Week 5: Pushing Through: A Week of Racing, Growth, and Reflection
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” — Walt Disney
By: Hong Bing Tang February 16, 2025
02/10/2025 to 02/16/2025
Introduction:
Yikes…I haven’t been doing a good job with this website these last couple of weeks. A classic case of procrastination where I push things back since I do not want to do them in the moment. It stops now. I am trying to complete this week’s blog and then backtrack and get the rest of the blogs in. Anyways, I hope everything has been going alright with you all. This week was busy with upcoming events. I am excited to share how this week has been! Let’s dive in!
Running:
The last couple of weeks of training were huge training blocks. So going into this week, I was feeling quite tired from the added load that I was doing. Furthermore, I snowed quite a bit this week which made traction and getting out the door slightly harder. Nonetheless, this week was still a very productive week of running. I had a slightly lower week of mileage this week which was nice since I was feeling quite tired. Also, since there were two meetings this weekend, we only had practice on Monday and Tuesday since everyone’s schedule was super different. While this seems like it would lighten up my schedule, it was still quite a busy week. Overall, the week of running was flexible and solid.
School:
At this point of the year, school gets pretty tough as things start piling up and I start to get lazy. This was the case for this week. At the beginning of the semester, I was good at getting things done early, however this week a lot of my assignments I turned in the day they were due. I am looking forward to attacking the assignments this upcoming week and getting back into getting things done in an early manner so I can focus on other important things such as hanging out with friends. Even with my assignments lacking, I am still enjoying the classes that I am taking and honestly the class I was most worried about earlier in the semester, the CPS algorithms class, I am enjoying and staying engaged in class.
Meetings:
Since 1-MAC week, a week celebrating our community forcusing on aspects of diversity, inclusion, and equity, is this upcoming week. I had to do a lot of managing and meeting with different people. I was in charge of leading 3 different groups of people to create fliers and graphics to promote education and our trivia night I we are having next week. This involved reaching 3 separate groups and making sure they knew what they had to do, the due date, and making sure they were working on the tasks. Additionally, I also connected these separate groups with our advisor to make sure the information that was being distributed was correct and done in an effective manner. This was a little bit stressful since reaching out to many people and meeting with them took a lot of time in my already busy schedule but also made me realize that everything would work out and as long as I was managing people well, which I was, there would be no point in stressing over something that I couldn’t control.
In addition to these meetings, I also had two job interviews this week. This was exciting since all the applying that I was doing finally landed me a actual interview. I was quite nervous for the first one of the week but after realizing that I should just answer the questions by showing off my skills it made it significantly easier. The second interview of the week was significantly better since I was more comfortable with answer the questions asked. However this one was different since it was a computer and electrical engineering internship so the interviewer specifically asked me questions about what topics I had learned in class. One of the most basic question they asked I fumbled however its was still a successful interview. I am looking forward to hearing back from these two companies in the near future.
Valentines Day:
This Friday was Valentine’s Day! Jessie and I decided to do something small, so I cooked some Sesame chicken for dinner and then we relaxed and reflected on some funny pictures and times from our middle school days. It was nice to learn more about how middle school was like for her since it was different from mine. In addition, we were able to give each other our gifts that we got. I made her a card and got us both concert tickets to go see Mt. Joy, one of her favorite bands. Jessie made me these cute pipe cleaners to follow along with a variety of goodies and some fancy chocolates. I was happy with how the gifts went! After that we then watched some Suits which as always is exciting to watch due to all the drama in the show. Unfortunately, on Saturday I had to wake up super early in order to travel to Grand Valley University to race so I couldn’t stay too long, but it was a very successful valentines day!
Big Meet:
I woke up at 5:45am since we were leaving Mount Pleasant for Grand Valley at 6:30am. Since it was such an early departure, I slept for most of the bus ride to the meet. We arrived at the meeting at around 8:30 and I had roughly an hour and a half to relax before warming up for my 3k. It was quite snowy on the ground and cold, but it was only a 20 min warm up and with new scenery, so it went by very fast. Soon enough I was lined up ready to go. The race went out a little slower than I expected but this worked well for me. I went through the first 1500 right on pace and was feeling comfortable, so I tried to catch the people in front of me. This is when the racing got tough, but I pushed through and focused not on how far I left but on reeling in the people in front of me. This helped, and even though I split the race, I was happy with the effort. It was a really good race, and I am excited to see what more I can do in the future.
Conclusion:
This week reminded me that even when things feel overwhelming—whether it’s school deadlines, meeting responsibilities, or race day nerves—staying committed and pushing forward always pays off. Each experience, from managing projects to competing on the track, helped me grow in confidence and resilience. With more exciting things ahead, I’m looking forward to building on this momentum and tackling whatever comes next!
Goals Update:
Journaling: I journaled 1 time this week. I got really busy and should try to do it more.
Nail biting: An elevated stressful week means my biting was bad
Reading: I finished the Mighty Moe book that I got
Phone usage: An average of 1 hour and 41 minutes I used my phone a lot more due to having to contact people for 1-Mac week
Future: Next week investing is going to be a key point I want to focus on.
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