Working in a running store, I get to learn a lot about running, in general, new products and of course shoes. When I began working at the running store, I knew of the show I liked but not much else. Like anyone, I went through the whole process of getting my foot remeasured; my gait analyzed, and my (now) coworker brought out some shoes that worked well for me. To my shock, my feet were wide and had grown.
There are plenty of fascinating facts about shoes that you might not know. Working in a running store, they are now common knowledge for me, but I thought I would share.
Your Feet Change and can Grow:
When they are measured, many people are shocked to find their feet have grown. Your arches can collapse as you age and therefore your feet can get longer or wider. Woman your feet change after pregnancy. No one cares about your foot size but just get what is most comfortable.
Running Shoes are not Meant for Lateral Motion
This includes side to side motion, tennis, etc. Running shoes aren’t reinforced on the sides and using them for lateral movement can break them down much faster. They are comfortable to do so, but your shoes will wear out faster.
Putting your Shoes in the Dryer Ruins Them
Some technology such as gel can break down when heated. Eventually, a shoe will get dirty, don’t wash and dry it. Spray it with a hose if you must.
Socks are Normally the Cause of Blisters
Most people believe the shoe causes the blister, but it’s usually a sock that has cotton in it. An exception is if the shoe is too small and thus rubbing but the majority of the time the sock is causing the blister.
Shoes Don’t Have a Break in Period
A running shoe shouldn’t have a break in period unless it’s too small. Do you see a trend here? Most people buy their running shoes too small and have to “break them in” or they have to stretch. If you purchase the correct size, they won’t do that. You should be able to wiggle your toes before a run, during a run, and after a run.
Questions for you: What is something interesting you’ve learned about running shoes? What is one running shoe you’ve tried, but realized it wasn’t for you?
I haven’t posted a lot about my life lately because I’ve been boring but also busy. Between work and volunteering, I haven’t even had a lot of time to meet with friends at diners much. (You know I must be busy then!) If I haven’t seen or talked to you in a while, my apologies. This post is all over the place, so hopefully, it makes some sense.
Typically March and April are the busiest times for work. Outdoor track is always a busy season, but there are also quite a few road races including the Broad Street 10 miler and NJ Full Marathon. Even though I’m not always in the store selling shoes in the store, I’ve been busy.
To be honest, I feel like I’ve been in a cave for most of 2016. Like most people, I blinked, and both January and February went by. Normally February creeps as slow as possible, but this February felt like it went by quickly.
Now here we are 11 days into March and nearly 11 months after I got married. I have a whole post dedicated for that, but that must wait until my husband, and I can eat our frozen-year-old wedding cake.
So in this random style post what else can I talk about?
I’ve been cooking a lot.
It’s unusual
It’s weird
It’s abnormal
…but nothing has burnt down yet, and everything has been (relatively) edible. It’s also helped both my husband and I eat a lot healthier than we were. To be honest, both of our diets got out of control. We were both eating cake, cookies, ice cream, burgers most days. We both committed to eating healthier during March and April (when a few bigger races are). We’ve both opted to clean up our diets, cooking more. So far we both feel a lot better.
Experiment 1: We made our homemade bagels (recipe found here). It was honestly super easy, just time consuming. We’ve made the recipe a few times, and they’ve come out well. We even experimented adding cinnamon/sugar on a few which turned out just as good.
Experiment 2: Homemade Ice Cream
We purchased an ice cream maker months ago. We used it a few times but not many, in the last week we’ve made ice cream most nights. It’s simple and sweet. I haven’t done a lot of research of more recipes because I’ve been happy with the ones online that came with the ice cream maker. They are simple, easy and taste good.
Experiment three: Not so much an experiment because we’ve made it before but I like squid. We sautee it with oil and garlic.
Questions for you: What is your favorite food? Has 2016 flown by for you? What are your plans this weekend? How many questions can I ask? #atouchtoomuch
Every few months I try and write a “What I ate Wednesday post”. My food doesn’t change a lot. All of my dinners are simple and easy to prepare. I would prefer to spend time doing other things versus cooking for hours. I can guarantee that 90% of my dinners consist of meat, vegetables and starch.
