Injured Again

Hey guys.

I really am trying to get back into the swing of blogging. Like I said the other day, I miss it. And I am in desperate need of an outlet… Especially now.

Warning: this post is going to be even more depressing and lacking in energy than usual. It will also very likely be mildly melodramatic. Proceed with caution.

Workout – 30 minute interval cycling workout on the stationary bike + 25 minutes of intervals on the elliptical.

So, as the title kind of already says, I am injured. Again.

My life for a while.

During my run the other day, I was feeling sharp, but not unbearable, pain in my inner ankle/calf region of my right leg. I figured that the muscle was just tight, as my calve muscles typically are, and that the hills of Central Park were just getting to me. I thought I just had to get used to the uneven terrain and hills of Central Park. Nothing to worry about. I was just thrilled that the deep blisters on my heels were finally recovered enough to be able to actually run without having to stop due to pain.

The next day, I did speed work on the treadmill and felt fine. Actually, I felt great. Such a great workout. I was stoked.

So after my workout, I packed up my things and went home for the long weekend. That evening, I noticed that the muscle in my leg was feeling very tight again. Again, I didn’t really think much of it.

I spent that night at my grandparents’ house, and laced up the next morning for a 5 mile run. Well, I made it about 3 miles before I was hobbling and crying from pain. Being my insane self… I forced myself to do at least one more mile… And then I had to stop. I couldn’t take it.

I had a therapy appointment and had to drive out about 45 minutes in severe pain. I made an appointment with my chiropractor for right after my therapy session and rushed there after. Unfortunately, due to the new health care laws, my chiropractor isn’t really able to spend as much time with each patient as she used to. So I was hooked up to the electric stim machine to loosen up the muscle for a while, and then she came in, looked at it, told me to go get an ace bandage, and wrapped my leg up with ice. She also worked on the muscle a little bit and I, one who has a VERY high pain tolerance, was sobbing. I can’t even explain the amount of pain.

Needless to say… She told me not to run. I, being the emotionally unstable person that I am, started, to my complete mortification, crying… Yup. Crying. Right there in front of everyone. I felt like the world was ending.

Like I said, quite the melodramatic post.

Here’s the thing, I had just come from therapy, and that already typically makes me more emotional that I usually am (and I am already a pretty emotional person). I had just had a great session, we spoke about how I have been scaring myself lately with how low I have been. I have been unable to find it in me to even text my best and only friend, let alone attempt to make new friends at my new school. I haven’t been able to find it in me to do my school work. Leaving my dorm to go to class is unbearable. My only salvation? Getting up and running every morning. Joanne (my absolutely amazing therapist) said how important it is for me that I even get up in the morning to run. It is the one thing that allows me to face the world. It is the one thing that makes me truly grateful for the body that I have and that makes me think about how much I truly love this world. It is the one thing that keeps me going and feeling like maybe I may have some sort of purpose in this world. I spend most of my time feeling like a failure. I don’t know what I am doing with my life. I don’t know what I am meant to do. I don’t know what my purpose is. I hate my body. I don’t have friends and I don’t feel as though I can handle having friends right now, yet I am terrified that I will now be alone forever. I feel as though I am wasting my college experience and that I am wasting my life.

But running makes me feel a glimpse of hope. It is the one thing that can actually make me feel ok about myself.

With my being in such a truly terrible place right now… I need my running now more than ever. And I can’t do that.

On top of that, I have no idea when I will be able to run again. It is my favorite season for running right now, and it only lasts a few weeks. Also, like I addressed the other day, I have gained weight and I am not ok with this… And now I really can’t workout except for the bike.

I am just at a complete loss. And I know that I am being stupid and dramatic and trust me, I of all people know that there are much worse things in this world than a temporary injury preventing me from running. It is just that I have really been scaring myself recently and running was my only salvation. I just feel like it is always something going wrong and I just don’t know what to do. Also, my mobility is very limited. I have trouble getting up and down the stairs due to pain, and walking is painful and problematic… I am not good at sitting an doing nothing. Again, I feel as though I am wasting time.

I just don’t know.

Sorry! I’ll try to be more positive tomorrow. I just really needed to vent.

