So we're about 10 days into the start of the new semester and half marathon training. Here are some initial thoughts on both.

School

• I'm taking two classes this semester: Organizational Leadership and Change and Strategic Analysis in the Competitive Environment.


• One of my classes seems awesome. Ones seems terrifyingly hard.


• I've only had one minor panic attack about how I'm going to balance everything this semester. Said freak out was yesterday at work, while I thought about all the huge work projects I have coming up there too.


• In the leadership class we took a personality survey thing (similar to Meyers-Briggs/Strengthsfinders, etc for those familiar with them). I always enjoy those because I find them to be creepily accurate for the most part.


• I scored off-the-charts high on extraversion. I'm sure this surprises no one.

Half Marathon Training

• Following a less intense plan was definitely the way to go this time around.


• Last week, we had a bunch of really humid days, which made even short runs miserable.


• This week, the humidity has taken a vacation and running in the mornings has been pretty pleasant.


• I've been doing my shorter weekday runs without my Garmin. It's nice not to worry about how fast or slow I'm going.
  I still wear Garmin for my weekend long runs though.


• Last weekend's long run was six miles. I should have eaten beforehand since I had a really early dinner the night before. That was a fail, and I went sloooooow as a result.


• When football season starts in 10 days, I'm going to have to figure out a different time to do my long runs since Saturdays will be occupied with tailgating. TBD on when that will be.

So that's what I've got going on now. Other than that quick freak out yesterday, things actually seem pretty manageable at the moment. I know my one class is going to get a lot more time-intensive later in the semester, and that definitely makes me nervous, but right now, I'm still managing to keep everything in check.

You know what's a bad idea for a runner? Walking in to a City Sports after a long run all hopped up on endorphins and realizing there's a sale going on.

So bad for my wallet.

But really good given the fact that I was pretty desperately in the need of new sports bras. Definitely hadn't replaced mine in like two years.

I've been wearing Champion sports bras my entire life. No joke since I started needing them when I was playing basketball and softball in middle school. Champions were the first I ever bought (correction, first my mom ever bought me) and I've been loyal since.

I've alway worn one of two styles. Either the simple pull over your head kind evidenced here:



Now a days these are reserved for rec league sports (like softball) that don't require as much support. Also for slip n slide.

Or these with way more support for running:

   

More support in general means things stay in place better on runs.

But to my dismay and utter sadness, Champion stopped making these bras. They've phased in some new styles that I'm not a major fan of (too many seams = too many possibilities for chafing). As a result, I haven't bought a new sports bra since...uhhh...2013?

Yea I know, that's really bad since sports bras definitely do not keep their support that long. (Most experts recommend replacing them every six months...sorry boobs!)

So this weekend when City Sports was having a nice sale on sports bras, I figured I'd take the time to look around. Well-endowed runner friends and running bloggers tend to swear by the Moving Comfort brand for their extreme support, and since those happened to be on sale, I decided to try a few on.

I tried on a few different styles: Maia, Juno and Rebound Racer.

The Maia was a no-go from the start for me. Underwire in a sports bra is just not my jam.

I tried on the Juno next and pretty much fell in love (once I was actually able to get it on and clasped). It took some weird circus theatrics to get it over my head and then hooked in back, but once it was all set, I could tell why people raved about this bra. So much support, so little movement, no matter how much I jumped up and down in the dressing room.

   

I actually wore it on my run this morning and it was awesome, except the tag rubbed weird in the back, so I'll have to figure something out with that.

The last one I tried on was the Rebound Racer. This one was easier to put on (thank goodness), but still seemed to have pretty awesome support and held up well to me jumping all over the dressing room. I haven't taken it out on a run yet, but I plan to later this week.

   



So in total I left City Sports with the two sports bras, a pair of shorts and new head bands, since my old ones were finally too stretched out, all for $105. Considering a good sports bra usually runs like $60, I consider this a major win.

Ladies, do you have a favorite sports bra? What is it? 

As of Monday night, I can officially hang my softball cleats up until next season.



My work league ended with a loss in the second round of the playoffs (by two to the only undefeated team in the league) and my alumni league wrapped up on Saturday.



Our Maryland team had a great run. We unfortunately lost in the semi-finals to Pitt in a game where we just played like crap all around. We couldn't hit, we couldn't field, it wasn't our usual brand of Maryland softball.

It was a bummer of a way to go out, but if we're looking on the bright side, it was the first time we'd made a run that deep in the tournament since 2009.

Part of me is really sad to see softball season go. I've had tournaments three straight weekends in August, and they're some of my favorite weekends of the year.

But another part of me is OK to slide into the off-season. My MBA classes started up again on Monday, and training for the Baltimore Half started this week too, so not having to work around softball schedules will probably be good for my sanity.

I know summer isn't officially over yet, but man with softball season wrapping up and classes getting underway, it sure feels like it is.

Happy International Left-Handers' Day to all my fellow southpaws!

So remember when this blog was actually about running (or at least largely about running)? I kind of do, but I will admit it's been a while since I've had a good post to write about running.



Running was happening this summer, but since I wasn't actively training for anything, it didn't seem all that important/necessary to chronicle the minutiae of each of my runs. (Those posts always turn into wahhhhh DC humidity is the woooooorst, and you can only write so many of those).

