Author: thehungryrunnergirl

Time flies

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Dang. It’s already spring break. Which means, 6 weeks already passed since the last break. I can’t believe it.

After this 10 day break and 6 weeks of school, I’m going to graduate. I feel like it’s still the middle of the year.

It’s so sad to think that this is my first and last year at Ojai Valley School. I really wish I could’ve come earlier.

I believe in destiny. I think I was meant to meet thebrownguy, krapyrres, therightliberal and other great people here.

Every time I listen to Samson, which my roommate krapyrres sang at the beginning of the year, it makes me miss OVS.

You have no idea how much fun I’ve had here, and how fortunate I am to be a part of OVS.. I wish I could stop time, so I could stay at OVS longer. People are just way too nice.

So cheap!

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So I went to Santa Barbara on Saturday, and I was wondering why Marshalls has such cheap things.

Marshalls is owned by TJX companies. It is the second largest off-price fashion store in the United States and has more than 750 conventional stores including Marshalls Mega store. They also expanded into Canada and Puerto Rico.

They sell shoes, clothes and hardware with very low prices. I got a few Nike running shorts. One of them originally costs 40 dollars but I got them for 15 dollars. When I go into a Nike store, I always hesitate to buy things because they are very expensive; but at Marshalls, they are more than 50% off and I just want to spend all my money because I don’t feel like I’m wasting my money. Also, I got a pair of GUESS sandals for 30 dollars, which probably costs more than 50 dollars if I get them at an actual GUESS store.

Also, Marshalls helps American charitable organization for helping children, families; Domestic Violence Prevention, United Way, National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Saint Jude’s Children’s hospital.

The first meet of the season!

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This Wednesday, we had our very first track meet at Cate school. Competing schools included Providence hall, Cate, Thacher and us, Ojai Valley.

We didn’t have any field competitors, but we had sprinters and long distance runners. We all ran well.

Two distance runners and I ran in 3 events: the 800m which is 2 laps, the 1600m which is 4 laps(1 mile) and the 3200m which is 8 laps (2 miles). There was only about 20 to 30 minutes in between the events, so it was pretty exhausting.

My coach (thebrownguy) and me warming up:

I love my track shoes, but they peel off my skin every time I run in them. I wear Nike Zoom Victory shoes and I can’t even feel them because they’re so light. Also, the colors are so bright and the colors of each shoe is different.

Well, it was such a fun meet and I can’t wait for the next meet, which is after our spring break!

April fools

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What did you do today? Did you play any prank on anyone?

Well, I did…on the (thebrownguy). I thought it wasn’t going to work out, but it did.

So this morning, I texted him saying that I twisted my ankle very badly when I was running down the hill on the Pi course and was at the hospital in Ventura.

He was worried and asked me if I was on crutches. I said no, but I’m in panic.

He tried to convince me that it’s a long season and I can bike and swim.

What a good coach 😀

Afterwards I called him and told him that it was a joke.

I like doing pranks on people on this day every year.

One of the videos of my favorite prank channel on youtube:

Blinking

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In average, woman blinks 15 times and men blinks 20 times per minute. Since blinking only takes about 0.3 seconds, men blinks 6 seconds worth blinking which means you’re blinking 10 % when you’re awake.

The amount of blinking shows your activity of neurotransmitter dopamine. One experiement with monkeys show that when they were injected the drug that makes their dopamine more active, they blink more, and also the other way around.

For example, patients who have schizophrenia or Tourette syndrome blinks more than normal people because of their active dopamine.

My idol

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Jordan Hasay is an amazing runner who runs for University of Oregon, which has one of the best cross country and track teams in the nation.

She was born in Fontana, California and went to Mission College Prep school in Southern California. Her father used to play basketball in college, and her mother was a national swimmer in England. Jordan was selected 2008 Girls High School Athlete of the Year by Track&Field News and by Gatorade.

She has been unbelievably fast ever since her youth. She set the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics Youth record in the 1500m and 3000m run. Also, she could’ve ran World Junior Championship in 2006 to represent the US, but she was too young at the age of 14.

During her freshman year in high school, she won the Foot Locker Cross Country National Championships, becoming the second freshman to win in the history.

