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Today's guest post comes from Maggie at Mag Mile Runner (again... thanks for 2 posts!!!) I am knee-deep in studying so I will not be back to posting until after December 1. I hope you enjoy!

Today's guest post comes from Yo Momma Runs. Special thanks to my fellow Oiselle teammate who put this together for me. :) Enjoy! :)



Hey y'all! Kelly and I met through team Oiselle (or team Weezy, as my brother likes to call it), and we got the chance to run together up in Chicago when I visited last month. You're reading this blog because you already know how awesome she is, so I will just confirm that in real life she's just as nice as she comes across in blog life. If we didn't live twelve hours apart, I would make her run with me every week.

Maggie from Mag Mile Runner already detailed why Kelly is a great BRF (best runner friend), so I'm going to give you some tips on how to find your own BRF wherever you live.

One of the things that I didn't have when I first started running in 2011 was a regular running partner. I had just moved to a new town, so I was forming regular friendships and hadn't even really considered yet how important running friendships would be. I ran at the gym a lot because they provided baby sitting, which helps when you have four kids, and I ran outside on the weekends when my husband was home. I spent a lot of running hours soul searching and fine tuning my playlists while I marathon trained, but after a year of mostly solo running, one of my goals for 2012 was to finally make some runner friends or make my friends into runners.

As we're about to wrap up this year, I cannot believe how much my running world has changed in just a year. So the 2012 Find Some Friends For Running Experiment was a complete success.

Here's what I did:

1. Make friends where you work out most. Because I spend a lot of time at the gym, I needed to make friends there. For some reason, all of my regular friends go to another gym, so my normal plan of making friends go to the gym with me for various classes or to treadmill next to each other would not work at this gym. So I finally just started talking to people who were there at the same time as me every day. Most important, I scoped out who the runners were, and, surprise, surprise, those people are now my gym BRFs. What makes them great is that they know my schedule, and if I don't show up, they worry that something is wrong with me. So on my lazy days when I'm just feeling it, I can very easily get motivated to get with it by a text from my gym BRFs.

Here are my gym BRF and I. Bonus of treadmill dates: you can all run your own pace but still be next to each other for plenty of chatting.

This can work for you if you run trails or your neighborhood. If you start seeing familiar faces who are often out at the same time as you, start to slowly get to know them. A wave and some small talk might be the start of new running relationship.

2. Start a blog. I started Yo Momma Runs in January of this year to help with my 2012 goal of getting out of solo running. I wanted to connect with other runners, and I knew the blogging community had lots of support to offer. The hard part about blogger friends is that they aren't always local, but I eventually started meeting local runners through the blog as well. I made one of my first local blogger friends a few months after starting the blog, and then she introduced me to her local runner friends. So it was like a chain of happiness and friendships that started with the blog. Also now when I travel, I can almost guarantee that I know someone in that area who I can connect with for running, even if it's just someone I can message for tips on where to run. Occasionally I get lucky and actually meet up with those people for a run.

3. Convert regular friends to running. By being an obsessive runner and talking about it constantly, you can begin to figure out who has a slight interest in running. Some signs are if they don't roll their eyes or look at the floor when you talk about running again. If you spot a slight interest, start talking about possible races you could prep for together. Last year, I had a group of a few friends who were vaguely interested in running a half marathon. They told me the parameters (how far they would travel, how long they wanted to train, whether or not they wanted to try and have a baby), so I went home and performed lots of Google searches until I found the right race for us. Four girls ended up running that race, so add four new BRFs to my tally.




4. Race locally. Eventually you'll start seeing familiar faces. I have several local runner friends who I only know because I talked to them before or after a race. This is a great way to find people who are similar to your pace because you end up near each other during the race.

5. Join a running club. Mine is the Birmingham Track Club. I originally joined because they had a discount at my local running shoe store if you were a track club member, but when I became dedicated to finding runner friends, I knew the club was a hotbed of potential. They also host my current long-run group that has completely changed my marathon training. Provided water stops and tons of people who run the same pace as me for three hours every Saturday morning, sign me up.

