I Am Not A Runner - A.K.A. Running Does Not Have To Cost A Fortune

I do not self-identify as a runner. I have been running (mostly) regularly since April, but I do not call myself a runner. Before I began this mad experiment, I read story after story of people who started running and it changed their lives. They found a new passion and a new love. They became lifelong runners.

Definitely not me

I am not one of those people. When I started running about 6 months ago, I hated every single step. And I felt like a failure, because I thought that if I wanted to run, I had to become a "runner." Everyone I talked to was telling me about all of these things I had to have if I wanted to run, that I had to pour both time and money into running if I wanted to do it right because running is a lifestyle, not just an activity.

"You need to get these fancy hydration tablets (that look suspiciously like Airborne)." 

"How can you say you don't love running?! I can't live without my runs!"

"Buy these energy tablets to fuel your long runs because if you don't you'll never make it farther than 4 miles!" 

"What do you mean you don't feel better after a run? I always feel so full of energy!"

"If you don't wear compression socks, your legs will literally fall off your body mid-run."

"You shouldn't eat that today, it could affect your run tomorrow!"

"If you buy long sleeved running shirts, they need to have thumbholes!"

I went out and bought fancy running shoes from a fancy running store (well, my parents bought them for me...thanks mom and dad!). I paid more for a pair of socks than I normally do for a pair of jeans. And I ran. I ran in the blazing heat of July. I ran and accidentally stepped in the mud in my fancy running shoes. I ran on the treadmill after class. I ran farther and farther (but never faster, 12:30/mile is my body's only pace).

But that earth-shattering spiritual awakening never came. I never started loving running. I don't look forward to my runs. I don't feel energized or exhilarated before, during or after my runs. They are just another check mark on my to do list. The more I ran, the more I realized I was never going to be a "runner." And that doesn't make me a failure. It means that I had approached running with the wrong mindset.

Pinterest images, like the one on the top,
only add to the problem by making you feel
like a failure if you don't love running.

I started off on this endeavor assuming that once I started running, becoming a "runner" would be an automatic byproduct of my training. I thought that if I had all the right gear and the right training program, I would suddenly love to run. But that is not true. I do not love running. I will never find it an enjoyable activity. I still dislike every step of my runs, and now there are many more steps involved (I'm looking at you, 8-mile-run-tomorrow).

My inner monologue while running.

The reality is, I don't need special shoes or special equipment to run. My second pair of running shoes were a far less expensive brand from Academy, and they work just as well. Some good ol' blue Gatorade is just as good for hydration, and I've yet to pass out from lack of special fuel while I run. If I do ever take snacks on a run, it will probably be Scooby Doo fruit snacks. My workout clothes come from the sale rack, and none of my sleeves have thumb holes. And I am doing just fine in my training.

I'll give the expensive compression socks a pass, though, because they are awesome and totally worth the money (as long as you have a discount code).

I am not running for myself - I am making myself run. All of this training I am putting into this half marathon is going toward one goal: raising money to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I am running for the kids, the doctors, the pharmacists, and the researchers. I am running for the friends I have who work there and the parents whose children are patients there. I am running because I know my body has the capacity to do it. I am running to check a half marathon off my bucket list.

I am running because I can. Not because I want to. Running will never be my lifestyle, just a thing I do occasionally. And that is OK.

Conferences and Difficult Runs

I spent the weekend in Birmingham, Alabama, at the APhA-ASP Midyear Regional Meeting. This is a yearly regional pharmacy conference that takes place in each region. It's specifically designed for student pharmacists like me to interact with other students from around the region, share ideas, and develop policies for the upcoming year. I had a wonderful time! I had such a great time that I forgot to take any pictures. The only two pictures I took were of food.

I ate Chuy's twice on Saturday! At dinner we probably demolished 8 baskets of chips
before our meal even showed up. Creamy jalapeño dip + queso = love. 

My school's ASP chapter had a great MRM this year. One of my friends successfully ran for Regional Delegate, so congratulations to Lauren Bode! She's going to do an amazing job in her new position!

This is not a picture of Lauren winning Regional Delegate.
This is a picture of my lunch at Milo's on my way home on Sunday.

My body is very confused by the time change, which has made the last few days especially difficult in terms of running. I didn't get an opportunity to run while out of town, so I had planned to run when I got back home on Sunday. I forgot about it getting dark earlier, so by the time I got home, I couldn't run outside. I had scheduled a long run, so I tried to do it on the treadmill while I studied, but I only made it 2.5 miles before the logistics of trying to turn pages while running got too difficult.

