Decisions, Decisions

So, I'm thinking of getting a puppy. Well, not a real puppy, necessarily. Probably an older dog that is already house-trained. But regardless, a small furry animal with 4 legs capable of unconditional love.

Pros:
1) I'm lonely and I think this will help cheer me up.
2) I've always loved dogs and have wanted one since my family dog passed away a couple of years ago
3) There are so many older dogs in shelters that need good homes.

Cons:
1) It narrows my apartment search pretty significantly, since not all apartments allow animals.
2) Pets are expensive and I have no job.
3) Although I will have a ton of time this summer while studying to be home with a puppy, eventually I'm going to have a job and work 10-12 hours per day. That's a long time to leave a dog cooped up.

So, interesting conundrum I find myself in. My first thought was that I would just foster a shelter dog for the summer, but I think we all know that I wouldn't be able to give him/her back.

Does anyone else work long hours and have a pet? Is it doable?

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.

2-a-Day

Workout:
Morning: 2 mi. run outside 19:47
Evening: 7 mi. treadmill .5 incline 68:47

Um, hi. Let's talk about this for a second. I ran TWICE today. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty impressed with myself. Now, it should be noted that I absolutely did NOT intend to break my workout this way. I had 7 miles on the schedule for this weekend. I may or may not have been too hungover yesterday to manage (sometimes martinis are too delicious to pass up) so I knew I was going to have to get it in today before I had to be at a training session at 10 am. I carbo loaded with some delicious pasta (the first time I've had pasta in a really long time) and a little red wine (not the first time I've had red wine in a really long time) and was tucked into bed by 1030 pm. Excellent ...

Except. I meant to set my alarm for 645, be out the door by 7 and by home by 830 or so - plenty of time to shower and get ready. Well. You can, therefore, imagine my surprise when my alarm went of at 745, not 645. Crap. That would definitely NOT be enough time to run 7 miles. Knowing that I was technically still "injured," even if I felt awesome, I didn't want to push too hard and hurt myself. I decided to run 3 or 4 miles and finish the rest when I finished training. Well. As soon as I started running I knew that wasn't going to happen. My legs felt heavy, my chest was burning and I just did. not. want. At 2 miles I passed my house and bailed. I was hoping to get 5 miles in when I got home but I wasn't optimistic.

By the time I got home from training it was after 5 (yes, it was absolutely the longest day ever. ugh.). I didn't particularly relish the idea of running outside and ending my run in the dark, but I didn't want to run 5 miles on the treadmill. By the time I carefully weighed my options (aka stalked facebook for a while) it was already dark out. Since I'm a magnet for cars in the dark (I have the scars to prove it!), my only real option was the gym. I reluctantly headed out, figuring at least it would be empty while the Oscars were going on. I hopped on the treadmill, figuring I'd run my 5 as fast as I could and be out of there. But while I was running I got to thinking. I was supposed to run 7 consecutive miles today. If I was really serious about running a half in May (and I'm 90% certain I am) I wasn't going to be able to run half of it in the morning, take an 8 hour break, and then run the second half in the afternoon. So I decided to just stay on for the whole 7 miles. This was definitely easier said than done. The time limit on the treadmill was 60 minutes (are there treadmills in this world that go longer? There must be, right?) and I knew it would take me longer than that to run 7 miles. I thought about splitting it up 3 and 4 or 5 and 2 but I kind of wanted to see that 7 on the display. I figured if I could average a 10 min. mile I could finish in under 70 minutes (the 60 minute limit + the 10 minute cooldown). I did a 1 mile warmup at 5.5 and then just took off. Everything about the run felt amazing. At the start of the last mile "One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)" came on my iPod and I knew I'd finish. The cooldown period was less than awesome because I had to keep fiddling with the speed, but I finished it and it was amazing. This was the run I wish I had had last weekend (and absolutely no leg pain at all! I may or may not want to marry my physical therapist).

It looked a little something like this (for those of you keeping score at home).

I really couldn't be more pleased with my run tonight. It makes me feel so strong and accomplished and awesome, which is what I really needed after a bit of a demoralizing, confidence-busting sort of week (I may or may not have had an existential crisis about what I'm doing with my life). The decision to do the full 7 miles was the best one I've made in a long time. Now I'm enjoying some left over pasta, some red wine, a very much needed foam roll and the dvr-ed Oscars.

Have you ever done 2 runs in one day? How do you feel about breaking up long runs?

Like Today Could Get Any Better!

I came home from a long (and obnoxious) night of class to find 2 glorious packages with MY name on them! There is nothing I like more than packages!

Inside package #1, I found:

My very first pair of Nike Tempo Shorts! I am a recent convert to the whole "running in shorts" thing and when I saw these on sale, I snapped them up. Can't wait to wear them on my run tomorrow morning!

And in package #2, we have the new love of my life:

My amazing sister bought me this fabulous Kate Spade purse as a "Keep your chin up, law school's almost over and have I mentioned you're definitely the prettier twin" present. Thanks sister!

(Also, yes, that is a smaller, black version of the same bag next to it. I may or may not be a Kate Spade addict. Thankfully, I have a very generous family that supports my addiction)

What was the best part of your day? How much do you love surprise packages?!

Mountain Out of A Molehill

Workout: 3 miles – 31:00

I’m not dying! I can keep running! Yes, I 100% now fully admit that I overreacted. Hi, my name is Gidget and I’m a worrywart. I went into my physical therapist appointment expecting him to tell me that there was something structurally wrong with my legs and I’d never be able to run again. Neither of these things are true (yay!). My pain is also not cause by my IT Band. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Whatchu talkin’ bout, Gidget? (said in Gary Coleman voice). My pain is apparently due to my sciatica. Yes, I am a 97 year old Jewish woman who lives in Queens and complains about her sciatica. Apparently I did it by sitting on the edge of hard chairs toon often (aka I have to sit on the edge of my chair at work because I’m too short to reach the keyboard otherwise. I know, I’m midget). The PT did some massaging and used a laser to reduce my inflammation and that was that. He told me to only sit on soft surface for 2 weeks. This will make me be the super cool girl at work sitting on a cushion. Excellent. He also suggested steering clear of hills for a few weeks. Not a problem, doc, I don’t like ‘em anyway Other than that, I am good to go.

So of course, off I went. I just had to test it, because that’s the kind of girl I am. I ran for 3 miles (well, really 2 miles with a .5 warm up and a .5 cool down) and it felt great. Not even a faint hint or twinge of pain. Considering how lingering and obnoxious my old IT Band issues were, I absolutely can’t complain! Spring ½ Marathon back on!

All in all, I was super pleased with my first experience with a physical therapist. I’m usually very wary of doctors. I was completely freaking out last night (see post below) and Moondoggie definitely had to talk me out of canceling my appointment this morning.  Now, there’s definitely the possibility that I’ll head out for my long run on Saturday and die, but for now, I’m going to be cautiously optimistic.

Have you ever been to a physical therapist? What has your experience been? If you need a great one in LA, I’ll hook you up!

I am not ...

I am not afraid of the physical therapist ... I am not afraid of the physical therapist ... I am not afraid of the physical therapist.

I am secretly TERRIFIED of the physical therapist. Eep.