6. Look for runner meet-ups sponsored by local businesses. Do your local running stores meet for group runs? We have three stores in our community (Alabama Outdoors, Fleet Feet, Trak Shak) that host free weekly runs. Also, my local Lululemon store hosts a free weekly run. If you are nervous about these, invite one of your current running friends to go with you, and you can figure out the scene together.

7. Encourage relatives to run. I'm lucky to have a brother who lives in the same town who runs with me a lot. He's definitely my ultimate BRF. Here we are at the Mercedes Half Marathon in February.



If you have some family members who might be interested in running, start small and non-obligatory. At this year's Thanksgiving, I invited everyone to join me for a 5K (not a race, just a run) on Thanksgiving morning, and to my surprise, ten people showed up for the run.

Here we are laced up and ready to go.



The key to all of these, except maybe the relatives one, is that you can't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and talk to people. We moved a lot when I was growing up, so even though I was a very shy child, I was forced out of that at an early age. You may be shy and not care about having BRFs, but if you are shy and care about having BRFs, just start small. And if you're not shy, well, get out there and start converting future BRFs. The more runners who exist, the better our chances of finding our ultimate BRFs.

Where did you meet your BRFs? 

Does anyone in your family run? 

Have you converted any of your regular BFFs to BRFs?

As I may have mentioned, I have been doing a lot of studying lately. What has suffered the most? My running. I have had to choose work or sleep over running and I feel like my fitness has dropped off. I have been in denial about it mostly, until the race on Thanksgiving morning. Yikes. Let me back up a bit.

The Pilcher Park Poultry Predictor (say that 3 times fast) is a race where you win by guessing a time close to what you thing you will run. You don't win by being the fastest, you win by being the closest to your predicted time. What do you win? Pies and turkeys! I put my predicted time down of 32:00 which is an 8:00 mile. For 4 miles, I figured this was doable, especially since I ran the Hot Chocolate 15k at an 8:05 pace less than a month ago. I was able to register the day of the race for $10 ($8 if you pre-registered). There was no shirt and the race was gun-timed, not chip timed. The race sold out at 350 people. If you wanted to run the race, you still could but you weren't part of the "predictor" competition. A bunch of the FNRC was there and we took a group photo before the run.

I started the race with Nicole Fritz (occasional guest post writer, local speedster, half fanatic) and her cousin. We snapped a quick pre-race photo.

What is that on my head? Oh yeah, my awesome turkey headband that my co-worker made. It was quite the hit and appeared to be much easier to run in than some of the other turkey hats I've seen. On to the actual race. It was gun timed and pretty crowded at the start. We did some weaving and I could tell from the beginning that it was going to be a rough race.

Early in the race and still feeling good, hanging with Nicole's cousin. Thanks for snapping the pic Nicole!

I started off strong but really started to feel it about half way. I wished Nicole and her cousin good luck as I had to drop back. As this was a "predictor" race, there were no mile markers and no Garmins or timing devices allowed. (Kind of freeing actually, but makes it really easy to go out too fast.) There were mile markers on the trail, but from a previous race. I spotted a "2" mile marker which was more around mile 3 and it totally beat me up mentally. Was I really only at mile 2? I felt awful! I wasn't in physical pain or anything, I just didn't feel like I was running my best (and I knew I wasn't).

It was a looped course and was well stationed with people directing you where to go. EXCEPT at the finish! I almost missed the last turn and was thankful that there were some of the speedier guys on a cool-down that helped direct me in the right way. I could hear some footsteps behind me and I knew a guy was right on my heels. I was going to do everything in my power to not let him pass me. He pushed and I pushed harder. I hear him call out "Nice kick!" as I entered the finish chute without letting him pass me. (Gotta say, that did feel good.) I was happy to be done and now it was time to wait for the results! When we finished, there was no clock alerting us of our time so we literally had NO idea how we did. I kind of wished there would have been a clock to let us know if it was worth hanging around or not. I had a hope that I finished in 32:00, but that was only a hope.

