June 20, 2013

Birthday Celebrations–Urban Scramble and more!

Birthday Cake

Today is my 22nd birthday (yes, cue the Taylor Swift music now). In the afternoon, I’ll be covering Campus Philly‘s Opportunity Fair via social media (both via their Twitter, Instagram and Vine and mine as well) but I’ll try not to overwhelm them.

After that’s over, I’ll be heading to Philadelphia Runner‘s Urban Scramble. It was supposed to be last week, but a chance of severe thunderstorms made them reschedule it (it barely rained, so I got to go to ballet class instead). I know some people were upset that the Urban Scramble got reschedule, but I was pretty happy. It gave me something fun and exciting to do on my birthday instead of just heading to work. So it getting rescheduled for today was kind of a win-win for me.

Other birthday weekend plans include going out to fancy dinner at White Dog Cafe (and using up some of a gift card to there ages ago) and ballet early on Saturday. Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in another run (besides the Urban Scramble) along the Schuylkill river trail, but I’ll be pretty busy this weekend because I’ll also be attending a Girl Develop It Philly workshop on WordPress which I received a scholarship for to cover the costs. I’m excited to continue to improve the look and functions of this website as well as to continue to spread the community aspect of it. I’m still looking for guest bloggers and people to interview, so if you’re a blogger, runner or adult ballerina (or instructor) and you’re interested in participating in some aspect of Adult Ballerina Project , make sure you fill out this Google Form.

What do your weekend plans consist of?

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June 11, 2013

A Photoless Race Recap: Strides for Stroke 5k

Yup, I forgot to take a single picture. HQ and I ran our first 5k race this Sunday, the Strides for Stroke 5k in Philly.

Well, other than this screen shot of my nike + data.

Well, no pictures other than this screen shot of my nike + data.

HQ agreed to run with me at my turtle-like speed of 12:30 per mile and we did the entire race together. We ran most of it, only slowing down for a few water breaks and when my tummy wasn’t super happy (ugh, it was like that all weekend)–but we got it done. While it was cool to run on an empty Martin Luther King Drive, the slope of the pavement was rough on my shins.

 

My official time was 38:29. I’m already looking at another possible 5k for the end of the month–but the heat was really tough to deal with already at 8:30 in the morning.

This upcoming week HQ and I have tried to plan out our training a little bit more (thank you, Temple University for still letting me have access to the gym this summer) to include some cross training and some indoor running (on an indoor track) to help us beat the heat and this miserable rain. Running outdoors on the track during the summer just isn’t my thing (I still plan on getting some outdoor runs including our weekly long runs). I hope we can fit in a swim either Wednesday or Friday too. Ballet will hopefully happen Saturday morning (Thursday I’ve got friends possibly visiting and Philadelphia Runner’s Urban Scramble)–but I’m also heading home for birthday weekend so it’ll depend on my schedule.

What does your week look like?

 

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April 4, 2013

Balancing Ballet, Life and Work

Over at my internship’s homepage we’re currently asking,  “How do personal choices about family and love affect your life/work as an artist?”

While none of us make a living out of being recreational ballet dancers, sometimes life, family, work and more can get in the way of dancing as much as we’d like. It can even affect our performance in our ballet classes (a late Friday night out can kill my Saturday morning ballet class just like a busy day of classes and school work can kill my Thursday night class). I often give up ballet classes to get more work done, go see a performance for an internship, or just because I’m plain old too tired.

Luckily, I have an amazing dance membership that allows me to take as many or few dance classes I want for a month, so I can take some “me” time when I feel like it’s necessary and I don’t have to feel strapped into a schedule. Not only that, it allows me to shift what days I want to do ballet. For instance, my boyfriend and I are participating in an “Urban Scramble” tonight with Philadelphia Runner, where we’ll be running around to different businesses in center city to collect raffle tickets. This makes me really glad I’m not chained to taking classes every Thursday–I can go on Saturday and Monday instead.

I'm super excited for this.

I’m super excited for this.

What I’ve learned recently, as I’ve mentioned, is that balancing things so that I’m happy is key. Just like I don’t want to push myself with running, I don’t want to feel like I HAVE to go to ballet when I’m not feeling 100% or a fun activity comes up. I need to make choices that make me happy. I can both do a fun activity with my boyfriend on Thursday and still fit in time in the ballet studio this week.

How do you balance ballet/dance and the rest of your life?

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