I knew I had to make time for this run on Monday, or I would be an entire week behind. Fortunately, I was able to go run in the morning before class. I was scheduled to run 7 miles. And I went 7 miles, but there was definitely some walking involved. But 7 miles is 7 miles. And I have to remind myself that my goal for this half marathon is to finish the race, whether by running the whole thing or by running and walking. Realistic goals are the key to happiness.

Words of wisdom from the lovely Amy Poehler

Lastly, I want to thank everyone who donated to help me reach my fundraising goal! I am now over my goal of $500! You all are awesome!

Honoring My Grandma Through Baking

I have had the blessing of having all my grandparents and some of my great-grandparents living until I was in my early twenties. When I talk to my friends, I realize how rare that truly is - many of them have only one or two of their grandparents still living, and some have never known any of their grandparents.

Me with my Grandma and Grandpa at Christmas

My grandpa passed away just a few years ago, after a long battle with cancer, and we lost my grandma this past July. As we sifted through all of her stuff, I remembered all the times we spent together and all the memories I had of them. One of my favorite memories was every Christmas, Grandma would make all kinds of baked goods. My absolute favorite was pizzelles, these pretty lacy cookies that I would dump inordinate amounts of powdered sugar on. So when Grandma passed away, I knew I wanted to carry on the tradition of making these wonderful cookies.

Grandma's well-loved pizzelle maker

I don't have the original recipe Grandma used, so I used one I found online and modified a bit to suit my needs. Traditional pizzelles are made with a strong anise flavor. I don't really like anise, and Grandma didn't use very much in her pizzelles either. I decided to use cinnamon in place of the anise, because cinnamon is my absolute favorite spice and nothing says autumn like cinnamon. 

My KitchenAid doesn't get used often, but when I need to bake, it is a lifesaver

Cinnamon Pizzelles

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Powdered sugar

1. Sift together flour and baking powder and set aside
2. Beat together the eggs and sugar, then add the melted butter, vanilla, and cinnamon. 
3. Add the flour mixture and beat until smooth.
4. Preheat the pizzelle maker. Once it's preheated, spray the plates with Pam. Make sure to get a good coat on the design part so it doesn't stick. 
5. Drop heaping tablespoons of batter onto the center-ish of each design. It takes a couple tries to figure out how much batter you need and where to put it.
6. Close the pizzelle maker and wait for them to cook. You will burn/undercook the first few until you figure out the right timing. On mine it was about 1 minute 40 seconds.
7. Use a fork to gently lift the pizzelles out of the plate and put them on a cooling rack. 
8. Once they are fully cool, put them in an airtight container in the fridge. Sprinkle with powdered sugar when you're ready to eat them.

The inside of the pizzelle maker. It's kind of like a waffle iron
but with more intricate designs. Hence, you need lots of Pam.

How the first few looked - burnt then underdone. 

This is what they should look like, minus the one on the left trying to ooze out the side.

My recipe made about 15, not including the first few I messed up.

You can never go wrong with powdered sugar.
NB: I added more powdered sugar after taking these pictures,
because there should be a visible cloud puff of sugar when you take a bite.

Grandma always stored all her home-baked Christmas cookies in the fridge.  As a kid, I always knew where to find those tupperware containers full of goodies. I have no idea how I didn't gain 30 pounds every holiday season, because I pretty much ate only baked goods when I was at Grandma's house. Now my own cookies are residing in the fridge (or they were before I ate them all) and come Christmastime I'll carry on the tradition of making these cookies for my family and friends. 

Soundtrack Saturday: Pompeii - Bastille

I think this past week has been my most hectic week all semester. I maybe got through half of the things I needed to do, and that was still a ton of things. I thought I'd be able to ease back into the business after fall break, but it was more like getting thrown in head first. Somewhere in all the craziness I found the time to download the new Bastille album, Bad Blood. I'd only heard one song off of it, and that was "Pompeii." The rest of the album turned out to be just as brilliant, and now I've got another band to add to my Hipster Bands You've Probably Never Heard Of collection.

Incidentally, I have been to Pompeii. It's an eerie place, especially when you see all of the casts of the bodies of people who died when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The entire city was destroyed and buried, only to be rediscovered hundreds of years later. And Vesuvius is not an extinct volcano, it could still erupt again.

Soundtrack Saturday: "Chillin' It" - Cole Swindell

I have very much enjoyed doing nothing the last few days. Fall break is just what I needed to get revitalized (read: sleep a whole lot) and ready for the rest of the semester. This song goes right along with the relaxing I've been doing. I realized I hadn't posted another country song since my very first Soundtrack Saturday post! Can't be neglecting genres now, can we? Especially since I like country music enough to have it as a preset on my radio.