So here is a typical day in the life from last Monday. I don’t normally photograph my food so I had to remember to take photos! Here is a day in LOLZ life!
Breakfast: 5:30am
I like to eat before I run. I know a lot of people don’t but I am someone who prefers to eat beforehand. My current breakfast is: home brewed coffee and a waffle with peanut butter and syrup.
Waffle topped with peanut butter/syrup.
Run: 7 am
I ran 10.75 miles locally. One thing I enjoy about where I live is the ability to run so many places around my area. I don’t get stopped by a lot of cars or traffic because I normally run around parks and neighborhoods. South Jersey is much different than most people think!
Shower, snack: 9am
Titled: “New me after a humid run” selfie
Until this year I was not a smoothie person. With the heat this year, I’ve been enjoying smoothies. My favorite smoothie “recipe” right now is 1 cup of milk, spinach, 1 scoop of protein powder and trivia).
I buy all of my protein, most bars and other things like that from Netrition. I’ve been a loyal customer since college in 2010. We didn’t have access to decent protein powder because we were so far north. I don’t get payed to promote Netrition but I do receive 20% off if anyone purchases anything. It’s the cheapest place to buy protein and shipping normally takes less than 48 hours (that is my favorite part).
This does not look good at all…but it is…
Work: 10-7
Eating at work is always tough for me. Since I work in retail, it’s impossible to tell when people will come in the store. We are normally busy around lunch hour and dinner because that is when people have breaks.
Personally, I cannot bank on having a “lunch break”. Before working at this job, I was never a snacker (I would always eat 3 square meals). During the work day, I normally snack throughout the shift. It keeps me from getting hangry, which is not good customer service.
I love my job but it’s taught me to be flexible of meals…sometimes my lunch is at 10 am…sometimes it’s at 3pm! Snacking keeps me from never getting too hungry!
12:00 pm Powerbar and coffee
I normally walk down the Starbucks and get a coffee. Right now it’s been iced and half the time it’s decaf as well. It’s always got whipped cream though. My coffee from Starbucks normally has about 200 calories (not an exaggeration) of cream.
The chocolate chip cookie dough ones are my favorite
2:00pm Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
As I mentioned yesterday, I won a lot of peanut butter from my last race. I forgot to photograph my boring sandwich!
I also had an apple and the Greek Gods yogurt…the yogurt was not my favorite because it was so tart. I’ve been enjoying all the NJ (the garden state!!) produce lately.
5:00pm
We got busy again! I was hungry around 4 but I can’t say “sorry customers, forget about you…it’s my food time”. I ended up eating 2 apples and a pear.
Everyone should get a apple/pear slicer. It makes eating them so much easier.
Looking back, I eat a lot of fruit, power bars and sandwiches at work. It’s easy, quick and fine for me. It’s hard to eat big meals because you never know when people will come. The worst is getting stuck mid bite and having to greet someone!
7:30pm dinner
On days I don’t work, I normally eat dinner around 5. On days I do work, I eat between 7:30-8. It’s never a big deal but I don’t like to come home and cook. I will either heat up left overs (normally fish or chicken) or cook something that takes less than 15 minutes. I’m not spending an hour cooking after work (or ever LOLZ). I have experimented with the crock pot too but honestly I would rather heat up fish.
On Monday, I heated up leftover chicken and put it on a salad. My “salad” staple is greens, goat cheese, onions, banana peppers, red peppers and a local creamy balsamic dressing.
After dinner, I like to catch up on blogging and watch a little bit of TV. My job isn’t stressful but this allows me to decompress. Around 9-9:30pm, I shut down all of my technology.
I like to relax in bed with a good book or do a little bit of painting. I think shutting down the technology (and not sleeping with my phone in my room) has allowed me to sleep better at night.
So there you have it…a day in my life! I’m not that exciting on work days but I love my job!
I’ve gotten several requests over the last few months about what I eat daily (And by that I mean maybe 3 in 2 months). As a self proclaimed walmart foodie shopper I can’t say I’m that thrilling of an eater but I did go out of my way to remember to take photos. By going out of my way I I wrote on my hand: take some photos. I knew breakfast wouldn’t be an issue but remember to take photos for lunch and dinner? That’s a whole different ball game. I’m really scatter brained throughout the day so if I don’t write something down, I don’t remember.
