Work talks, and gearing up for M2 2011

Hello!

August is here, and I'm in the process of gearing up for Marquette next month. I am so excited for this race, for a few different reasons:
1. My family is taking this thing over! All 4 of us--me, Coach Mom, Assistant Coach Little Sister, and Little Bro are all running it together.
2. When I've been on lately, I've been ON. I've done a few runs where hitting my target pace (around 8:00min/mi) was quite doable. I'm really working on not getting too ahead of myself, but I really feel that a 1:45 could be in my grasp here, as long as I stay healthy and focused.
3. Watching one of my friends (and former co-bandgeek)  and her husband run their first half marathon. I've been creeping on their training via Facebook, and they are rocking it. :)
4. A 4 day weekend in the UP with my family and Brandon, with possible visits with friends? Yes, please.
5. Going "home" again for a few days? YES, PLEASE.

Source

Not that I'm rushing the rest of summer out of here, nor am I willing and able to skip the rest of training... but if September 2nd-5th could hurry up and get here, I'd be quite a happy woman, let me tell you.

I've also had the privilege lately of working with my running store's newest edition of their marathon/half marathon training group. I helped out while our GM, who usually runs it, was out of town for a few days, and it was nothing short of really awesome. If nothing else, it really confirmed to me that I'd like to run the Whistlestop Half Marathon in October (the race this group is geared toward), if nothing else just to keep meeting up with this group. They're great, and it would be nice to have more some friends in this town.
Yes, sadly, despite being here for 7 months now, I'm still feeling very much like the new girl in school, and I don't really know that many people. I have been trying to make friends at work, but the majority of them are college students and on the local university cross/track teams, so they very much have their own group going on. We did just hire some new people, though, so I'm hoping this dynamic shifts, because I'm starting to feel like that 7th grader eating her lunch in the bathroom stall here.
So... if any of you know of some cool people in the Duluth area who wouldn't mind hanging out with some crazy runner/hockey nerd/recovering bandgeek, let me know!  ;)
Aside from the social end of things, work has been going very well. My promotion became official this morning, and I could not be more excited. I have a ton on my plate, so to speak, but I feel so fortunate. Not only do I finally have a consistent job, but it's doing something I absolutely love. Plus, it's just plain fun sometimes:

The photo we sent to the rest of the management staff while they were out of town, with the caption, "When the cat's away, the mice will play." We put on tri suits and all these party hats/props one of the workers brought in, and were cracking up so hard. Good times

In all seriousness, though, if you would have told me a year ago that any of this would have happened--the relocation, the engagement, the job, the running improvement--I wouldn't have believed you. Well, probably the relocation and maybe the engagement, but other than that? No, I would not have believed you one bit.


So, that's all I have for this post. Have a great rest of your week, everyone!

Scary Mornings and Boxes of Love

Today's run: 4 miles
Week to date: 17 miles
Month to date: 9 miles (pleh... I really dislike it when the new month starts in the middle of the week!)

So, yesterday was kind of a strange day. I wasn't planning on running anyway, but even if I had, I don't know if I would have made it out. See, my morning was spent glued to the computer, constantly refreshing the Facebook page for the local station back in Marquette. The long and short of it is that there was a threat to the University found on a website, and someone called campus to warn them of what they saw. Here's the link to one of the articles talking about it (it even made CNN, you never see anything about the Upper Peninsula on there!) Scary stuff, but things are OK now. They reopened campus today after making 110% sure that everyone would be safe and they were sure the threat had passed.
All I have to say is that I'm very proud of how my alma mater and the surrounding community handled everything, and I am especially proud of all the students today who held their heads high, sported the school colors, and went back to class and on with their lives. It's always a great day to be a Wildcat!
I even hung my flag back up for the first time since Brandon and I moved in together.

I thought about running in my hockey jersey today, but in the end I decided not to, I just layered on as many green, gold, or NMU related items as I could. (And the All-Star toque, just because.)
In other news, early yesterday afternoon I got a big box of love from home! After spending the morning freaked out, it felt amazing to feel the love:

Look at all the goodness here! Coach Mom is the GREATEST! New shirts, Valentines' Day goodies, munchies (including my favorite cereal, Quaker Oatmeal Squares, and a bunch of Larabars!), and my TRAINING PLAN!!
The plan Coach Mom wrote for me looks amazing. It's nice this time to have a more concrete plan to follow (even if winging it was fun), and I'm really excited that it's finally training time! I had so much fun last time around, I hope it's the same way this time! And, with this, I'll do my longest run ever (14 miles) and my biggest week mileage wise ever (30 miles, the first week of May.) Looking at the calendar I was given, though, I'm already in week 1. But after a panicked phone call home, I was told not to worry about it, and I'm going to finish what I had planned for this week and jump in at week 2 on Monday.

Fortunately, my plan for this week and what I have written on my training plan for this week match fairly well. I had a 4 miler planned for myself today, and that's what Coach Mom wrote, too, and same with the 6 miler on Saturday. The only difference is that I don't have a run written on the plan for tomorrow, and I was planning on doing another 5.

Have you ever had Larabars? Which one is your favorite?
I'm a fan of the Cherry Pie one, myself. I had the Banana Bread one yesterday and it was awesome, too!