Running to Court

Well, this is the second time I've made it to the end of Week 3 of the Couch to 5k training! I've been feeling really good about my progress thus far, and I'm definitely doing better than I was doing at this point the last time I was training for a 5k. After every run for the last few weeks, I've recorded that I was feeling really good or pretty good after my runs. I haven't been feeling like I'm struggling to breathe. I got pretty worn out towards the end of the week, because I had also done a TON of walking! (I don't own a car, so I pretty much walk everywhere). But I still felt positive about my run at the end of the day and was looking forward to starting week 4. Week 3 is deceptively challenging. It's the first significant increase in the length of your running intervals during the workout. My program went from 2 minute runs in week 2 to 3 minute runs in week 3. That is a much bigger jump than from week 1 to week 2, where the amount of time run...

A lot was going on the summer before I started law school. I had just graduated from my university and left all my friends behind in Minnesota while I went to spend some time with my parents. That summer was the first time I had lived with my parents in four years. The summer prior, I was a resident advisor at my university. The summer before that, I lived at my university to work at the tutoring center. The summer before that, I lived with my grandparents in Wyoming to help them out with their house and garden. The summer before that, I lived with my aunt in Colorado to do housework and nanny her kids. Needless to say, I was excited to get to live with my family for once! But they were very busy at that time, too. My parents were preparing their house to sell because they were moving to Ohio. Since they would be moving in mid-July, I needed to move to Colorado before that so they would have less to worry about during their move. In June, I helped keep their house clean and drive...

There are a lot of reasons that running is helpful for coping with stress. As a law student, I can speak to how running helps me deal with the specific stressors faced by law students, but I think these comments and observations are pretty universal. First, let me explain a little bit about my stressors this year as a 2L. As a 1L, my biggest source of anxiety was school. I was worried about being prepared for cold-calls, I was worried about exams, I was worried that I wasn't participating enough, I was worried about grades. As a 2L, school is not my biggest stressor. I still feel the pressure to be prepared and get everything done on time, but my anxiety is coming from different sources. I'm in law review, so I am working on writing my student note (which is a misnomer because it is a paper that is at least 30 pages), and working on citation checks for articles that are going to be published. I'm a teaching assistant for legal writing, so I'm working with 1...

The first question you get asked when meeting a new person is, "What is your name?" Usually, that question is followed by "What do you do?" or "Where are you from?" While I know my name and I'm confident telling people I'm a law student, I usually get stuck on the last question. Where am I from? Most of the time, people are looking for a short, simple answer. "I'm from L.A." or "I'm from Minnesota." Easy, short sentences. Something that they can quickly use to find a connection with you.  But my past is a little more complicated than that. I'm not really "from" anywhere. I moved a lot growing up, so I'm never really sure how to answer this question. My parents currently live in a place where I have never lived, so I can't rely on that for an answer. Usually, I say something like, "I went to undergrad in Minnesota." That usually satisfies people and gives them follow-up questions, ...

A few years ago, I began the Couch to 5k training program by Active.com. I stuck to the program for about 3 weeks and then just kind of stopped. I was living at my university for the summer working in the tutoring center a few days a week for only a few hours at a time. I found myself with a lot of free time. I decided to try to take up running, partially to get in shape and partially just to have a goal to work toward during the summer. Unfortunately, I wasn't very motivated. I didn't like running. I ran on the treadmill and always got shin splints. I never tried running outside because of the heat, humidity (I was living in Minnesota at the time), and worry about running on concrete. I didn't have a reason to stick to the program. In January 2018, I decided I wanted to lose some weight. During college, I gained about 20 pounds. During the first semester of law school, I gained around another 20 pounds. The 1L 15 is much more real in my experience than the Freshman 15...