My hand writing is so lovely!
Lately I have been eating a lot of pancakes again. I went through a phase a while back (around 3 years ago) where I ate pancakes for breakfast nearly every day. They were fast, easy to make and simple. In fact about two years ago, I posted a new pancake recipe on my blog every week. I got sick of them, moved on to eggs for a while, then bagels and now I’m back to pancakes. It will probably change again I normally just add ¾ cup of flour, an egg, baking powder and if I’m feeling cocoa powder then cocoa powder too. I used to post a lot of recipes about it but then realized that was not my style and some recipes were weird. So I stopped doing that…
Breakfast 6:00 am
Some pancakes
Then I went to the gym for about an hour, did some elliptical as well as lifted weights. I showered and headed to work.
Coffee: 9 am. I stopped at Wawa and got my coffee. Since you’ve never seen a photo of coffee, here you go! 20 ounces is the following: 16 ounces coffee and 4 ounces cream. I think I like my cream with a few tablespoons of coffee. I also had a cliff bar. They were on sale at the grocery last week so they are my “bar of choice” this week.
Coffee and cliff bar. Mint was okay, not my favorite but not the worst.
12 Lunch It was craving a roast beef sandwich and the deli makes really good wraps. It was exactly what I was craving. I really wanted roast beef.
Then I continued to work and I continue to stare at people’s feet. I truly enjoy working so normally it goes by pretty quickly. There wasn’t too much of interest this particular day. Many new runners came in for a first pair of shoes, a few people wanted a pair a new pair of their favorite styles.
By 5:00 pm I grabbed a cliff bar. I have been enjoying them lately and I needed something to hold me over. I don’t normally get home until between 7:30-9 (depending on our closing hours) so I couldn’t wait that long between lunch and dinner.
This one was better.
Then at 7pm it was time to head home. So I drove back home and was exhausted.
7:30pm I decided to make some boring dinner. I normally just decide on the way home what I want to eat. Depending on my day (was it a stressful day at work…am I just lazy to cook?). It all depends on what I’m craving. Since T has been gone, I don’t have to worry about judgement about what I eat for dinner (kidding, he doesn’t judge). I ended up having some left over salmon that I made the other day so I just had a salmon salad. It took me about 5 minutes to reheat. So I get home at 7:33 and I’m eating by 7:38. That is pretty much that.
After I’m done eating (and while I’m eating) I tend to just watch TV, catch up on news, blogs, current events and whatever else I feel like. I pretty much give myself until 9pm to just relax and do whatever. Around 9, I like to turn off my internet and just relax. Whether that is just watching some TV or whether that is just going to bed. I’ve noticed I sleep a lot better when I turn off technology and I sleep with my cell in another room.
I guess this turned into a day in my life and what I like to eat. I can see why food bloggers are always so busy and have no free time. This post took forever to do and it was a real pain to remember to take photos of my food. It’s a lot harder then blogging about running.
Questions for you:
What is a day in the life like for you?
What did you eat today? What are some good lunch suggestions? (Or am I the only lazy person who enjoys the classic peanut butter and jelly).
I’m glad other people can relate to being boring and adult (IE: yesterday’s post). I feel like September is one of the most busy times of the year. For students, you are getting back into the nitty gritty of class and courses. For offices there is something about fall that screams “new and fresh start”. For businesses like a running store, we are in fall marathon mode as well as cross country mode. We are also busy. It seems like most people are busy the month of September.
That means less people are on the internet. I can see a reflection of that, not only with myself but with my blog stats as well. Maybe I’m just getting more boring or something? Or something like that anyways. Blog stats aren’t something that I’m really concerned about but I always notice certain trends. One being that I tend to get more page views in the summer and less in the fall. YAY for people existing in real life and not worrying about my blog.
Across all of social media, I’ve seen more and more people indicate they are busy. Too busy for this, too busy for that…and you know what? That is completely fine. We all go through periods of having a busy schedule versus having a less busy schedule. It makes life interesting (kind of like that hill right in the middle of a run).
