Runner's High

For those not familiar with accounting, a 401(k) is a type of defined contribution plan. Why is this the title of my blog post? Because I just learned about it in Income Tax this week, and I have officially retired from the collegiate running scene. Since I finished up my fourth season of cross country this fall, I am out of eligibility for that sport. I still have a couple seasons of indoor and outdoor track left, but I chose not to finish those out.

My primary reason is that I am too busy with my double majors and life in general to fully enjoy it. I have noticed that each year being part of the team gets a little more stressful than the last, mostly because of increased busyness. Any time something meant to be fun turns into a chore, you know it’s time to stop (especially when you’re a busy college student). It was my goal at the beginning of the year to finish out cross country, as that has always been my favorite sport. I like track, but I have never loved it. There’s something about running in circles for miles that loses appeal as you get older.

Although I am done competing for UNI, I will continue to run. I have taken the last few weeks off, but I will probably start to run more consistently during Christmas break. When I first decided not to do track, I thought it would be difficult; however, I have really enjoyed the flexibility. One of my first runs after my decision was like a breath of fresh air. It was fun! I didn’t care what pace I was running, nor did I have a distance I thought I needed to go. In the future, I’m sure I will do 5ks, half-marathons, and maybe eventually a marathon, but only if I’m having fun.

The semester is well under way, so I thought I would give everyone (the three or so people who read this) an update on what I’ve been up to. In summary: class, cross country, work. Class is going pretty well. I’m in Real-Time Embedded Systems this semester, so I have been spending a decent amount of time working with my team on that. As the semester progresses, I will be spending an insane amount of time on the project. I may need to invest in a sleeping bag for the Train Lab. I am also taking Income Tax for my Accounting major. Those two classes are my primary focus. On the side, I’m taking Music of our Time, which is proving to be quite interesting. I lack any kind of musical abilities or knowledge, so I am learning a lot and becoming exposed to some good music along the way. My new discovery is Bob Dylan. I really like “Blowin’ in the Wind”. My two other classes, Legal & Social Environment of Business and Operations Management, are some of the general business classes I have to take. I have done a minimal amount of work in those two classes thus far, and my test grades last week showed it! I need to kick it in gear a little, or maybe just open the textbook.

Cross country has been… interesting. I did the most training I’ve ever done in the summer, but yet have struggled more this season than ever (except maybe my freshman year). Allergies have been a potential cause, but maybe attitude also. At a Division I school, I am a mediocre/middle-of-the-pack runner. Because I am fully aware of this, I let myself feel inferior, especially on a team with new, talented athletes. Our team is huge this year, and by huge, I mean we have 17 girls on our team. This season has just been different, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. I will also note my best friend transferred to Iowa for pharmacy school, so the atmosphere has totally changed for me. We used to sing, quote Grey’s Anatomy, and laugh at jokes no one else understood while on an OD (over distance) run or warm-up. I would say things have improved the past two weeks, especially with the change in weather. I am looking forward to upcoming 6K races, most notably the Bradley Classic on October 16. I have learned the last couple seasons that longer races tend to be my best. The last couple days I have been fighting with tendonitis in my shin. I’m hoping I can recover from this in a day or two. More to come on cross country later….

Work. I’ve been keeping busy working as a ResNet Lead again this year. This is starting to feel like a Christmas letter… anyways, I attended the Fall Career Fair at UNI, and ended up with internship interviews at State Farm and Principal. I have a second interview with State Farm on October 18-19 in Bloomington, IL. I haven’t heard from Principal since my first interview, but word has it that they are still accepting applications through the end of this week. I’m really hoping for internship offers from both companies, but I will be happy interning at either place.

And… that’s all for now. Enjoy!

I decided to make a new post on my blog because I now have about 10/16 (which I guess is equal to 5/8?) of the way done with my two page paper. I think it’s actually coming together, but I need a little break from the last forty-five minutes I spent on it. I skipped cost accounting today because I thought I might be about a minute late. I could have gone, but instead I was able to get breakfast (because my fridge is empty) and also write down some ideas for my paper. Oh, and we were going to start discussing a chapter I hadn’t read yet, so what was the point? I have been highly disappointed with that class this year. Right now I’m expecting to possibly get my first B in college, but even if I get a B+, that would be the lowest grade I have gotten on a non-liberal arts core class. Today was the only day I have skipped for reasons other than a conflict with cross country. I always do the homework- not always on the first day we start going over the chapter, but it always gets done by the end of the chapter. Usually my professor calls on me to give the answer because no one else has done it. So why will my grade be in the B range? I know how to calculate the material and interpret it on the tests, but it is the ambiguous conceptual questions that I miss. I don’t feel that my grade reflects what I know at all. This last test, I did a horrible job studying, but got an A. Maybe my best strategy is to study very little?

I actually intended to talk about indoor track in this post, but for some reason accounting is on my mind. We have a workout today on the football turf. We have been practicing on the turf for the last two weeks. Some teammates went as far as to say they wanted the football team to lose so we could run on the indoor track. I don’t mind running on the turf that much, except possibly today. We are running 2 x 1000s, 2 x 600s, 2 x 400s. Those are short distances compared to what distance runners usually run, but at a faster pace than I prefer. It probably won’t be too bad, but it’s the longest reps we have done since before cross country was over. I tend to not give myself enough credit with running. I have improved immensely since walking on my freshman year. Some highlights of the last two years are breaking my personal high school records in the 3000 and 1500. I ran my fastest time in the 3000 when I was a sophomore, so never running faster than that again during high school made me believe I had gotten a lot slower. I ran the 3000 during indoor last year and ran six seconds faster than my record at indoor conference. I finally ran under five minutes during outdoor track last year, something I had been trying to do all during high school. My reward for doing that was getting my belly button pierced during the summer, as that was the deal in high school if I ran under five minutes. My times aren’t really fast for a Division I track program, but they are decent to finish around the middle of the pack, which I’m happy with for now at least. I almost didn’t go out for cross country this year. I was set on trying other things, such as intramurals and being a regular college student making popcorn and watching Oprah in the afternoon. Participating in two sports at a Division I college is a big time commitment, plus having a job, etc. But, a wise friend told me I would regret it and I decided to stay out. Overall I would have to say I am happy with my decision. I had a great cross country season, though it got off to a slow start. I ran my fastest 6K time (which was the distance of most of our meets), even with a cold and body aches. It was at Bradley in Peoria (my favorite place to run at), so maybe that’s why I had such a good race. My biggest highlight of cross country was finally running at Regionals. I was injured my freshman year and got screwed out of running at Regionals last year for one reason or another. This year I ran and had a great race. I finished fifth out of six on our team, which meant my place counted as part of our team’s score. Going into the race I had low expectations because I had a bad race at conference and thought I may have peaked at Bradley. The meet was in Oklahoma and was windy and just an insanely hilly course. I ended up having the best race of my life probably, and if it weren’t so windy and hilly probably would have set a personal record for the 6K.

Now indoor track is starting up, and I am trying to stay motivated before break. Running in the winter is hard to stay motivated to do, but I won’t be working during break so I can run when it’s not dark out. The circumference of my town is about a mile, so let’s just say I had trouble staying motivated last winter. I hope to run the steeplechase this year during outdoor track. The steeplechase is a 3000 meter race with barriers to jump over and a water jump on each lap. We have a new coach this year and he is going to let us try it, so I guess I have that to be excited for.