The #100HappyDays challenge is hard because it's difficult for me sometimes to be able to take a picture of what makes me happy. Or excited! Take today. Science is working; it's a miracle! (Reminder for me: new colony!!! Staining!!!) And all of it is unpublished so the internet isn't a great place to store my glee.
But other things make me smile too. I've been pretty much waiting all year to say this, so I'll leave it here. It's April 30, and that means that tomorrow...
Also, there was delicious sheep cheese from Barcelona at group meeting today. And Clementines. Yum.
I find it sometimes difficult to begin things. For some reason, start dates matter - a lot. The first of the month, of the year, a birthday, an anniversary - these are all impetuses to begin a new project. "This year, I'll be better." "For the next three months, starting today, I will..."
It makes sense. These are natural beginnings, ones that fall out of our control and if we miss them, consciously or not, we have an excuse not to go through with our plans until the next natural beginning.
But what's wrong with starting a project on April 29? It feels a bit unnatural, but hey, I"m inspired today. I know I'm not great at long term projects. But challenge is good, right? So, we (royal we) try.
Today, I'm going to try this #100HappyDays thing. It evolved from...some social media site basically challenging people to find one bright spot of happiness each day 100 days and document it. I like this idea because I get bogged down often by the mundane and forget too easily about the laughter. So...we try.
Today:
I was at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded by John Adams way back in the day, for a department retreat. On the walls, there hung letters from various members of the AAAS accepting their induction into the Academy. Many of these were famous names: Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Day Lewis, Charles Darwin, George Washington. Some of them were beautifully handwritten, some were typed. One guy just wrote. "Gentlemen, Okay."
The whole thing was inspiring, but my bright spot of happiness comes from Benjamin Silliman's letter, not because it was particularly illuminating, but because it reminded me of every day walking up Science Hill and tipping my hat (sometimes mentally) to Silliman's statue. Oh yeah, I'm still a Yalie.
Maybe not the most exciting picture to start, but it made me happy. :)
A couple of months ago, sometime last year, I started training to run a 5K. Electric Run is a novelty 5K (I'm not sure I'm up to run a 5K just for the sake of running a 5K), and it was a good way to start exercising with the goal of being able to go to this thing and have a great time.
It also showed me how out of shape I was.
The 8 week Couch-to-5K program that LM and I committed to starts you at running 60 seconds and walking 90 seconds, rinse and repeat. Eventually, you move on to intervals where you run 2/3 of the time and walk 1/3 of the time and then you're just running. You can run at whatever pace you want, and the important thing is the interval training.
Last year, in doing this, I was consistently running/walking about 2.2 miles in 25-30 minutes, which is not that surprising for me, considering that in high school, I used to run/walk 2 miles in 24 minutes (although I will admit that in high school, that was the minimum to get an A on the 2 mile run so that's what I did and I was always more than a little out of breath by the end. I should also finally maybe admit to myself that 9th grade was 10 years ago. I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS.) I also trained to finally get myself to run 2 miles in 20 minutes and that was a huge deal for me.
It took a lot out of me and I barely made it to the end, but I was super happy with myself for pushing through it.
Of course, LM and I ran the Electric Run last October and it was so worth it even though I was getting over a cold and hadn't actually trained for the couple of weeks before then. I hadn't even gotten through the whole training program and was still struggling to complete every module.
Note: I realized I never made a blog post about Electric Run I'll just leave this here.
This time around, we're training for our spring 5K -- Color Me Rad, where you run through a powder flinging festival. And the training is feeling much better than last time. This time, at Week 4, Day 1, my run:walk ratio is 2:1 and I hit 2 miles at 19:50. Also, I do not feel like dying every time I run and I don't get side stitches anymore.
As a scientist who is always looking for reasons that things could be possible, I have come up with a number of reasons why I am doing better:
1) I am in better shape. I've been dancing through the semester, and did 3.5 hours of dance a week prior to starting running. And more the closer it was to showtime.
2) Mentally, I am more prepared to run this because I've already done it before.
3) The weather is colder. (actually significantly colder. I often run in my bright orange workout pants.)
4) I listen to different music. While my workout music had traditionally been very upbeat, pop/rock songs, I've been recently favoring more chill, slow songs. Whoo in the Christina Perri/Sara Bareilles direction.
5) I know my route better and know where the mile markers are.
6) I'm pushing myself harder (unlikely because I don't feel bad afterwards).
Whatever the case, I am happier running than I ever have been before. Hopefully, this will last.