Like I’ve always stressed in my own personal life and blog space, it’s important to look at your big picture. A novel isn’t written with one chapter and neither is your life. It’s important to realize that these times come and go. For instance on Tuesday, I had a day off of work. I thought I would really enjoy my day off. By 1 pm, I had already cleaned everything that needed to be cleaned. I had gone for my workout and caught up on all my TV (while cleaning). I had read some blogs. I found myself at a loss of what to do. Normally on my days off I try and make plans but most people were busy so it didn’t work out that way. Personally I like to have something to look forward to daily whether it’s hanging out or treating myself to something.
I had finished everything I needed (and wanted) to do and it was now 2pm. I honestly had no idea what to do. Somehow I just zoned out and relaxed until going to bed. I talked to a few friends. I wondered what on Earth I would do on Wednesday I had two whole days off in a row. After being so busy for the last two weeks, I didn’t know where to begin with a couple of days off. I decided to work on some paintings and just relax. Both I did.
Then on Wednesday I woke up and got a call asking if I could come to work. It was something to do to fill my time. I had gotten everything I wanted to do (For me right now I have come to the conclusion that back to back days off aren’t the best for me when I don’t make plans). I need to have something to look forward in. I do better with a little bit of structure and get bored sitting online after an hour (that’s really pushing it).
So with that I found myself even more busy this week than I originally planned. That isn’t a bad thing or a good thing. It’s just a change in schedule thing. It leaves me with more free time and more things to do next day off. Maybe I’ll even get some blog posts in.
My point is, September appears to be a busy month for everyone. There isn’t a need to stress about it and life will eventually level itself out. There is no need to stress about an individual day, month or year.
Question for you: What are you up to this September?
It’s not a secret that I’ve been working a lot more than usual lately. I’ve said that a lot. My work is anywhere is from 30 minutes-1 hour from my house. Working more days gives me less time to blog and less things to talk about via blogging. With a 40 hour work week, I’m also driving between 5-10 hours a week. That means I’m outside of my house (work related) around 45-50 hours weekly. That doesn’t count time hanging out with friends.
I haven’t been blogging any less (nor do I really want to stop blogging) but I often times find myself with less things to say. I mean I could talk about waking up, working out, driving to work, coming home, playing around on the internet and then going to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. That doesn’t seem that exciting to me, nor does posting my daily eats. Sorry that’s not my blog flow. I guess if posting about my daily food intake and food payed my bills I might be more inclined. Changing my blog to create more content seems like a lose for me and a snooze for readers. That’s my humble opinion though and if you like posting your daily food intake, good for you. I digress.
On my (work) off days, I’ve found I like to hang out with friends and relax. I don’t like spend more then an hour or two blogging. So I don’t like to spend all my free time blogging. I really enjoy blogging but I don’t live to blog.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m saying, I guess more or less that while I’m having a social life and exist outside the internet, it’s not life riveting or things I feel are necessary “blog worthy”.
Do you really care what kind of food I ate today? (Only if it’s a diner).
Do you care my favorite color is yellow? Not really.
So anyways what have I been up to outside of boring, adult things?
Last week I got to hang out with a good friend Melissa. It was a really good time and really nice to catch up. Melissa has been a huge support system for me and our help and advice is untradeable. It seems like so long ago and it was only last week.
Say “Smile so we exist in real life”…no…really.
I also got to hang out with Danielle and Amelia who led me into the city. (PS: Danielle just PRed in her 5k on a hard, hilly course in the middle of marathon training..). Last Tuesday, I started a pretty rigorous schedule where I went to NYC and then drove straight to work Wednesday in South Jersey that morning. I worked from Wednesday to Monday (around 50 hours). Outside of meeting Kate Grace, I didn’t talk a lot about my time in NYC. I really surprised myself with how much fun I had. We walked around NY, tried a cool foodie truck (my first foodie truck ever!) and then headed to the Brass Monkey to meet some Oiselle teammates. While I was nervous to physically go into the city, I had a lot of fun.
Train selfieFoodie truck: A goat cheese wrap thing and glass noodle salad. It was really good.
Then I worked, worked, and worked. I am glad I did and I enjoyed each day but it was tiresome for sure. Those days consisted of work, sleep, work sleep (and two workouts I believe).
I’m now reaping the rewards of just relaxing and getting my house straightened up. I was going to plan more events with friends but found I just needed some time to just relax.