During her junior year, she ran the US Olympic Trials breaking the national high school record for 1500m and qualified for the finals.

She runs 6 to 8 miles per day along with swimming 3 to 5 times a week, weight lifting twice a week and biking twice a week. That’s incredible, and I don’t think many people can manage to continue this workout.

Go Jordan!!!

Billy’s boot camp

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I heard that “Billy’s boot camp” is very popular in America, especially in California, but no one I’ve talked to recently knows about this program.

Billy’s boot camp is a fitness program consisting of 4 DVDs to teach you how to lose weight and practice core workouts in 7 days. I personally do this workout to keep my leg muscles in shape if I get injured and can’t run. According to advertisements, a lot of Hollywood stars do this program to lose weight in a very short time.

When I was in 8th grade, I had bad knees from growing and couldn’t run for almost a year. When I did this program for the first time, I lost 6 pounds and gained a lot of muscles just in one week…

The 1st and 2nd day (disk 1), Billy, the leader demonstrates the workout from pushups to jumping jacks for about 50 minutes. Using the “Billy band” makes it harder.

The 2nd and 3rd days are the hardest. He shows you a higher level workout designed by the military. My body always gets sore for the next few days.

The 5th and 6th days, he focuses on abdominal workouts for half an hour.

The final day is basically to digest all the workouts and go over what we did.

7 days and you can be fit! So why don’t you try it now? Maybe it gets hard that you want to quit in the middle of a workout, but don’t give up!

Raining in Southern California

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It rained this weekend!

It rarely rains in California, but this weekend it was just a downpour. I woke up to the sound of rain and clouds that were very gloomy.

According to the National Weather Service, it dropped 0.59 inches of rain in Los Angeles. Santa Ana and Orange County lost power and in L.A County, the winds blew the Paco’s Tacos sign on Manchester Avenue. In the mountain areas, they got a few inches of snow where Mammoth mountain got 18-22 inches of snow.

On Saturday, both boys and girls lacrosse game got cancelled, which I wanted to go watch, so I had nothing to do. I couldn’t sit still so I started to play lacrosse in the rain with my friends.

I was wearing shorts but I forgot about how cold it was and I enjoyed playing in the rain. It was so much fun.

I wish it rained more in Southern California.

Interracial marriage

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1 in 12, 8.4% of marriages are interracial in the United States, an all-time high. Compared to 1980, interracial marriage has increased more than 5 %!

Studies show that Hispanics and Asians are the most common to marry different races. Also, interestingly, Asian women have double the rate of Asian men marrying a different race, 36% to 17%. Additionally, black men were nearly three times more likely to marry a different race than black women, which is 24% to 9%.

In the United States, Hawaii was found to have the most interracial marriages for its population. Almost half of the population who married from 2008-2010 was interracial. On the other hand, the state that has the lowest rate of interracial marriage is Vermont, which has only 4%.

Despite of the growth in interracial marriage, the Southern States like Kentucky, Alabama and Mississippi still think that interracial marriage should be illegal. I think this is sad, because the people there are still not willing to accept different races and I don’t think it’s right.

However, this article made me happy because the fact suggests that the relationship between different races has greatly improved.

Also, the more races mixed, the healthier and prettier the baby is!

The Long Awaited Season

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It’s almost Spring. That means it’s almost track season. In fact, it starts tomorrow! Gosh, you have no idea how excited I am. Winter seemed long and I felt like I was hibernating. I get fragile when I’m not running or when it’s not a running season. I don’t feel like I’m alive.

I still can’t believe the winter season is over. My old school back in New Hampshire didn’t have a track team so I haven’t ran track since my freshman year. I feel like this is all a dream and when I wake up, I’m afraid that it will still be a cold winter.

Yesterday, I had the weirdest dream. It was already track season. I was so excited, jumping around and went to talk to my coach (thebrownguy) to ask about what workout I would be doing that day. But he said, “You know, we’re not doing any workout so no practice this week. Because, I am so lazy and I have things to do, okay?” I was speechless and went back to my room crying.

I am that excited and nervous because I have been training all year long for this season with high altitude training, running in cross country season, and solitary training in the winter. I had been waiting for track for so long and I am willing to give this season my all.