"You Mean YOU Were That Girl Wearing Those Ridiculous Knee-High Socks?!"

So this little vacation (by which I mean math camp) I've been enjoying is coming to an end. Gulp. We've had a lot of orientation events this week, and every time I tell an upper-level econ student that I'm a first-year, they get an evil grin of delight on their face, accompanied by a chuckled "You have no idea what you're in for." So if you never hear from me again, that's why. The end is nigh.

Running was awesome this week. The weather's really cooled down, I did some wonderful runs in the pouring rain, and all the little niggles that've had me worried since my marathon seem to have subsided. I do not let myself run with strange pains, even if they don't hurt that much, so I've really struggled to increase my mileage to where I want it to be. My weekly totals continue to hover around pretty low numbers (I'll hit 21 miles for this week - 5 runs, all easy), but my activity level has been high (I do a lot of walking here, which I love!) and overall I'm feeling really great.

These beautiful cedar trails probably have something to do with feeling great. See 'em and weep. Not too much, though; they only last a mile.

This was obviously not a rainy day. This was a beautiful day.

I think that's Spencer Butte, but I really have no idea. I have a terrible sense of direction here (that's what happens when you don't have mountains to use as a reference point).

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I do have a funny running story to share with you. Last weekend I managed to leave all my transportation (by which I mean my bike and my car) at some friends' place, so two of my runs this week ended there to allow me to pick one up (my bike doesn't fit in my car so it took two trips). Yesterday, I was on my way there when I happened to run into the people whose place I was heading towards (on a very roundabout, turn-one-mile-into-four-miles kind of route) and I got really excited. It was the very first time I had run into people I know off-campus!

When I made eye contact with one of them, I got a huge grin on my face. He looked away, though, so I figured he didn't recognize me in my running garb. They were far enough away that yelling at them would be embarrassing ("Hey, you guys, look at me, you know me, isn't this so exciting?!?!?"), so I just continued on my merry way.

The next time I saw them, I excitedly told them my story, expecting it to be met with "You were that hot chick running by!" But alas, no. Not at all. Instead, it was, "Wait, were you wearing ridiculous knee-high socks?! We made fun of you for the next ten minutes!"

Apparently compression socks aren't quite as mainstream as I thought, and some people think we wear them for purely aesthetic reasons. But hey, I educated them on the (alleged) benefits of wearing compression socks (which for me include preventing shin pain when increasing my mileage) and turned them around to my side. Jeano: fighting compression sock antipathy one run-in at a time!

Question: do people ever make fun of you for your compression socks/sleeves/what-have-you?

How To Make Runs Harder

Where's the time gone?! The past couple of weeks have been a blur. My program has us do a sort of math refresher before we start the hard stuff, so I've been math camp-ing for the past three weeks. It's been an awesome gradual, watered-down introduction to grad school and has left me with plenty of free time, which I clearly haven't used for blogging. Blogging's great and all, but when your choice is between blogging and, say, buying a mattress or going to the beach, blogging's going to get the shaft.

The beach!

This is what it looked like when we got there. It was a miserable first 3 hours, followed by a glorious 3 hours.

This dog's got nothing on Bailey.

Plus, there's the fact that I'm not training for anything right now. Training provides a very natural story arc, and when it ends it's up to the blogger to "come up with content." This is something I struggle with (any ideas?).

So in the absence of content, I thought I'd tell you the different ways in which I've been challenging myself via running. You mean I've been running? Yes!  This week I should hit 14.5 miles (and a hike! And 2.5-5 miles of walking/biking per day). Right now I'm focusing on running more days of the week as opposed to more miles, so all my runs have been incredibly short.

Anyway, many of my recent runs have been tests of fortitude, physical, mental, and social (I may have just invented "social fortitude" - someone alert the OED!). Let's count the ways, shall we?

1) Running with a running group

Man, guys. I gave the running group thing a sort-of-not-really fair shot and I've bravely decided to never go back, because quitting after one failure is what champions are made of. I went to a Monday night easy run that left from a local running store, and it was so incredibly awkward, the kind of situation I usually avoid at all costs. There were only 10-15 people there, and they all knew each other. That's my absolute worst nightmare. When everyone's already got their friends, what motivation is there to reach out to someone new? And when people are in the middle of an engaging conversation, what's the last thing you should do? Interrupt them to say, "HI I'M JEAN TALK TO ME PLEASE."

I stood around looking weird until we left the store and ran to and around Alton Baker Park. Of course no one was running at my pace so I mostly ran alone. The last mile, I was just about to make a wrong turn when a kind soul yelled that I was going the wrong way. She was nice enough to finish the run with me, but I can't say our conversation was remotely interesting. Aren't runners supposed to instantly connect because of their shared love of the sport?! We very quickly ran out of introduction topics, so I tried to talk about running. That definitely didn't work. My theory is that since I never talk (out loud) about running, I don't even have the vocabulary to do so. 

So, yeah. Running clubs can suck it. Maybe next time (there won't be a next time).

