sunday mornings + favorite running spots

Sunday mornings are the only times when I wonder how I'm going to give up California. It's the only time I ever ask myself the question that so many people ask me: "How are you going to give up all...this?" And on some Sundays, I just don't know.* 

There are, of course, Sunday mornings in Green Bay, but I'm not sure they'll be the same. My Sunday mornings here combine many of my favorite things: friends, running, fresh air, scenery, breakfast, and coffee (I know coffee is a part of breakfast, but I love it so much that it really deserves its own mention). There is no traffic on Sunday mornings, and I never struggle to find a parking spot.  

Really, it's the people who make my Sunday mornings. For nearly two years now, I've been waking up at 6 am on Sunday mornings to meet my running friends for a long run/walk, which we follow up with breakfast (one friend says, "We are a breakfast group with a running problem"). They are, as I call people who are not in academia, civilians, and they provide a much needed escape from grad school--and so much more. 

After a year of running with my first running buddy, Sam, she got pregnant, and I found myself in need of some new running buddies. At the time, I had the running bug pretty bad and I was signed up to run 3 half marathons in the next year. But, as much as I loved running, getting myself up and out the door for long run days was sometimes a challenge. And so, a different running friend introduced me to the Sunday morning running crew. 

When I first joined the group, I wasn't sure what to expect. Everyone knew each other really well, having run together for over ten years. They were more of a family and less a group of friends, but they welcomed me into it. They are so good to me, and I couldn't ask for better friends. I know a lot of people would balk at waking up so early in the morning, especially a weekend morning, to go running, but Sunday mornings are the best part of my week, and it's because of my friends. No matter how busy and stressed out I am, Sunday mornings are non-negotiable. They keep me sane, and I'm not sure how I would have managed the past couple of years without my running family. If I find a running group in Green Bay that's half as awesome as my running family here, I will be very, very lucky.

Aside from my friends of course, I'll miss my favorite running spots. In this respect, I am incredibly spoiled. There are miles and miles of running trails in Orange County, and I'm fortunate to live only a mile away from one of them. 

When I get to the trail, if I turn left, after a mile and a half, I'll end up at the Back Bay. It's one of my favorite places to run. 

I've run all the way around it, which is 10 miles.

I also live about a mile away from a wildlife preserve. There are trails inside of it, and the perimeter is about a 3 mile loop. I used to do a lot of trail running inside it, but then I saw a snake one day, so now I mainly stick to the outside loop. 

Crystal Cove State Park is also a favorite. We usually stick to the trails inside the park, but sometimes...

...we run up the Newport Coast hill. 

It's pretty brutal, but in a good way. Fortunately, we don't do it that often. I know I'm smiling in the picture below, but that's because we are about to take a walk break. 

As much as I'm going to miss running in Orange County, I'm kind of excited for winter running in Green Bay. And also a little scared, but more on that later. 

* It doesn't take long for me to stop romanticizing California. On any other day and time of the week, I get so frustrated with traffic, parking, and crazy drivers that all I can think is "Get me the eff out of Southern California."

on winter

"How are you going to give up all...this?"

This is a question I've been getting ever since January, when I began telling people about my impending move to Green Bay (Mind you, the question is never posed by academics because they know how difficult it is to get an academic job. It's also never posed by people who know how much I love winter, but I'll get to that in a second.). This question is always accompanied by this hand gesture which I believe is meant to refer to the nice weather, beaches, and palm trees but I can't be sure (I can only assume that "this" and the gesture don't refer to the insanely high cost of living, suffocating traffic, and the difficulties one encounters when trying to find a parking spot). If I had a dollar for every time I was asked this question, I could finally pony up for a guilt-free ferry ride to Catalina Island (that's what I should do--require everyone who inquires to contribute to my SoCal exploration fund). 

When I decided to go to graduate school, I never set out to escape winter. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I deliberately applied to schools only in the midwest and the (north)east coast. How did UCI slip through the cracks? I thought the program was too good to pass up, and so I broke my winter-only rule. Surely, I thought to myself, if you are accepted, you can forgo winter for 6 or 7 years. In the grand scheme of things, it won't be so bad.

