117 Days to Acadia: a "blah" run in the rain

Miles: 4

Total Time: 40.24

Pace: 10.06 per mile

After lab today I was feeling really tired. I woke up early to go running with a friend who bailed on me...while I was sleeping. So I still woke up really early, only to toss and turn for another hour and get up for real.

So this afternoon I was tired, plus I had a big, greasy, heavy lunch so I was just sleepy as all hell. But I knew I had to go running, even if it was to just put some miles down. So I gathered my self together around 6pm and went for my run, in a light drizzle.

Now I knew from the start I was going slow. What felt good though was the fact that I felt like I could run for an eternity at that pace. Which is good because it is around the pace I want to do the marathon at.

So, now it is off to bed so I can get up and run in the morning!

To Acadia I boldly go!

So...the other week I did a 7 mile race and I had made the claim to my friends Maggie and Hannah (who ran it with me) that if I could complete the race in under an hour I would run the Acadia National Park Marathon with Miss Margret. I, however, failed.

Final time: 1 hour 1 minute 26 seconds. It was a little soul crushing to go the whole race and come so close to my goal, but it was a fine time considering I only trained for like a week and a half and it was only my second time running a distance that far...but it is still only 1 minute and 26 seconds from my goal.

So Mags (yes, I call her by multiple names) poked fun and said, "So I guess you're not doing that marathon, huh?" And I thought...for about 2 seconds, and decided I would do the marathon anyway.

So now I am running a marathon in October. Luckily I live with two former cross country/track kids so I am pretty sure I can get in shape for it in 3 months. My suggested goal is to work up to and maintain 40 miles a week. That is about 6 miles a day, running every day. I am going to work around that to long runs on weekends, shorter runs during the week, which is what most people do.

But...I should be recording my times to keep track of progress and to know how many miles I am doing. As such here is where I start keeping track:

Monday's Workout: 10 laps around the track (2.5 miles) with 10 sit-ups and 10 push ups before each lap.

Lap 1: 3.12

Lap 2: 3.19

Lap 3: 3.30

Lap 4: 3.27

Lap 5: 3.26

Lap 6: 3.38

Lap 7: 3.51

Lap 8: 3.41

Lap 9: 3.39

Lap 10: 3.25

Total: (I already cleared my watch, but I remember it being 35-ish minutes and change)

The movies I saw this week

MacGruber: Piece of shit. Not even remotely funny. Maybe it was just not my type of comedy, maybe some SNL skits should stay on SNL, maybe studios should stop putting all the best scenes in the trailers. The story was recycled (former military bad-ass now lives in a monastery, but the government needs him for one more job) and many of the things that were supposed to be funny got old real fast (like taking the lunch box sized radio out of his car every time he gets out). I had doubts about this movie going in, but my friend said is was hilarious...last time I take movie advice from a film major! Don't waste your money on this film!

Splice: Actually pretty good. I wanted to see a movie Saturday afternoon, but didn't want to go see one that my house mates would want to see later (since I was going alone) so I went on metacritic to see what the score was and read a review or two and it was getting really good reviews. So I went and I enjoyed it. I don't want to give away anything about it, but I came out of the theater feeling a little creeped out and a little dirty (sex with things that are not 100% human is a little freaky).

Prince of Persia: Beer+Action movie=Good time. The formula never fails, and neither did Prince of Persia. It was a summer block-buster that delivered on action and was incredibly fast paced. There just was no lag, there was always something going on and it really kept the story alive and flowing. Also there were neat little plot twists along the way which made the movie fun.

Killers: Almost good... mostly alright. This film looked like a dumbed down Mr. & Mrs. Smith and it sort of is exactly that. The acting was surprisingly flat, but the dialog was truly good considering the fluff that the film was. The action scenes were surprisingly well thought out and well shot. Catherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher are not action stars, but in terms of romantic comedy the film did really work. I would recommend this as a date film because it covers a lot of territory about relationships from meeting to getting married to dealing with parents. I would have liked it more had I had a date. Instead I was hung over and looking for something easy to do for a couple hours and it filled the time nicely.

*Update* The Gorgeous Girl

Since the posting of my last...post, I have found out that The Gorgeous Girl is in fact already in a relationship.

Yeah, bummer. I found out from a mutual friend, who didn't find out until two days ago so I feel less bad about being in the dark, but wow...bummer.

Well, lots of fish in the sea, life goes on, (insert platitude here).

And now for some words of wisdom:

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. ~Abraham Lincoln

The Babe, the Gorgeous Girl, and the Buick

Now, drunken blog posts are the windows to the soul but no words after something like what I wrote means one of two things: something happened or I got lazy, again...or in this case both.

Now if you are too lazy to look down two posts, let me summarize: missed my ex-girlfriend, still had feelings for her, and the plan was to suck it up and deal with it until graduation. Well, life has a funny way of happening and life happened to me that Thursday morning when I went to retrieve my bike from her place. It was the last thing that neither of us had returned of the other...mostly because I had no where to put it and didn’t want to deal with it. So I went over, woke her up, and got my bike back.

Or at least that’s part of the story.

We ended up talking and just staring out from her porch and enjoying the beauty of the morning. Then she got dressed and we napped on the couch on her front porch and I thought that it was as good a time as any to tell her that I missed her. And she felt the same way. And then we kissed.

