Life of a College Runner: This Is It

Hello dear readers! Here is another week of my running for you. I hope you enjoy it.

Monday

3 miles, 24:30 (8:10/mile)

I almost didn’t run today. I was just exhausted from Sunday’s emotional roller coaster. But today, everything got just a little bit better. I’m really glad I ran this afternoon because it brightened my spirits. I listened to some pick-me-up music to help with my mood.

Tuesday

OFF

Wednesday

Morning: 2 miles, 17:30 (8:45/mile)

Yesterday, I was exhausted and worried. I had a job interview and I was stressing out about it afterward. Today I had another one. So I ran on the treadmill this morning to kind of get out of my head and put me in a good mood beforehand. Yesterday was a lazy day, but I really want to make something good out of this week still.

Afternoon: 4 miles, 32:00 (8:00/mile)

Today was just not a great day, for a few reasons. I think my interviews went well, but I have no idea. Tonight, my dad and I went to go run up at the trail. He did 3 and I did 4, and I caught him on the last mile and ran with him, so my first three miles were fast, from 7:10–7:40 pace, and my last mile was a little slower. It was a pretty nice night, though. A little chilly, but not bad.

Thursday

Morning: 2 miles, 17:20 (8:40/mile)

Just a short, slow morning. I’m supposed to hear back about my job interviews either today or tomorrow, so the run was mostly good for distracting me from my phone. I’ve been listening to a lot of Eminem lately, and my favorite, Blue October.

Afternoon: 2 miles, 16:30 (8:15/mile)

Okay, this week is not going how I wanted it to at all. I heard back from one job and didn’t get it. It was kind of a big disappointment. So I’m still stuck on square one. Then, what started out as a short conversation turned into almost a two-hour long discussion with my parents about the future, like where I’m going to live, where I would want to work, and about expanding my horizons as far as the job search goes. So I got a short run in after that and before a late dinner. It made me feel better, though.

Friday

4 miles, 32:20 (8:05/mile)

It was another treadmill day. I need to get outside more next week. The treadmill is just easy and fast. I felt pretty darn good, too, the best I’ve felt all week. This whole week has just kind of sucked. It has kind of been awful, to tell the truth. I needed a nice little run today to cheer me up. I breezed through 4 miles, and maybe I should have done more. I felt good, but I stopped.

Today, crazy things happened. I had my English/Creative Writing Department Awards Night, and I received an honorable mention for the creative writing prize for a prose piece. I’m actually really proud of that, because that’s the closest thing I’ve gotten to an award for my writing.

It has started to sink in that I might never see certain people again. A bunch of my professors were at the awards night, and it was really bittersweet to see them. The same goes for all of my teammates, although I’m sure I will see them again at some point. All of the people who really meant a lot to me during my four years at Cornell, and I won’t get to say goodbye to them. I have my last day of class on Monday, and then I’m done. I’m done with college. My last day of working at the Writing Studio is Tuesday, and then I’ll be done with that forever. It’s horribly sad, actually, but what hurts most is that there is no clear end. Normally, it would have ended with me moving out, with the graduation ceremony on campus. Now nothing is changing but my title. I am no longer a college student as of next week.

Anyway, back to the crazy things. Along with the Awards Night, I had another interview. This one kind of popped up out of the blue, and, incredibly enough, I got an offer!! So I (sort of) officially have a job! The official announcement will probably pop up in a few days, but this is my blog, so I am writing about it. I can’t really believe it happened. I’m still kind of in shock. It’s farther away than I wanted originally, but I think I’m going to be very happy there. Okay, I won’t give any more spoilers. You all will just have to wait and see!

Saturday

3 miles, 30:00 (10:00/mile)

Concluding my crazy week, I got to run with Brett today. YES!! We finally ran together, and it was so great! Oh my gosh, I was so happy he agreed to go with me. We just did 2 miles together, a couple of loops around his little neighborhood. His goal was to just do the 2 miles without stopping because he hadn’t done it before, so that’s what we did. I was so worried I would annoy him by talking, but he even kept a conversation going for some of it. Yes, it was a little slower than what I’m used to, but I didn’t mind. It just made me so happy to be running with him. It was so nice and sunny outside, the weather was just perfect, and we had a great time. Afterward, he started rolling out on the porch while I did another quick mile just to stretch my legs out a bit. Then we rolled out together on the porch. I’m not going to lie, today was pretty darn perfect.

Sunday

OFF

I took another off day. The weather was just not great and I didn’t feel like running, and this week was pretty bad running-wise anyway. There. There’s all of my excuses.

I guess what I want to say about this week is that I am pretty scared about the future. I’m going to have to move away from home, farther than I imagined, and I’m going to have a new job in a new place with new people, and it’s all very new. Change has never really been my forte, but I’m trying to take it in stride. But this is it. I am a mere week away from being done with college. My virtual commencement ceremony is next Sunday, and that’ll be it. No more Cornell.

It is kind of hard because it did not slip my mind that this was supposed to be my weekend. I was supposed to run my final steeplechase race on Saturday, and I was supposed to walk across the stage today. It does still hurt to think about, but at the end of the day I have to be grateful for what I have and what I have to look forward to. Today is also Mother’s Day, and I could not be more grateful of my mother. She is an incredible woman, and she’s the person I’m closest to in my life.

Even though this is it, there is so much more of life that I have to look forward to. And that thought makes me happy.

Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next week.

— Morgan