So I totally forgot that I haven’t posted this but a while back at one of our swimming events (the Pan Pacific Open Water Swim National Championship), we had a very special guest! Michael Phelps! All the girls of the office wanted a picture with him.

I thought it would be a good way to kick off Friday. With some abs. Holla. Those are all four girls in the office that I work with and we all get along great. They are awesome.

Tomorrow I have my last 20 miler of the training for Camarillo. Thankfully I’m running with a friend so I shouldn’t be too miserable alone. Also, if I die, she can scrape me up off the sidewalk. Perfect.

Side note: I got 3.5 inches cut off my hair last night. I’m a little traumatized but it was for the better since I haven’t cut it since August.

I shall report back on Monday with how my 20 miler went.

xoxo

So I get a ton of emails about my job. I posted a while back, when I first started about my new position with a race management company and what I thought my job would entail. Now, I seriously love, love, love my job and I know it’s perfect for me and who I am and where I am in my life at the moment. So with that being said, my job is also a lot different than I expected. I get a lot of emails about it so I thought it would be an interesting blog post.

I also want to be honest with everyone. I work A LOT. Many people don’t really realize how much goes into an putting on event of any magnitude and when you throw a few up our alley, there’s a lot that goes into each event. We don’t only do the Long Beach International City Bank Marathon, but also manage the OC Marathon, the Dana Point Turkey Trot and the LA County Half Marathon. We also do other events like the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade, the Pacific Open Water Challenges, and the OC Fair 5ks as well. There are always a million things to take care of and the marketing of all these events take up most of my time.

I do everything involved with graphic design and marketing. That means all ads, start finish line banners, t-shirt designs and medal designs, bib designs, map designs, scaffolding covers, flags, finish line tape, official program design and development. I totally didn’t realize that ALL this stuff needed to be designed and that there was someone who did this all. There’s always SO much to do. Recently we launched our new website which was taking up a huge part of my life as I changed out all the content to our new system. I love the new look and the compliments that we’ve gotten on it thus far make me glow daily.

Also, we get a lot of great feedback, but at the same time, when you run a race where there is a 1,000 people it’s a lot different than planning for 25,000. You can’t offer them the same stuff for 25,000 because it’s SO much stuff. The street closures, the fencing, the gates, the openings and closing of the fencing, the sheer amount of Portapotties! I used to show up at races at 6:30 am and complain about how early it was. Now I’m the one up at 3 am putting all said stuff together so that it’s ready at 6:30 am when people start arriving. It’s those moments though when the gun goes off and everyone is off and running, literally that make that 3 am wake up call worth it. I loved working the OC Fair 5k and being in charge of handing out the medals and seeing how happy everyone was!

I never though that real people had to do that for some reason. I also didn’t realize that the people at the expos promoting different races are actually part of the race. I work a ton of expos now, which isn’t bad but that means I don’t get a weekend which is another reason why I think my running has taken a back seat. The one good thing about expos is that I get to meet a lot of new cool readers and friends! The bad part is I can’t just hang out and I have to work and answer questions as well.

One of the hardest parts of my job that I realized is that I have really struggled with running once I started working here. Running used to be something where I could almost ‘step out of my every day life’ and run to clear my head and enjoy my time. Now when I’m running I think about work and how to implement all these different things. I also think that since we talk about running 99% of the time at the office, it’s different when I think about running now. It’s still something I love to do but sometimes it’s more tiring than before!

I work roughly about 60 hours a week. I also work in an office environment 40 hours a week. Out of the 30 weekends I’ve worked here, I’ve worked 20 of them. That means I will work 15-17 days in a row sometimes. The event management business is a very small world and it’s very easy to make people upset without realizing it. I do all the marketing and advertising, so I know I see a different side since I’m not a ‘race director,’ but I do work closely with them and see their jobs as well. Now as Long Beach comes closer and closer though and starting to see our efforts paying off it’s getting more and more exciting! Once I get ads and hear feedback it’s interesting to know that people are excited about the race.

Sometimes it’s hard because you work so hard to make an awesome design or ad or race or event and then people just tear it to shreds. We get complaints constantly about the beach path in our race, the hills we have, the last half of our course, when in reality, there is no where else to go for the first part of the race that would make it scenic and pretty, the highest elevation change we have are 82 and 190 feet and the last half of our course really can’t go other places. Sometimes it’s hard to hear so much criticism to something that you’ve poured your heart into. I have realized that I can’t take these things personal and am working on that a lot to not get offended by the emails and how people react to different things. I know that’s something I have to work on personally since I do take things personal, it’s getting better though.