2) Trail runs

I haven't done a ton of trail running, but I've tried to do so once or twice a week. For example, last Saturday I hit up the McKenzie River Trail to see what it's all about. The first mile, I was incredibly disappointed because the trail was right next to the road, but after that it got really exciting. The views weren't anything to write home about,

Except this one

but it was awesome to run on a trail that didn't go straight up or straight down (*cough* Alaska *cough*). There were enough obstacles to keep my brain occupied, but overall it was a pretty flat run. Also, there were moments where you got close to the river and you were hit by the best cool breeze off the water. It took almost an hour to drive here, but I plan to head back when I can.

Another notable trail run was on Eugene's Ridgeline trail system. I was checking out a map and noticed that two points 1.5 miles from each other were the same elevation. That obviously means the bits between are flat, right? No. Wrong. It was more like a 400-foot gain over .75 miles. I was dying. There was a sign at the summit, which made me laugh because it didn't remotely resemble the kinds of summits I'm accustomed to. 

View from the summit. 

This looks more like a summit, but I took it from the trailhead.

3) Running in hot weather

Now, this is bordering on "complaining about weather," which I hate (but of which I am guilty at times), but I don't mean it that way. I just mean that because I haven't been sufficiently motivated to run in the morning, I've been running in 80+ temps, which has challenged me. From what I hear, Oregon's had an unseasonably warm summer, and those temperatures are continuing into fall. Although by the looks of it, rain is on its way! Anyway, running in warmer temps is a good way to make an easy run harder.

4) Running an hour after eating a foot-long Subway sandwich

Granted, this only happened once, but it was no doubt one of the hardest runs I've ever done. So, I'm gross and not at all embarrassed to admit that I've been eating Subway with an alarming frequency, especially when I was in the process of moving and didn't want to be burdened by groceries. Well, a couple of days ago I needed to get my run done and the sun was going down. Since it was just a 3-miler, I figured I'd be fine. WRONG. I never entered sharting territory, but I was so. incredibly. nauseous the entire time. It was scary. Don't do that. Oh, wait, you're too smart to do that to yourself? GOOD FOR YOU.

So there you have it. If you want to make your runs harder, try group running (wait, don't do that), trails, hot weather, and Subway.

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I've been the ultimate comment failure these past few weeks. I've managed to stay largely up-to-date with all your running doings, but I don't think I've commented on more than a handful. Will try harder!

Questions:

• How do you make YOUR runs harder?
• What do you want me to write about? Do you even care?

Life, As Done By Jeano

I'm still on a quest to find permanent housing, which is both fun ("Hey, it's kind of like you're my friends and we're hanging out!") and miserable. I have a tendency to get very attached to an idea and go for it without much (or any) thought. Consequently, every time I see a house I tell the people, "That's it, you're my top choice, just say the word and I'll move in." But then, a day later, they're totally not my top choice. At all. Like, I already know I can't live in a gluten-free, wholly local/organic, no hydrogenated-fructose-oil-syrup-whatever household. I KNOW that. And yet I heard myself telling these wonderful-people-but-totally not-my-future-roommates that "I love this place! I'll take it!" And then ashamedly emailing them later to tell them I'm actually not interested. I'm such an asshole.

Another great example of this is my bike. Yeah, I own a bike now - I guess that makes me a biker? Don't expect to see "Tri-ing Jeano" any time soon; biking sucks. If it weren't for the fact that it's faster than walking, I wouldn't have anything to do with it. Anyway, let's take a look at my bike-buying experience.

Scene: Jeano timidly speaks to angry Craigslist man on the phone, drives to his house, unsure if she's meeting an adorable curmudgeon a la Mr. Wilson or the decidedly less adorable BTK killer. Pulls up to his driveway, decides he's not going to murder her (yet), but is confused by the billion different bikes he has for sale.

Jeano: Are you moving? Is this a moving sale?

Old man: No.

Silence.

Well, that sure clarified things. Jeano takes a number of bikes for a spin and narrows her options down to two bikes. One bike is a great bike. Just your run-of-the-mill mountain bike, like every other she's ever ridden. The other bike is a road bike of questionable quality that must be from the early '80s. The gears, strange knobs between the handlebars, don't shift all that well, and the bike frame seems to be way too tall, but damn, it looks cool.

So which one did I buy? Like I even need to answer that.

That's my old, unwieldy, mostly functioning road bike that I'm sort of scared to ride long distances. It doesn't help that the seat has started rocking forward and backward while I ride it, to the point where I spend much of the ride with one hand pushing down on the front of it to keep it semi-level. I'm anxiously awaiting the moment it flips backward off the bike, taking me with it. Or, maybe I'll go get it checked out. Safety first and all that.

So there you have it: life, as done by Jeano.

Oh, and I'm also a chicken farmer now! By which I mean I have access to chickens.

You know, just taking the chickens for their nightly walk.

I can't claim to know what to do with them (Meagan, any pointers?), but they're a riot.

