Blog Award + Please Send a Search Party kthxbai

Bree from Bees Knees Life was nice enough to send me the Stylish Blogger award.  Which makes sense, as I am almost as stylish as they come.  Bree is running in Fargooooooooooooo this spring too, so I hope to meet up with her there!  Check out her blog, or ELSE. 

The rules for accepting the award are:

*Offer up your unborn child to the running blogger gods

*Pluck all body hair
Er...wait..... Nevermind... that's a different award I've recently received....

ahem...

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 5 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact these Bloggers and tell them about the award!

My Seven Things
1.  I rarely eat meat (and was a pescatarian for a few months).  I despise the taste of meat, typically.  Even when eating chicken I swear I can taste blood.  Eew.  However, I get INTENSE cravings every blue moon for a cheeseburger.  And then I have to have one charred to perfection on the grill.  FYI I'm currently in the middle of one of these intense cravings.

2.  I don't drink pop.  I don't really like it.  I was that strange kid who loooooooooooooved water.  Weirdo.

3.  Before starting up running again about 2 years ago, I was 25-30 pounds heavier than I currently am (slash am at when at my racing weight).  Everyone how met me during that time period kind of freaked when I started running again because I lost a lot of weight.  It's interesting to me, because the people who have known me forever just saw it as me getting back to my "normal" athletic build.

4.  I was a lifeguard for 6 years, but swimming is the part of a tri that I'm most terrified of.  I have really good form for the various strokes but my speed is...uh... non-existant.  Unless I have to haul booty to save you in a little pool, of course. :)

5. I am an extremely organized messy person.  Trust.  It's possible.  Anything that can be explicitly organized is (ie:  movies in alphabetical order, books by author's last name, clothes by clothing type and then by color within each sub category, all facing the same way with the hanger facing the same way.... you know... the usual...).  Also, I'm a planner to a T, race plans through 2013?  Why not.  However, my apartment (as will be mentioned below) is a disaster area.  Some things just seem to be a waste of time (read:  I'm lazy), such as emptying a dishwasher (I'll just use the plates as I need them!) or putting away clean laundry (I'll just wear them as I need them!).  No biggie.

6.  I think the reason I was such a good sprinter in high school is that I was boy crazy (cough...still am... cough).  I was the fastest girl for most of the Varsity track seasons, so I typically got thrown in with the boys to complete my workouts.  Chasing boys?  Just hand me my first place medal nowwwwww.

7.  If for some reason I don't end up as a children's librarian (in which case I will commence crying one million tears ASAP), life goal #2 is to have a children's book store/coffee shop.  I just adore books and kids who love books (and espresso, let's be real) so this would make for an excellent (albeit much more risky) life plan B.


Blog Award Recipients
I'm going to go with some newly added blogs to my reader:

• Krista at Krittabug
• Kelly at Meals For Miles
• Ashley at A Spoonful of Smash
• Shelby at Eat Drink Run
• Sarah at Once Upon a (L)ime

Tuesday night after work I was set to head to the gym to do my tempo run (the only routes around my place are hilly, except the bike trail and the bike trail is a major NO GO after dark).  But it was sooooo gorgeous out I had to switch out my run to do an easy 5 with strides instead.  For the first time in 2011 I got to wear SHORTS for a run outdoors.  Oh hai their spring.  Random note:  These shorts are a strictly for outdoor running, and not utilized for the gym because they show SWASS like no ones busiess.

Obviously I had to wear my sweet new IRISHMAN shirt from this weekend.  No matter that I wore it for all 3 races and have yet to wash it.  Stench of success!  My mind tends to wonder while I'm running, especially when I'm sans music, like I was on Tuesday.  A random peek in to my thoughts:

• When did Schwann's change it's logo?  A truck drove by me and I was all confussled.  It's been the same for the last 20+ years.  Shocker.
• I love the smell of clean/fresh laundry.  Honestly, men, instead of pouring on the cologne, just put on a freshly laundered shirt and I'm yours.  Er... I mean... if I was available and all I would totally be yours.... because clearly I'm not interested now... ummm. yup. :)
• There was a 3rd major point and it's escaped me.

I did 5 miles on a hilly route and it was swell.  And I'm really digging the random pickup/strides on these easier paced runs.  Also, does anyone else save their holey running socks to wear in really muddy/wet conditions or am I the only weirdo?  I hate mud staining new socks!  Hai pink toe nails!

And yet another random note, if someone wants to help form a search party at my place I am missing a number of items (not surprising as my apartment is a sty):

• My iPod shuffle*, hence why my run was musicless.
• My normal iPod.* You know, the one I listen to while at work, while in my car, and while in the shower.  Hrmph.
• My tax print out. (whatever it's called)
• My Under Armour running briefs.  I had to wear volleyball spandex shorts under my tights for Saturdays race.  Not happy.  Those puppies were spendy!

