High Bars and Other Things I Can't Jump Over

Happy Halloween!
Mostly that's for myself, because it's not Halloween here, so no one else is telling me Happy Halloween. I'm sure all of you in the U.S. have plenty of people telling you Happy Halloween, you probably don't need to hear it from me. Not that Halloween is a very important holiday, or anything...
But now, my missing Halloween is officially over, because I'm eating these chocolate things filled with fluff called "zoenen" or "kisses" and I'm pretty sure they're way better than any Halloween candy I would have gotten anyway. The amount of calories that is in them, I do not want to know.
Weight.
I think the expression should be "foreign exchange student fifteen" instead of "freshman fifteen" because I'm sure any freshman in college has a much easier time keeping weight off than any exchange student. I haven't gained anything close to fifteen pounds, but I can see how it would easily happen. Everywhere I go, there are cookies. And there's so many different kinds of cookies. Plus, there's candy, there's vla, there's delicious meat and pasta, and there's bread with everything. I really am trying to eat healthier because I know it's better for running, but my discipline when it comes to food is lacking. We'll see how that works out for me with all these tempting things around all the time.

On October 19th, I had officially been here for two months. All the AFS volunteers, and people who have been exchange students (i.e. my mom and dad) say that after three months you all of a sudden get really homesick. That means if they're right I'll really start to lose it around Thanksgiving. So far, I don't think homesickness has been all that bad for me. Regularly there's probably about one day a week that I miss home a lot. And this week was a lot better for me than any of the other weeks have been. Monday was little bit of a rough day for me, but after that I didn't feel like I thought about home all that much, definitely less than usual. Every week and every day is different though, so who knows what next week will be like.
We are always busy doing things here, and that makes it a lot easier. If I was always sitting at home I know I would be much more homesick than I am now.

Team Distance Runners on Tuesday did not go well at all. I don't think the vacation in Paris was that good for my running, because the workouts we do with TDR are so intense and I did just easy running on my own. The first part of our workout on Tuesday was with 2kg weights. Actually, they're bullets. Everyone has one in each hand, and we do different exercises, mostly to strengthen our shoulders, but also for our abs, biceps, and triceps. That part of the work out was fine, but the second part- the running part- was supposed to be 5x1000 meters. For the first 1000 meters we were supposed to run each lap in 100 seconds, then for the second 1000 meters each lap was supposed to be 98 seconds, then the third interval was supposed to be with 96 second laps, etc. Hearing the coach tell us the work out, I felt like I should be able to do it, so I was upset when I could only keep up with the group for the first two intervals. In the third one I barely made it for a lap and a half and then fell back a lot. Then the coach told me just to run 600 meters of the next two intervals at the same pace that the others were doing. This worked okay for the first one, but I was absolutely exhausted. On the last 600 meters I couldn't even keep up with them for the whole way- and they were still running 1000 meters.
Thursday practice with TDR was at the fitness center where we always work out on Thursdays. Our circuit of stations on Thursday had been upped to 3 times the circuit of 40 seconds at each station with only 20 seconds in between. The first circuit was with the same stations that we had been before, then for the second circuit the trainer changed it a little bit, and for the third circuit he changed it a little bit more. The third circuit is where the high bar comes in. They brought two bars out onto the floor, one that was probably about 4'6" tall and the other that must have been at least 5' tall. I used the shorter bar, but pretty much all of the guys and some of the girls went on the tall bar. What we had to do was put our hands on the bar and then jump up so that we were suspended over the bar with our arms. The thing was, we were supposed to be using only the strength from our feet to jump up, and not bending our knees very much. Mostly, my goal was just to get over the bar, so I bent my knees and jumped, but even then I couldn't get up. Later, some of the other athletes demonstrated how it was supposed to be, and watching them was insane. They would jump three feet or so into the air, just by flexing their toes a little bit, and the whole thing looked completely effortless. Is it really so much to ask that I can be like them and jump over the bar?! So the circuit training was much harder than usual, but I like it, becuase when we're done I feel much stronger. I can still feel it in my muscles today from the training on Thursday, but it's a good feeling!
After the circuit training we almost always do a run of twenty minutes out and then fifteen minutes back, with the first twenty minutes at an easy pace. We supposedly did the same thing on Thursday, but I'm pretty sure that the first twenty minutes were way faster than usual. The run was really nice though, because it was pitch black outside, and we were running by the lights in the street. The weather was perfect for running, and their weren't very many of us. Some of the runners that we started with turned back early, and some were way ahead of us, so on the way back it was just me and my coach. He stayed close enough to me the whole way that I didn't feel dropped, but that I still had to try hard to keep up with him. Until about the last seven minutes or so of the run, I felt strong, then at the end- like always- it was hard to keep up the pace. Thursday was good practice!

Tomorrow we have a race, or "wedstrijd," with TDR. It's in another town, not all that far away, but this is an actual cross-country race. It's 3.4 km which is a little bit shorter distance than our normal cross-country races at home, but it's closer to the same distance than the other races so far have been. We'll see how it goes- I'm nervous, so keep your fingers crossed for me.