That’s flippin crazy, Mates! You know how I said I was going to be visiting with my friend from Australia, well, does it also happen to you that when you’re around someone with a certain kind of accent you find yourself start to adopt their way of speaking? This happens to me, and not with all kinds of accents, I don’t usually start slipping into a southern drawl anytime I’m around a Southern Belle (not that that happens much) but certain accents I just adore. Aussies, not that it is so much of an accent, but rather I love the words they use.
I do catch myself pretending I’m British sometimes when I’m around someone with a British accent, I’ve secretly always wanted a ‘real’ British accent. So after spending longer periods of time with these people I start to unconsciously start imitating them. I swear it’s completely unintentional and when I catch myself I’m always afraid they’ll think I’m making fun of them or trying to be funny. That’s not the case at all, so then I start talking really fast in an attempt to fool them into thinking that they didn’t just hear what they think they did. Ya, I’m smooth like that. 😉
Anyways, I wanted to post the pictures that I thought were taken of me and Eloise, but when I got home I found out that the person who supposedly took the pictures didn’t in fact push the button hard enough! ACK!! To her credit, it was Grace (the sweetest girl in the world) so I forgive her and I’ll just get some pictures taken later. (So these pictures aren’t obviously from yesterday.)
See, Eloise is in town for the big Prefontaine meet coming up and she’s staying with Julius and his wife Grace, both of whom are originally from Uganda. I love it how anytime I go over to Julius and Grace’s apartment I’m immediately overcome by the most amazing smells…it seems Grace is ALWAYS cooking something. She’s also got am awesome voice and usually sings while she cooks, she’s such a cutie. It’s funny because she knows just how much I CAN’T cook and told me that I’ll never find a husband. I laughed but then realized she was dead serious, definitely a culture gap there. Or at least here’s to hoping I don’t wind up a crazy old cat lady! 🙂
Grace is famous for her Ugali bread, it’s an Ugandan flat bread and I’m not really sure on all that goes into it but maybe I’ll try and find out, and she used to make it for all the runners that stopped by. But I felt bad because as fast as she was putting them out there they were wolfed down even faster, so I’m not even really sure she was 
actually able to eat any.
Julius is hilarious and should write a book full of just his sayings. Some really off the wall stuff that just doesn’t always make sense but you laugh regardless. Though, one that does make sense that he uses whenever we are chanced with sunny weather is, “The sun is smiling on us today.” That’s a good one that I like. Anyways he’s also got a love affair with honey that is like none other. I’ve seen him go through the entire head portion of those little honeybear bottles in a single sitting…no joke.
I feel really lucky to have gotten a peek into a few different cultures during my time here in Oregon, not only with Julius but also some other African and European athletes that have stayed for various training/racing stints. I’ve learned a lot, but some of it is really sad and you feel for these athletes, the things they’ve been through, their loved ones back home. The J-man (Julius) and Eloise have set up the Love Mercy Foundation and a charity for several orphans he is supporting back in Uganda that you should check out.
Wow, I have so much more I wanted to say, but this post is getting quite long! Back to Eloise, she’s raced in those compression socks and had a pair that I decided to try on. I’ve never tried a pair on, so I wanted to see what these things were all about. I also wanted to try it on because I thought they might help with my muscle hernia (aka the Kankle) leftover from my accident. Eloise likes them and they help promote blood flood, but she really relies on them the mose during long plane rides to avoid blood clots. Flying anywhere from Australia takes almost a day…not fun!
Okay, so she’s in the 5k at the Pre meet this Friday, which is going to be a pretty stacked race. Hopefully some good conditions will come about because everyone loves some smoking times. 🙂 So wish her luck! And I also just heard Kara will be in the race too so we have two awesome people to send our collective positive vibes to! DO IT! 🙂 Though, I guess technically they’ll be racing in the pre-Pre meet, because traditionally the Prefontaine Classic his mostly shorter stuff so all us long distance lovers get it on the night before.
Alright, mates, last thing. I’ll add my personal touch…though it’s far more boring (and slow) than what my friends are up to. Today on the treadmill I did my 3 mile warm-up, then 5 miles hard, and cool-down. Felt better than Sunday and thankfully so did my stomach. Then did my arm weights. Hope you all are having a great Tuesday! 🙂
1) Do you find yourself accidentally pretending you have an accent around others who really do?
2) What other countries have you traveled to?
I’m pretty lame, I’ve only been to Italy once and Canada…though I barely drove past the border so, ya…haha.
3) Do you find that you can tell how your workout/race is going to be off of your warm-up?
Sometimes. But then again I’ve had races/workouts that ended up being my best but in the warm-up I felt like total shiznit. I’ve also had the opposite happen.
