In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning, and ERIKA RAN – the first day.

- Genisis 1

Comrades, the day has finally come – I HAVE OFFICIALLY BEEN CLEARED TO RETURN TO RUNNING. 

That would be the legit note from señor Dr. Denis Clohisy at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, and I have also been cleared by dear Dr. Millis here in Boston, as well as my physical therapist (who I haven’t talked a lot about, but he’s amazing too ), Ian.

Now let’s be clear on some things… “Return to running” does not mean return to where I was at when I stopped. It does also not mean intervals, or tempos, or 400 repeats on the track. It does not mean that in 10 weeks I will be toeing the line at Boston, no matter how badly I want to/how much I think I “could”/how many times I look over at this posted on my wall next to my desk:

Running Boston THIS YEAR is out. You better believe I’m keeping my number though.. because while you can “defer” your time for a second year, you can’t “defer” your payment, and that is $110 I will not be getting back. More than the money though, being able to run, but not being able to RUN, is going to kill me. It already is. Going to watch is going to be ridiculously hard, but there is no way I’m not going. I have two people from home that are flying out here to run, as well as 3 friends from here that are running it this year too. I will be there to support them for sure.

While the news that I get to run again is honestly the best thing I’ve heard since, “Hi, this is Marathon Sports. Your Asics just came in…” it did come with some setbacks. (Oh wait.. so did the Asics situation. Pink? Really? The website said RED.)

Hearing I can run? I’m ecstatic. Thrilled. Elated. Overjoyed. Over the moon. Top of the world. I don’t know how many ways I can say it.. but it couldn’t make me happier. EXCEPT.. I was/am scared. So scared. I’m scared that despite how great my hip (/hips) feel, I’m gonna get out there, and be like, “Shit. It’s not supposed to feel like that.” That hasn’t happened yet, and I feel that with each new run I go on, that fear will dissipate,  but that fear is real. 

So what.. 5 mile? No prob? Mmm… not quite. My doctor cleared me for 10 minutes/2x per day (ideally, or just 20 minutes once). As much as I want to take what he said and be like, “Sure.. no probs.” I honestly know that it’s a bit much. Not that I don’t think I could do that, but because I don’t think I should. The coach here.. even after little stress fractures, he starts his runners out at 10 minutes, every other day. 20 minutes every day.. kinda a big step up from that. I’m sticking to every/other right now for this first week, and I’m planning on evaluating with my PT tomorrow at my appointment. 

So yes. I’m back. Lots is going on right now in my life… I have this huge “Project Lent: 2009″ thing that I’m doing.. more on that later maybe, and oh yeah, that little thing called college:

Sad story – my roomie put my absolute favorite from-home Caribou Coffee travel mug through the DISHWASHER. And the hot water melted the seal. And melted the red outside color. And now its dunzo. She offered to buy me a new one, and I bring to you:

I know I’m all “RunRoamRECYCLE”, but this is kinda overkill. It was the only one that had a solid closing though.. and I need to be able to toss it in my bag, so there you go. “Made with 28% post-consumer recycled content”. Yeah.. it says that.. plus a lot more lil recycle-happy quotes. I am ALL FOR being environmentally conscious, but I don’t like to preach. You’ll never see me wearing one of VS’s “Think Pink, Go Green” shirts. NEVER. 

Oh.. and that lil guy.. I got a new tattoo. It was kinda one of those last minute decision things.. and I’m not so sure about it now. Sorry mom. 

Love to you all, and to all a good night. GREYS!

This is mostly for my madre, who still hasn’t seen Northeastern or my suite, and I guess for anyone else interested in the lovelyness they call Honors Housing in West Village F.  

Up on my bed. I <3 my brown sheets.

My lovely roomy/killer all star swimmer Lauren

I decided to loft - it gave me so much more space! Note the craigslist mini fridge

My little desk. Got that Grandma's Marathon photo that was in the Star Tribune aka crazy chick running backwards..

We definitely need the dual sinks. There are SIX of us.

Bathroom #1. Looks identical to bathroom #2.

Our kitchen.. on a clean day

A view of the kitchen with nothing in it..

A view of our living room. Only it isn't arranged like that anymore. And we have a teeny TV.

Well.. that’s all I have for now. I’m actually sitting in World Arch right now and should be paying much more attention. Oooops. 

ALSO.. I have my doctors appointment today. She’s going to go over my MRI films and then I should have a definitive answer on how long I’m out for.. if I need to stay on these ridic. crutches.. EEEEtc. Yuck. But necessary. I hope to be back with an upbeat post! Happyy Tuesday my blogging lovers.

Well if this isn’t a good time to update, I might as well give up, because it can’t get much more chill than this! Clearly I won’t go over everything from my flight out here to today, but believe me – it has been BUSY! Something along the lines of this..

But judging by that ^ that means I’m getting a hang of my mac. Sorta. What I can say for sure is I LOVE iCal. I DON’T love that freaking AutoCad (which was mandatory for our FIRST project in studio) is made for Windows, but yet we all had to go spend like $1700 on macbook pros. Hmmm. So then we had to go spend $$ more on Parallels and Windows for Mac. Everything. Costs. Money.

But getting used to it I guess. Lets see.. what else is major?

I got my work study job at the MARINO CENTER which is probably the greatest campus fitness center I’ve ever been to. Ever. So working there is really no biggie because I’m there all the time anyways..

I love all 5 of my suitemates, and we all love the 6 guys next door. We’re like a [really big] family.

Some more things:

• The Charles gets hella boring. I miss the lakes and parkways in Minneapolis
• I STILL love JP Licks
• EVERYONE has an accent. Myself included. And people take it offensively when you tell them “You have a xxx accent.” It’s not a bad thing…. calm down. 
• Good guys already have girlfriends. Because they’re actually good guys. I’ll leave that outta this post.
• I can fit a LOT into one day. No joke.

Soooo that’s all I’m gonna say for now. I freaking love Boston. And I WILL make sure I can stay here the rest of my college career! I promise I’ll be more regular with updating – I was just dreading this first post because I felt like it’d be really overwhelming. But, uh, I took care of that by not including like anything! Sorry guys!