Pre-Race Thoughts + Running Playlist

Post-race at Rock ‘N’ Roll Dallas Half Marathon in March 2017

My week:  It’s been A week. I was off to a great start and then I got hit out of nowhere (literally!). A vehicle hit me on Tuesday and it hurt enough to give me whiplash. And if you’ve never had whiplash, let me tell you that it’s no joke. The original plan was to run everyday this week, but I decided not to run on an injured neck that afternoon. I woke up the next day and it hurt to turn my head left and right, and it was even more painful to tilt my head back like in hair washing motion. A few headaches, ibuprofen pills, and warm compresses later, I’m just about fully recovered! My mom said I won’t recover as quickly later in life, so just this once, I’m glad to be a twenty something!

The city: I’m so happy to be writing to ya’ll from San Antonio! I lived here for 2 1/2 years during undergrad before transferring universities. I’m sad to say I didn’t spend any time in the downtown area when lived here. However, I’m back and I’m happy to be getting to know this city even better on a beautiful 13.1 mile run!

Training: I have been extremely hard on myself the past couple of months. It’s natural to want to compare ourselves to a different time in our lives when we were “better” at something, but it’s not such a good idea. I kept thinking back to January (when I was training for my first half marathon) and couldn’t help but think that I put in significantly more time and effort back then than I did preparing for this race. It was causing stress and I couldn’t take the personal guilt of knowing that I didn’t try as hard this time in comparison to last time, so guess what I did… I counted every single training run from my first half marathon, and counted every single training run for this half marathon, and I couldn’t believe it!!! I’ve trained more this second time around compared to my first time and it was a total shocker! Graduate school has taken over my life for the past year, but I am so incredibly proud to have made myself a priority and pushed my studies aside to take care of my health and accomplish my personal goals.

Of course, no run is complete without a few jams. I’d been running with my iPod from middle school for years, but I finally decided to retire my iPod to use Spotify on my phone. I’ve put together almost 4 hours of some of my favorite songs that pump me up and remind me of good times. I hope you find something you like, or use the playlist during your runs! Happy Sunday Runday!

XO, Vivian

 

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