Zombies.

While stretching after practice the other day my team got on the topic of blogs. A teammate (Katharine) of mine reminded me that I haven't written a post in awhile and told me to, "get on that." So, I'm on it.

Well, life has been happening lately. And lots of it. Our days are jam packed, long, and tiresome. I have gotten into a bad habit of being a 'negative nancy' about the days too. As I got into our schedule of waking up and going straight to practice, straight to weights, straight to classes, straight to another practice, stratight to home, straight to cook dinner (sometimes...frozen pizza has saved our lives this semester), straight to studying, straight to bed.. I started to think my life was, as I told Nate everyday, "rough." Now, I'm not saying I was depressed in the least bit or didn't enjoy some aspects of the day, 'cause I really did! I loved going to practice everyday (maybe not doing the same two workouts every week... but that's another story). You've heard me say it before, but I really just love my girls. Our team just makes me happy. If I didn't have them, my life really would be rough. Aside from my few moments each day of enjoyment, I found myself too often 'going through the motions. I didn't allow myself to stop and think about why I was working so hard. I started becoming a zombie going from here to there. I started complaining way too much, especially about things I couldn't change and that were useless to complain about. I knew I needed to stop my complaining and be more positive... It was just hard to break out of my 'zombie mood' to do so. It eventually did happen though... in a very round about way.

As mentioned above, my Coach thought it would be suuuuper fun to do the same two workouts every.single.week. I'm not kidding. We had 2k repeats on Mondays, mile repeats on Wednesdays, and then race on either Friday or Saturday. My life was already super monotonousness and it KILLED me that even running became the same thing over, and over. Even more so, I kept hitting the same times in the workouts and felt like I was getting no where. I felt like I was banging my head on a wall each time we started a work out. Anyway, one Monday morning as we were in the middle of our favorite 2k, I think my body, mind, soul, and every atom in my body (I'm in Chemistry) couldn't stand it any longer. I started the second to last repeat and literally could not move fast. I tried for the first 800 meters or so to get going, but after my whole team had gone by me and way ahead of me, everything just gave up. For the rest of those 1, 200 meters, my mind was rolling with my hatred for running, school, and everything 'rough' in my life. It was a very weird experience for me. I usually try and get my mind off of the negative stuff when I start to think about it. But that day, it alllll came out as I jogged the rest of the repeat. When I crossed the line and my time was 1 MINUTE slower (that's a lot) than I usually do my 2k repeats at... I didn't even care. I was ANGRY and DONE with everything at the moment. After the workout my teammates all asked if I was okay. Quite frankly, I was. Everything was just done with running and life for the moment. I started to get kinda scared at this fact... as I started to realize how terrible of a workout I had just run, it made me nervous to think that the rest of the season would pan out similarly. Good thing I have a husband to put things in perspective though. He helps coach and obviously saw how 'great' my workout had been. I was talking to him about it later when he asked me what was up. When I told him that everything just gave up, he was... ready for it...GLAD. Say whaaaaaaat?! Yes, I was thinking the same thing. But then, he explained himself. He said he was glad that I had broken 'the cycle'. Glad that I let myself do something different for once. I kept arguing out even if I did something different, it was a bad different, and that is not good. He assured me that it didn't matter. All that mattered was I did something different, and now I broke free from 'the cycle'.

Guess what happened the next Monday? I freakin' KILLED those stupid 2k repeats! I had the BEST workout of the season. In fact, the whole rest of the season has been going great. Not only with running, but with school too. I am still buuuuuuusy all.the.time. But, I'm relaxed about it. I might even whisper that I enjoy it. I still have my days where I squeeze myself between Nate's arms and cry because, "life is rough," but after my cry session, I'm good to go. 'The cycle' definitely is broken and Kacee is no longer in zombie mode, thank heavens! Life is way too good, I am way too blessed, and there is way too much to enjoy to be a zombie :)

Speaking of enjoyment... last weekend was our conference championship race! It was a GREAT weekend. For many reasons...A) my awesome parents-in-law came out to watch. It was so fun to have them there and join the 'family band wagon'. Races always make me homesick as I see my teammates' families all come out and have fun. I finally had family to enjoy the race with :) B) Our team freakin' killed it! Last year, we finished 8th...crappy. This year our team is awesome and finished 3rd! The two teams that beat us are goood and we still have some work to beat them. 3rd was a great accomplishment for us and I was pumped. C) My individual race went well! Not only did I have a great race, I KICKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Get out of town, right?!? If you remember my previous post about kicking... or my lack of it, you'll see why I was so excited. I hardly EVER out kick someone, and I finally did (my legs DEFINITELY felt it too...ouch). D) We hosted conference so we had the home course advantage. It makes racing that much more fun when you have tons of people out there cheering you on by name. It was just a great day and weekend :)

All-in-all, life is great. It's crazy that I only have ONE week left till I'm done with cross coutnry for the rest of my life (we have Regionals next weekend, then we are done for the season). It hit me today how short of time I have left running in college... and in college. I'm super excited, but also, kinda sad. It's a bittersweet symphony. I know life will continue to be an adventure, and a good one at that. I just gotta remember to not get stuck in zombie mode again. That wasn't fun :)

For those of you that have actually read this far... here are pictures (they are in kinda a random order...I'm too lazy to switch them):