This is a great song for fall, especially since the weather has gotten nicer.

Today was my longest run to day, a full SIX MILES!! And 100% spider free! Next week is a pull back week so I won't have a long run, just three shorter runs. 

I never said it was a fast six miles. 

I also exercised my bank account this afternoon with a shopping trip to use my birthday money and all of the birthday coupons I got in the mail. Everything I got was either on sale, used a coupon, or was free. Now that is what I call a successful shopping excursion.

Look for a post in the next few days about my baking extravaganza from this evening! 

Everyday Happenings

Things have finally calmed down here in Kristinland. After my test yesterday morning (and a very long nap), Fall Break officially began and I am enjoying doing absolutely nothing. I'm cleaning, getting organized, and just enjoying having no pressing matters to attend to.

Spontaneous fun thing of the week:
Went to a Jimmy Eat World concert with some friends.

A local dog rescue brought puppies to school.
I wanted to take this one home. His name is
Smudge and he is going to be enormous.

This is Faith. She looked like a golden only black.
I'm still trying to talk my parents into adopting her.

Yet another bloom on my rose bush. I love this little plant!

You have probably been wondering how my running is going, since I haven't really talked about it in a while. I am happy to report that everything is going according to plan! I ran 4 miles today, and the cooler weather is making it much more enjoyable to run. I'm going to 6 miles this weekend, so that will be an exciting milestone!

Stats from my (spider-free) run today. 

I've had to change the place I run, though. I had been running on the Wolf River Greenline. However, when I tried to run on Sunday, there were massive spiderwebs occupied by extremely large spiders EVERYWHERE. I seriously saw probably 6 or 7 in a quarter mile. I had to stop and turn around before I either cried or had a heart attack. I do not do arachnids! I relocated to a nice flat lake path in Shelby Farms with very few trees and (thankfully) no spiders. I won't be venturing onto the Greenline anytime in the near future. Or ever again. I had nightmares for the next three nights. It was not good.

Excellent representation of me around spiders by Hyperbole and a Half
If you want to read a truly hilarious post about spiders,
click on the picture (warning: some strong language).

In other news, the BBC has released the first pictures of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special!!!!! November 23rd can't get here fast enough!

Three Doctors in the same shot: Matt Smith, David Tennant, and John Hurt.
BRB, hyperventilating.

That's all for now! I'm going to get the ingredients to make pizzelles while I'm at work tomorrow, so I can experiment with my grandma's pizzelle maker this weekend. I'm thinking of making a plain batch, a cinnamon batch and maybe a chocolate batch.

Accidental Blog Hiatus Was Accidental

As you might have noticed, I sort of fell in a hole the last several days. I had a test, then went out of town for pledge retreat, then was completely exhausted and worked two days this week instead of my normal one day, and suddenly it's been two weeks since I last posted. I have pretty much nothing picture-wise to show for my time off, either. I stuck my phone in my bag when I got to pledge retreat and pretty much didn't touch it until we got back to Memphis. It was so nice to unplug and spend time with my friends on my birthday weekend, and come back and spend time with my parents on my birthday (and then go to sleep at 9pm - because I'm cool like that).

Some of my wonderful birthday gifts. New running shoes,
ProCompression socks, and a belt thingy so I don't have to hold
my phone/keys when I run.

As of last Sunday, I am officially a quarter of a century old. Twenty-five doesn't look that much different than 24, but I am now approaching the Quarter Life Crisis zone, so who knows what catastrophe lies ahead. Since this is my last big "milestone" birthday for a while, I've selected a sort of theme song for this 25th year of my life. It's by Train and kind of reminds me of "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. Yeah, I went there. I was born in the 80s. Deal with it.

I stopped believin' although Journey told me don't

before I call it a day, maybe this'll be my year.

Rotations are, of course, a big part of my upcoming year, and I FINALLY have a complete rotation schedule! I got almost all of my top choices, including the one I wanted the most, which was medication safety at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Yes, the same hospital for which I am running this half marathon! In other news, I can now run 5 miles!!! Yay!!! Med Safety is definitely a career path I am considering, and I am looking forward to that rotation already. 

I am so glad I have an off month right after my critical care rotation.
If anyone needs me the first few days of October, I'll be in my bed.

There's still a good chance some part of this will change without warning (UT is useful like that) but as a whole I am extremely happy with my schedule! I'm on fall break next week starting after my test on Wednesday. I plan to do some baking and play with my grandmother's pizzelle maker after I take a (very long) nap. Other than working Friday I have no plans for fall break, and that is a wonderful feeling. 

I'll try not to fall off the planet again, I promise!