On a more positive note… I put up a new makeup tutorial today! It’s a fall look inspired by the iconic autumn drink, the pumpkin spice latte. Hope you enjoy!

Pyramid Runs and Miley Cyrus

Hi friends. I’m making myself sit down and actually write a blog post because I have felt too overwhelmed to do so lately. I don’t know, between school, work, the sorority, and things happening both in my personal life and back home, I just haven’t felt up to doing… well… anything. Even things that I love such as blogging/writing. But I’m sitting myself down right now with the small window of time that I have before chapter to sip some coffee and write, and I am already calmer.

First thing’s first, I hope you all had a terrific Valentine’s Day, regardless if you had a significant other to share it with or not! I had work from 7-4 on V-Day so I sold lots of heart cookies to happy couples. The highlight of my day was getting a Valentine’s Day card from my mom and a letter from my best friend.

 

The rest of my night was spent watching Sex and the City with my friend before passing out. I know, quite the exciting day.

Side Note: I would love nothing more than to be Carrie Bradshaw and live in an apartment in New York City and write books and magazine articles for a living… That’s the dream.

 

It wouldn’t need to be as extravagant as hers… Just a little studio apartment in Manhattan. Just thinking about it makes my heart race.

Yesterday, I finally had a day where I had nothing on my schedule besides catching up on both my sleep and my school work. I finally finished up my essay about Miley Cyrus’ twerking at the VMAs (which basically turned into a piece about girl power and Hollywood’s double-standards regarding females embracing their sexualities), so here’s hoping that it gets positive feedback from my peer group! The way the class works is that we are put into workshop groups with other classmates and we read each others pieces and critique each paper. I have a good feeling about my paper, I am pretty proud of it! My main concern is that the tone may be too conversational.

Here’s a little excerpt from it… Because I’m sure you care so much about my college writing class paper.

“So why is Miley under such fire? Is her prancing around practically naked degrading women? Or is it empowering them? Miley’s performance was different in the sense that she was not simply prancing around her male counterpart on stage like a pretty little thing meant to be enjoyed. She was weird and raunchy and made less than beautiful faces with that tongue of hers, and she dominated the attention. She said, “I know you want it,” to Thicke, instead of it going the other way around. She was the dominant one.

Miley, when interviewed by BBC Radio, said, “I feel like I am one of the biggest feminists.” (BBC News). While this may be a slight overstatement, she definitely does have her mind in the right place. She said that she is, “for anybody and anything.” (BBC News). She wants people to feel like they can completely be themselves and do what they want to without worrying about being judged. She says that she tells women to not be afraid of anything, so why are we condemning this young woman as nothing more than a whore with a foam finger?”

Reading it back now, I realize that it really is not a great essay… But it’s just a pre-write! We shall see what comes next.

Yesterday, I also tried a new treadmill workout that I found on the Runner’s World website.

 + 5 min warm up and cool-down

It was A LOT harder than I expected… I started off trying to take the hills at the same pace that I would run on a casual, steady-state run outside… Yeah.. By the third round of hills that was not possible. I wound up having to take most of them at around a 9 minute mile. I definitely need to start incorporating more incline work on the treadmill to build up my strength.

Followed up with the newest Tone It Up leg workout.

After that was dinner and more Sex and the City…

I was really feeling down yesterday so my mom sent me a whole bunch of pictures of us. I miss her so much. I don’t care how pathetic and immature it sounds, I really can’t handle being thousands of miles away from my mom.

Isn’t she beautiful? She is even more so in person!

Now, I am off to run and to get some more work done. Until next time!

Yooo… It’s Turkey Day!!!

Well… First and foremost… Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I know that I haven’t posted in a couple of days. See, I got home really late on Monday, I didn’t really feel like posting anything. I was too busy running around my house yelling about how much I love it (true story). Tuesday was spent running a million and one errands and then spending some quality (and much needed) time with my mom and brother.

Yesterday (Wednesday) was alumni day at my high school. Honestly, last year at alumni day, I looked at all the alumni coming back to visit the school and thought, “Why the heck would any one ever want to come back here?” And then there I was, waking up at 8 to go to a school mass at my old high school.

