race anxiety = test anxiety

i woke up this morning in a cold sweat and realized i had been having a bad dream about the half marathon. it was exactly the feeling i had when i used to have the first-day-of-school bad dreams when i forgot something and hadn't prepared (or accidently showed up naked). in my bad dream, i realized the race had moved and i had no way of telling the couple of people who were coming to see me. so no one came to see me and i was late to the starting line and then my sister showed up and i started chatting with her and she said she wanted to run with me. we started running but she kept wanting to stop at water fountains and i asked her to please stop doing that. however, i realized i hadn't brought a water bottle and was really sad about it. then we were waiting in line to run because there was a bottleneck on the course. it was super weird and super anxiety-producing as a slept.

anyway, i started school last week (i am in a ph.d. program at loyola university chicago) and so i haven't had a lot of time to update. here is what i have done in my first busy week:

tuesday, 8/25 - bikram yoga

wednesday, 8/26 - 4 miler

friday, 8/28 - 5 miler

saturday, 8/29 - bikram yoga

sunday, 8/30 - 9 miler

today my 9 miler didn't really even hurt. my hip felt great the whole time and my knees were only a little sore right at the end. it was a great run and i am almost excited about my next long run (which will be the last one before the half marathon!), which is next sunday and only 8 miles. (who would have thought i would EVER say "only 8 miles"??)

plus, another athletic update - i learned how to swing a golf club on friday evening. my bf and i went to the driving range and he gave me lessons. look out world! i have to say that bikram yoga really helps me in so many aspects of understanding how my body moves. perhaps this is a wierd statement to someone who has been athletic all his or her life, but to me when someone would say "curl your spine" or even something as simple as "engage your core," i was always like, "what, now?" before bikram, i couldn't really visualize what my body could do. but since you have to stare in the mirror when doing bikram, now i understand - perhaps not perfectly, but i understand the general ideas now.