PCRF Half Marathon (Race?) Recap Part 1 [or How I Decided This Was A Good Idea]

Let's get this out of the way now: This sucked. Not because of the race, not because of the organizers, not because of anything other than I sucked and was woefully unprepared. But I did it, and that was pretty amazing.

Ok, on to the deets (do people say deets anymore? did I just date myself?).

Yes, I have been MIA. No, I didn't secretly plan to run a half marathon and not tell you guys. This one just kind of ... happened. I'd been feeling pretty low about myself. As I mentioned, D's new girlfriend is in my profession and she's unbelievably successful, in a way I'll never be. I know I shouldn't compare myself and blah blah blah but honestly (and we're all about honesty here - Gidget's Rule #3: Always tell the truth), it's been a huge blow to my self esteem. I've been doing a lot of internal soul searching and I've been feeling pretty unaccomplished. Yes, I'm about to graduate law school, yes, I moved across the country all by myself but I couldn't convince myself those things were awesome.

I had 2 exams and a paper within 24 hours of each other on Thursday/Friday. I was drinking my 3436th latte of the morning when I got this magical tweet from the beautiful Sarah:

Well, no, no I wasn't. I had an exam on Monday and an exam on Tuesday. I was going to spend my entire weekend in the library, by myself, feeling alone and stupid and unaccomplished. But wait, why do you ask? Oh, you have an extra bib for a half marathon? On Saturday? No. No, I couldn't possibly ... Well ... Ok, I'll do it. 

Here's what was going through my head:

"I'm not trained."

"I couldn't possibly."

"Well, I was going to run 6-8 miles anyway."

"How bada$$ would I be if I ran a half marathon in the middle of finals?"

"I bet she never ran a half marathon in the middle of finals ..."

"..."

"......."

"Ok, I'll do it."

And just like that, I was running a half marathon. In 2 days. With no training. On 4 hours of sleep. OUTSTANDING.

Stay tuned for Part 2 [or How I Totally Took the Prize for Worst Race Fail Ever. In. Life.]

Half Marathon?

So, I ran the PCRF half marathon today ... yeah. About that.

I finished and I didn't die. Let's just leave it at that for now.

Off to ice, bandage my feet (because there is definitely blood on my sneakers ... excellent) and head to the library. Because I'm in the middle of finals. Yeah. I don't know who thought this would be a good idea.

Race report to come!

Confessions and New Directions (not the Glee kind)

Ok, so I owe you, my loyal readers (yes, all 7 of you), an explanation. I've fallen off the blogging and running wagon, largely because the wagon fell on top of me.

So, let's talk about what's going on:
1) There is no more Moondoggie. Ok, there is still a Moondoggie, but he's not my Moondoggie anymore. He's someone else's now. D and I were together for almost 6 years. About a month ago he started to question our relationship and about a week ago he told me he wanted to be with someone else. A specific someone else. A skinnier, more successful, faster runner someone else. Apparently I'm too sad and stressed out all the time. Yes, yes I am. I'm in law school. Obviously it's all much more complicated than that. But it basically boils down to me being alone. I'm trying to have a positive attitude about it, but I'm 6 weeks away from entering the most stressful 2 months of my life (bar studying) and I've lost my best friend. I'm not doing super well. Which isn't helped by ...

2) I haven't been running. Pretty much at all. I feel awful, so I do nothing but lay around and feel sorry for myself. Then I feel bad that I didn't go running and it just gets worse. I get that it's a vicious cycle. I totally get that. Also, my leg isn't loving me. I hurts after 5 miles every damn time. Because of #1, I've felt absolutely no desire to go to the PT about it, so I just dig myself a little deeper.

3) I hate my job. HATE. IT. Viscerally. It makes me question whether or not I want to be a lawyer. Too late now. I really want to be a prosecutor. Unfortunately, because of stupid dumb budget issues, no one is hiring. I had an interview for a perfect prime dream job and didn't get it because I didn't have any connections. Great. Awesome. Fabulous. So, $200,000 in student loans, 3 years and 1 failed relationship later, I'm 3,000 miles away from home with no job, no boyfriend and not a ton of friends (see #4).

4) I have no friends. Well, that's not true. I have a handful of friends. I moved to LA 3 years ago from NY to be with D. I knew it would be hard and I knew I'd have to make new friends. Unfortunately, all of those friends were D's friends. And he won them in the breakup (they were his friends first). So I'm pretty much all alone out here. Not great.

5) There is no more Roommate. Well, at least not after May 15th. It's a bit of a mess. So, come May 15th I'll be homeless. And alone. Great.

