I've Had Ten Years

I'm closing the year with a solid four mile run.  All around the royal front yard of the Copenhagen royal families summer house.  I never pictured myself on vacation, running.  In circles.  A series of right turns ... for about an hour.  But I did it!

My friend and I were talking about dating and how everyone is jumping right into relationships and marriages so fast now.  It seems like I turn around and people are dating, then married, then have kids and a house.  I never understood how your life could change this much in a year ... sometimes two.  But I know that I want all those things, so why freak out about the timeline?  She said "I've had ten years to do whatever the fuck I want to do."  Which ... is so true.  I've moved across the country, been running around on crazy vacations skydiving (Hawaii) and walking up waterfalls (Jamaica).  Sometimes I get bummed that I am missing out on the "double income no kids" piece of life, but I'm not sure it really matters.  I've already started wanting to wait to visit certain places, because it'd be more fun in a relationship than with friends.  Maybe it wouldn't be that terrible?

260 Miles Down 55 Miles to Go

Drink a waterbottle, we're going running

Holy crap, I'm in Copenhagen!!  Spontaneous vacation, and I am working out while I am on said spontaneous vacation.  I went on a vacation with a classmate and her friend ... professional runners.  They run 40 miles a week, which makes my 26 a month look laughable.  We landed in Copenhagen after a wonderful eight hour flight, and my friend looked at me in all seriousness and said, "Chug a waterbottle, we're going running!"  She's crazy.  And turns out she was also right.  I ran three miles with them at a 9 minute pace, something I haven't done post accident.  It was actually not that bad, running through the streets of a foreign country where I barely spoke the language.

I don't know if it was the new country or the crazy fast pace (not really) that I was trying to keep up with, but I was so happy.  We just kept looking at each other yelling "We're in Copenhagen!!!".  Despite the fact that I booked the hotel we were staying at the night before from my dads couch in Chicago, I feel like the trip was going to be a good trip.  We had done little to no planning, and we were playing most decisions by ear, but running around this crazy place I didn't really seem to care.  I was so happy that I wasn't sitting in a classroom staring at a professor who may as well have been speaking Spanish.

I started thinking as I was trying not to get hit by a bike or a car or a pedestrian that thought it was appropriate to use their stroller as a means to get in front of me, and I couldn't shake the idea that I use to love my traveling job.  I didn't love my job, turns out I think IT is relatively boring.  But I did love traveling.  I loved being dropped somewhere new and then mastering it.  Constant change is so hard to find, but it is literally everywhere.

256 Miles Down 59 Miles to Go

Mile 250

After forcing my dad to the gym two days in a row, he was a trooper, today I ran outside around the town I grew up in.  I had been telling him it was too cold (below freezing) to run outside, and that I didn't have the proper gear to run in.  So today I ran in the new nike windproof hoodie he bought me for outdoor winter running.  I'm not sure if he was being thoughtful getting me something I wanted, or if he was tired of the meathead gym.  Something about running around a place with so many memories made me think about how far I've come from the last time I ran this route.  I remember running with my friend who was prepping for the marines (not the marine I dated).  Talking about how I was going to quit my job, about how I wanted to go back to school and move away for the first time.  I could barely get through the whole run without feeling like I was dying.  He was talking about rifles and survival skills and I was talking about student loans and Boston seafood.

I remember this stupid hill that I couldn't get up, and today I realized it's right at the beginning of my fourth mile.  I ran through it in the snow like it was no big deal.  I completely forgot about it.  Hopefully this stupid hill is kind of like my annoyance with being single around the holidays, and next year I won't mind or I won't be single anymore.  My marine friend who I was running with just bought a house, and is getting married in Ireland in a few months.

After I got back from my run, I realized that I beat my original goal today.  I ran 250 miles in less than one year.  Bring on the next 65.

253 Miles Down 62 Miles to Go

The Worst Day of The Year

Today is the worst day of the year.  It's 365 more days until Christmas comes again.  I always hate today. So much that I want to change this when I have my own family.  It's frustrating how on holidays families get pulled between a million different houses, or maybe this is just a divorce kid problem.  Anyways, I want to have my family celebrate the holiday the day after just us.  It'll be our own holiday that we can always have, and never overlap with another family party.  Then maybe I will love today :)

I forced myself on another four mile run, because I realize that after a year of crazy hard work ... I may not make my goal.  I may fall behind because I got overwhelmed with work in graduate school and didn't put in the time.  I stood between my dad and the TV again until he caved and took me to the gym.  I told him it was too cold outside for me to run, so I needed him to take me to the gym as his guest.  Which was true, but I also know he feels better when he comes home from working out.  Successful use of peer pressure :)

This year I spent Christmas running from my dads girlfriends house to my brothers girlfriends, and I started wondering if I really wanted to be in a relationship.  Yes, it's a lot of fun to buy yourself fun presents, but it's also a lot of fun to buy them for someone else!  (And get them of course ...)  I've had such a focus on school and job searching that I've really not dated anyone (except dimples) since I got here.  I think this is the first Christmas since high school that I wasn't in a relationship or missing someone I use to be dating.  I think my problem is that I've been pretty bad in the past of "picking" who to date.  I dated someone who was an emotional roller coaster, then moved on to someone who was so flat lined and noncommittal we didn't fight ever in the four years we dated.  Not sure if this is good or bad, but I'm going to eat a ton of food tonight and just have fun with my family.  I'll be leaving them soon for a bobsled race anyways!!