I visited UCI in April and liked it right away. I knew it was a good fit for me, professionally and personally, winter or no winter. On visiting day, everyone apologized for the "bad weather." I think it was a little rainy, which means that there was some slight drizzling, and it was maybe 65 degrees. At the time, I thought the weather was wonderful and I welcomed it (I was coming from Minnesota, where there was snow on the ground, and the temperature was likely in the 30s), but as the years would go by, I would come to relish those "bad weather" days.

Immediately, I knew that I liked UCI and that I would go there, but I still struggled with my decision. Could I really deal with 60-some degree winters? Could I deal without the snow? I knew that my answers had to be yes and that I'd be stupid to pass up this opportunity, and so I happily accepted and decided that I would attend in the fall. But when the realization that I'd experienced my last winter (for the foreseeable future) hit me, I cried.

I quickly learned that being from Minnesota carries with it the expectation that I hate winter and am grateful to be rid of it. Upon meeting new people, after learning where I'm from, without fail, they exclaim "Oh, you must love it here!" (ha! If I had a dollar for every time I got that response, I wouldn't have had to apply for research grants!) Because I did not receive the memo that I was supposed to hate cold weather, this reaction was peculiar to me at first but became almost unbearably annoying over time. 

For the first year at least, I played along and tried my best to embrace California. I wore flip flops every single day for a year for no other reason than I just could. I packed away my sweaters and winter coat and bought skirts and a light jacket. I barbequed in January. I swam in the ocean on Christmas day, and I went to the beach almost every other week. I did my schoolwork on the beach, I graded on the beach, and I ran on the beach. When Minnesota was covered in snow, I'd call my parents and brag about the warm and sunny weather, sometimes even from the beach (and of course, I let them know that part too). 

Around my second or third year of graduate school, it all got old. I tried my best to forget about crisp fall air, crunchy leaves, snow, half-frozen puddles of water, and yes, even sub-zero temperatures. But I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried to enjoy the year-round warm weather, I never got used to the lack of seasons or the inexplicable 80 and 90 degree heat waves that arrived in the middle of January. I never acclimated to Southern California weather. Without a calendar, I wouldn't know what month we were in or what holiday to celebrate. I am always underdressed for the weather, and I can't remember the last time I wore a jacket. As the years went by, I became less enthusiastic about Starbucks' seasonal lattes because there was a disconnect between the weather and the seasons--it was always too hot outside for me to enjoy them. If a Californian asks me if it's cold outside, I still can't be trusted to give an accurate answer because by my Minnesota standards, it is never cold here.  

Over the years, I became more desperate for winter. I hung up pictures of snow scenes in my office. I changed the background on my laptop to a picture of an icy river. When my facebook friends post pictures of the snow, I feel immensely jealous. And when Minnesota gets particularly cold or gets a lot of snow, I call my parents, but not to brag about the sunny weather in California. Rather, I ask them to brag so that I can experience the winter vicariously through them.    

In less than three months, Drew and I will be headed for Green Bay. With the impending move from California and that we're near the end of a week-long heat wave with temperatures reaching the mid-90s, I've been thinking about winter lately (and to be clear, I yearn for winter when it's not so hot here too). I've also been thinking about the things that I will and will not miss about SoCal, and the weather is something I won't miss. After I accepted the job, I promised Drew that I wouldn't complain about the weather and that I'd try my best to enjoy my last "winter" in California. I think I was mostly successful.

But lately, now that "winter" is safely over here, I've allowed myself to start thinking about the things I'm excited about doing in Green Bay that I really can't do in Irvine. I can't wait to carve pumpkins, set them outside, and not worry about them rotting in a week. I can't wait to sip pumpkin spice lattes in the fall and peppermint mochas in the winter (okay, I can do that in Irvine, but it feels weird when it's 80 degrees outside). I can't wait to breathe in the crisp, fall air and step on all the crunchy leaves. I can't wait to make winter soups and stews. I can't wait to go ice skating. And of course, I can't wait for the first snow.