November

With a career change, a running conference in Austin, TX and visiting family in TX for Thanksgiving, November turned out to be an eventful month in my life.

The first week of November I accepted a new job as the local area Pearl Izumi sales rep for the Run

portion of the line. I opened a sales rep company, Real Sales, and am contracting as an independent sales rep. This means I also have the ability to pick

up other lines and increase my earning potential

(right now I'm in negotiation with Sol Sunguard and

Nuun Active Hydration). The change came super

fast. I was contacted about the job on a Tuesday and sent in my resume on Thursday. I had my first interview Friday morning, my second interview Friday afternoon, and had the offer Friday night. After mulling it all over during the weekend, I had a few questions for the sales manager and accepted the job on Monday morning. Then I walked in from my car and gave my employer my notice...one of the harder things I have done in a long time.

There were so many great things about working at Salt Lake Running Co for the last 5 years. One of them was my freedom to see an opportunity and

then go conquer it under macro-management. For a lot of employees, a lack of supervision wouldn't work. For me, I loved knowing that as long as I had the company's best interest in mind, I essentially had the ability to do whatever needed be done to complete a job. This skill will

transfer so well to this job as I am solely responsible for the success of my territory (UT,

Southern ID, and Western WY).

The second week in November I went to Austin, TX on behalf of Pearl Izumi for The Running Event, a conference designed to bring run specialty shops together to grow the independent retailer industry. I got there a day early and because my sister, Elspeth, lives in San Antonio just

1.5 hours South, I was able to spend the afternoon with her and her family. We went to a petting

zoo where we saw some of THE FATTEST goats I had ever seen. It was fun to feed the animals and especially fun to watch the girls enjoy it.

Jocelyn and Tahlia were so generous to share their seat with me!

The girls feeding the dwarf-sized deer.

And then dinner at the legendary "Rudy's"

The week following the conference was Thanksgiving. Ashley and I planned to visit family during the holiday and Elspeth had planned to run her first Thanksgiving Day race with me for several months. It was a lot of fun to have her included in my tradition. I even blogged about it while I

was working at SLRC. We flew into Houston on Wednesday morning, and got to San Antonio on Wednesday evening where we met up with Dan and Elspeth on the river walk for dinner.

We sang happy birthday to Ashley (even though his b-day is in April) so the girls would have a little extra fun. On Thanksgiving morning, Elspeth and I met for the annual T-day race in San

Antonio. It was a 4-miler and I told Elspeth that when she decided to walk I would keep going and meet her at the finish. Well, she never stopped to walk so we ended up running the entire race together in about 45 minutes! I have only run with my sisters a handful of times and I can truly say that this was one of my favorite running memories.

Elspeth and Dan prepared a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner for us and we were able to spend the entire day with their family. Thanks, Allens! We loved spending time with you.

Friday morning we woke early to drive to Hemphill, TX where Ashley's parents live. The drive was much longer than we expected but we finally made it (after visiting the Blue Bell Creamery) at about 6:00 that night. Ashley's sister, Wende, arrived with her husband and two boys about an hour later.

I was able to enjoy a "Texas trail run" running in the neighborhood. It was nice and flat and I got to try out my new Pearl Izumi trail shoes. It was a great run in the perfect temperature!

We finished out our trip to the big state with an NFL football game. It was the first game I had ever been to and we were so lucky because the Houston Texans were playing the Tennessee Titans. If you know anything about football you will know that the Titans used to be the Houston Oilers so this game was the big rivalry game. Ash and I dressed in our best Oilers fan clothing and enjoyed a game where the home team blew the visiting team out of the water! I seriously had a great time.

We got home and I got to work training my replacements at the store before starting full-time with Pearl Izumi.

November was a great month where I got to enjoy the Texas fall weather, family, and a new career. What a great month!