Rejoining the world

I was studying for basically all of January for an exam that I finally wrote on Tuesday evening. It was my first written exam in a LOT of years, and it was my first attempt at writing a university exam in Dutch. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't an exam of Dutch, it was an environmental science exam, in Dutch. Hopefully I managed to get my thoughts across well enough to pass the course. Because I did really enjoy the course, so I'd like to take more, and the introductory course I took is kind of a prerequisite for everything else. We'll see. Surely the professor can tell that I'm not a native speaker and take that into account when my answers are maybe not quite as clearly expressed as he would like. I hope.

Anyway. I sort of withdrew from the world last month, and I'm just now slowly returning, picking up my non-study activities one by one. I went to another club for archery on Wednesday - the first in the regional series of friendly competitions - it'll move all over the area for the next several weeks. It gave me time to try out my car, though! Yay! My navigation system, too, which worked like a charm. It was great to not have to stand out in the cold waiting for public transport. Actually, without a car I wouldn't even take part in this competition - it's just too hard to get to most of these places otherwise. For archery, not having a car really limited me. It's not the main reason I bought a car, but it will certainly benefit from it!

I haven't started running again yet. I stopped when we got that dumping of snow mid-January and, well, let's face it, that only melted this week, so I've only REALLY missed a week of running that I should be sorry about. The other weeks don't count, in my book. It would not have been safe. Trust me. I fell getting off my bike - because my feet slid as I hopped off and down I went. I had to keep supporting the bike, too, because The Little Ninja was on the kid seat at the front and I didn't want to land underneath both him and the bike the bike to fall over with him on it. So I got a nice bruise on my cheek from where I essentially supported the bike with my face. I wasn't going to try running in that.

But I'm on the right path: back into my normal life! Work, archery, running, writing, socializing... and thinking about studying something new.

Running

I started running again. A few weeks ago. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, to be honest. I go wicked slow, but I can keep it up for a whole half hour, which isn't bad considering I quit running when I got pregnant in 2010. So to celebrate my reentry into the sport I've been looking at races for the spring. Sure, right now I can barely get round 3 km in half an hour, but I'm confident that will improve as long as I stick with it. As I said; I've done this before. The thing is, while I know I can be ready for a 5k race in the spring, the one that I want to do is 10k. In March. The City-Pier-City Run in The Hague. Which, technically, is doable, but realistically, I don't think I want to push myself that hard. I like races. And the best way to motivate myself to do more races and continue is to have a good experience. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. So destroying myself to get around the 10k is quite possibly a far worse idea than confidently finishing the 5k. Even though the 5k race is just a square loop and the 10k race covers a nice section of city. <sigh> there's always the next year, right? (By which time I'll likely be training for the full half-marathon if all goes well.)

Besides, there are other 10k races later in the season that I could probably do with more confidence. There's the Royal Ten in The Hague at the end of May, for example, and the Ladies Run in Rotterdam in early June. Both of these also have 5k races if I totally suck in the new year. But they both also (like the CPC) want you to register already. Already! There's also a rather frightening picture of the Ladies' Run in Rotterdam in which all of the runners are wearing pink. Eep! Is that a requirement? Because I don't do pink. And I'd hate to register just to get disqualified for my clothing!

So. Should I go for the 10? Or the 5? To be completely honest, I've never run a 5k before. 7.5k, 10k, 15k and half-marathon (21.1k), yes, but never 5. Maybe it's time to give it a shot. What do you think?

Off and running

Today, for the first time since... wait, let me think... since I was six weeks pregnant with The Little Ninja, I went running. :D

If you could call it that. Well, I'm going to call it that, anyway.

It wasn't the energizing, easy 5K I used to do all the time. I only did about half that and it was far from easy. I ran for 60 paces and then walked for 60. But it was still energizing. I mean, I was keeled over trying to catch my breath at the end, but I felt good. OK, I wasn't THAT out of breath. I did some stretching and had a shower and my energy was way up until I sat down to work and fell asleep. Seriously. I guess it took more out of me than I thought.

After rereading the line I was working on for about the tenth time, I went to lie down for a nap. Really, there's only so much you can do. So I napped for an hour and then it was time to go pick up The Little Ninja from daycare (another 4K, but just walking this time).

So I walked 8.5K and walked/jogged/ran another 2 or 2.5. I'll have to recharge my Garmin so I can keep better track of my running. Because this was not a one-time event. I'm back world! Off and running!