Real World: Week 1

It's 83 degrees outside right now in Bloomington and for the first time since before I left for Ireland, I'm waiting around for it to cool down a little before I run.  Running has been a little different my first two days of work.  I found out that it's not exactly light out (like it was all summer across the pond) before 6:00 AM.  There are some awesome routes that I have discovered so far, with nearly every one having some involvement with a nearby lake.  I have also found it difficult to cut back my mileage much.  I remember writing in an interview how it takes just as much discipline to take it easy towards the end of the season as it does to get out and keep running a ton during the summer and winter months, but so far this fall I haven't had that discipline.  I do have a few more things to say about my running in the recent past and the near future..

1. I posted new highs for summer mileage (1,252) and weekly mileage (130)
2. For those of you who didn't know, I raced at the SJU Invite last week, finishing in 26:04 to narrowly beat out a slew of impressive former teammates.
3. I'm signed up to race both this weekend at Fort Snelling in a 5x5k relay and on October 5th for the TC 10 mile.  I'm excited to do both.

Hopefully I didn't completely lose my audience, despite the month-long gap between posts.  To avoid rambling on about the pros and cons of my train trip across Europe, I thought I would write a one word summary and explanation about each city that I spent at least one night in over my final two weeks.  Here it goes:

• Brussels - bittersweet (I loved the city when I was there my first night, but I ended up missing my flight back to Dublin and had to spend the night in the Brussels airport)
• Paris - predictable (Almost everything I saw I expected to see, which was probably mostly my fault)
• Nice - gorgeous (If the beaches weren't filled with rocks, I might not have left)
• Venice - frustrating (The islands were like a maze and the maps only added to my confusion)
• Salzburg - perfect (I loved how the size of the city, the atmosphere, the sights and almost everything else about it)
• Munich - rich (Filled with color, music, and history)

I also just completed my second day of work in the "real world".  I'm working at Target Headquarters in downtown Minneapolis.  Surprisingly, my bus ride from Bloomington is about the same amount of time as it was last summer when I lived in Minneapolis, and it drops me off less than a block away from my office.  I've been able to meet up with a bunch of people that I knew from my internship last summer, which is really awesome.

Oh, and one more thing. My fantasy football team is 1-1 and I'm not happy about it.