Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Versatile Blogger Survey

I was nominated by EB from Running on E for the Versatile Blogger Award. She manages to run far and fast and make it seem easy! I love following along with her training and reading her race recaps. In fact, her reviews help sell Michael and I on doing Chickamauga this fall! Definitely check her blog out.

A little about this award/survey (which I stole from EB): The Versatile Blogger Award is for those blogs that bring something special to your life. In picking your nominees, you are to consider the quality of the writing, the uniqueness of the subjects covered, the level of love displayed in the words on the virtual page. Or, of course, the quality of the photographs and the level of love displayed in the taking of them.

“Rules” are as follows: Answer the questions you have been given, nominate 10 (ish) other bloggers and give them their own set of questions to answer.

I hope you enjoy!

1. What is something people might be surprised to learn about you?

Hmm...this is one of those "icebreaker" questions I always struggle with.... I guess I'm a fairly simple person! I'm going to half-steal EB's answer (that she knows Latin). I speak German with moderate fluency. I never considered this surprising because it was my second major in college, so I talked about it a lot, but I realized that now that I've graduated, very few people I regularly interact with know this about me.


2. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Weirdest answer ever, but I really, really wanted to be an Amish person when I was little. I went through a huge "Felicity" phase (she was the American Girl from the Colonial period), and my grandma told me the Amish lived a Colonial times-ish lifestyle. I'm pretty sure she meant to mock me, but at that time, it sounded like the best thing ever. I had actually forgotten about this until I started my new job - my hospital does a lot of outreach to the Amish community, so members are around pretty often.

3. What is your favorite place you have visited?

Hands down, New Zealand! I went for two weeks as a pre-college program with a bunch of other incoming freshmen, and it was so amazing. We only stayed on the North Island, and I want to go back and explore some more, especially on the South Island. Michael and I thought about going for our honeymoon, but I want to do a whirlwind tour of all the LotR/Hobbit filming sites, so we decided to leave this for a stand-alone trip.



4. What is one place on your travel must-see bucket list?

I already blew New Zealand on the last question. Oops. Two other places I really want to see are Ireland and Quebec. I have ancestors from both these places (I did the math, and I think I have one relative from Quebec five generations back! but it counts!), and I'd love to see them. (I'm mostly German, but I've been fortunate enough to already have gone to Germany three times.) 

5. What's your current go-to workout song?

Bills by Lunchmoney Lewis. It's so catchy and fun. My favorite radio station usually plays this at 5 PM on Fridays, so it also reminds of the weekend. 

6. What is your favorite distance to run?

I had to think about this one. I obviously really like marathons (or I wouldn't be doing 50 of them!), but I think the 10K might still be my favorite distance. It requires speed, but also endurance, and I find it to be more tactical than the 5K. Pushing myself for a 5K hurts, but it's over pretty fast. A 10K requires a little more prolonged suffering.


7. What is your dream race/event?

I would love to run some international marathons! My best friend and I are hopefully going to go to Turkey sometime so I can run the Istanbul Marathon. (She is fluent in Turkish, so she can haul me around.)

8. What would you do with a $1000 gift card?

True story, I am horrible at spending money on fun stuff. I try to give myself permission to buy treats, and I just can't do it! I think I would put this towards travel and maybe stay in a nicer hotel than usual. I know, I really live on the wild side.

9. If you could go on a bicycle built for two ride with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Someone with strong quads! All kidding aside, probably JRR Tolkien. We could talk about Peter Jackson ruined Faramir and how Sam is the real hero. But I wouldn't tell him I named my cat after Faramir - apparently he was not a fan of people naming their pets after characters!


10. What is your favorite guilty pleasure snack food?

Gosh, so many choices! I think most German sweets are on this list. Rittersport is so good, but hard to find in the US. There's a flavor with a biscuit in the middle that is the bomb dot com. Once, on a study abroad, I bought a package and offered to share a piece with the people I was sitting with. They were almost appalled I was willing to share the best flavor of Rittersport I had bought for myself!

I nominate the following bloggers:


Here are my questions: (Ok, and if there's one thing I'm worse at than doing icebreakers, it's making icebreakers! I kept a lot of EB's questions because they were way better than what I could do.)

1. What is something people might be surprised to learn about you?
2. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
3. Why did you decide to start a blog?
4. What is one place on your travel must-see bucket list?
5. What's your current go-to workout song?
6. What is your favorite distance to run?
7. What is your dream race/event?
8. What would you do with a $1000 gift card?
9. What's your favorite running related book? (I'm trying to find some summer reading, totally a selfish question.)
10. What's your favorite hobby outside of running? (Blasphemy!)

6 comments:

  1. Oh my god, your answer to #2 is hilarious. Love the honesty. My brother dreamed of being a garbage man and use to follow them around the neighborhood when we were little. You can't be that far from Quebec?! Seems like you might need to make a little dash over the border for a race sometime. I've heard the jazz festival is excellent! :)

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    1. Ha - I once saw a movie where one of the secondary characters was a mission to find a garbage woman because she wanted to be one when she grew up! Quebec is actually 9 hours from us...maybe I could investigate taking the train.

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  2. I want to run an international marathon too! A good reason for a run-cation, right? I visited Istanbul a few years ago and it was beautiful. I'll take your trip New Zealand though. Looking forward to filling this out!

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    1. I can't wait to go back to New Zealand! All my friend's pictures of Istanbul look amazing, I can't wait for her to be able to give me a tour.

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  3. Thanks for the tag, Rebecca! I've only done one 10k, but I loved the distance, too. So much less painful than a half marathon (or full, obvs) but I feel like it still requires some good strategy and planning :)

    I'm actually terrible at spending money on frivolous things, too, but I do love good food and traveling, so probably one of those things!

    And I had the Felicity doll from American Girl! But I remember hearing she got discontinued a few years back, sadly.

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    1. Oh, no! They got rid of Felicity?! That makes me really sad. I agree that experiences are way more fun to spend money on than stuff!

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