But with my many softball teams slowly winding down, and the Baltimore Half marathon creeping up on me, I'm going to be diving back into training mode next week.

You know what else starts next week? The fall semester of my MBA classes.

So I will go from a glorious six weeks where I did nothing but lounge by pools, play softball and do the occasional 3-5 miler straight into half marathon training and intense class mode. That should be just a delightful transition.



Given my past rocky experiences of trying to train for a race while in grad school and my unfortunate tendency to get injured if my mileage creeps too high, I'm actually going to be following a "beginners" half marathon training plan this time around.

I know I'm far from a beginner in terms of running. I've been doing this for close to 10 years now, but if I'm being realistic about my time available to train and my injury history, I know I need to stick to something that's less likely to cause me to get hurt.



My training plan is going to be loosely based off Hal Higdon's novice program with three shorter runs during the week and a longer run on the weekend.

I think this kind of low mileage plan is going to be the best thing to fit into my very crazy fall schedule and allow me to get to the starting line healthy.

My alumni softball league had part one of our playoffs on Saturday and Sunday. With 67 teams, close to 1,200 people and softball games from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, the weekend was just a giant party.



(L to R) Jon, me and Zac after our first game

Pool play was this weekend, and my team won all three of our games, which means we advance to the elimination round next weekend.

We got lucky this year and our games were at 8 and 10 a.m. on Saturday and noon on Sunday. So once we got the first two games out of the way, we had the entire rest of the day Saturday to hang out at the most epic tailgate ever.



We played some cornhole, the guys drank some beer, and we played a lot of slip n slide.



I forgot how painful slip n slide can be. I have massive bruises on my arms from sliding down the tarp.



On Sunday, you could tell a day of being in the sun really caught up to people. We won our game, but everyone was dragging.

I hit the ball pretty well on Saturday, not so much on Sunday mainly because I was basically a walking zombie. Hopefully I will make it to the batting cages on Tuesday to work on the basic mechanics before next weekend.

I can't believe this weekend has come and gone already though. I spend all summer looking forward to it, and then I felt like I blinked and it was over and all I have left are the very sore muscles and many bruises to show for it.

August is softball tournament season around these parts. The first three weekends of the month, I have softball tournaments pretty much all day, every day.



The first tournament was last Saturday for my Senate league team. I've played on this team for five years now and have coached it the last two (or maybe three?) years with my friend Jon.

This year's tournament was fun, but in terms of playing to our potential, it didn't go well.



Our first game was at 9:30, and we beat the team we played pretty handily. It wasn't a blow out, but the other team never really threatened.

We had a three-hour break in between games, where we set up a nice tailgate, grilled some food, tried to not melt in the sun, etc.



Then we played our second game, where we managed to blow a 10-run lead to lose and get knocked out. Needless to say, no one was happy about that.

If we had won, we would have gotten a re-match against the team we lost to in the finals last year. Bleh, what a disappointment.

I'm actually pretty sad the Senate league season is officially over. This was my very first rec-league team I started playing on, and the team is full of some of my favorite people, that I pretty much only see during the season.



But tournament season in general is far from over. In fact, this weekend is the first weekend of my alumni league tournament, and I've been counting down the days til our first game all week! I have good feelings about my team making a good run!

Ever since I got back from vacation, getting out of bed before work to run has been a struggle for me. But somehow this morning, I mustered enough will power to drag myself out the door for a sweaty four miler.



It was a Garmin-less run so I have no idea on my time. Probably for the best, I'm sure it was slow with the humidity. Glad I woke up and got it done though.

Now... on to a totally unrelated topic.

Last week, I was having a pretty meh week. Catching up from vacation, trying to juggle a bunch of softball logistics for tournaments, not sleeping well, etc. I was not in the best of moods, and I'm sure I was just a real doll to be around.

And it's like the universe knew I needed a little bit of a reminder that not all people suck and are actively trying to give me massive headaches. I had three of the most simple, kindest gestures dropped into my lap from friends over the last couple of days.

DC gets a lot of flack for being a city of power-hungry jerks, who march around with their speedy powerwalks, faces pointed down staring at their phones, firing off quick emails and grumbling at tourists who don't know that you should always "stand right, walk left" on the Metro escalators.

Sometimes I think people get the impression that common courtesy and manners get totally thrown out the window here, so I figured it's worth sharing those three random acts of kindness.

1. The other day I was out to lunch with a colleague who opened every door for me between our office building and the lunch spot. It was the tiniest little thing, but was the third in a string of people doing nice things for me, so I happened to notice it more than I might have normally.

2. Monday night I was walking with one of the guys on my softball team from the field to the Metro, and all of a sudden he moved from walking on my left side to walking on my right side because "ladies should never walk closest to the traffic." I didn't know this was a thing people still did but again, just a small, polite act of kindness.

3. Friday night I was catching a ride with a friend from an event we were at to a friend's birthday party. When we got to the car he opened to passenger door for me, let me get in and then closed the door afterward. Who does that anymore? Apparently nice, polite people with manners actually do exist in this city.

Yes, the gestures were small, and to my friends they were probably nothing more than their normal nice-person behavior, but when you're having a meh week like I was, little things like that really add up.

So that's all I've got for today. Not everyone in DC sucks and sometimes when you're having a rough week, the universe throws good things your way.