Dealing with the ‘masses’ as many call it is interesting too. There’s a lot of people to please and that takes money, if you don’t have sponsorships, you don’t have money. Its hard to please so many people with so many different tastes sometimes. Sometimes I think it’s because it’s all via email so people don’t have to talk to us face to face, or maybe don’t realize that it’s a person on the other side of the email. It’s a tough business when it comes down to it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. It’s just a lot going on all at once. I also think that the compliments we receive really stick with me more than the complaints. The people who compliment us really go out of their way to do so and we ALL appreciate it those.

There are awesome moments that really make me so happy that I work here, like the day I got our medal proofs and I still look at them every day and love them more and more, but there is a ton of paperwork, office work and just sitting behind a desk answering a billion emails too. I love the fast paced, crazy hours and tons of work that it is, and that’s my personality. Those awesome moments overshadow the complaints we get and when I find someone who BQ’ed at our race or has a great story, I love the feeling it gives me. It does have SO many perks, which I love.

As for getting a job, just apply wherever you can doing event management or work in the event management field. It is about event management, and so that background is mostly where we pull participants from. I know there are a lot of different companies out there and be open to change. I actually got my job through working and writing in my blog and my background in marketing and social media for a year and a half, so that was really helpful when I started.

Anyways, I hope this wasn’t a downer and I hope everyone does know that I love my job and all the crazy stuff that goes along with it.

xoxo

Not the runs you are thinking of! I went on a 16 miler this weekend with my friend Maritza and though I didn’t really know how I would be feeling. I have been totally swamped with work and working on our new website that I barely have ran at all in the past few weeks. Our new site finally launched this past weekend and though there are a few small changes, it seems to be doing well!

So back to running. I was a little nervous if I would even be able to run that far, but it went rather well for my lack of training. We started off on Ocean in Santa Monica and ran all around downtown and actually ended up running a lot of the LA Marathon course. It was a great day out and I fueled well. I was a little tired around mile 10-15, but I also was having a small pain in my second toe, which seemed to be bothering me from mile 6 onward. I realized I should have taken another salt tablet around mile 10 to finish off the run, but I survived okay.

We passed a lot of homeless people and the most random thing happened. A lady, who was not homeless and was waiting for the bus in Brentwood (one of the nicest areas in LA) somehow had three bags of dog poop (where she got them I don’t know) and she FLUNG them at the nearby gas station and made this weird HAHAHA laughing noise. It was the strangest thing ever. So weird, but it made Maritza and I laugh.

It was great to be able to run with someone though! I am not big for running in groups for some reason, but I do love running with just a few other people. It was really fun running with Maritza and I’m glad I had someone to talk to. This weekend I have a daunting 20 miler again but it’s the last one and I know if I can get through this, no matter how slow and horrible it is, I’ll be able to finish Camarillo, which is 19 days away. I’m lucky enough to have another friend running a 20 miler this weekend and we are going to meet up early on Saturday to get it done and then I’ll be ready! Hopefully.

That snuck up quick. I’m reassessing my schedule and seeing what races I want to run next year and my training schedule to be a little more in  line with my job and how many hours I work a week. My job which I have a post coming on tomorrow!

xoxo

So sometimes you’re super lucky and you run in a place where there’s lovely water fountains. Or you run a race where there’s water stops every mile. Or you have an AMAZING friend who was your sherpa for the best race you’ve ever had. Either way, at some point during running there comes a moment when your going to have to schlep your own crap. I’ve learned with the farther distance I’m running, the more random junk I decide to take with me. On a short run, it’s only my iPod and pepper spray. Once I get up in mileage though we start throwing in the iPhone, the iFitness Belt, the fuel, the water, and before we know it I’ve got tons of crap to carry.

I never got used to the whole ‘fuel belt’ deal that most people resort to, so I usually either use water stops or a hand held. Now here is where things get a little interesting. When I first heard of people carrying hand helds I thought, ” These people gotta be CRAZY because I could NEVER run with anything in my hands. Ever. Period. End. Of. Story.” Well I realized I just had to train myself to get used to it and  now I swear by the old handheld! I love carrying it when I run and though I do not mind using water stops pending the drink won’t mess with my super sensitive stomach, I love just having my water with me.