249 Miles Down 66 Miles to Go

Stranger on a Plane

Today I had a moment of panic.  I am not going to finish my goal.  I have 70 miles left and four weeks.  I am in over my head.  I am also sitting on the couch.  So I got up and got to it.  For four miles today, on Christmas.  I wedged myself in between my dad and the TV until he caved and took me to the gym.

Just when I decide "no more dating" I meet a random guy on the plane that I really click with.  He is of course awesome, and totally undatable.  He lives in San Antonio.  I ended up on a plane going from Boston to Charlotte and then to Chicago.  He was going from San Antonio to Charlotte to Chicago.  We spent the entire two and a half hour flight talking, all the important topics: foodie things, traveling, camping/hiking/running, dating, working from home, making friends in new places.  (I don't camp/hike, but he did).  I haven't had a good conversation like that with someone in so long.  At the end of the flight he asked me if I wanted to keep in touch, and we ended up getting coffee and walking around Chicago a few days later.  He called me.  Like actually on the phone.  I'm always saying I hate technology, no one is personal anymore, and then he called me and I was freaked out.  I'm not sure why, but it makes you super awkward. I had a good time with him again, and we even joked about him coming to Copenhagen with me.  He didn't have a passport with him, and he kept joking he'll never travel domestically without a passport again.

Life is funny.  It was a great date.  Who knows how it will play out ...

Merry Christmas, I got my grades!  I give up.  Well ... I don't give up, but I'm changing my focus drastically.  It is insane how much time I need to put into studying to get A's.  The first quarter of school, I studied all day every day.  And, I got 2 B's and 1 A.  Second quarter, I studied barely ever.  I didn't even open one of the books I purchased, and I got the same grades.  Being the super smart graduate student that I am, I've realized that I can scale back on the intense studying I was doing and focus on getting a job that I want to have.  

245 Miles Down 70 Miles to Go

Bobsleds

Lately I've been doing what could be dumb things.  I've been talking to my exboyfriends.  I'm not sure why, but around the holidays, I always think about what I was doing on past holidays, and then I start thinking about guys I've been serious about, and then I start wondering what they are up to.  And then I'm considering recycling again.  I'm trying to stay distracted with working out and school and try not to focus on guys I've already dated.

I also did something extremely exciting ... I had a pair of boots (Patagonia) give out on me ... and I brought them in and exchanged them for a brand new pair of $180 boots, for free!  This is not the exciting part, the exciting part is that I had to do this because I just booked a trip to Copenhagen for new years and then to Winterland Germany for a bobsled race.  What am I doing?!  I should have been studying for final exams, but instead I found this to be a much more pressing issue.  One of my friends was talking about a trip to Europe, and my ears perked up.  "Want to go to Germany and see a bobsled race?"  My impulsive reaction was, "Can we go somewhere else too first?"  And now I'm prepping to visit Copenhagen and Winterland in the middle of winter.

241 Miles Down 74 Miles to Go

MPH in the Long Run

I've been accepted into the Masters in Public Health program.  I can't decide if it's good or bad.  I think I'm applying to diversify myself further than an MBA in health care already would.  I'm not sure that's even necessary?  I don't know what to think.  I talked to my favorite Operations teacher, and she gave me some pretty good advice.  She said if I want the career I've been talking to her about, then it probably won't be necessary.  However, if I want to diversify myself and one day move into health policy, then this would be a good choice.  I think I'm trying to get out of the Business School ... and not necessarily focusing on what I want to do next with my career.  I also found out ... my scholarship may be at risk.  Some other students who chose dual degrees ended up losing their whole scholarship or part of it.  It started to seem like a more expensive option that wouldn't necessarily add much more to what I'm already doing.  So I'm turning down the offer.

As soon as I decided that I would turn down the offer, the admissions office started calling me and emailing me.  It's like they knew!  They wanted to set up my first classes, and I was still super unsure.  I think this is the first time I've started turning things down.  I feel like I always get pulled between one thing and the next in life (dating, jobs, social plans...), and I usually take the next offer that is good.  Not this time!  I'm setting my sights on the long run with big decisions.

239 Miles Down 76 Miles to Go