Employment

...or lack thereof.

I have been unemployed now for about a week and a half. Well, actually Ive been unemployed for almost five months, but most of those months were spent in my last semester of university (working towards straight A's, my first and only 4.0 of my undergraduate career). Now, I have no school. No MCAT studying (which is what I did all last summer). My focus for these next few weeks (or, god forbid, months) is job hunting. Job hunting AND running.

Thank god for running right now (and I know, this is my second time mentioning god in the span of about 2 sentences, I do recognize that). If it wasn't for running right now, my day's wouldn't have the purpose they do. Yes, Im constantly looking for and applying to jobs (I'm trying to get something in the healthcare and/or research field) but for the most part, that is out of my control. I don't control when and what job postings go up and I can't control if they are applicable to me or not.

What I can control is my running. And this is not some obsessive compulsive lose-weight thing. This is a "when I wake up in the morning, I have something substantial to accomplish other than applying to one job and this makes me feel good" thing. When my parents ask about what I did today, yes I start with the employment thing but I can also say "I ran  three and a half miles today in the rain" (which I did, this morning, 730 this morning actually).

Running gives me something to work towards, and although I dread it sometimes, it gives me something to look forward to. Like I said, I can't really control what employment positions go up or what interviews I do or don't get. But you can be damn sure that I have control over my workouts. And tomorrow, I'm taking it to the track.

It's been a few months since I've done a track speed workout. I have done a few treadmill speed workouts and some tempo run's outside that I consider speed workouts. But my 400 and 800 repeats? Not since January I think. I think I've mentioned here a few times that I have been getting faster. Im running a sub 10 minute mile pace for my half marathon training long runs, and that should help me reach my goal of a 2:15 or less half marathon (on may 23rd). But I've also got a 5km race (actually it's called the "spring sprint". Whoever named that is NOT a runner. 5km is not a spring, 400m is a sprint) on the horizon, may 15th.

Although I do enjoy my long distance running, Im hoping to work on my speed over the next few weeks, and over the whole summer, on shorter distances like this 5km. My goal for the end of the summer is a sub 25 5km, but for the one coming up, maybe sub 27? sub 26 if Im feeling good. Either way, Im pumped for the track.

Like I said, running gives me something to look forward to. I know that tomorrow Ill have to look for some more jobs, and Ive got errands to do. But beyond that, I know Im going to go to the closest track, and run my little heart out. And if thats not something to look forward to, I don't know what is!