I Can Go the Distance

Well, it’s official. I’m a C25K graduate.

I finished my last training workout last night. I can’t say it was an awesome workout, but it was a pretty great workout. If the wind hadn’t been blowing it probably would have been an awesome workout. So I felt pretty good at the end, and more than that I felt accomplished.

While, for the sake of consistency, I’m not reporting my Nike run app results (which seem to be more accurate) in my stats, it did say I ran a sub-15 pace again and ran my fastest mile to date (12:38). So I’m pretty pleased with myself.

Now all I need to do is run a full 5k this weekend so I can measure my progress against my baseline and my midway point data sets. After that run I will likely write a retrospective, looking at how things have changed in my life (in general, as well as specifically concerning my depression and anxiety)

As a “graduation” gift, Hubby bought me The Oatmeal’s The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distances
(affiliate link). I’ll be writing a quasi-review about it later this week, but let me just say it is fantastic and hilarious and almost perfectly encapsulates everything I feel about running and why I do it.

I also finally went and met with some professors at AMU today about my academic plan if I decide to return to school. Turns out I have two choices: I can take a year and major in psychology and go on to a graduate degree (masters and/or doctorate) in clinical psychology or I can take 2-3 years double major in biology (which I previously minored in, leaving really only some chemistry courses, anatomy, and physics left to take) and attempt to get in to med school to become a psychiatrist.

I’m really torn about what I’m going to do. On the one hand I can accomplish a lot of what I want to do (helping people with depression) with being a psychologist, but if my patients need medication I won’t have prescribing power so I’d have to refer my patients to a psychiatrist or get their primary care physician to prescribe the medication for me (well, unless the movement to give psychologists prescribing power picks up steam, currently that is only legal in 3 states…I’ll probably devote a blog post to this later). While if I’m a psychiatrist I’ll be able to prescribe medication for my patients as needed. There is also a serious need for psychiatrists, so it would be a good field of medicine to get into.

However med school seems even more daunting than graduate school, not to mention SUPER competitive. But I’m not necessarily not up for the challenge.

And while I know the classes I need for med school/the bio major won’t come easy (there is a reason I avoided them when selecting my bio minor courses last time) I’m pretty sure I can do it. By the time I take those courses Hubby will have taken every science course I need to take, so I’ll have my own personal tutor (as it is the university already has him working as a chemistry tutor). So I just need to make sure the math (my weakest subject) doesn’t kill me.

I’m thinking I’m going to double major and hedge my bets by applying to both psychology graduate programs and med schools and see what happens.

I’ve also applied for a job at the local mental health clinic, working as a technician in the Detox unit. I should be getting a call to set up an interview soon. So send prayers, Pixie Dust, good vibes and other well wishes my way please!

Next week I’ll theoretically starting 10k training, but if I’m honest with myself I’m probably not going to do a whole lot of running next week because of Thanksgiving.

Because the first half of the 10k program is a repeat of C25K I’ll be filing the recap posts under both 5k and 10k, as I’m using the first half to prepare for the Key West 5k in January as well as improve my time.

I also won’t be using Disney quotes as titles for my workout recap posts (if you even noticed that trend). I’m running out of relevant quotes and lyrics. They might show up occasionally, but they won’t be M.O. anymore.

And I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I would really appreciate it if you would do your Black Friday/Cyber Monday Amazon Shopping through my Affiliate Link. Registration opens next month for the Expedition Everest Challenge and I would really like to participate; and like I mentioned last post, I no longer have a jogging stroller, so by making your Amazon purchases through my link (which doesn’t cost you anything extra) you are helping purchase something I otherwise couldn’t afford. So if you have enjoyed the content of my blog, please consider showing your support.

And now for the stats!

Week 8, Day 3 Stats 11/20/2014

Distance: 3.02 miles

Time: 45 minutes 29 seconds

Average Pace: 15 minutes 36 seconds per mile

Motivation: 5

Emotion: 7