Let's not forget exercise. This was a pretty solid week for running, hiking, and (lolz) biking. My mileage wasn't dazzling, but I made it out for a trail jog the other day, two 3-milers, a 5-miler along the river, and a scorching hike up "Mount" Pisgah this afternoon. Garmin tells me I netted 995 feet elevation gain over the course of 1.4 miles, so I guess that's cool.

This is sort of like when a blogger takes pictures of their plate from six hundred angles; I take pictures of the same scenery from slightly different angles and hope people don't notice. Let's just call this a triptych. 

It's a big river. Taken on Friday.

I might go to a group run tomorrow night. Might. I'm already anxious about it so probably won't go. Running groups are scary. What I need is a personal running companion. Takers?

Eugene: This Is Why Word Limits Exist

Hey guys! So much to tell you! Too much to tell you.

I arrived in Eugene a few days ago and have been on turbo speed ever since. It's been hectic, but really great, actually. In many ways, Eugene could not be more different than I had imagined. Funny story: on the drive down, I kept asking my dad (who got his renewed passport the day before we left so fortunately was able to tag along!), "Does this look like Eugene? How about this? That? Sort of? Getting hotter? Marco?" and whenever he wasn't telling me to shut up, he was saying "No." Apparently nothing we passed looked remotely like Eugene. Finally, while we were driving though what I considered to be the most boring part of the trip, he said, "Now this, this looks like Eugene." Shit.

He was right, in a sense, but from what I can tell Eugene is much more than that (trees on a dry hill). It's a lot like Vermont (where I spent my undergrad years), but not really. It's a lot like Lafayette, California (where my grandparents live), but not really. It's a hard place to pin down. Its beauty doesn't punch you in the gut, but there are still many promising places to explore.

Let me show you some pictures of the drive down to convince you that I'm probably a real person and actually did it. Since 90% of our time was spent driving, I didn't take nearly as many picture as I would have liked, and many were taken through a windshield while moving 65+ miles an hour. None were taken in Alaska because it was gross and ugly the day we left.

If this picture overload bothers you, blame Professor Amy, who claims that people are interested in looking at a blogger's pictures even if that blogger doesn't have time/content to write anything.

I was really into that yellow grass.

This was the only brown bear we saw, but we saw NINE (tiny) black bears within a 20-30 mile stretch on our second day.

Views from the dramatic last miles of the trip, when I first realized that Oregon isn't a rain forest.

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Now that we got that over with, let's talk running. Eugene is going to be great for running, especially trail running. Take today, for example.

I tend to feel a bit claustrophobic in places that don't have a high point. I like knowing I can escape to somewhere higher (that sounds religious, but it's not. I literally want to be higher than everything else). It probably doesn't make any sense, but for my sanity I need to be able to climb something, especially when I've got a lot going on.

My dad feels similarly, so before he left we did a quick Google search and stumbled upon Spencer Butte, which I hear is Eugene's Flattop (ie. the most popular hike in the area). The "summit" was only (allegedly) two miles from the trailhead, but we ran out of time before we could make it all the way up. We were pissed that we didn't get a single view, but I promised my dad that I'd head back soon and send him pictures. I did that today.

Behold, my new stomping grounds:

See that? Yellow. Yellow everywhere. Where's the rain forest? Why is it six million degrees here?

The best part about this trail was that it was almost completely runnable, even for someone who's done very little running the past couple of months. There are evidently a lot of different trails that go up the Butte, so I should have a lot of hilly but runnable trail to train on (if I ever sign up for anything, which I totally will).

Excluding the forty-five minutes it took to climb the last rocky bit and get horribly lost down the same rocky bit (the lady I'm living with reminded me that poison oak is a "thing" here and that she stopped climbing Spencer Butte because there's so much of it off-trail. I may have rashes in my future), I covered 4.25 miles, most of it at a jog. Total elevation gain (again, excluding the steepest last quarter-ish mile) was about 1,100 feet. Not bad for two miles.

Even though I miss my mountains, it was kind of cool running through this:

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Speaking of mountains, I have to tell you what I did on my last day in Anchorage even though I'm the only one who cares. Last year, I vowed to run up Powerline Pass before my year was done, and I mentioned it more than a few times on the blog. Finally, the week before I left, I was forced to admit that I wasn't going to do it, but then I totally did. Even better, I ran about seven of the twelve miles. I was amazed and overjoyed that Bailey was able to keep up with the faster pace.

[Side note: a few people have asked about Bailey and I realized I never told y'all why she didn't come with me to Eugene. I suppose I abandoned her, but she wasn't actually my dog to take. She belonged to my parents. When I moved home last fall, I lived with them. I exercised her far more than anyone else did and loved her dearly, so they consented to "loan" her to me once I moved out. When I left for Eugene, she just went back to her real home. It's sad for all involved, but for the best. Those assholes keep texting me pictures of her and making me sad.]

Powerline Pass: a perfect way to finish my stint in Anchorage. More importantly, I kept my word!

I could go on and on, but apparently people care about word limits.

Questions:

• Are you a freak like me and obsessed with high points?
• Road or trail: which do you prefer?