Guest Post! Having a Baby Changes Everything

Thank goodness Cindy is here for you guys because I've been seriously slacking. Look forward to a yummy carrot soup recipe next week and enjoy the latest from my partner in crime!


I used to laugh when grad students called their dissertations their "baby", but around February of this year, I suddenly completely understood the sentiment.  I started to get very protective of my research projects, got upset when when my adviser suggested changes or "improvements", and I felt a huge ball of anxiety settle in my belly as the "due date" approached.

In the end, after a five year gestation period and a hard two months of labor, my precious baby entered the world.  May I present:  "Intracortical Microstimulation of Somatosensory Cortex: Functional Encoding and Localization of Neuronal Recruitment" Much like I've heard a real human infant does, this baby of mine has completely changed my life in innumerable ways:

1) I can now officially make people call me "Dr. O."
2) I can make people completely flabbergasted by telling them basic facts about myself.  (This is particularly effective in person when they can see that I am a small, youngish female "Wait... you have a PhD... in engineering?!?!?")
3) My relationship with my adviser has almost completely swung from mentee to friend.  He's a cool guy, so this is a very good thing.
4) I got a real, big girl engineering job.  It pays me money and everything!
5) Said big girl job required moving from Phoenix to San Diego, where I know maybe 3 people. 
6) The move means that I am living apart from my husband, who has to stay in Phoenix for the time being.

Needless to say, these big life changes have made me put my running and exercise habits on the back burner for a bit.  I'm working on making new friends and slowly figuring out how to do this long-distance relationship thing again.  But as Briana keeps reminding me, the half marathon is rapidly approaching!  


So I got started running again this week.  It's strange... there are hills and humidity here!  My strategy so far has been to run a mile, then repeat walking 2/10 mi. and running 8/10 mi up to 3 miles.  I seem to be able to finish that consistently within about 35 minutes.  This weekend I'm planning to find a place to run along the coast (did I mention that I live 5 minutes from the ocean?) and hopefully try out 5 miles for the first time!

DisneyWorld, here we come!

What the heck happened??

Oh friends, what the heck happened that last month? To say that our family life has been crazy and stressful is a laughable understate. Our life in the past month made bringing home a newborn look like a piece of cake. Life has left me so exhausted that the end of the day that all I have had the energy to do is plop into bed and try to turn off my brain so I can sleep. I think it you all know where I'm headed with this. My running has suffered tremendously from this. And I know, I know everybody is going to say that working out when I don't want to is the best thing for me. But kids, I only have so much energy to use throughout the day and right now 70% is going towards stress and 30% is going to wrangling a toddler.

I could go on and on and fill this post with whining and excuses but that's not going to get me anywhere.  I really feel like any and all progress that I made is gone. I'm sure that's not entirely true but I know that my body is not were it needs to be to tackle a 9.5 mile run. The plan is to just get back up and keep going. I'm going to start back at 5 miles and just work forward again to get where I need to be. I'm just thankful that this happened with 4 months to the race and not 1 month to the race.

I promised from the beginning that I would be 100% honest through this process and honestly, having come as far as 8 miles and then just stopping is so shameful. It took me 3 days to even write this post because I was so ashamed to share it. Send me your good thoughts and motivation, friends. We can do this.