Color Run DC 2015 occurred on May 17, 2015. This post has been done but I was waiting on the official photos and they turned out terribly.
SO, in honor of me restarting a fitness regimen soon, here’s my belated recap, most of which has been done since about May 18, 2015… oops!
People love running. You can get that runner’s high, you feel better about yourself and the world you live in as you feel the wind on your face.
I was never one of those people.
However, I still make an effort to run every now and then. I know that it’s a great way for me to build up stamina (something of which I currently have very little). Additionally, I have this intense fear of being chased so I figure being able to outrun kidnappers/my brother/mean dogs will, no doubt, come in handy. In fact, sometimes I am motivated to run solely by the fear that I will get chased by some scary monster and get eaten because I’m out of breath and wheezing with my hands on my thighs saying, “Hold on, can we walk a little bit, I have a stitch in my side.”
I guess I’m not too worried about that, though, because I barely trained for this 5K. I started out all right with my training, using RunKeeper’s beginner’s 5K training plan. (RunKeeper is my preferred running app. Although, to be fair, I haven’t tried any other ones. But it’s available for Android and gives me a lot of great data to work with.) I was running about every other day, and I even pushed myself to train on consecutive days when I knew I was going to have trouble finding time to run, like when Karen and Christine visited or when I went to Florida (recap posts coming soon for that, by the way; going through photos still).
So you totally crushed this 5K then and are now a runner? You’ve seen the light? No, friends. I did not and I have not.Read More »
As I’m in-between full-time jobs and/or possibly starting school in the fall (shhhhh), I have been more careful about where I spend my money than usual. (And I’m pretty frugal as it is.)
But you know what? Sometimes, experiences that cost money give you a lot more in return.
Also, I like to think that I’m investing in things to look forward to this year. Remember how I said that I said yes to more opportunities in 2013 and then didn’t do that in 2014? Well, time to say yes again.
Because I’ll admit, when I hit those mood lows, I don’t look forward to the next day, week, month, year, whatever. I get very stuck in the stress of living in the present and stressing over the past that I don’t even want to begin stressing about the future. It was really important during really difficult weeks of school for me to give myself something to look forward to at the end of the week so that I didn’t just give up in the middle of the week, no matter how much I wanted to. Even if it was something like: “Okay, Starr, you have three exams this week BUT if you survive them, you can buy an éclair for dessert on Friday. For lunch AND dinner if you want!” (Fact: I love éclairs.)
I hit a low like this last week. It wasn’t fun; I felt like I was just existing and it was getting really exhausting. Don’t get me wrong; there were no thoughts of self-harm involved here. You know that feeling at the end of a really long day when you barely want to change or wash up, you just want to collapse onto your bed and close your eyes and put the day behind you?
Take that and concentrate it and you’ll get an idea of what I was feeling. Very emotionally exhausted by life, specifically by worrying about life, and not seeing an end to that worrying anytime soon, which was exhausting to think about it and of itself. I just felt so… done. Spent.
So, this weekend, I’ve been giving myself things to look forward to, investing in myself for those days and weeks and months when I don’t want to do things and need to be forced to leave my room.
Here are a few things I have planned over the next few months that I’m pretty excited for!
Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet but I’m excited to see Stromae in person!
Also I haven’t been to a concert in a long time, so this will be fun
Linking to his US tour if you’re interested in seeing him perform in your city or mine!
I have other things going on, but these are the things I’m locking down just this week.
(And also I’m just super excited for Karen and Christine to visit, but that’s been in the works for some time now!)
These are gifts to myself, to reward myself for just surviving. I wish I didn’t need it, but some days I do. And it’s important to treat yo self, right? I’m still learning to do this.
How are you planning to treat your self in the coming weeks?
Sip of Starrshine 