Ketchup Time

I think I mentioned in my first blog post that I started my blog because I was anticipating being bored in the coming weeks. Somehow though, I have been incredibly busy and have been keeping myself remarkably entertained. Alas, I need to catch up on my blogging.

Here is what I have been up to in the last couple of weeks:

1. Graduation – On an adventure front, I split a 15 minute 200 meter to reach my seat in the stadium. I also had two clif bars stashed in my gown in awkward places. Fortunately, gowns are not form fitting, and chocolate brownie breast implants are remarkably even. Except after I ate the first clif during the student speaker.

Find me? Where's Waldo for Stalkers

 At my neuroscience graduation I am pretty sure the announcer secretly thanked my parents for my pronounceable first name and simple, yet comical, middle name of Daisy. After many difficult name pronunciations, followed by “wrote a thesis on 5RQ1TRP Channel on Apflyksia Trystonia,” my simplicity was a nice intermission.

2. ECACs (East Coast Championships) – My whole family got to come out to the race and experience their first track meet! After watching many of the steeple chasers puke and fall flat on their face before my race started, my family accepted my simple pants-peeing with relief. I forgot to ask my splits and I still don’t know them, but considering I heard a whole bunch of 85 second 400 splits for the first mile and a half, I think the last half/third of the 5k was as quick as it felt. I wound up running a 16:32 in a very tactical race to take 3^rd.  

3. NCAAs – DNF. Ugh. More than anything in my life I hate those three letters strung together. This was actually my first DNF in any race, rep, run, or event, ever. I was having foot pain for a week leading up to the race and just ran on the Alter-G treadmill before the race. I am pretty sure I have a huge pain tolerance because I couldn’t even feel my foot during the race, but I literally just could not land on my right foot. After 4 miles, I became concerned about shattering my metatarsal bones. Alas, I stepped off.

It’s funny that I initially felt relief after seeing the X-Ray a couple of days later. I have stress fractures in my second and third metatarsals and a reaction in the fourth. I guess in my mind it justified the horrifying DNF letters.  However, the relief lasted a mere hour - I spent the next three locked in my room throwing a massive temper tantrum. Mature, I know. I could have even logged the temper tantrum in my training log. My heart rate probably exceeded standard pool running maximums.  

My NCAA takeaway – 1. Don’t run with stress fractures 2. Run an all out 100 meter dash at the start of the 10k to avoid the mess of 48 people in a track start. Then slow down to 90 second pace and force a tactical race.

Again - Where's Waldo? This absurdity resembles a graduation procession in speed.

 5. Apartment Re-doing – This involved creating three piles for everything in the apartment: 

      1. Why in the world is this here? – no one should ever be subjected to this – TRASH

             Examples – David’s wolf shirt. Musty Firewood. 2009 Mustard.

      2. Goodwill donations

Examples – 2^nd grader pjamas. Animal Hats.

     3. Things to bring back home.

Examples – Racing arm warmers.

We did, however, find a street sign that said “no ball playing allowed.” This was spared from all three piles and now hangs in the bathroom.

6. Cooking – read ketchup and kale.

7. Epic amounts of reading – Life of Pi, Wild, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hunger Games Trilogy, A Long Way Gone. Part of the apartment re-doing comes with creating a library composed mostly of used books acquired from second hand stores. No matter how cheap a book is on an iPad or Kindle, I just won’t do it. Hmm, literally.

Although I'm in Boulder, I promise (Mom, Dad - this is for you) that I'm not a free-lovin' soul. I just found this hilarious.

I’m in Colorado at the moment and will post more adventures as they occur! Mostly in the form of epic bike climbs until my foot heals up. Thanks for reading!