I Run Like A Girl

Hello hello, to you and to the LONG WEEKEND!! This week was another long one, and I am beyond super stoked to finally get a break from life and hit up Miami with the girls starting tomorrow

Workouts this week

• Monday: I was planning to take a rest day since I was still recovering from the sprint triathlon over the weekend. BUT I was feeling restless after work and ran a 4 miler at sunset 🙂
• Tuesday: This was suppose to be pool day, but I woke up from a sleepless night not having any motivation to bike to and enter a cold pool. I DID, however, have a weird inching in my legs to do a speed workout – to the treadmill it was! 4 progression miles (my favorite treadmill workout, starting at an easy pace and working your way up to a full on sprint). 
• Wednesday: POOL DAY. I was pleasantly surprised to see some familiar faces from my indoor triathlon! All about them local races :). Total 2500m –> 500m warmup, 500m pulls, 500m free, 500m pulls, 250m back, 250 cool down.
  
• Thursday: rest day…somewhat unplanned. I was planning on hitting up the pool after work, but night workouts take EXTRA motivation for me as a morning person, and so I finally cashed in my first rest day in 8 days. Was hoping to get in one last workout before my trip, but I’m sure I’ll be hitting up some beach miles in Miami 😉

Highlights this week

• Chuck visiting: I’ve been beyond #blessed to have lots of my friends come visit me in Astoria this past month. My super close friend, Chuck, from the Columbia days came by Monday night for a lovely evening of ramen, froyo, and chit chat. Chuck and I are completely different in every way possible, from our core personalities, to interests, to dating styles, to outlooks on life, etc, but we’ve somehow managed to foster a mutual admiration, respect, and best of friendship since freshmen year of college :). My heart was so happy to spend an evening with her.
• Goodbye to my mentor! This week was the last week of my good friend/mentor from work as she’s leaving for SF. Very very sad. I like to think I’m her protege, and as such I organized a kick ass goodbye happy hour for her, our group, and her closest colleagues on Tuesday night at Snafu Bar in midtown east. I’ll miss her so much!!

Other than that, my week has been super packed with work…which brings me to this next topic.

BALANCE…this was my New Year’s resolution this year. Somehow add more of it into my life, somehow :p. It’s been on my mind a lot lately since my work hours have been kinda cray (I’m really not a fan of complaining about work in general, esp on my blog, but for the sake of this post I will let out a little!). Between early morning workouts, late nights at the office, and trying to have a life, I’ve been low on sleep and feeling a bit stretched thin – and it isn’t even exam season! I freaked out a little earlier this week thinking, how am I gonna do this all PLUS start studying next month?!

It’s going to be all about making a dedicated effort to add balance in my life. I definitely don’t have it down, but here are some ways I’ll seek it:

• Putting health first: a lesson my parents instilled in me from a young age was to always put your health first. I find that when I’m sleeping more, exercising regularly, cooking/eating less processed foods, etc, I feel much better in other parts of my life. Even if it means sacrificing other priorities, I’m going to take care of myself first.
• Disengage from work: this was one of the best pieces of advice Christine gave me this week as we were venting away to each other. She told me that what helps her in stressful times at work is to disengage and not let it define who you are as a person. I thought this was incredibly helpful, because naturally I want to do a great job and receive glowing feedback all the time, but when I don’t, I can’t let it take over my life. In the grand scheme of things, my passions, dreams, attitude, the way I treat people, and loved ones I surround myself with are what matter the most!
• Accepting imperfection: one thing I found frustrating this week was that I felt like I was giving 100% in everything I was doing, but because I was doing so much, each task wasn’t seeing 100%. I took it hard at first but then I remembered a post from the NYC Running Mama (one of my favorite running bloggers!!), and completely related to how you just have to be okay with good enough and not absolute perfection. Very difficult concept to put in practice as a mega type-A person but I shall try!
• Finding the right time to say NO: an obvious step to reducing stress about doing so much is to just do less! I’m going to marinate in this and think about cutting little pieces of work, social plans, and even training to achieve my bigger goal of BALANCE.

Always lovely to find random acts of kindness to lift up your mood 🙂

Overall, I’m incredibly optimistic about the future. These busy times always come in waves, and I know keeping my head high is the only way to get through this! Man, I don’t know what I’d do without running/triathlon training. It sometimes feels like the only time in the day I have to myself and the one thing keeping me sane.

Well I’m approaching 1,000 words and haven’t packed yet for Miami. YIKES. Hope you all have a beyond LOVELY long weekend!!!!!