I have never felt this way about an ex-girlfriend before in my life. I don’t really believe in second chances. I feel that if you break up with someone you break up with them for a reason and it is over. But when she said she missed me also I just felt like the feelings I still had for her were vindicated.

That night we met up again and she asked me why I was kissing her. Normally, a little intoxicated and just being me, I would have frozen at having to try and come up with an answer, but for what might be the first time in my life I had one of the those moments of extreme clarity and everything that my friends had ever told me about not blaming only myself for break-ups and ‘it takes two to tango’ came rushing back and I said told her that the reason I was there was not because I wanted to be there or because she wanted me there, but because we both wanted to be there. This confused her, but I never was the best with words.

The concept of ‘it takes two’ had never really sunk in until then. I had always thought that when things happen they happened because one person made them happen, but even in the most one sided situations no one person can take the credit or the blame for the way a situation plays out. Both people play a role in the way things unfold. In this case, we both had feelings for each other and both wanted to be together again, if only for a little while.

For the next two nights we were able to reconnect, not on a physical level, but on an emotional level and I feel that we are better friends than before that morning that I went to get my bike.

The problem for me was the feelings didn’t go away when graduation was over and I worried about how this would affect me since there is another girl who I have feelings for and hope to start a relationship with eventually (nickname: The Gorgeous Girl, per my previous style of blogging). Then I went to see a movie called Robin Hood.

Now, for me, movies are a really great way of escaping from everything. I always come out of a movie with a feeling from the movie. If it is an action movie a feel ready to go blow something up or get in a sword fight.

Robin Hood was supposed to be a bad movie. We had heard it got terrible reviews and that one reviewer had fallen asleep in the movie it was so boring. So my friend and I went to go see it with very low expectations, but it turned out to not be that bad! It was actually kinda fun, if only a bit confusing in the beginning. But after I came out of the movie I felt...better. I am not saying I am 100% over my ex now, I don’t think anyone is ever completely over someone else, but I can say I am certainly in a better place emotionally going forward.

I feel that I can give myself entirely to my work this summer and to any future relationship because I have had this real conclusion to the relationship I had with my ex. I don’t feel like there any loose ends I wish I had tied up and I am glad about the way this ended and I am ready for what comes next in my life.

Oh, and my mom bought a Buick.

Eat it!

The KFC Double Down has been built up to be a new epic eat from the house of the Colonel and now I have the delicious pleasure of telling you what it's all about!

What I expected: Two super fried pieces of chicken with yellow American cheese and bacon! 6 to 8 inches in length and make me wanna puke after I finished it.

What it actually was: very manageable. The fried chicken breasts/tenders were very lightly breaded and greasy as opposed to the nice crispiness I was expecting. The cheese was white...but probably still American. The chicken was tender and very juicy as opposed to the dry shoe leather I thought I was going to get. It was also small, about the size of a burger. It was also quite tasty; all those "secret" herbs and spices.

Final Conclusion: A food that is mostly for shock value, but actually not half bad.

And what would you entitle self pity?

Tonight I went to a party and had fun. I gossiped with a friend about friends (which was the highlight of the night) and I had my house mate talk about how he was going to get belligerently drunk (speaking of which, I don't know where he is...). Everything was going well until my ex-girlfriend showed up.

So. a little background. My ex and I had broken up over Thanksgiving (not a lot of thanks to give that weekend) and didn't talk again until mid-April. Things were fine: I thought she hated my guts and we never saw each other. Simple enough, right? But then I wanted to patch things up and asked her to coffee. That's when things change-ed.

At coffee everything felt normal...comfortable even...almost as if we had never broken up. It was at this point when the hateful lover known as "regret" showed up. Regret...so easy to bed, but never ever the satisfying partner you are looking for. The drink that is always lacking in sweetness, alcohol, and volume, but never in bitterness.

It was here where I began to question my decision of breaking up with my ex: were things really that bad 5 months ago? Could we have gotten through it? How would things be now if I had held on a little longer? Committed a little bit more?

I'll never know, but this is how I have felt since we had coffee. To be honest to the audience, I usually feel this way when I have had a little bit to drink (or, like tonight, when I have a lot a bit to drink) and run into my ex and realize what I don't have anymore.

So, I ran into my ex. And she was wearing the dress she had first modeled for my mom and I in the fall and that she wore to Halloween to complement my costume. Not critical, but she looked great. And we chatted/flirted as if things had never changed, but the change that was very real was that when she walked away she walked away. When I left..I left alone.

I guess I had gotten used to my ex-girlfriends not talking to me post break-up and making moving on easier, but this most recent on has really thrown me.

Never have I had to face "what could have been" so bluntly before. Now, of course there are reasons we broke up. Though we get along as friends, there are in fact deeper levels where we are incompatible (my sunny outlook on life and her depression for one of many). But the fact remains that hind sight is 20/20 and the glasses are ALWAYS rosy.

As my best friend pointed out to me tonight and (I am sure) will keep pointing out to me, there were reasons that I felt the relationship should end and they weren't wrong. But I can't help but feeling that I might have made a mistake and that the rough spot we were going through could have been worked through.

Ok, self pity over.

Goodnight!