I had a great day. I met up with two of my friends from cross country (we all tackle-hugged each other, it was great), and my absolute best friend in the world. We all went inside, saw people, went to mass, mingled, spoke to old favorite teachers. It was just such a great day and I am so glad that I made myself go to it.

Now, finally, onto today!

First off… Happy Thanksgiving!! (Did I already say this?)

I started my day off bright and early (ok it was actually 9, which really isn’t early at all), laced up, and headed off to my local turkey trot!

I know that all towns have different forms of turkey trots, some being 5ks, some being longer. The turkey trot by me is a 5 miler and the proceeds to to muscle dystrophy and lymphoma research!

The turkey trot is something that I look forward to every year. It is such a fun run, and it is so amazing to see so many people out on a cold morning  and running together.

I think that the thing that makes me happiest about races like the turkey trot, is all of the different aged people there. I saw  people running that were well over 70, and I also saw kids that looked no older than 10. Running is just such a universal sport. It really is for everyone. It makes me so happy.

I finished with the clock time of …. 42.01 … I’m kind of grossed out. Did I run it like a race? No. But still… two years ago I ran it with an average pace of 7:50…. I’m just kind of disgusted with myself and how fat and not in shape I feel. I know that a lot of it is supposedly just that little monster in my head making me see things that aren’t really there… but I can’t help but think these things.

After the race, I saw that they were giving out full sized Zico chocolate coconut water. Being the coconut water enthusiast and broke college student that I am…. I was sooo all over that. I waited in line and… the person before my got the last one! So sad.

After the race, I showered, and then it was time to get to work!

So much baking. So much cleaning. So much rocking out to the Rolling Stones with my totally awesome mother.

Ever since my father passed away a couple of years ago, Thanksgiving has been a really small affair for us. It’s kind of just an open house over here. My grandparents and my grandpa’s brother come over, my neighbors (who happen to be my aunt, cousins, and great aunt) pop in at some point normally, and sometimes a couple of my mom’s brothers and their families pop in. It’s just a whole bunch of people coming and going. Sometimes it’s kind of sad, but at the same time, I love just sitting down with my grandparents and talking and hearing stories. I really am blessed to have the close family that I do have. I am so… well… thankful!

The spread

‘

My plate… my favorite part was the brussel sprouts. I have such an unhealthily large love for brussel sprouts.

I

I made these traditional turkey cupcakes!

I hope that you all had a great thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for. I have a wonderful mother and brother. I have a family that is super super super close. I have cousins that are like siblings to me. I have grandparents that I love to the moon and back and get to see all the time. I have legs. I can run. I can work out. I have a home. I have a couple of friends that are pretty much the greatest people in the world. I am so thankful. I don’t say it enough. None of us do. There is so much to be thankful for.

Remember that.

 

 

 

 

A Step In The Right Direction…

I didn’t get home until late last night so I planned on writing a post this morning about yesterday, then today wound up busy and I only just got home and it’s late again! But I shall write a post and it will be quality (not that any of my posts are actually quality) despite my sleepy, blurred vision. Going out with people honestly freaks me out, I need time at home after social situations (meaning I can’t normally go out two days in a row) to regroup my thoughts and lessen anxiety. I’m honestly proud of myself for carrying through with my plans. Especially yesterday’s…

Yesterday there was a meet-up of kids from New York that are going to my college at the beach. It wasn’t school organized or anything, it was just an idea that someone posted in the school’s new student Facebook group so we could meet some semi-local kids before school starts. I knew that it was probably one of the best things that I could do … but it was also one of the scariest things I could imagine. Thes severe social anxiety I have means that I have trouble being around a group of people (I’ve been known to just walk out of family parties because I get too nervous… rude, I know) and it being a group of people I had never met, or really even spoken to before, that was terrifying in itself. Then, to add to my anxiety, the meet-up was at the beach. The beach has always been one of my favorite places in the world, but the idea of being seen in a bathing suit has really made me barely go anymore. I’ve only gone a handful of times since the summer going into Sophomore year, I was so scared. I really had to force myself to go, I had to mentally push myself out the door. I didn’t want the first impression that some of my future classmates had of me be that super fat and ugly girl, but I guess that would happen even in clothes. I forced myself out the door and once I payed my 10 dollars to get into the beach, it was set that I had to go.

