Crossroads

So, I am about to graduate in December as some of you might know, and this is extremely nerve wracking. I am trying to figure out what jobs to apply for and where, and if I want to go to graduate school...then there is the continual attempt to perfect my resume and cover letters, and all of this on top of taking 21 hours just so that I can graduate a semester early to save some money. Of course I am also spending close to 3 hours a day training for cross country also!! There is soooo much to do, and yet time is quickly shrinking away into the past. But I am super excited to have finally made some headway on all these efforts. The checklist:

• Resume (done!!!)
• Cover Letter
• Midterms...they begin next week yikes!!
• 4 regular season meets, hopefully Regional's also
• Figure out graduate school??
• Send in job apps/resume
• The graduation preparations
• Then there is everyday living and school work
• Social life?? 

So I am a little overwhelmed at the endless possibilities ahead of me, but I am also extremely excited!!! I am applying at Disney which is SUPER EXCITING!! and that doesn't even do it justice on how exciting that possibility is. Speaking of Disney...only 10 days til I am there :) I am kind of a huge fan of Disney, maybe you can tell.

Despite the massive amounts of unsettled aspects of my life right now, I have realized I am about to embark on a great adventure. I have the world at my fingertips, and the possibilities are endless of where I can choose to go or where life will drag me, so instead of stressing about all the uncertainty my future holds right now...I am choosing to be excited (I know I have used that word so many times in this post already but it is so fitting) and enjoy the journey...not everyday is easy, a lot of them are really hard, but I am trying to make the best of an unpredictable future

The Guns Go Off

Cross Country Season has begun officially for me, and I have raced twice now...both in very different racing conditions. Our first race was at TLU for our invitational meet on September 8th where we ran a 5K against colleges in the San Antonio area; however, we hadn't had rain in a while in Seguin, so the ground was very dry which allowed it to turn to sand after running on it for a few days. By the time the meet rolled around on Saturday morning and the warm-up runs from various teams had been completed the course looked like black sand. As the gun went off we all ran into the strong winds which blew the sand into our eyes, so for the majority of the run I ran blindly and slipping on the hills where no footing could be found in the shifting ground. This race was a wake up call to me mentally and physically; I hadn't run a cross country race in nearly two years so my main goal was to finish the race. I didn't run it competitively like I normally run races...it certainly wasn't a race that I am proud of, but races like that generally motivate me to run better in the future.

The next race we ran was on September 14th, and it was the UTSA invitational. The race conditions for this meet were completely different from the first; there had been lots of rain and the temperature had dropped considerably. The meet was held at the gun range in San Antonio while they were having a skeet shooting tournament. The course was extremely muddy and had the longest finish I think I have run in years. Many people lost their spikes in the shoe sucking mud. Despite the tough racing conditions I ran much better. I love races that are filled with mud and rolling hills because even though they are tiring, painful, and tricky to run the challenges they present to me keep my mind off of the pain as I am more focused on the obstacles. Also, I got my competitive mindset back in this race thanks to the Concordia coach who seems to enjoy insulting me and all of the TLU runners...I do not know if he understands that insulting me while I'm running just pisses me off and makes me run faster. I always run so much better when angry, and I love to prove other coaches wrong. Whenever they tell their girls "she is dying" or "she has no kick" it just motivates me to show them how I am really feeling which generally means actually killing myself and kicking it in to beat their girls. Anyways, I hope he continues to cheer this way throughout the season and at Conference because it will really help me run to my full potential. I ended up running a much better time in this race and took off about a minute and forty seconds from my time the previous week!!

This past week has been "Hell Week" and for those of you who do not know what this means...well it is a week when we do not have a meet that weekend so we are able to train hard for two full weeks with limited recovery runs. This is also the week when the comment "I wish I could just chop off my (insert body part in pain)" frequently from cross country runners. For me, I think I would just like to remove from my hips down because my legs are just dead, but especially my left shin...This is also the week where you begin a regular dosage of Aleve to take the edge off the soreness. But I have made it through Hell Week in mostly one piece and I am really getting excited for the rest of the season, and Disney in two weeks!!!

Jacob's Well...A Leap of Faith

This past Saturday I went on an adventure in the hill country with some of my teammates. Ashley and Brittany, and I made our way to Wimberley, Texas. This is an adorable small town that is filled with little shops selling antiques of all sorts...from tools and "vintage" boots to art and furniture. However, our destination was a tad more adventurous...

The day started off with an early morning run of only nine miles...I hadn't run that far in a LONG time, probably a little less than two years so I was pleasantly surprised when I was actually running a good pace right up there with the team :) but when we hit mile eight, I hit the wall and did the death march back around campus to the gym, but I made it!!! An few interesting thing I learned on this run is that intellectual challenging games make the run go by extremely fast and relatively painlessly, and also I have a friend who has constantly explained to me that if you get sweat into your eyes that it burns...I have never believed him fully and thought he was just abnormal (which he is), but he was right about this fact. I guess I had never sweat enough to experience this before this run haha but the problem I had is since I had sweat so much already before I got to this point of blinding burning...I had no part of my body dry enough to wipe it away, and my lovely reflector vest could have been rung out, so it provided no relief either...but it is all ok because I made it! I survived! Immediately after I raced back to my apartment so we could leave to make it to Jacob's Well by ten (it is an hour away)

We packed ourselves a picnic lunch and breakfast to go, hoped in the car, and made our way to Jacob's Well. Now I bet your wondering what is this place they went to??? It is an underwater cave that is spring fed, so it is ice cold and perfectly clear. The fun aspect of visiting is that you can swim in it...and also you can jump into it from the cliffs surrounding it!!! Now the cave has a thirty foot straight drop before curving in and winding its narrow passages for miles underground. If you want to read some scary stories read about the divers who have died exploring this cave....it makes me rethink ever wanting to become a cave diver.

After going on a tour of the surrounding area and hiking to the actual spot of hidden watering hole, we were greeted by some other swimmers who were jumping from the cliffs...it just so happens that the first person we saw jump went from this skinny rock that was really high and far from the actual hole, and we all agreed that was insane to jump from there. Now to clarify, cliff diving is a lot of fun and I have done it before but the kinds I have done was merely just jumping from a cliff into water...however, this was much more complex...you had to jump out quite a ways because it wasn't even close to a straight drop off; also, you had to aim to land in the opening of the cave preferably in the middle because the walls are a bit jagged.

It is beautiful isn't it!!! Well we jumped into it many, many times haha and I'll admit it took me a while to get the courage to jump from the higher rocks, but eventually I did jump from the rock we claimed to be too crazy...multiple times. Although I spent a while preparing mentally and physically before taking a leap of faith!