I waited with some of the FNRC for a little while, picked up my bag of goodies (clementine, granola bar, and 2 mini muffins. I only ate the clementine and gave the rest to a friend). The coffee pot was empty fairly quick, and I wasn't able to grab a cup (one of my favorite things about local races is the post-race coffee). I was next in line after the guy that took the last drop. First World Problem, for sure.

One more photo, modeling my headband

As I had to head home to hit the books, I didn't stay for the awards ceremony. I figured with this type of process with a lot of manual entry would take some time, and it did. A few of the other members of the group also had to leave to finish their Thanksgiving day food prep. My friend Amanda stuck around and was able to send me a copy of my time (Thanks Amanda!). Official finish time was 33:08. That is 7 seconds slower than my time last year on a very, very hilly course and also slower than my average pace for the Hot Chocolate 15k earlier this month. Just proof that my speed has dropped off a bit during this busy period with everything else going on in my life. I know I can always get it back with a little work and some time. :)

In summary, this race didn't have many frills, but that was one of the things I liked about it.

Pros:
*I had never run on this trail before so it was a really nice change of pace.
*The support along the way was great, with signs of things we're thankful for, and volunteers directing us
*Cheap race without a bunch of stuff that we won't use/don't need
*Warming area and bathrooms. We had nice weather this year, but I imagine this isn't always the case. It is nice that this was offered
*Stroller and dog-friendly race... Not all races are popular with jogging strollers or dogs and it nice to know that this one is.

Cons:
*The results took a long time to post.Given the old school method of tearing off the bottom of the bib, and the associated manual entry of the predicted times, this was kind of expected
*No one directing you into the finish area! A volunteer or sign would have been really helpful.
*Not really much of a post-race spread, but for the cheap price I was glad there was at least something :)

I'm not sure if I would do this race again, but I think that is just because I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of the "predictor" style of the race. :)

Have you ever done a race like this before? What are your thoughts on the more "non-conventional" races?

Today's guest post comes from Maggie at Mag Mile Runner. If you haven't checked out her blog yet, you should. Maggie actually sent me 2 guest posts (expect another one to come later as well) and this post really made me smile. I love paying it forward in the running world and it is nice to see when my efforts are appreciated. :)

As I've mentioned a few times before, my work pays for race entry into certain races as part of a company-wide health initiative. It has encouraged a lot of people around the office to join in on races that they may not otherwise have done. I'm sure most of you guys have a race or two under your belt...  With all the Turkey Trots around the corner, I thought it would be helpful to go through some tips to help out those newbies, heading out to their first race!

I'm ready for my local Turkey Trot! Are you?

Thanks for all of your kind words on my Blogiversary post! I'm excited to see what the next year will bring! I have a lot of fun running ideas already planned out, and I'm super excited to see how things turn out! :)

Full blown panic has set in. The exam is less than 2 weeks away and I still have a lot of information to get through. I have a few more guest posts lined up and I appreciate you guys sticking with me as I get through this. Things will be back to normal in December and I already have a few races lined up for the winter! I'm looking forward to the first snow falls, the absence of 100+ degree days, warming up with hot cider and hot chocolate and wearing all the new running clothes I got on clearance last year (and of course, trying out some new Oiselle items too). Anddddd, who can forget my favorite holiday, Christmas. This year I'm not doing any decorating or fun Christmas stuff until after my test is over--it will be my own personal reward for my hard work. We are even thinking about getting a real tree this year! (I've never had a real tree before, only a fake one.)

What are you excited for this winter? Do you love winter running as much as I do? 

Who's excited to be running through the snow? This girl!

I like the summer, don't get me wrong, but I HATE the heat... like, more than the average person. I love the winter. I think it is because I'm a January baby? Who knows. :)