Just call me St. Patty's Day

This week, I worked some official (non-training) shifts at my new job as an official running store salesperson. Getting paid to talk to runners about running - you really can't go wrong there. I was actually terrified to fit people for shoes, because it seemed like such a huge responsibility. But I forgot that working in customer service when your customer base is primarily runners is extremely different from my many previous experiences. It turns out that runners who want to try on shoes are extremely pleasant and fun to talk to. Quite the other end of the spectrum from people who are late to work and massively impatient yet still have time to wait in line for 15 minutes so they can pause their phone conversation just long enough to bark their order for their mocha frappuccino. 


I even got to fit my teaching BFF Kristin for her first official pair of running shoes! She joined my 5K training group, and started a blog about it. She is approximately 80% of the reason I have not yet peed my pants at work.

My first shift started off with this. 

A year's supply of running shoes was waiting for me. 

I had to do an online training with Brooks to prepare for the job, and after you do it, you get to shop with an amazing discount. I know I'm going to go through all these shoes in the next year or so anyway, so I figured it made more sense to buy them for $40 a pair than $110 a pair. Plus I still have an free pair of Mizuno shoes from the Mezamashii project that I am super excited to try when my current shoes are done (any minute now).


I couldn't resist trying a pair of shoes from Brooks new PureProject line. I don't really need it, but they are supposed to be really light and natural feeling. I'll report back when I try them on a short run.

So pretty too!

When I got home from my shift Thursday, Eric and I spent the night watching Dawson's Creek. He somehow got hooked while I was in Rochester visiting my family, and couldn't wait to continue. In college, my whole suite was obsessed with this show sophomore year and would wake up early to watch the reruns practically every day. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven watching it with Eric.

You know you hated that.

A meme of one of my favorite shows talking about another one of my favorite shows - amazing

This weekend is my college reunion, and by reunion I mean all my college BFFs are coming to visit and stay with us. One of the perks to teaching is that I didn't have to work on this lovely summer day, so I was able to knock out my 18 miler a day early. 


When I don't have to meet anyone or begin my run by a certain time to get to work, it's so hard to get out bed. Faced with the choices "sleep more or get up and run 18 miles", it's really a no brainer.   The high is only (ha!) 89 today, so I didn't have to be up at the crack of dawn to run. 


When I finally got started, I had a great run, for two main reasons - entertainment and changing my Garmin settings.  

I don't know how I've been training for marathons for two years now and just began incorporating audiobooks, but it's wonderful. Thanks, Heather, for the suggestion! 

They say "ejaculate" to mean "exclaimed" in this book and I laugh every time.

My Garmin now only tells me one thing.

What this means is no obsessing over pace and berating myself over how slow I am. It's supposed to be a long, slow, distance anyway. My average pace was 9:59, and I'm cool with that.

Now, back to my exciting plans this weekend. The last time we all reunited in Baltimore was about a year after Eric and I got married, in 2009, so we reenacted our wedding. I'm talking bridesmaid dresses, ceremony, first dance, everything.

Beautiful flowers - original bouquets or stolen from a restaurant.

Our neighbors thought we were actually getting married that day. I mean, who doesn't have a picture like this in their wedding album?

The time before that was in 2007. We hadn't been able to get together for New Year's, but a little thing like the fact that it was February didn't stop us. We got decked out, went to the bar, and did a "happy new year!" countdown approximately every 20 minutes.

Getting people's heads in photos is hard

This time, we decided to try to recreate the many holidays we've missed celebrating together in the past 3 years. Everyone was assigned a holiday, through a very official method.

The directions are just to bring that holiday to the group, in whatever manner you feel is necessary. I would say costumes are encouraged, but with this group, no encouragement is really necessary. I'm so excited.

What do you listen to while you run?

Are you into "theme" parties? I'm not really sure that's what you'd call this, but it's as close as I can get.