You might ask yourself, well how do I ‘train’ myself to run with something. I started off with carrying something small on a shorter run. Try sunglasses, pepper spray, or a even a hair rubber band or something.

Anything to carry that is really small. It’s really easy to try to teach yourself to get in the habit. Once you’ve done that a few times, you can slowly move up to a water bottle. They have smaller ones to try to start with. You can keep working with smaller items until you are comfortable. Another weird part of carry your own water is the fact that you’ll hear the sloshing of the water. It does make it much easier to drink water and you can do it on your schedule, not when there is a water stop.  Then you can move up to a full on water bottle if you’d like! That’s what I prefer!

I actually have the GoLite Bottle and I love it! It works perfect and I can shove some extra stuff in the little pocket on the side. I also seem to have a weird thing about strapping it SUPER tight to my hand, so I have weird velcro indentations after my run. Strange, but I like it easier when I don’t have to grip it as tightly. I’m always scared it’s going to go flying, but I’ve yet to have that happen to me. Knock on wood.

Tomorrow, after running about 10 miles in the past three weeks, I’ve got an 18 miler on my plate. Should be interesting. I truly have no idea how how I’m going to run a full marathon in 24 days, but it will be fun. I just hope it’s not another LA Marathon Experience, even if it is, it’s okay. It’s my 6th marathon and I’m running it the weekend of my birthday and I’m running it for fun. All I’m sayin’ is DANG that medal better be awesome! :) I’m working Saturday all day after my long run and then Sunday, I’m heading up to the lake for one last little summer fling. I can’t believe that summer has already come and gone! I don’t know where the time goes, seriously!

xoxo

So this past weekend I got the chance to travel to a place that I’ve never been before! I got to visit North Carolina, the Queen City of the South! I have never been anywhere even near this wonderous place! I had the brilliant idea of taking the red eye over there Wednesday night…which is awesome in theory, when your not flying through thunderstorms and bouncing around and scared of flying. Made for an awesome night of no sleeping. Even with my awesome pillow that I got just for the flight and two sleeping pills there was no shut eye to be had. FAIL. I also apologize in advance for all the horrible pictures, since my camera broke I only have my iPhone. :)

Once I landed it was like stepping into a fairytale. Seriously. I have never been anywhere where there is so much open land every where! It was so nice. I checked into the hotel with this awesome view

and settled in for a nice little nap, after waking up and enjoying the pool for a bit, it was time for a glorious massage! By far one of the best massages I’ve ever had. Then it was time to head over to the bride to be’s house and I got to hang out with her family for a while. It was simply amazing there! The houses are just beautiful. We don’t have anything like that in CA where I live. I realized I really liked the houses because a lot of them are made with brick and we can’t build things like that here because of earthquakes. Who knew?!

The next day it was a great day seeing some of the sites that Charlotte has including a wonderful mall, some great little shops and literally just driving around and seeing more awesome neighborhoods. I also had my first taste of GRITS! They are delicious!!

There was also some more time spent at the pool and enjoyed the scenery on the balcony.

(yes I’m wearing a jumper ha ha ha) and that evening I had some delicious food in Charlotte at Ilios Noche. Totally recommend it!

The  next day was the wedding and I was so excited to see the lovely Nina get married to her true love! I couldn’t believe the day was finally here!

She was gorgeous and everything was absolutely perfect that whole day, the weather was so wonderful and it was so fun to see her and her family so excited and full of love. It was the cherry on top of my trip to the South! The wedding was just amazing and the party didn’t stop till the wee hours of the morning. It was awesome. Congrats to the lovely Mr and Mrs and thank you again to everyone who was SO kind of me while I was there! I had no idea that I would want to jump ship and move South!

Then the last day of my trip I got to hang out with a few friends as well, the lovely Meghan and Crystal!

The weather while I was there was amazing! The first two days it was fairly hot and humid but it was almost a nice change from our very mild weather that we’ve had here all summer in California. It was nice to feel the sun and the heat!

Such a great day for a mexican food party! MMMM it was some of the best food ever. Man, and Southern Hospitality? LOVE IT! Everyone is so nice!

While I was there, I met little Ozzie, my friend Andi’s Dog!!! Oh my gosh it was true love, what a little human he is! :)

Overall the trip was a blast and I love the South! Thank you again everyone who was so hospitable and for all the great ideas of things to do while I was there! Love North Carolina!

xoxo