It wound up being very fun. Was I mentally freaking out the whole time? Yes. Do I regret going? No.

As terrifying as it is, the only way to heal and grow is to push through anxieties. People without things like social anxiety, OCD, or BDD don’t really get how all consuming the disease is. It’s nearly impossible to just “not think about it” as so many people advise me to do when I’m freaking out about going out in public. The thing is though, if we never force ourself into that place beyond were our anxiety says not to go, there is no way of getting better. I actually had a heart-to-heart with my cousin about this last night when we were in the car. Me going so far away to school is terrifying, I know that it can end really badly. I get nervous being away from home for more than 3 days. How am I expecting to live a 2 hour plane ride from where my home is? I don’t know. But I know I have to do it. Right now I’m at a stand still in healing and honestly, I don’t want to get better. But I know that staying here, I would never take a step forward. I’m literally pushing myself to the extreme by going far away to school. I know it can end badly for me, but I know that it may also wind up being exactly what I need to heal myself. Pushing is important, albeit uncomfortable, it’s necessary.

 

As for today, I got up and did the new Tone It Up Triathlete Workout which I absolutely loved. I did it 2x through (I should have done 3 but I was in a time crunch) it took about a half hour.

Those swimmer motion arm exercises were so hard for me! For some reason even though I work my arms every day I feel like they are so weak. Maybe it’s a lack of nutrition thing? I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.

Mandatory smoothie picture

yay.

My workout later on in the day was a really nice speed workout on the treadmill. I felt especially good today when it came to the speed  intervals, I just felt happy and very comfortable in the discomfort. It was just a good workout day.

If you have a DailyMile and want to friend me you can find me here.

Tonight I met up with a couple of girl friends that I haven’t seen in a while and we went and saw DESPICABLE ME 2!!! AHH!!

 

It was honestly such an adorable, hysterical, and well done movie. I loved the first one and this was DEFINITELY just as good. Also, I basically aspire to be Agnes

Not quite sure whether or not thats a good thing but… just look at her.

 

Afterwards, we went to Rita’s and got ices. I’m trying not to freak out too much about the fact that I ate almost all of my mint chocolate chip italian ice and trying to focus on the fact that I had a really nice night. I normally have myself convinced that my friends don’t actually like me and that I’m a burden on everyone. It was nice to joke and laugh and to really feel that I have friends that love me. I’m so luck and so grateful to have that.

And I’ll part with just one more picture of little Agnes because she’s my favorite person.

 

 

 

 

Prayers to Boston

I know that I’ve been on hiatus after only 2 posts but, i feel that I need to address what happened in Boston this Tuesday.

As all of you most likely already know, 2 bombs were set off at around 3pm at the finish line of the famous Boston Marathon.

I had just arrived home when my friend texted me saying, “can you believe what happened in Boston?” Naturally, I immediately ran to my computer where I faced photos of the explosion, articles of what happened, and videos of people running and screaming… I felt sick to my stomach. I still feel sick to my stomach thinking about it.

Any type of bombing or mass attack on the innocent is disgusting, but being a runner, this attack really hit close to home. The Boston marathon is my dream, it’s a coming together of a family of runners running towards a common goal. Running really is, not to sound corny, a family sport. Runners share a bond that I haven’t found in other sports. We understand the pain, the joy, the mental battles, and the feelings of fulfillment that come with running.

Attacking the runners of the Boston Marathon is an attack on some of the world’s strongest people. There is no reasoning behind it. There’s no reasoning behind any attack.

I just don’t understand, no one understands. How could a human set out to take the life of other humans? I don’t understand it.

It’s in times like this though that you see so many people saying, “oh, humanity sucks.” or. “i’ve lost all faith in humanity.”

No, that’s not right. It’s important to remember in times of tragedy that when one evil person comes forward, a hundred heroes also come forth. Remember the marathoners who continued to run towards the hospital to donate blood, the civilians who offered their assistance, and, of course, the brave service men and woman who did all they could to keep people safe.

On a final note, if you haven’t logged your 26.2 minutes of running for Boston, don’t forget to do so. =)