I know this sounds very Debbie Downer and I know it's the wrong attitude to have. I'm working on it. Right now, all I want to do is cry. But I can't keep doing that forever. So here are some of the things I'm working on:
1) Time to find a new apartment. This is obviously priority #1 as I would prefer to not be homeless, if at all possible. Rumor has it it is hard to be homeless and study for the bar. A friend of mine may be leaving LA after graduation and said I can sublet her apartment. This would be good, except (a) I don't want to lose my friend (see #4) and (b) it's 4 blocks away from D. Don't really need to see him and the new girlfriend walking around the neighborhood (or worse, her running faster than me).

2) Pass the bar. I was 100% committed to staying in LA 2 weeks ago. Right now I'm at about 80%. Unfortunately, I have to take the bar somewhere and wherever I take the bar is where I have to practice. Right now I'm registered for the CA bar and that's what I'll be taking in July. They offer the bar exam twice a year - July and February. So I'm giving myself until the February bar to figure things out. If, come the winter, I'm still miserable in LA and I still don't have a job, then I'll reconsider my options. For a whole slew of reasons, I don't want to move back to NY. But we'll see. That leads me to #3 ...

3) Find a job. Any job. If I can't do what I really want, I need to find something that will hold me over until something opens up. Even if I hate it. I can't afford to not have a job once I graduate. Even if I hate it, it'll be experience.

4) Make more friends/be more social/get over D. This is all kind of wrapped into one big messy "I don't want to do this"package. I am not, by nature, a super social person. I like to have a small group of really great friends. Obviously, though, you make said small group of friends by meeting lots of people and weeding through them. I'm basically pretending that I just moved to LA and need to make new friends. It's hard and it sucks and I don't like it, but I'm doing it. I'm also on-line dating. It makes me feel pretty pathetic and awful but I don't know where else you meet people - I don't have friends to set me up and I don't have time to go to a bar and meet someone. I have some dates lined up next week. I'm definitely not excited about it, but it is what it is.

5) Run. Jury's still out on the pre-graduation celebration 1/2 marathon. I think I could run it, but I'm afraid it will hurt and after my first 1/2 when I was hurt and miserable and wanted to quit, I don't want to run another race if I'm not completely confident in my abilities. So we'll see. BUT. I did sign up for my very first full marathon! I had planned on running the Vegas R'n'R in December, but with the new time limits (and the emotional D baggage that goes along with being in Vegas) I decided it wasn't a great idea. I questioned my darling Twitter friends and the beautiful Sarah suggested Long Beach in October. Close? Cheap? Flat? Sold.

So that's where I am right now. The tone of this blog might change a little. It's going to be a little more about finding myself, in running and in life. If that's not your bag of donuts, no big deal. Thanks for stopping by. If it is, then stick around. Who knows what's going to happen next?

Gidget's Rule #2 - Don't stop believing (See what I did there? With the Glee reference? Going back to the title? Yeah, stick around for more of that kind of wit).

If I Distract You With My Blogging Fail, You Won't Notice My Running Fail ...

Ok, so I’m officially the worst blogger ever. Real life has eaten me a little bit. There have been some amazingly stressful things going on and this isn’t really the right place for them. Needless to say, my life’s been turned a bit upside down and I’m still trying to catch my footing. I promise to be a better blogger from now on.

In fairness, I was also a pretty poor runner in my blogging absence. I did sneak home to NYC for a long weekend this past weekend, which definitely helped heal my soul a little. It did not, however, help my running one bit. I had grand plans of running in NY with my sister, who’s training for her first ½ marathon in May. Things I did not counting on:

-       It was VERY cold. Much colder than I anticipated

-       I left my running shoes in LA (because I’m a GENIUS)

-       I didn’t have a lot of time and a lot of things to do and people to see (and Mardi Gras’ to celebrate…)

So I managed to get 1 lousy, stinking 5 miler in. I also missed a training run because I landed in LA much too hungover to function Wednesday afternoon. I did manage to buy new running shoes, though! I had a gift certificate for a running store near my sister (thanks, Groupon!) and am going to need a new pair between now and my potential quasi-graduation celebration ½ marathon, so I figured I’d pick them up with my gift certificate. I also grabbed some Gus because the only flavor I have left is strawberry banana and that stuff’s just gross.

I promise to be a better blogger. Stay tuned for my review of some awesome products sent to me by the awesome Sarah from Once Upon A (L)ime and my big marathon conundrum.

You know you love my cliff-hangers.

And You Wonder Where I Get It From

Text I just received from my Dad:

You should be running your warmups at 9:30 with your runs at 830/845 - 930 for the long runs.

Bad influence much?