The last several months have been an incredibly stressful time, but I’m happy to say that this Friday, I passed my comprehensive exam and advanced to Ph.D. candidacy!  I was incredibly nervous about this hurdle, since I changed my research focus to something that was completely new and unfamiliar to me a little over a year ago.  Because of this, I have been frantically playing catch-up since then.  But I succeeded!  And now that hurdle is behind me.  Hooray!

I’m really looking forward to getting back into my normal routine and enjoying things again.  I’ve been itching to get out on trails for the last several weeks, and have been longingly looking out the window at the mountains while my nose was buried in papers at my desk.

I have many big plans for this winter and spring.  I hope to at least accomplish some of them.  I feel like I do this every year, and never make any of them happen, so we’ll see how it goes.  The good thing is that now I have a great group of runner girlfriends who I can turn to for support and encouragement.  I love those girls.

For now, I am enjoying my first post-comps weekend by de-stressing and doing absolutely nothing.  It’s wonderful.  Beginning tomorrow (Monday), I will be back in full on hardcore training and healthy eating mode.  Hours and hours of sitting at my desk combined with stress hormones have come together to make me feel really uncomfortable, and I need to get back to my normal.  I still look perfectly fine on the surface, but I don’t feel it right now.  I can’t wait to feel like myself again.