I think as a blogger, there is an unseen pressure that “my life is so exciting, therefore I blog”. That certainly isn’t the case and I have several weeks of being “boring” or just lather, rinse, repeating.
I wish I could post more exciting life moments but I don’t have any. My biggest life update is that I’m just continuing living my life.
I created an anonymous question box so if you have any idea’s or questions feel free to ask below.
Questions for you:
What are you up to this week?
Any big plans this weekend?
It’s RnR Philly so I’ll probably be watching and cheering with that. Since my work is partnering with Brooks we have a lot of cool things going on. Let me know if you’ll be there!
It’s hard for me to believe that college is starting soon again. It seemed like just yesterday that my friends were done with the semester and coming home for the summer. Now people are going back to college or even starting their freshman year! I remember each trip my parents took with me to college. Each 700 mile drive was unique in some sort of weird and awkward way.
I learned a lot about myself during college (both mentally and physically). The most important lesson I learned however,had nothing to do with courses. I learned about myself as a person.
I’ve written about my definition of success and happiness several times. I’ve also written about struggling post college several times. When I was in college, I thought one I graduated, I would easily get a job in my field, work and then I would be successful. I did my college time and now the reward (a job) would flock to me. It’s partially true that I interned then worked in my field at SUNY Oswego. I loved it and truly enjoyed my time there in the public health field. I learned even more about myself, my field (public health) as well as my personal relationship with Tim.
In the late spring of 2013, I had an important decision to make. A decision college doesn’t really prepare you for.
Do I move and get out of Upstate NY?
I was dating at the time, and a long distance relationship won’t work forever. He was finishing his training so it made sense for me to move down there. Being in the military, Tim will never have flexibility to move where he wants. It was either I move or we continue having a long distance relationship.
I chose to move. In the fall of 2013 I moved and found myself unemployed with no job leads. People asked me all summer my job plans and I said I have no idea, live off savings and find one.
Being unemployed came just one year after spending four years trudging through gail force -30 degree winds to class. It came six months after digging my car out of snow banks for work.
I stayed unemployed from September until around March. During that time we found out we were moving to New Jersey. We had one of the roughest winters on the east coast and southern states weren’t prepared to plow (I felt like I never left upstate!) I hit the job market at the worst time since businesses weren’t hiring. The last thing they wanted (or needed) to do was hire for their closed business. I ate away at about 75% of my savings that I saved the previous year working. College never taught me about budgeting or savings…but I thank my parents often that they did.
I applied for jobs everywhere and in every field. Quite frankly living in Del Rio Texas, a job was not going to happen. I lived there six weeks but almost a year later (read: last Tuesday) I finally found a job in my field that I remotely qualified for. (After getting dozens of emails to be road kill collector…I don’t know why I’m still on public health job list…or why collecting road kill requires a public health degree…). I would have most definitely had to do something outside my college degree if I had lived there…which is fine but not anything college prepared me for.
So when we moved to NJ, I was more than happy.. So many opportunities that aren’t road kill collectors! I probably applied to close to 30 jobs. (I filled out about 100 job applications). I applied for multiple public health jobs, running store jobs, even a substitute teacher (as I spent 3 years with a double math/education major). I was bored being at home and financially it wasn’t going to work out well if I was going to stay unemployed for another year.
As good as my first year out of college was (job wise), my second year was as bad. That was something I was not prepared for. The only thing that would have really prepared me would be living through this situation.
So when I got a call that they would have room for me at a local running store, I jumped on it. After 8 months of doing nothing, it was a nice change. Now working there about 6 months, I can say I fully enjoy it. While college taught me how to solve derivatives at the drop of a pin, it didn’t teach me that I was also growing as a human. I was learning how to educate people in health awareness but I was also growing and needed to experience these lessons for myself. I wish college taught me that it’s okay not to do anything in your major as long as you are successful financially, mentally and physically. If you can say all of those things as well as you are happy with your life, then college has taught you well.
I regret nothing about my education, my post college life and where I’m at right now. I’m enjoying my life, financially stable and successful both mentally and physically. None of those things are anything I took a college course for but at the same time needed college for.
Questions for you:
What is one thing you wish college had taught you?