*Both of these items were recovered this morning while searching for the still missing tax information.

P.S.  Apparently I've met my max for GB for photo's through picasa/blogger.  Anyone want to give me dummy instructions on using something else to upload my photos???  jerbearshares [at] gmail [dot] com  Thanks I'll love you forever!

Pacer Jerbear

Whilst perusing the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon expo, a random guy inquired on the pace bands that Alyssa and I had snatched up at a previous booth.  We explained that neither of us were doing the TC marathon, but were grabbing them for our next marathon in Vegas BABY Vegas!  Ahem....  He explained that he was pacing the 4:00 group for tomorrow, and I got super excited and starting badgering him with questions, mainly:  how do you become a pacer?  To which he responded, you talk to me.  (!!!!!!!!!!!!)  We chatted with him and briefly explained our running backgrounds.  One of my new years resolutions/yearly goals was to figure out how to become a pacer (in the half marathon distance, mind you), so I was beyond excited to meet up with him (and so was Alyssa) and beyond excited is an understatement, let me tell you.


After talking more, he let us know that he had a couple of openings for pacing opportunities for the Mankato Half Marathon.  It didn't take much convincing for Alyssa and I to jump on the chance.  You are hereby reading the blog of the official 2:10 pacer for the Mankato Half Marathon.  Woohoo!  I'm so excited!  And it should actually fit in with my marathon training well, as I'll have to tack on another 7 miles post-race.  I hope the pacing goes well, because this is something I would truly love to do on a more frequent basis.  Rest assured, I'm already having nightmares about performing badly.  Crazy brain. :p

Thursday morning I hopped out of bed bright and early to get in a quick and easy 4 miles before I had to head to work.  I expected my legs to feel like trash after running a tough tempo run not more than 12 hours before, but they felt fresh as daisies.  Whatevs, I'll take it.  With a mile and a half to go on the run, I noticed what looked like smoke from a fire off in the distance.  As I got closer I realized that there was a truck spraying white smoke along the bike path.  I jumped to the road to try to avoid it, but of course there was a southern wind blowing it right to where I was.  Remind me of October 7th if I end up with lung cancer/bronchitis/etc.  Parks and Rec FAIL.

Despite getting gassed, I did 4 miles in 39:03 for a pace of 9:46.

And lastly (but obviously most importantly) I've recently been given an award.... TWICE.  Yes, alert the presses....somebody's a big deal.  psssst..... it's me.
The rules are as follows:

*Thank and link back to the person(s) who gave you this award.
*Share 7 things about yourself
*Pass the award along to others who you think are fabulous

Sarah is seriously super mom who is a new mommy and is already back to running, racing, and getting back in to shape!  Tres impressive.  ;)

Danielle is my 5k arch nemesis/virtual rabbit/running buddy.  We both have a 5k goal of hitting 22:xx.  We may have come up short (or technically I should say long) this summer, but next year it is ours.  Muhahahhaahahahha.  Ok, the Dr. Evil laugh was a bit much.

And for my list of 7 things:
1.  My eye color is some what of a mood ring.  It varies from blue to green.  Blue = happy as a lark.  Green = pissssssssssed.  It's really too bad because they're the prettiest when they're green.
2.  I almost always go to bed with socks on, because my feet are always freezing.  Once my feet warm up, I chuck them.  There have been times when I've woke up with my socks in my hands nuzzled up on my face.
3.  I have one older brother, and he's the crazy good athlete of the family.  We're talking state champion in basketball and football his senior year, and a college football scholarship.  But he didn't go to state in track, and I did, so neener neener, yes? :)
4.  I have this weird thing with dating left handed guys.  I think there's been one guy I've dated seriously that's been a righty.  So bizarre.
5.  My favorite sport growing up was basketball.  I played hundreds of hours of basketball every summer.  My best friend Nikki and I would live at the gym in the summer.  Sadly, the sport I was the best at was volleyball, which was my least favorite (behind bball and track).  Makes me wonder what I could've done if I put some effort in to it.  Oh well.  :)

6.  I was a cheerleader in college.  Gooooooooooooo Vikes!  I cheered for football my sophomore and junior year.  I hated doing it my junior year because all of my friends were getting playing time and I couldn't see the game from where we had to stand.  So I didn't try out my senior year.  Tailgating was more fun. :)
7.  I have a birthmark on my shoulder that is 5 indentations, and if you were to connect them it would be in the shape of a star.  My parents had plans to name me Montana Star (if you know my last name, you will understand how truly atrocious this would have been).  Yes they were hippies, and yes, I'd probably be blogging about my stripping career instead of my dabblings in running if this had gone through.  Luckily my parents didn't take it as a sign, and instead named me after my daddy.... Jerry Lee and Jeri Lee.

And now I nominate:
Slomohusky
Jenn
Alyssa
Cynthia
Susan
Glenn