining, so I will have to do it today even though it is still raining! Let's do a quick run through of my weekend fun. S

Saturday one of my best friends, a roommate from undergrad, came to Purdue to visit. She brought her boyfriend who I had never met before, so it was great to meet him. We went to the football game against Michigan State, which could have been really awful (we haven't been playing very well this year, and Michigan State is one of the best teams in the nation), but we actually held our own.

If you check out each quarter, we were actually doing quite well until half time. One of my good friends here at Purdue in grad school went to Michigan State for undergrad, so it was a healthy rivalry. I was really hoping that we'd beat Michigan State because it'd be an upset, and it would have forced her to give Purdue some love. :)

Saturday night we were worn out from the game, so we stayed in and played Trivial Pursuit. I don't think I have ever played before, but it was really fun! We didn't know a lot of the questions (in our defense, the game was from 1981, so things like Entertainment were rather outdated), so the game took a long time, but I think everyone had a good time. On Sunday morning we drove a half hour to see one of our other roommates from college, who recently bought a house, which is so adorable! We got to spend some time with her and her husband, which was great, and then we explored their house. It made me feel slightly inadequate, since I am still at Purdue (although I have graduated, left, and returned), and here she is with a beautiful house. They were even talking about having kids! 0_0 On the drive home though, I tried to put things in perspective, and realize that we are working hard to better ourselves here at Purdue, and that it's not healthy to compare your life to others. It reminded me of this great quote.

Monday I spent most of the day relaxing, which was nice. Tuesday I was mostly back to work--ah the life of a graduate student. Hope everyone has a great week!

Updates!

It's been awhile since I've posted--school has been extremely busy. No excuses though--I'm trying to get into the habit of blogging regularly, because I know it's good for my mental health. :) Last night Pentatonix came to Purdue, so we went to see their concert. It was awesome! If you haven't heard of them before, check out the video below.

They had such high energy, great vocals, and overall put on an amazing show. If you ever get the opportunity to see them live, I would definitely recommend it.

In other news, running has been going well. I got some new kicks, which so far I love.

That's all for now. Loving running in the refreshing fall weather! :)